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Lonnie Coleman (1920-1982) was an American novelist and playwright best known for writing the Beulah Land trilogy. Born William Laurence "Lonnie" Coleman August 2, 1920. He died in Savannah, Georgia at age 62 on August 13, 1982. His first novel was published in 1944. Coleman was an associate editor at Ladies Home Journal 1947-1950 and Collier's, 1951-1955.

Coleman's 1959 novel "Sam" is considered a groundbreaking novel in American literature in its depiction of homosexuality and metropolitan gay life.

Coleman's book "Beulah Land" was a New York Times Best Seller in 1974 and earned a record-breaking $800,000 paperback rights contract. His novels "Beulah Land" and "Look Away, Beulah Land" were filmed in 1980 as the NBC miniseries Beulah Land starring Lesley Ann Warren, Michael Sarrazin. Meredith Baxter, and Don Johnson.

Coleman had three plays produced on Broadway, but none were successful. "Jolly's Progress" starred Eartha Kitt and Wendell Corey and ran for a week in December 1959. His other two plays closed after opening night. His lone screenplay was for the 1958 film Hot Spell which starred Shirley Booth and Anthony Quinn.

This author page uses material from the Wikipedia article "Lonnie Coleman", which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0