Hugh Ryan is a writer, historian, and curator in New York City. His current project, entitled The Women’s House of Detention, is a queer history of the Women’s House of Detention in Greenwich Village. His first book, When Brooklyn Was Queer, was a New York Times Editor’s Pick in 2019. In 2019, he was honored by the Brooklyn Historical Society, the Committee on LGBT History of the American Historical Association, and the Brooklyn Borough President for his work on the queer history of Brooklyn. He has received the 2016 Martin Duberman Fellowship at the New York Public Library, the 2019-2020 Allan Berube Prize for outstanding work in public LGBT History from the Committee on LGBT History at the American Historical Association, and the 2019 New York City Book Award. 

Ryan is an alumni teaching fellow at the Bennington Writing Seminars. He regularly teaches Creative Nonfiction in the MFA Program at SUNY Stonybrook. He is currently on the Board of Advisors for the Archives at the LGBT Center in Manhattan and The Stonewall National Museum and Archives in Ft. Lauderdale.