NEW BOOK! Jealous of the Clouds Offered Publication Contract by London's Spectrum Books

Thrilled to announce I just signed a publishing contract with Spectrum Books for my psychological thriller/romantic suspense novel, JEALOUS OF THE CLOUDS. Not sure of details yet, but it should be out in 2025 in both paperback and ebook editions. #amwriting #publishing #grateful

WHAT JEALOUS OF THE CLOUDS IS ABOUT

Ted Cornish thought he’d found the man of his dreams in Joshua Kade—charming, intelligent, and handsome—until disturbing rumors surface about Josh’s past. A decade earlier, Josh’s former boyfriend, Reggie Baker, was found stabbed to death in an alley in Chicago’s Boystown. Though Josh was never convicted, whispers of his involvement persisted.

True-crime podcaster Bailey Anderson is reopening the case, and the more he uncovers, the more he’s convinced Josh is the killer. Bailey reaches out to Ted for insight, and as Ted reflects on his relationship, he begins to see cracks in Josh’s perfect facade—jealousy, possessiveness, and violent outbursts that no longer match his sweet words.

As Ted spends more time with Bailey, the evidence against Josh mounts. But Bailey is more than just a podcaster—he’s Reggie’s brother, driven by grief and a relentless desire for justice.

When Ted finally confronts the terrifying possibility that Josh is guilty, Josh reacts with a violent threat that sends Ted into hiding. Torn between fear, love, and loyalty, Ted must choose between exposing the truth or confronting the man he thought he loved—before it’s too late.

Jealous of the Clouds is a heart-pounding psychological thriller about love, obsession, and the dangerous pursuit of justice.

***

Release date and other details are still to be determined, but I would expect to see the new book out within a few months.

My Coming Out as Trans Late in Life Love Story

 

In this #book, I venture into territory with which I don't have first-hand experience--the life of a transgender person. I do consider myself a passionate ally for living one's most authentic life and that's one of the themes of the book. One thing that's pleased me most since its release is the reaction I've had from #transgender readers--which is validating because I tried to always be respectful. For example, this review, from a trans man on Goodreads, made my heart sing:

"This is the kind of representation I've been dying to see. Seeing trans characters in books is spectacular, but let's not forget that not all trans people figure themselves out as teenagers or young adults...Seeing a trans main character that not only didn't come out until much later in life, but also did not come out until /after/ they'd already been well established in a life with a committed partner- that's some powerful stuff...

"There were so many things about Cara's journey that I felt deep down in my bones, because I had those thoughts, those feelings, and those experiences too, just as a trans person; but that's just the tip of the iceberg. Being able to see the fears and worries I've had to deal with, and sometimes still have to deal with, as a gay transman married to a very straight cisman, and being able to see a character experiencing all the same feelings I know my husband's felt- that's what's really making me loose my mind over this book...

"I hope this book gets a lot of readers, because it deserves the world."

For some thought-provoking reading, I hope you'll pick up a copy!

BUY

Amazon Kindle

JMS Books

(Paperback coming soon!)

Why You Might Want to Stay on Facebook

I thought long and hard about leaving Facebook and, in the end, decided I won't.

Here's why (and I hope that those of you who are considering leaving will take a moment to read my words below; and, if you're staying and agree with me, I'd appreciate your using that share button).

Facebook is NOT Mark Zuckerberg. I won't say much about him. This post is about what Facebook IS. For me...and maybe for you.

Facebook is not one person. It's a community. It's a village green. It's a place we've come to share our lives and its joys and sorrows. Because Mark Zuckerberg has decided to incorporate hatred and lack of truth into his TOS, doesn't change the fact that we're here and we number in the millions. It doesn't change any of the following:

It's a place for us to share our grief. Loss of loved ones (including pets) is still allowed and posting about these losses offers us all a chance for comfort, compassion, and humanity. It's a chance to feel a little less alone in the world.

It's a place to share our joys. Holidays, births, weddings, new relationships...all of these things and more can bring us closer together. Don't let some clueless billionaire take that away from you. Be loud. Be proud. Celebrate your joys.

It's a place to let our community of friends, family, and more about our accomplishments. Things like signing a book contract, getting a new job, writing a song or a poem, painting a picture, showcasing a beautiful photo you took or a meal you made bring happiness to not only your own world, but that of many others. People you may not even realize are smiling and celebrating your victories.

It's a place to come for answers. Troubled by something? Can't figure out some technological hiccup? Facebook has always been there at the ready to help you with a solution others may have already found.

It's a place to meet people, make new friends, start a relationship, build a following for your art and more. No one person can change that.

In the end, Facebook is people. Tons of us--united in curating, celebrating, sharing, and sometimes questioning our lives.

