Abbey Sobelman and Sheridan Wood Awarded ACES Bill Walsh Scholarship for 2026

 

Excited to share the news that Abbey Sobelman, a senior at Northern Arizona State, and Sheridan Wood, a master's student at the University of Montana, have been selected the winners of the 2026 editing scholarship named after my brother Bill.

The award, endowed by my family to honor a student pursuing a career in news editing, is administered by the ACES Education Fund and is supported by donations to the ACES Education Fund. 

Many thanks to everyone involved behind the scenes for helping maintain this wonderful tribute to our beloved Billy. Our family is irrevocably broken, but remembering him through his love of words is something I continue to treasure each year. xo

From the news release:

The ACES Education Fund has chosen two winners for the 2026 Bill Walsh Scholarship for excellence in the editing of news.

Abbey Sobelman and Sheridan Wood are the tenth and eleventh recipients of the $3,500 award, named for the late Washington Post editor and author Bill Walsh, who also was a member of the Education Fund Board of Directors. 

The two were chosen from several dozen outstanding applicants representing public and private universities from across the U.S. and around the world. 

Sobelman is a senior in journalism and communication studies at Northern Arizona University. She has worked at the Lumberjack, the student newspaper, and KJACK Radio, the student radio station, since her first year in college. Through these experiences, she has been drawn to the editing process.

“Editing has been the highlight and passion of my college career,” Sobelman said. “This award will allow me to complete my undergraduate degrees in journalism and communication studies this May and support the start of my professional career.” 

Wood is a master’s student in Environmental Science and Natural Resource Journalism at the University of Montana. She has worked as a copy editor and reporter at several media outlets and has won awards for radio reporting. Her career plans center on local news.

“I am honored to be named the 2026 Walsh Scholar, and am deeply grateful to the ACES Education Fund judges and donors for this opportunity,” Wood said. “I strongly believe high quality, well edited news is paramount to the foundation of an informed democracy, and am so grateful for ACES' assistance as I pursue my news editing goals.”

David Wise's FIGHT BACK Returns March 19

If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you know I’m a sucker for nostalgia -- however grim. That’s probably why Fight Back, David Wise’s immersive ACT UP meeting, stayed with me long after I walked back out onto West 13th Street.

In August, I wrote about being there and what it felt like to be dropped into an ACT UP New York meeting on March 13, 1989. There are no actors, no script and no audience -- just a room full of people asked to live, breathe and organize as if lives quite literally depended on it. Because at the time they did. From the moment you arrive at the New York LGBT Community Center, the clock rewinds, and suddenly you’re talking about Robert Mapplethorpe, Madonna, Jerome Robbins and Ed Koch’s deadly inaction as if it’s all unfolding right now. It’s unsettling, moving, occasionally frustrating and, at least for me, affecting.

So here’s the update: Fight Back is happening again, with the first 2026 event taking place Thursday, March 19, at 7 p.m. -- and you’re invited.

This is not theater in the traditional sense. It’s a carefully constructed experiment in empathy and collective memory. Every participant is assigned a real person who actually was -- or plausibly could have been -- at that 1989 ACT UP meeting. You decide, with guidance beforehand, how actively you want to participate. You don’t need to be an actor. You don’t need to speak at all. You just need to show up willing to step into the room and sit with the weight of that moment in history.

The meeting lasts about 2–3 hours and takes place at the Center, 208 W. 13th St., Manhattan. There’s a $19.89 required donation -- a thoughtful nod to the year at the heart of the experience -- with cost alternatives available when you sign up.

If you’re wondering whether it’s worth your time, I found it an effective way to put today’s reality into perspective and to remember how much of it was fought for.

If you’ve already done Fight Back, consider coming again. If you haven’t, this is the moment. And if you know someone who should experience it, spread the word.

THURSDAY, MARCH 19 @ 7pm

at the Center (208 West 13th Street, Manhattan)

Read more and sign up HERE. 

Tennis Tuesday: Juan Curiel

 

... And he plays tennis! See BELOW.

Notes From My Nightstand

Since I've heard from a bunch of you about my renewed reading "habit," I thought I would give you a quick update. 

Finished "Love You Madly, Holly Woodlawn" and "Backstage, You Can Have" and was struck by the number of similarities between two very different people: One, an Andy Warhol cult figure (Holly Woodlawn), and the other, once the No. 1 actress at the box office (Betty Hutton). The common thread, of course, is fame. And it seems that no matter how small or big one's fame is, many people are left ill-prepared for when it fades.

"Cybill Disobedience" was everything I expected it to be and more. In addition to all of the catty gossip and Hollywood dish -- I had no idea that Bruce Willis arrived at his "Moonlighting" audition having just narrowly lost the role of Des in "Desperately Seeking Susan" to Aidan Quinn (thank god!) and that the network wanted Robert Hays ("Angie" and "Airport") to play David Addison, but Shepherd followed her chemistry gut. (She had final say, somehow.) 

