Background
Leyland, Winston was born on August 29, 1940 in Atherton, England. Came to the United States, 1952. Son of Roy and Mary (Thompson) Leyland.
Leyland, Winston was born on August 29, 1940 in Atherton, England. Came to the United States, 1952. Son of Roy and Mary (Thompson) Leyland.
Called "one of the seminal figures in gay publishing" by the San Francisco Sentinel, he was originally ordained a Catholic priest and later graduated from University of California, Los Los Angeles He worked for the Los Angeles Times and Gay Sunshine, serving as editor for the latter when it was rebranded as the Gay Sunshine Journal.
Under his direction, the Journal was praised by Allen Ginsberg for "its presentation of literary history hitherto kept in the closet by the academies." In 1975, Leyland founded Gay Sunshine Press, the oldest LGBT publishing house in the United States, followed by Leyland Publications in 1984. The two imprints combined have published more than 135 books, and are known for their translations of gay-themed European and Asian literature into English, including works by Vladimir Makanin, Yukio Mishima, and Nikolai Gogol.