Hugh Ryan

Hugh Ryan is an American writer, historian, and curator whose innovative work has brought overlooked LGBTQ histories to life through deeply researched books, community-driven exhibitions, and public programs. Based in Brooklyn, New York, he attended Cornell University before earning an MFA in creative nonfiction from the Bennington Writing Seminars, where he now teaches. In 2010, he founded the Pop-Up Museum of Queer History, a grassroots initiative that transforms everyday spaces into temporary installations celebrating lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender stories, often blending art, performance, and archival materials to make history feel immediate and personal.

Ryan’s artistic practice as a curator emphasizes collaboration and accessibility, drawing from extensive archival research to create exhibitions that center community voices rather than traditional museum authority. His major published works include *When Brooklyn Was Queer* (2019), a vivid chronicle of the borough’s waterfront LGBTQ communities that was named a New York Times Editors’ Pick, and *The Women’s House of Detention: A Queer History of a Forgotten Prison* (2022), which won the 2023 Stonewall Book Award for its unflinching portrait of incarcerated queer women and transmasculine people. He has also produced essays, profiles, and a forthcoming memoir, while serving as an artist-in-residence at prestigious programs like Yaddo and the Watermill Center.

Through the Pop-Up Museum, Ryan has curated shows across the United States that invite local participants to contribute dioramas, performances, and artifacts, fostering a living archive of queer experience. His approach treats history itself as a creative medium—collaging forgotten voices, photographs, and objects into narratives that resist erasure. This work has earned him fellowships from the New York Public Library and the New York Foundation for the Arts, as well as the Allan Bérubé Prize for public LGBT history.

Ryan’s legacy lies in democratizing queer history, inspiring educators, activists, and artists to reclaim the past as a source of pride and possibility. By merging scholarly rigor with artistic presentation, he has helped ensure that LGBTQ stories are not only preserved but actively experienced by new generations.