Category: diversity

East Bound and Down

Labor Day Monday, and time to readjust from “Greg Herren Author” back to my everyday life here in New Orleans. There’s really nothing like your own bed–but the bed I had at the Marriott Marquis in San Diego was probably the most comfortable bed I’ve had in a hotel to date. I had trouble sleeping the whole time I was there, but the bed was so comfortable that I always slept some and always managed to feel, if not completely rested, but at least recharged. But oh what a lovely time it was!

I flew home yesterday from San Diego, where I’ve been since Wednesday. My apologies for being lax in posting while I was away, and I hope you didn’t miss me too much, Constant Reader. But it was also nice being in a bubble for several days practically cut off from the outside world. I didn’t write a single email since Wednesday morning; I only deleted junk. I didn’t write anything, nor did I read anything once I’d checked into the hotel. But what a marvelous time it turned out to be. I love going to Bouchercon–it’s a marvelous escape from the everyday and being around writers (so many writers!) and readers (so many readers!) and it’s just so much fun. There are so many marvelous people in this business that I so rarely get to see in person, and I never have the opportunity to spend time with everyone that I would like to.

There’s also this weird thing about Bouchercons. You can go the entire time without seeing some of your friends who are there; and you never seem to bump into them. Last year in Minneapolis I hardly ever saw Christa Faust, and even then only in passing or from across a very crowded room. This year I bumped into her almost every time I turned around, and it was an absolute delight because I adore Christa. You also get to make new acquaintances and discover new writers, too. I love debut authors! It’s always amazing to find new authors and make new friends, see old friends–and yet there were so many people I only saw fleetingly in passing, or didn’t see at all. But it was incredibly lovely, really. I resisted temptation in the book room (some of the collectible booksellers had some old editions of the kids’ series–including the super-rare ones no one’s heard of–but I knew if I bought any books I’d have to pay to have them shipped home, and so that extra step was enough to trigger my laziness (and miserliness–I can be extravagant to a fault when I really shouldn’t be) to step in and say, no, you don’t need more copies for your collection even if you can replace some damaged ones with ones that look pretty new for a reasonable price. And I don’t regret not buying those books, either. (I will probably get the ones by new acquaintances, though.) I also had four tickets to get free books in the book room, so I picked up Death by Bubble Tea by Jennifer J. Chow; Her Last Affair by John Searles (who I interviewed for Lambda Book Report back when his first novel came out, and that leads to a great story I will save for another time); The Quarry Girls by Jess Lourey (whom I adore); and one other that I can’t remember, and I can’t seem to find it this morning. Oh, well. Mindy Carlson, who was on the panel I moderated, gave me a copy of her debut, Her Dying Day (which has the best ever opening!) when I ran into her in the lobby on my way to the airport. I can’t wait to read it!

I finished reading Kelly J. Ford’s marvelous The Hunt on the flight home to Dallas yesterday, and then moved on to Laura Lippman’s Prom Mom, both of which are superb. I am almost finished with the Lippman, and when I am finished with this I am going to my chair so I can finish it.

I am pretty much taking the day off from everything and resting. I had planned on going to the grocery store–I still might; it depends on how I feel later–but I am going to relax today. I did get home last night in time to watch LSU embarrass itself on national television last night, but it’s okay. It’s nice to have any expectations for the season gone after the first game, and now I can watch the national title race with idle curiosity while watching LSU get through it’s season with no expectations from them. I was very concerned that they were being over-hyped (everyone seemed to forget that after the big win over Alabama last year, we barely beat Arkansas and lost to Texas A&M before being embarrassed in the SEC title game by Georgia), but this is yet another example of when being right isn’t what you want and brings absolutely no satisfaction–Cassandra was hardly smug as Troy burned around her, after all. I am exhausted, despite the fantastic night’s sleep I got last night, so I think resting up is indeed the way to go for today. We have shows to catch up on, after all, and maybe I’ll even splurge on a movie.