I won't allow Mark Zuckerberg to take away what I've taken fifteen years to build. My life displayed here doesn't belong to Mark Zuckerberg. It never has. And if he snatches the whole enterprise away one day, what I've shared, loved, and enjoyed on here won't disappear. It'll simply move elsewhere.

So stay...just a little bit longer. Fight for good. Speak up against the bad. For now, we all have that freedom. Don't play into their hands and run away. Be present. Be real. Be safe. But continue to shine your light. The world needs it now more than ever.

In a Quandary: Is Getting Rid of Facebook Throwing the Baby Out with the Bathwater?

Should I delete Facebook?

Every day now, I'm seeing friends and family saying they're leaving the platform. 

I don't blame them.

Facebook's latest outrages include getting rid of factchecking and no recourse for users calling other users "mentally ill" if they're LGBTQ+. Hey, I might be "mentally ill" but don't you dare say it's because of who I love.

My son is leaving and I can't blame him.

But here's the difference between him and me--he's never been much of a user of the platform. He rarely visits and even more rarely posts anything. He essentially has little to no skin in the game. It's gotta be easy for him to walk away.

For me, it's different. Facebook has been, for better or worse, an integral part of both my professional and personal daily life for something like 15 years. I have nearly 5,000 friends and over 3,000 followers on my author page.

Professionally, it has been and continues to be a real boon to getting the word out about my books. I've built up a receptive audience over the years, both with my page(s) and with the numerous LGBTQ+ reading and writing groups I'm a part of. When I post about a book, I often immediately see a jump in sales. I can't get that response anywhere else (other than the also morally questionable X, where I've built up more than 36,000 followers). For a small press author like myself, exposure is hard to come by. For those of us without marquee names and a professional marketing team behind us, social media has been a godsend in getting our work seen. So, while I object to Facebook's latest moves toward supporting cringe-worthy right-wing policies, I wonder: is it cutting off my nose to spite my face to just leave and lose all I've built up over the last 15 years? I don't know. What do you think?

Personally, leaving Facebook would mean leaving behind many valuable friends and family connections. Facebook, for all its faults, has been a real boon to keeping in touch with people who, in a time before social media, would have fallen by the wayside. I value those connections. I treasure seeing what so many family members, friends (especially out-of-town), and previous classmates and coworkers are doing. Nothing, not texting or email, is as a robust and efficient delivery system for staying connected as Facebook (and yes, I'm on BlueSky https://bsky.app/profile/rickrreed.bsky.social which is great, but it doesn't allow the same kind of connection as Facebook, nor does it have groups that have become so useful). So what do I do with these connections? Toss them to the side? Yes, there's good reason to do so.

There's a Golden Girls episode where Dorothy befriends a local author. When she finds out the author belongs to an exclusive country club (meaning they exclude Jews), she's outraged and tells her new friend so. Her friend tries to defend her membership, saying, "I don't make the rules." Dorothy comes back with, "No but you tolerate them." She tells her snooty and bigoted friend to "Go to hell" and tosses her out the door.

Dorothy was right. I'd like to be like Dorothy. I just don't know if I can throw away so much value in terms of connection and professional promotion in the name of righteousness and making myself feel better.

Where does one draw the line? I'd love to hear your thoughts, as long as they're respectful. I'm also wondering if, by staying, we can fight these unfair and bigoted policies, resisting them and standing up for what we know to be right.

Facing 2025 and Banishing FEAR

 

#2025 is now at my doorstep. It'll come in, whether I invite it or not.

One of my overwhelming emotions about the #NewYear is fear. I hate to say that, because most of the time, fear is the close-to-identical sibling of worry, with a lot more rationale on its Edvard Munch face. Fear is the enemy of hope, of optimism.

But one lesson I've learned at my ripe old age is this: I have control over very little. The one thing that is always in my power, though, is how I react.

I don't believe in New Year's resolutions, but my intention for 2025 is to keep fear at bay. I know my fear is reasonable, on both a personal and political level, yet I can't let it get in the way of my experiencing joy and love.

So, to combat fear, I will recognize that change is inevitable. Nothing in this life stays the same. The good and the bad both fall by the wayside and may indeed become more or less of their subjective value as our perceptions shift.

I will accept my fear. I will say, "Hello. I see you there." I will acknowledge it.

And then I'll move on, letting my worries and trepidations pass through me. The only way to deal with fear is to go through it, experience it, and then see it for what it is--caution.

Caution can keep us from living a fully-realized life. Yes, it can save us and protect us from harm--but only so much. It can also keep us sitting at home when the joys of life surround us, but we fear that taking part might lead to shame, embarrassment, infection, and worse. Valid concerns, but...

