There are very few people who can honestly say they changed the direction of someone else’s life.
Stanley Bennett Clay changed mine.
Long before I became a publisher, Stanley was the writer who taught me how to write. He challenged me to think more deeply, to respect language, and to understand that writing wasn’t simply putting words on paper—it was an act of observation, discipline, honesty, and love.
When I first told him I wanted to create a magazine, Stanley refused to let me think small. He insisted that I publish it. He insisted it should carry my own name. He told me to call it David Bridgeforth Quarterly, to stand behind my work, and to have the courage to put myself on its covers. That publication would eventually become DBQ Magazine.
His influence didn’t stop there.
For years, Stanley invested himself in this publication. He served as an editor, wrote reviews, essays, and original stories, challenged my ideas, sharpened my writing, and continually reminded me that the work always mattered more than the attention it received. He wasn’t simply contributing to a magazine. He was helping shape the publication it would become.
Somewhere along the way, mentor became father.
For more than five decades, Stanley Bennett Clay has worked across literature, publishing, theatre, television, and film as an actor, playwright, novelist, director, producer, editor, and publisher. His career encompasses more than 50 film and television appearances, alongside extensive voice and production work. He is the author of six novels—Diva, In Search of Pretty Young Black Men, Looker, Aching for It, Hollywood Flames, and Madame Frankie. Long before he encouraged me to become a publisher, Stanley had built a publishing legacy of his own. After serving as editor-in-chief of Black Beat, he became publisher and editor-in-chief of SBC Magazine, the national Black LGBTQ publication he published for ten years, from 1991 to 2001. His acclaimed play Ritual earned three NAACP Theatre Awards for writing, directing, and co-producing, and its film adaptation received a Pan African Film Festival Jury Award. His later work includes directing the stage adaptation of B-Boy Blues and creating You Are Not Alone, a documentary examining depression among Black gay men.
In January 2024, just months before his seventy-fourth birthday and before quietly stepping away from public life into a well-earned retirement, I sat down with Stanley in his home for what I knew would be an important conversation. At the time of this publication, Stanley is seventy-six years old.
We spent several hours talking about the artists who inspired him, the values that guided his life, the lessons he learned from his mother, his admiration for Sidney Poitier and Toni Morrison, his love of writing, and the kind of legacy he hopes to leave behind. Looking back now, I realize this wasn’t simply a conversation about an extraordinary career. It was a son asking his father the questions he never wanted to leave unasked.
It is my hope that these pages preserve not only Stanley Bennett Clay’s remarkable body of work, but also the wit, wisdom, humility, and humanity that shaped generations of artists—including me.
—David Bridgeforth
Publisher & Editor-in-Chief
DBQ Magazine