It was a wonderful time. I love my friends in the crime fiction community, and I love that I am sort of known in it now more than I was? I had several people come up and ask about my books, or tell me how fun I am to watch on panels, but I am also beginning to think that I need to be maybe a bit more professional when talking about my own work on panels. Something to ponder as I move into the adulthood of my career (it turned twenty-one this year, after all, which is staggering). I am inspired, reinvigorated, and ready to prove myself worthy to be a part of the community again. I want to get back to my writing and dig into it and keep going and do really good work. Reading Kelly and Laura’s books are inspiring because they remind me to work harder, do better, dig deeper, and aspire for greatness more. I have broken down the barrier that was keeping me from reading novels, or at least was making me unable to focus, and now I hunger to read more. Once I finish Laura’s book I am moving on to S. A. Cosby’s new one, with Alison Gaylin’s marvelous new take on Robert Parker’s Sunny Randall series. (I will never stop marveling that I am friends with, or at least know, my writing heroes.)

And definite shout-outs to all the people who won Anthonys this year, and were nominated. It’s surreal to me to see how many nominees are friends; and it’s absolutely lovely to see that. Only a few winners weren’t friends–and how can you not be happy for friends to get recognition? I adore Catriona McPherson and S. J. Rozan; how delighted was I to lose to writers whose work I’ve admired for years and how thrilling to be in the same category with them? I don’t know Nancy Springer, the other to whom I lost, but I love Enola Holmes. And Kellye Garrett and Wanda Morris are not only incredible writers but wonderful women I am very proud to know. I love Barb Goffman, who has always been so kind and lovely to me ever since the first time I met her. I don’t know Martin Edwards, but from all accounts he is a very kind and lovely and generous person, and I share the TOC of School of Hard Knox with him. The Debut winner, Nita Prose, wasn’t there and I don’t know her, but I do have her book The Maid, and I hope to read it before the end of the year.

So no, I didn’t win any of the Anthonys I was nominated for. What a fucking honor for a gay man to be nominated for three (mainstream, MAINSTREAM not queer-specific) Anthony Awards in the same year for three different books, for anyone, really. I think the only other person to ever be up for three in the same year is S. A. Cosby (and what amazing company to be in, right?); others have been up for two in the same year before (as I was last year; this year Catriona McPherson was a double nominee). I have been nominated for seven Anthonys in total now, and so what if I have lost six times in a row? Awards are lovely, but I honestly don’t mind losing. I love to act like a bitter loser because, well, it’s funny to me. I did start realizing sometime during the pandemic that my “bitter loser” shtick might be insensitive–some people would kill to lose six times; some are never nominated once–and maybe the “bitter loser” shtick doesn’t play as well now as it used to? I don’t know, but it’s such a thrill for me to be nominated, and retrospectively, I’ve had a pretty amazing run: fifteen nominations from Lambda Literary nominations, seven-time Anthony nominee, and once each for the Lefty, the Agatha, the Macavity, and the Shirley Jackson. That’s pretty fucking amazing, and maybe I should finally recognize that maybe, just maybe, I’m pretty damned good at this writing thing? I do need to be better about the other aspects of the business–marketing and promotion and so forth–and since my brain doesn’t juggle as well as it used to, I need to start getting focused and figuring some things out. The rest of this year is going to be taken up mostly with dealing with medical issues (I get my new hearing aids tomorrow!) and I don’t know how much I am going to be able to do or what I can and can’t do; and everything is kind of up in the air now for the rest of the year.

That would have triggered my anxiety before, but I am at peace with it. My decision to override the anxiety and remain calm while traveling worked in both directions, and it was lovely to not get worked up or upset or irritated about anything. I managed to even get my bag from baggage claim, the shuttle to the parking lot, and then drive home without losing my cool–I didn’t even swear at a single driver–and I kind of want to keep that level of calm and cool going forward. I did experience some anxiety before I moderated the Humor and Homicide panel yesterday; I was brought in–not at the last minute, but far too late for me to get copies of the panelists’ books and read them to prepare–late but my word! What a group of amazing professionals I was blessed to moderate! You need to read their books; they are talented and funny and marvelous and I was totally blown away by them–and three of them were debut authors! There was J. D. O’Brien, whose debut novel Zig Zag, about a marijuana dispensary employee who plans to rob her employer, only for Westlake-like hijinks to ensue; the delightful Mindy Carlson, whose debut novel I already mentioned; the always wonderful Wendall Thomas, a seasoned pro whose latest, Cheap Trills, sounds incredible and I can’t wait to read; the witty and charming Jo Perry, who has a marvelous series from the point of view of a dead man and whose latest, Cure, sounds great; and Lina Chern, whose debut novel Play the Fool is about a tarot card reader trying to solve her best friend’s murder and sounds amazing. I had them read their book’s opening few sentences, and once I heard them, I knew it was going to be a breeze. It was wonderful! What a great break for me to get to moderate this panel and find even more great books to read. I could have talked to them about their books for hours. Afterwards, I realized I hadn’t even used half of the questions I had–always the sign of a great panel!

