Why do I love this book? Perhaps because this sassy story unfolds in 1972, exactly when I arrived in San Francisco trying to figure out my gay identity. Its fascinating cast of characters, its fresh take on the fast-paced detective novel, and of course its all-important focus on fashion, set against San Francisco's colorful seventies LGBTQIA (long before that acronym existed!) underworld make this a page-turner.  

-- Jim Van Buskirk, co-author of Gay By the Bay: A History of Queer Culture in the San Francisco Bay Area

“Post Traumatic Dress Disorder got San Francisco right. I would know. I was there.” 

-- Richard “Scott” Lyons, who performed at San Fransico’s legendary drag institution Finocchio’s Club under the name Beverly Plaza.   

I loved Francesca's book, and not only her book, but the work of those who succeeded her in writing it!

-- Keven Killian, poet, editor, and author of Fascination, and impossible Princess.  

Biographies: 

F. S. Rosa

F.S. Rosa, November 9, 1954—October 3, 2016, was a rank-and-file union member of SEIU Local 1021 and was a delegate to the San Francisco Labor Council. A historian of labor and the left, her book The Divine Comedy of Carlo Tresca is a testament to this history in the twentieth century. She described herself as a "...garden-variety anarcho-syndicalist (with bourgeois tendencies, of course)."

She was a member of Bay Area Labor Committee for Peace and Justice and was involved in several human rights groups pursuing justice and accurate reporting in Israel/Palestine and the Middle East and spent six weeks on the West Bank in 2003 picking olives (among other things).

Although not close in autobiographical detail to the actual life of Francesca Rosa, the young run-away Kyle in Post Traumatic Dress Disorder might have been greatly reflected in Francesca’s golden eye, as she too fled the Old World (in her case, the East Coast) and found a life in San Francisco that embraced her and occasionally threw her life-changing challenges.

Francesca Rosa, writer, activist, actress, artist and publisher moved to San Francisco in 1972, eventually becoming roommates with a pal from Buffalo, New York, Patrick Cowley, who was the Moog and creator behind many of the fabulous songs of Sylvester. At first, she began drawing and painting, then trod the boards, her acting debut the role of Kitty Boyle in Warped Floor's 1976 production Mama. From there stardom awaited as she played the reluctant and unpopular (at least back home) run-away teenager Susan Jane in Marc Huestis's 1980 cult classic Whatever Happened to Susan Jane. In the mid-80s she joined Bob Gluck's Small Press Traffic workshop, and it was there that she found that writing was her calling.

Francesca became co-editor at Ithuriel’s Spear Press around 2006. She is the author of Post War (Exempli Gratia, 1986, writing as F. Rosa); Post War and Other Stories (Ithuriel’s Spear, 2006); The Divine Comedy of Carlo Tresca (Ithuriel’s Spear, 2011); Lunch at the Muqata’a (Ithuriel’s Spear, 2014); and F. S. Rosa Selected Writings, (Ithuriel’s Spear 2017); and, with Sin Soracco, Post Traumatic Dress Disorder (Ithuriel’s Spear, 2024.)

Sin Soracco:

Sin Soracco lives along the wilds of the lower Russian River. She is the author of the novels Low Bite (Black Lizard, 1989; reprinted The Green Arcade/PM Press, 2010), Edge City (Dutton, 1992; Plume, 1993; reprinted The Green Arcade/PM Press 2012), and Come To Me, 2016, The Green Arcade/ Ithuriel’s Spear). She has a short story in San Francisco Noir (2005, editor Peter Maravelis) and Prison Noir (2014, editor Joyce Carol Oates), from Akashic Books.

A note about Ithuriel’s Spear Press:

James Mitchell, poet and translator, is one of the founders of San Francisco’s Small Press Traffic. He was the publisher of one of the first gay presses, Hoddypoll Press, as well as the literary magazine Sebastian Quill, both from the 60s. He started Ithuriel’s Spear in 2005. Francesca Rosa joined as managing editor soon after, and since then the press has published over 35 titles. Ithuriel’s Spear is distributed through Small Press Distribution, www.spdbooks.org. 

Afterward: a note from the publisher about the writing of Post Traumatic Dress Disorder.

Francesca Rosa died from pancreatic cancer on October 5, 2016, in the presence of family and friends at the Coming Home Hospice in San Francisco’s Castro district.

She had been part of a group of activists and organizers who put on what is now an annual community event in the Bay Area, The Howard Zinn Book Fair. It was at this fair in 2015 that Francesca read the opening salvos of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. (From then on referred to as PTDD.) We were enchanted.

As her illness progressed, it became clear that she would not be finishing the book. Close to the time that she moved into hospice, she asked me, my husband, Gent Sturgeon, and our friend Sin Soracco to visit her in her apartment. Francesca and I had worked with Sin as editors on her book Come to Me, which was published by Ithuriel’s Spear in July of 2016. She asked us, and especially Sin, to finish Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.     

Although Francesca was almost entirely undaunted by the harrowing process of her body betraying her, she amazed all with her forbearance and wisdom during the dying process, so true and deep was her understanding and practice of Zen. Only one time did I experience her dismay and see her angry. Her laptop had also betrayed her: she could not access the manuscript of PTDD. We arranged a meeting at The Green Arcade, the bookstore I owned at the time, with her, me and Jim Mitchell, the publisher of Ithuriel’s Spear. Francesca called Jim “her Fairy Godmother.” Jim had mobility issues, and although it was a challenge for Francesca to descend and remount the stairs to her third-floor apartment, the street level bookstore seemed a do-able meeting place. In came a frustrated Francsico, with her laptop and an oversized clear plastic envelope revealing torn paper, which she hurled at me. Unflappable Jim asked for the laptop, fired it up and found the PTDD file. The early torn draft was unnecessary, as dramatic a prop as it had been. Francesca smiled, regained her calm center and several years later here we are publishing this sweet tale from that unfaltering Harbor Light: F.S. Rosa.

As it turned out, the manuscript of PTDD was only 43 pages long, and we were left no outline, no plot summary, no notes. And so, I thank the brilliant creative and always intrepid Sin Soracco for all her work in completing this story. Gent and I helped but the main credit goes to Sin—and Francesca! –Patrick Marks, Noe Valley, April 2024.