Rainbow Blog Hop: What writing LGBTQ fiction means to me

UPDATE! WE HAVE A WINNER!
I'm pleased to announce that Mark Gunnells is the winner of the signed copy of Caregiver. Mark, I will be in touch via e-mail about getting your prize to you. Didn't win? Hope you'll consider buying your own copy at one of the links below.

The Rainbow Bloghop is here!

Stop by the Blog and find out what it’s all about – there’s a ton of giveaways, both from authors themselves (more than 70 have signed up!) but from over 40 prizes from publishers as well. The blog, run by Rainbow Book Reviews, is also handing out four $25 book vouchers.

So you have everything to gain and a lot to lose by not checking it out. Read my post below to see how you can win a free copy of my AIDS-era love story, CAREGIVER, then check out the other posts by clicking the link at the top of this blog.


What does writing gay fiction mean to me?

I didn't always write gay fiction, especially not romantic gay fiction. When I was first published, now more than twenty years ago, I was a horror writer and was in print through the good graces of a mainstream house (Dell). Obsessed, Penance, and A Face without a Heart were all horror, albeit often revolving around horror that happened in the real world.

That penchant for things that go bump in the night was always there, even as I began, much later, to focus exclusively on gay characters. Books like IM, A Demon Inside, The Blue Moon Cafe, Blood Sacrifice, and Deadly Vision caused Unzipped Magazine to call me "the Stephen King of gay horror." It was a title I was proud of, since I had read King since I was a boy.

The reason I switched in later years to writing about gay people exclusively was because I wanted to dramatize and, at the same time, bring to life the realities of gay people, people who were, essentially, just like me. And, on the other hand, vastly different in so many ways. Being gay was something I thought deserved to be incorporated in literature and many of my works have focused on themes common to the gay experience--coming out (Out on the Net), AIDS (Caregiver, NEG UB2), hate crimes (Bashed), and online hookups (IM). For better or worse, I knew that many gay people had experienced these things and I wanted to put up a mirror that would reflect those experiences in compelling and revealing ways.

But as I explored those topical areas, I realized I wanted to delve into something that wasn't so "topical" and was, in fact, the fodder for a whole millennium of artistic works in just about every medium: love.

The realization that I could tell stories about real gay people, their hunger for connection and acceptance, became a mission, one that continues to this day. Although I am still intrigued by the dark side of things, I am now writing more about what brings people together, what sets them apart, and, often, how they are reunited. It's a timeless theme and one that I've found offers more room for creative expression than any other--at least for me.

Writing about love is universal. Gay, straight, whatever stripe we are, most of us hunger for that one connection where someone puts us above all others and that's why I write love stories.

It's also why I write gay stories. I want to show that universality--love--that links people of all sexual orientations.

To win a free, autographed copy of CAREGIVER, simply leave a comment below and include your e-mail address so I can notify the winner. 
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