Speaking in public has always been difficult for me and always ramps up the anxiety (which I always thought was just stage fright). But now that I know what it is, I can sort of control it. I can’t control the adrenaline spike and what comes with it–the shaking hands, the talking too fast, the shakiness of my brain, the upset of my stomach–but I can control the mental part and not allow the anxiety to take over. It was very strange knowing I can’t control the physical response to the chemical imbalance but I can control the mental/emotional response, so instead of freaking the way I usually do before going on–I focused on making sure pre-panel that they were all comfortable, that I wanted them to talk themselves up with the goal of selling a book to everyone in the room, and basically, asked questions and got out of the way and let them shine like the stars they are–and did they ever! Especially when you remember I hadn’t sent them questions in advance to prepare; they each were speaking extemporaneously, which is impressive as hell. The nervous energy I handled by walking around briskly before the panel and talking to each of my panelists individually and staying hydrated. Yes, I drank water, limited myself to one cappuccino per day, drank iced tea for lunch instead of Coke, and tried very hard to remember to slow down and get over the FOMO I always feel. I did have some cocktails every night, but never enough to get more than a bit tipsy and paced myself more.

And now, I am going to head back to my chair and finish reading the new Lippman and maybe start reading the new Cosby. I have laundry to do, a dishwasher to empty, and basically, I am just going to relax as much as humanly possible today. I should probably make at least a minor grocery run; maybe not. But what a marvelous, marvelous time I had.

I am truly blessed.

I Can’t Help Myself

I write to you from a very lovely hotel room at the Marriott in foggy San Diego this morning. My room is quite nice; I have a lovely view of the marina and harbor and a balcony, and the room is actually quite large. I am already dehydrated, which means I need to drink water today rather than Coke–which is just as well; I always have trouble sleeping when I travel and the caffeine doesn’t help very much–and have already run into some people already; some of the Queer Crime Writers, and various other crime fiction friends and writers. I am still on central time, so I woke up at four my time like always–it was two here, so of course I was terribly confused, because I’d left the bathroom light on and in my sleepy confusion I thought it was the sun and thought how did I not close the curtains last night? But after a few moments, I remembered where I was and what time it actually was and the curtains were closed.

I posted yesterday that I was trying out a new thing called Stress-Free Traveling, or something like that. Now that I know that I have anxiety, and can recognize those feelings as what they are, I can handle and control them. My flight was at one thirty, so I scheduled an eye exam in Metairie on the way for 10:20, figuring I’d be that much closer to the airport and I could still get there in plenty of time to make it through security and so forth and have lunch. The focus was on remaining calm and not getting upset at anything that was out of my control. Airports and airplanes are huge triggers for me, primarily because I worked in one for so long and I get tired of being around inconsiderate and rude people; and every time I fly it seems people’s behavior gets worse. But I remained calm. I didn’t get annoyed or fidgety in the security line; I didn’t get worked up about boarding and the line and all of that stuff. I got my lunch at Shake Shack–it was quite tasty–and the flight to Dallas wasn’t even half full so I had a whole row to myself. The flight out of Dallas was delayed for an hour because of a mechanical issue and an equipment swap (the jargon still flows naturally out of me), but it was fine. It was lovely meeting Carsen Taite at the Dallas airport, and we managed to get an empty seat between us on the flight to San Diego. I did get a bit impatient–hot, sweaty, traveling all day–at the over-long wait to get checked in, but the young woman was lovely and gave me this lovely room. I went to the Cozies and Cocktails event, which was fun, and then I went to the bar and hung out with the Queer Crime Writers, which is always delightful, and also ran into other friends, equally delightful before calling it a night and coming up to my nice, properly cold room, and slept like I do at home–deep periods of sleep interrupted by wake-ups, some of which were disorienting (it was two not four a.m.; the light was on in the bathroom so I thought the sun was up which was odd at two because I couldn’t have slept around the clock, on and on and on). But I feel rested this morning, if a bit dehydrated and hungry–part of the anxiety-free travel plan is to be good to myself and remember to eat and hydrate and give up on FOMO, which always keeps me up until late and then I can’t sleep and it just builds from there.