...In 2025, I choose to live. To reach out with love and joy to those around me, the ones I know and the ones I've yet to meet. I won't be afraid to let go of what no longer serves me. And I will summon up the bravery to take risks, knowing that, as the old adage goes...you gotta play to win.

My wish for you is that, even in the face of terrifying odds, you choose joy, you choose love, you choose hope.

You choose to live...

End of Year Thoughts 2024

As the year winds down to a close, I look back on 2024 with a mixture of sadness, anger, and yes, #gratitude. The year, in both global and personal terms, has been challenging and heartbreaking.

But, at the same time, the year has been eye-opening and uplifting. I'm grateful for the new person I found within these past 12 months--me. This year probably represents my biggest change in who I am because I discovered reserves of strength I didn't know I had, vulnerability I respect more than ever, and a depth of acceptance that I know to be grateful for.

I'm grateful to know better than ever what's truly important in life. This has allowed me to shed behaviors and feelings that weighed me down like chains. I'm free.

Despite this being the worst year, it's also been the best because it's truly opened my eyes to the vast treasures I have for which to be #grateful. I have a loving union with a kind-hearted and generous man who brings me real joy each and every day, even when he's at his lowest physically. Bruce's health issues have shown me an army of support with friends and family reaching out with love and concern (and I've also been surprised by the kindness of near-strangers, who have offered their compassion and love with no strings to someone they barely know). I have enough food, enough shelter, enough time to play, enough time to work, my own good health, while not perfect, is enough to keep me going and hiking a few miles up mountainsides and biking miles on open roads. I have a renewed love and connection to the spirit that exists within each and every of us and unites us all.

I know that whatever outcome awaits in the new year, it's right, whole, and perfect.

I love you all. I have enough.

 

What Inspired Me to Write SKY FULL OF MYSTERIES

 

Sky Full of Mysteries is one of my more unusual novels, inspired by a fever dream, it plays with science-fiction elements (like time travel and compression, alien abduction, and more) to explore the lure of new love versus long-term established love and commitment.

ABOUT THE BOOK

What if your first love was abducted and presumed dead—but returned twenty years later?

That’s the dilemma Cole Weston faces. Now happily married to Tommy D’Amico, he’s suddenly thrown into a surreal world when his first love, Rory Schneidmiller, unexpectedly reappears.

Where has Rory been all this time? What happened to him two decades ago, when a strange mass appeared in the night sky and lifted him into the heavens? Rory has no memory of those years. For him, it’s as though only a day or two has passed.

Rory still loves Cole with the passion unique to young first love. Cole has never forgotten Rory, yet Tommy has been his rock, by his side since Rory disappeared.

Cole is forced to choose between an idealized and passionate first love and the comfort of a long-term marriage. How can he decide? Who faces this kind of quandary, anyway? The answers might lie among the stars….

BUY

NineStar Press
Amazon Kindle
(Paperback and audiobook also available)

EXCERPT

Cole listened to the close of Tommy’s office door, the start of the new-age music he listened to as he wrote. Today it was Yiruma. Cole waited a moment, in case Tommy should open the door, and then headed down the hall to the master bedroom. He knew Tommy would not emerge until dinnertime, or even later, if he really got involved.

He sat down on the king-size bed, running his hand over the orange and gray quilt. Part of him simply wanted to collapse backward on it, close his eyes, and sleep for hours. The hum of the window air conditioner was soothing, and he knew he could be under within minutes if he allowed himself.

But no, it was the anniversary. He would do what he always did on this day. He pushed himself up and off the comfortable memory-foam mattress and walked to his closet. One of the advantages of the condo, which was built in the 1920s, was its massive size, a total of nearly 2500 square feet. Their bedroom was enormous and included two walk-in closets, one here and one they’d added off the en suite master bath.

Cole’s was in the bedroom, and even though he knew Tommy wouldn’t hear it, he opened his own closet double doors quietly, wincing at the familiar squeak of the hinges. Cole felt a rush of heat rise to his face, despite the frosty air-conditioned chill all around him. Guilt induced that heat, Cole knew. Like an addict, he’d told himself dozens of times he should put away his obsession with Rory. It wasn’t healthy, not for him, and certainly not for his marriage. Secrets never were. Tommy was understanding, sure, but Cole knew he didn’t realize the depth of Cole’s feelings for Rory, not after all these years. Tommy didn’t realize how much he still yearned for Rory, especially around this time of year.

Cole squatted down on the floor, pushing aside his rather sizable collection of running shoes, Cons, and sandals—no wingtips for this boy—and from the far back recesses of the closet, hidden by shadows and garment bags, pulled forth the old black Reebok shoebox. The box held his and Rory’s entire history. Sad thing was, there wasn’t even enough to fill it halfway.

