Tell us a
little about yourself.
As a child growing up in a suburb
of Ft. Worth, Texas, I found fun in being someone else. I was always acting and
singing, putting on little shows for my family and their guests. That led to high
school years in which I was active in the choir and the drama club. And I
developed a deep love for school. I think I always knew I wanted to teach. The
question was, “teach what?” A dear aunt who was a consummate musician believed
in my musical abilities, so I went off to college to major in music. It seemed
I spent as much time in the theater department as I did in the music
department, though.
All that led to a career as a
teacher, mostly in high school, where I at first taught choir then switched to
theater. Eventually, my teaching interests turned to English, where I was
trained in teaching literature through writing. One of the tenets of the method
was that teachers must be writers in order to teach writing. And so I wrote
right along with my students and decided that one day, I would turn that joy
into a more tangible occupation.
When did
you start to write and why?
Deep into my teaching career, I
started writing a novel. An incident had happened at school that I thought
would make a good young adult novel, and I began to write it down. That
resulted in one book, and then I got inspired to write another—both of which
never got any attention and have since been resigned to the “glad you tried it”
pile.
When I completed my teaching
career, I took a children’s writing course taught by celebrated author Kathi
Appelt. She encouraged me to take my writing further. I knew that writers’
critique groups can be invaluable, so I joined one. Among the group members was
Kelly Bennett, author of the best-selling book Not Norman, and not only did we
become dear friends, but Kelly, along with Kathi, became my mentor. I credit
Kathi Appelt for convincing me I could write and Kelly Bennett for teaching me
how.
I spent many years honing my
skills in critique group and drafting four or five novels. At last, Laura
Baumbach at Featherweight Press took a chance on me and published my first
novel Thirteen Therapists. Then I found Harmony Ink Press. Elizabeth North and
her staff of incredible people form the best publishing house a writer could
ever want. They published Special Effect,
and soon after that, they accepted and published The Book of Ethan, Colors, All You Need Is Love (to be released in
March 2017,) and recently contracted Titanic
Summer for publication in 2018. I still think I’m dreaming sometimes.
I write because I have to. When
I’m writing, my fingers take me to a different realm. I only vaguely outline a
story in my head, then my fingers at the keyboard take over, and I find total
joy and amazement at the magic that happens. I write because I want gay teens
to read my novels and know that loving who they love is okay. I write for those
adults who pick up my novels, read them, and realize that being gay is a normal
thing. And I write for anyone who needs to see what my characters deal with and
can apply that to themselves and gain from it.
What
experiences do you bring to your writing?
A part of me, large or small, is in every one of my
novels. From Aaron, the stereotypical middle child in Thirteen Therapists to Neil the school musical star, in Colors, riddled with doubts to Dewey in All You Need Is Love, the character
whose life is most like my own teen years. In that one, I have used incidents
from my life so much that those who knew me growing up may wonder what is real
and what is made up.
What
kinds of books do you enjoy?
I’m never without a book. I
learned that from my mother. She would have a book at the dining table, one at
her easy chair, one in her purse, one in the car, and, yes, one in the bathroom,
so she was never without a book to read. I love a good story, whether it is
fiction or non-fiction. I devour biographies, particularly those that have to
do with Hollywood personalities or theater actors, writers, directors,
composers, or lyricists. And I love fiction, most definitely that of the best
writer living today, Benjamin Alire Saenz. Ben’s books are sheer poetry, and
yet the characters are very real. His “adult” books are rich and satisfying,
and his young adult novels are wonders. I aspire to be like Ben, and I know
that I will never be that amazing, as a writer or as a human being. I do know
that his writing, as well as so many others has influenced me. I find The Great Gatsby to be the great
American novel, and I love Willa Cather, Henry James, Jane Austen, Thomas
Hardy, Fannie Flagg, Pat Conroy, Phil Rickman, Christopher Rice and so very
many others.
What
inspired you to write?
My mother loved books so much
that I could do nothing else but read, and that, in turn, inspired me to begin
creating my own stories. I believe that if you enjoy the theater, you should
create some for yourself; if you enjoy listening to music, you should create
your own; and if you love to read, then you will love it even more if you try
to write your own books. After all, the tomato you grow in your own garden is
much sweeter than any you can buy in a store.
Do you do research, and if so, how did you go about researching?
I curse
technology and embrace it all at the same time. The internet—God bless it. You
can be writing a paragraph on your word processing program, need a fact, and
immediately switch to the internet for the answer. It is invaluable. Sometimes,
though, you have to reach out to a real human. For All You Need Is Love, I contacted the Texas Interscholastic League
One Act Play Contest director Luis Munoz, and he graciously not only answered
my questions but sent me a list of the schools that competed in the Ft. Worth
area the year the story takes place, complete with the plays they did and who
directed those shows. Through our correspondence, we found out we have a dear
mutual friend. Research can be very rewarding as well as informative!
What did
you discover about yourself while you were writing your books, if anything?
I’ve discovered that I have a
fascination with religion. I grew up with two loving parents who were not
churchgoers. But they believed their sons needed a religious foundation, so
they sent us to Sunday School at the Southern Baptist Church near our home.
When I was in college, I became very active in the Southern Baptist Church. I
suppose that as the realization I was gay hit me, I also realized that the
Baptist church had betrayed me with their total dismissal of me as a feeling
human being. I began to explore other religions, wondering how gay people fit
into any of the world’s organized religions. And I find that religion is a
sub-text of all my novels, whether overt or underlying. I think my writing is a
way for me to make sense of how GLBT persons fit into the religious spectrum.
What
writing projects are you working on right now?
I’ll soon be editing All You Need Is Love, the tale of a
young boy growing up in Ft. Worth, Texas, in 1969, and his discovery that he is
gay, and not only that, his falling in love with his school’s only hippie, set
against the backdrop of the Vietnam War, the Stonewall Riots, Woodstock, and
Judy Garland’s death.
After that is Titanic Summer. It tells of a guy who feels
his father is keeping secrets from him. The boy is gay, and the full acceptance
of himself and his father only comes with events surrounding the controversy
over the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance during the summer of 2015. Titanic
Summer has some very interesting characters indeed, including a very rich
eccentric lady, a wildly crazy boy who comes to Houston to live out his senior
year, and a trans woman. And yes, the infamous sinking ship is featured in
flashback as well. Let’s just say there are a couple of interesting guys who
work on the Titanic.
And finally, I’ve just finished
the first draft of a novel that is so new it doesn’t even have a title yet. I’m
excited about it maybe more than any I’ve written; at this point, I’m keeping
it under wraps.
But let me say, I firmly believe
that the term “young adult novel” is just a marketing ploy. I’m grateful there
is such a marketing category for it has served me well. But I think
that—following that line of thinking—if a young adult novel is a book with a
teenage main character, then To Kill a
Mockingbird is a middle-grade novel for it is a story whose main character
is a very young girl. Writing transcends its categories, and I want my novels
to be read by all. I write for teens, but I also write for anyone who likes a
good story with well-wrought characters who can lead readers to realizations
about themselves and about those around them. That’s what writing is about:
opening the world.
