Radio Interview: Live From The Left Coast and In Deep with Angie Coiro.
Ron's introduction begins 5 minutes into the recording.

ONCE-REMOVED... recounts the author's conflicted journey as a scruple-ridden gay youth through Catholic schools in San Jose, California; his desperate search for a cure through psychotherapy, subsequent marriage, divorce, single-parenting two sons, and a thirty-three year career in classrooms from Washington to California ... In 1980 his first lover weaned him away from alcohol dependency by showing him his inherent worth as a gay man. Maintaining sobriety meant coming out as a gay man, father, and teacher.

Ron Schmidt has worked through much of his career helping LGBT youth through the difficult years of their adolescence, especially with a goal toward protecting all students from bullying and lack of support from administrators. The author came out to his administrators in his first semester in Morgan Hill Unified School District when an eighth grade student committed suicide and no one was considering the possibility that the student might have been dealing with sexual identity issues. That began an advocacy that eventually led to assisting six students at Live Oak High School in MHUSD to file a lawsuit against the district for failure to protect them

from bullying over their real or perceived sexual identity, resulting in the largest settlement ever accorded in such a case at that time.

A co-founder of South Bay Chapter of the Bay Area Network of Gay and Lesbian Educators (BANGLE), Ron worked with Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) to create The Invisible Minority in Our Schools: Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender Youth Workshop which they presented throughout Santa Clara County and up and down the state through California Teachers Association (CTA) and National Education Association (NEA).

The author has also written extensively for the gay press in San Jose, California and co-founded the Arts Council of Gay and Lesbian San Jose.

In 2011 the author celebrated 31 years of sobriety ... and 51 years in recovery from the Catholic Church.

Ron currently lives in his Treehouse across from Lake Merced in San Francisco and journals daily at his favorite corner table at Cafe Flore.

Once-Removed ... will be out in November with a book launch planned at Cafe Flore and a reading / panel discussion the LGBT History Museum on November 17.