Friends remember activist-writer Wren

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Robert Wren - a gay scholar, activist and writer - died June 11 in a plane crash in Hawaii. He was 61. Wren was professor of English at the University of Houston and an informal advisor to the gay and lesbian student group at the University. He served on the NAMBLA steering committee and the editorial board of the Journal of Homosexuality.

After earning a doctorate at Princeton in 17th-century drama, Wren built a reputation as a scholar of African literature. For a time he lived in Nigeria, where he sponsored a number of youths through college. Under the pen name Robert Campbell, Wren wrote short gay fiction. An anthology of his work, Singularities, was published by Acolyte Press, Amsterdam, the week he was killed.

Toward the end of his career, Wren became interested in the history of sexuality. He left unfinished a book about homosexuality in 18th-century England. Wren and 11 others died in a crash of a Scenic Air Tours flight from Hawaii to Maui. Wren was visiting the University of Hawaii in preparation for a Fullbright fellowship in Indonesia next year. We are hope [hoping] the following memoirs of Bob Wren suggest how much we in NAMBLA will miss him.

source: Article 'Friends Remember Activist-Writer Wren'; NAMBLA Bulletin, vol. 10, n. 7 (June and 10.5 wrongly on cover); September 1989