SOURCE: "A Talk with Armistead Maupin," in Publishers Weekly, Vol. 231, No. 11, March 20, 1987, pp. 53-4.

In the following excerpted essay, which is based on a conversation with Maupin, Spain discusses Maupin's homosexual themes and attitudes, the AIDS crisis and its effect on his writing, his method for creating characters and plots, and his wide appeal among both heterosexuals and homosexuals.

It's the Friday before a long holiday weekend in San Francisco, and many of the city's residents are preparing to escape to the country for some time away from their day-to-day concerns. The readers of the San Francisco Examiner, however, will take at least one daily concern away with them—namely, a worried curiosity about what Monday will bring for the cast of characters whose lives Tales of the City author Armistead Maupin outlines daily in the Examiner serial Significant Others….

San Franciscans are accustomed to the suspense. Maupin...