Although I'm unduly inclined to side with the L'Oréal blonde given my odd affection for her -- and you have to think her version of events is bound to present her in the same light that Vaseline-smeared lens did back in the 1980s -- I really was taken aback at how demonized she seemed to be on both shows, particularly "Cybill," which had started out so wonderfully as a collaboration with Chuck "French Kissin' in the USA" Lorre before he completely turned on her for reasons she claims she can only begin to speculate about. (Maybe I need to find if he has a memoir.) It's also unclear why Christine Baranski wanted absolutely nothing to do with her co-star, and seemed to encourage others including Alicia Witt to behave the same way. (Kudos to Zoe, though, for f**king Season 2 addition Peter Krause!) Shocking to think that Cybill thought Paula Poundstone would be right as Maryann -- talk about trying to Vivian Vance the role! -- or that the network considered Sally Kellerman. 

I then polished off Sloane Crossley's acclaimed 2008 debut, "I Was Told There'd Be Cake," which I have been meaning to read since I first saw the title. She's hilarious -- her parents' abnormal concern about fire definitely struck a chord, and so much more.

Then the other night I was missing my brother Bill's voice, so I plowed through "Lapsing Into a Comma," which made me feel like he was reading to me. 

I’m about halfway through "Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness," a book I now realize I’d started -- and abandoned -- once before. It’s not that Susannah Cahalan isn’t a decent writer, or that her story isn’t worth telling. It’s that the medical mystery at the heart of the story is so relentlessly frustrating that it can annoying to read. (It turns our narrator into an angry and paranoid lunatic who is hard to care about.) Watching doctors repeatedly dismiss her symptoms and label her a closeted alcoholic -- when she’s actually suffering from a potentially fatal disease -- is exhausting.

I gave up the “if I start a book, I must finish it” rule years ago, but I’m sticking with this one for now, hoping that once doctors figure out what's wrong, there will be a satisfying payoff to justify the aggravation. UPDATE: I finished and this should have been a long-form article at the most and nothing more. 

Next up in my psychological que: "Tune In Tokyo," my pal Tim Anderson's debut about his time teaching English in Japan, which left Damian in stitches when he read it right before our Asian adventure in 2024. 

Previously: "Rebel With a Clause," "Answered Prayers," "On the Road" and "Breakfast at Tiffany's"

"Eternal Flame," "Appropos of Nothing," "Girls Like Us," "Pleasure and Pain" and "Gay Bar: Why We Went Out" 

 

 P.S. Ended up watching the Betty Hutton film “The Perils of Pauline" (1947) yesterday and was surprised to hear this ditty! Wonder if Brian Elliot, who later penned the Madonna hit "Papa Don't Preach," had ever heard of it or if it's just a small coincidence. If any of my readers in Palm Springs know Carlo Bruno, who helped care for Hutton in her golden years, please tell him we're headed his way next month for Indian Wells! 

Remains of the Day (02/09)

EW: Why Alexander Skarsgaard's (prosthetic) penis close-up got trimmed down in "Pillion"

PinkNews: "Team LGBTQ" has already won two gold medals at the 2026 Winter Olympics

Boystack: Filmmaker and archivist Jenni Olson's "575 Castro St." -- which pairs indelible imagery with Harvey Milk’s voice -- heads to the 2026 Berlinale

MetroWeekly: 9 Atlantis gay cruise passengers arrested on drug charges

Attitude: German referee Pascal Kaiser attacked at home after proposing to boyfriend at soccer match

The Advocate: Six black activists who changed the HIV/AIDS response in America

Instinct: Matt Bomer’s legendary tiny yellow shorts return

News6: Disney World's Gay Days "paused" this year as sponsors bailed amid anti-LGBTQ backlash, group says

NRP: U.S. skater Conor McDermott-Mostowy joins record number of out LGBTQ Winter Olympians

GLAAD: LGBTQ media org responds to ally Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl halftime performance featuring out artists and game-day representation

Out: "Penisgate" heats up as Olympians allegedly inject their bulges to win gold

People: James Taylor shares opinion on the Top 5 songs from his own discography

Hot Cats of the Day: Say hello to Atticus and Lucifer, who moved from Central Park West to New Jersey with their sweet gay dads on "House Hunters."

 Only one came out to say hi on the other side of the Hudson! 

RIP: Fred Smith, who left Blondie for the band Television, dies at 77

The Rev. Dorothy A. Austin, pioneering LGBTQ minister at Harvard, dies at 82

Catherine O’Hara was being treated for rectal cancer when she died of a pulmonary embolism, death certificate says

Weekend Tennis Roundup

 

Titles for Auger-Aliassime, Cîrstea, Boulter and Bejlek; 14 nations advanced in Davis Cup action; Marcos knows you're looking; Serena's coming back; Marton's got a boner; plus all the ATP beef that's fit to post BELOW.