But these entries–if I manage to make any–will be short, most likely. I am heading downstairs to start conferencing. Talk to you soon!

(Oh! I was able to read about 150 pages of Kelly J. Ford’s The Hunt and it is marvelous.)

I’ll Be Leavin’ Alone

…on a flight to Dallas this afternoon. However, in delightful news, I am sharing the Dallas-San Diego legs of the trip in both directions with none other than the Lady H, aka Lady Hermione, aka Carsen Taite. That is always fun. I don’t have enough time changing planes in Dallas on the way out to get Whataburger on the way (I’ll get Shake Shack at New Orleans airport before I leave) but here’s hoping I can get it on the way home, because I know I will be starving by the time I get to Dallas. (I just checked; I have two hours in Dallas on the way back so Whataburger fer shur! The departure flight is at eleven something California time, so I probably won’t eat anything before boarding….unless there’s donuts or something at the San Diego airport, which I am sure there is.) It’s truly sad how excited I can get about food options that I don’t normally have access to, isn’t it?

But I am all packed and ready to head to Metairie for my eye appointment on the way to the airport. It would probably be more accurate to say I overpacked–I really don’t know why every time I go to something like this I have to take so much with me, including books–what if I run out of something to read!?!?!? Um, bitch, you’re going to a convention for mystery readers. There will be free books in my conference book bag. Books will be given away at various times over the weekend. There’s a book room and several book sellers.

But yes, by all means, Greg, weight yourself down bringing coal to Newcastle.

My supervisor and I were looking around yesterday for pictures of our old office on Frenchmen Street for a presentation she is doing at the US Conference on AIDS (she’ll leave the day I return to work), and we couldn’t find any, anywhere. I knew I probably had some in my archive of photographs on the back-up hard drive (which is horribly horribly disorganized), and so I went digging around in those files after I finished packing last night. Oh, the memories–and oh, the fucking receipts! Apparently–not really a surprise to anyone who knows me–I’ve been keeping receipts for decades. Old assholish behavior from people who should know better that I’d completely forgotten about–both the person and the behavior. Also, some people have been assholes for a very long time. Stick with what you’re good at, I guess? But yes, at some point I am going to have to organize those picture files–and there are tons of duplicates.

So.

Many.

Duplicates.

Nevertheless it was a fun way to pass an hour or so while the laundry laundered and the dishes washed in their respective machines. There are so many things I need to be better about–the picture files, for example, could be incredibly useful for inspirations and/or putting me into the mood to write a particular kind of story. I found the photo file of the pictures I used to help me visualize and write Timothy; I did do this for Mississippi River Mischief, but never took the time to look at the photos before diving into writing or trying to get the work done. It probably would have helped some, and therefore I need to remember the value of visual aids for my writing going forward. I am taking stuff with me to edit over coffee, or to muse over and/or think about; I always take my journal with me when I go to panels because people say things I want to remember later, or make me think about something I am working on, sometimes solving a puzzle I’d be trying to untangle. I love being around other writers, I really do. It’s always fun, and I get to hang around smart people and listen to them tell funny stories and laugh and be amazed that I get to know all these amazingly brilliant and smart and witty people and get to call them friends? The teenaged kid in Kansas whose house had a corn field across the street and dreamed big dreams in that bedroom with the ugly beige walls and brown shag carpeting would have slept well and gotten through life a little easier had he known his life would turn out even better than he’d ever dared to dream. I complain a lot. I whine a lot. I get irritated easily and my temper frays and flares a little more lately than I’d prefer, frankly. It’s also so, so easy to go down the dark path to depression and who cares and why bother and all that morose self-pitying nonsense that doesn’t make anything any better but certainly can make everything seem worse. But I do know how incredibly lucky and blessed I am. People also seem to think I’ve led an interesting life. I don’t think so, but it’s also all I know so it just seems normal to me. I get to write books and stories and get them published. People read them, seem to like them, and want me to write more of them. I even get nominated for awards here and there and now and again…quite a lot of times, actually.

