The author, Jeremy Atherton Lin, is ten years younger than me. Which made reading Gay Bar, Why We Went Out all the more interesting hearing from the perspective of someone who started his gay bar adventures when I was embracing a scene he was still navigating. Plus, his tales take place in LA, San Francisco …
Book Review – Anything But Fine by Tobias Madden
I don't usually read Young Adult novels. This book showed up on my socials several times and I browsed, no, I glanced at a bit of information about it. I believed it was a contemporary novel about a rising ballet star who has an accident that changes his life. Well, the last part is correct. …
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Realising your manuscript needs work!
I've just edited the initial draft of my novel set in the 1990s. Like any novel at this early stage, some scenes work, some need work. But for the first time I sense this manuscript needs more work than my recent novels did at this early stage. It's not because it's bad. It's because I …
Recycling characters
Many authors do it. They place their characters in several unrelated books. I've been doing it for a while although I'm planning to stop after my current release, The Midnight Man. And while the major characters in this novel are brand new, a whole range of characters from my novellas Nate and the New Yorker …
Writing about a dream lover
I was listening to Kate Bush. The track was 'Man With the Child In His Eyes' - a song about a mystical lover that waits for the songwriter at bedtime. It has been one of my favourite songs since its release in 1978. Natalie Cole does a beautiful cover version. Its haunting melody was the …
I wrote a sex scene without realising it.
The Midnight Man started with a nightclub scene. At least it did in earlier drafts. In the scene we meet middle aged gay couple, Stanley and Francesco, as they pick up a guy to share their bed for the night. After that opener was an erotic sex scene in which we discover Stanley isn't happy …
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Researching the Sydney Gay Scene of the 90s – Part 2
Writing these blogs is helping with my research. I realised this during the past week. It's a great way for me to categorise the different themes I want to explore in my novel set in the 1990s. In the last blog I talked about my first impressions of the pages I copied from the Sydney …
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Researching the Sydney Gay Scene of the 90s – Part 1
A whole box of microfilm was waiting for me at the State Library of NSW. A lovely librarian arranged copies of the Sydney Star Observer from the 1990s, as well as a couple of years' worth of Capital Q, at my request. Both were significant street press which covered queer issues. The former still exists. …
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The writers forum, online
NOTE: This blog was written during our first year of Covid lockdowns. Yesterday I logged into 'Gay Fiction, Gay Lives,' a forum hosted by Jerry L. Wheeler for Bold Stroke Books. It's an interesting time for publishers. I applaud this initiative by Bold Stroke Books as there is a large audience sitting at home looking …
Book Review -The Moth and Moon by Glenn Quigley
It's hard to write a review that encapsulates how charming this book is. Yes, there's a love story, but that's only part of what this tale explores. The world building is excellent, especially as the entire first chapter sets the scene of a small town from centuries ago about to brave a horrendous storm. All …
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