As he opened the box, Cole wondered why he even bothered. In more logical moments, he told himself that the Rory he still loved didn’t even exist anymore, no matter what had happened. If he was alive, he would have aged, just like Cole, by twenty years. So much could happen, physically, emotionally, spiritually, to a person in two decades. Most people weren’t even close to the selves they were twenty years ago.

Still, he dug into the box. There were only a half dozen or so items inside, and Cole knew each and every one of them by heart. He could just as easily have sat in the kitchen and brought each item out in his mind, examined it, and put it back.

But there was something about touching the mementos. There was an electric connection to each item. He likened it to movies he’d seen about psychics—and how they could get a certain energy from a person off an object they’d touched.

First, there was his old ID for the Bally gym at Century City mall. Cole fingered it and laughed, remembering a time when he did have the energy for going to the gym on a regular basis. Thank God he did, because it was where he’d met Rory. At first sight, he knew that all he’d wanted to do was kiss the guy. He believed, and still did, in a way, that to kiss this kind of nerdy, uncoordinated, bespectacled young man would be a revelation and a kind of salvation for him. He’d be home. His wish had come true later that same day. And Cole had not been disappointed.

What they shared had been far too brief, but it had been real.

Next, there was a cereal box top Cole had hung on to through all these years, simply because it was Rory’s favorite breakfast food. It was kind of endearing that Rory loved Froot Loops so much. Cole used to kid him about how childish it was, that he should eat something more grown-up, sensible, something with a little fiber, for Christ’s sake. “Real men don’t eat Froot Loops,” he’d tease, playfully whacking the back of Rory’s head as he sat on their thrift-store couch, hunched over a mixing bowl full of the stuff, just going to town. “You want me to put some cartoons on?” Cole remembered asking, and Rory had nodded, grinning through a mouthful of milk and unnaturally colored, fruit-flavored confetti.

As the weeks and then months passed with no sign of Rory, he’d hung on to the cereal in the pantry. It wasn’t until he moved in with his sister, Elaine, and she was helping him pack up for his move, that he rescued the box of cereal from the trash, where she’d thrown it.

“Oh no, not this.” He’d snatched it out of the wastebasket.

“You and your sweet tooth,” she said, taking the box from him. She opened it and dug around inside, grinning at him. When she put some in her mouth, though, she spit it into the sink. “That stuff is stale, Cole. Tastes like sugary cardboard.” She replaced the box in the trash.

He waited until she was in the bathroom to rip off the top of the box as a souvenir. Even then it was stupid. But somehow the cereal was a concrete reminder of Rory, who could sometimes be a little kid in a very smart man’s body.

There was a poem Rory had written him, late one night after the third time they’d made love. It was scrawled on a yellow Post-it. Bad rhymes and nearly short enough to be a haiku, it was still the only poem a man had ever written to Cole, about Cole. Even Tommy hadn’t, and he made his living as a writer. Cole got a lump in his throat as his fingertips danced over the six lines and the words “You’re all my heart.”

He missed his sister too, although not nearly as much as Rory. She’d passed away the year before, much too soon, a victim of breast cancer. He knew he should get out to Arlington Heights more often and see his nephew, Bobby, who was in high school now.

He returned his attention to the contents of the box. Here was the photo of Rory unpacking in their new apartment. He wasn’t looking at the camera, his glasses had slipped down his nose, and his reddish-brown mop was a mess, sticking up in several different directions. Cole recalled Rory didn’t even know when Cole snapped the picture. He was too absorbed in what he was unpacking—his computer game software, his most treasured possession. Back then Cole thought the photo would be funny, something to rib Rory about once he’d had it developed at Walgreens.

But now, with the sunlight hitting Rory’s head just so, the youthful exuberance on his face, even the bend of that lithe young body, the photo had become sacred to Cole, a reminder of their beginning a new life together.

How short that life had been! If he had known it would all be snatched away just a few weeks later, would he have behaved any differently? That was the thing about life, though; we were never given the courtesy of a warning when something bad was about to strike. We could only mumble bitter what-ifs, which tasted like ash in our mouths.

Cole set the photo back in the box, eyes welling with tears. Why do I do this to myself? Once upon a time, it seemed there was a point to it, but no more. He was a middle-aged married man mourning a too-brief love from when he was in his prime. Pathetic.

He didn’t look at the rest—a takeout menu, a note Rory had left on the nightstand shortly before he disappeared, letting Cole know he’d gone to the gym—he simply put the lid back on the shoebox and then sat for a moment, cross-legged on the floor, staring at it.

As he did every year, he thought I really should get rid of that box. Burn it, maybe. And just like every year, he shoved it to the back of the closet, hiding it behind and under shoes.

It was his history. No one could take that away.

“Hon?” Tommy called from the hallway. “What are you thinking for dinner?”