And while it may not seem like it most of the time when I’m complaining, I’m pretty happy with my life and how it’s all turned out. I’ve also realized that I’m incredibly lucky and blessed with my writing career. I’ve been nominated for the Anthony Award seven times now–twice for Best Anthology, once for Best Short Story, once for Best Paperback/Ebook Original, twice for Best Children’s/Young Adult, and once for Best Humorous. That’s really not a bad haul, you know. I’ve also been nominated for a Lefty and an Agatha and a Shirley Jackson and a Macavity–not bad for a big old queer writer of queer books, you know? It’s also lovely seeing these mainstream awards starting to slowly recognize queer writers and our books. I also found, you see, a lot of pictures of conferences and signings and readings and book events and conferences from throughout the length of my varied and odd career. It’s been a lovely ride so far, and I really wish I would allow myself the luxury of enjoying myself and enjoying my career.

My goal for this weekend is to have as much fun as possible, hug as many people as I can, and relax and enjoy the ride as a three-time Anthony nominee. That’s pretty amazing, and something that queer teenager back in Kansas couldn’t have dared to dream.

And on that note, I am going to head into the spice mines. I need to do one more load of dishes before i depart and the kitchen will be thus clean. Have a lovely day, Constant Reader, and as always I will probably be updating social media with today’s travel shenanigans. Don’t know if or when I will be back here, but will do my best.

Saying Hello, Saying I Love You, Saying Goodbye

Tuesday and tomorrow I depart for San Diego. I am trying very hard not to get anxious about everything, but I am starting to feel it a bit. I have to decide what to pack, and I need to see what the weather is going to be like. I discovered a conflict in my schedule that I have to resolve in a way I don’t want, and there’s groceries to make and mail and prescriptions to pick up and laundry and dishes to finish and yes, I am going to be hopping all day today getting ready and/or thinking about the trip and making plans. I also have a lot of work to do in the office before I leave, because the month changes while I am gone so the things I always do over the month change have to be done–or at least I can get it as ready as I can. I think I answered all the emails I needed to get answered, and I think I can breathe a bit of a sigh of relief.

I ran errands last night on the way home circling a thunderstorm, and then once I was finished I drove directly into its beating heart as it gave us a little respite from the horrific, seemingly endless heat. The big cold drops of rain started splatting down from above like liquid shrapnel. I managed to get inside the house before it really started coming down, and there was thunder and lightning, too. A marvelous New Orleans summer tropical storm, like we haven’t had hardly any of this entire blighted summer of hellish heat. The kind where so much water comes down the streets fill, swirling around catch basins and rising closer to the bottoms of cars, while the potholes and low=lying cracks and buckles in roads and sidewalks immediately fill with clear water. The temperature drops precipitously, given tired air conditioning systems the opportunity to catch up and finally take a well-deserved break after weeks of going at full blast–and sometimes not being able to keep up. The kind where condensation finally appears on your windows for the first time this summer, or so it seems. And even though you know all that water means it’ll be muggy as a rain forest again tomorrow as it evaporates into the heated air once more, you can at least breathe for a moment and enjoy the blessed break from what has become an unfortunate norm this summer.

But in checking my email, I see that today’s severe weather alert is merely coastal flooding, and there’s no extreme heat warning for the day, which is actually kind of nice. Today will be a break, and tomorrow I leave for the coast. My car will be roasting, of course, in the long-term off-airport parking lot, but there are worse things. I’m really looking forward to the trip, pushing down all of my anxiety triggers around traveling, and I will get home Sunday night, have Monday off, and then return to the office on Tuesday. I’m hoping there won’t be an adjustment to time zones involved on this trip, but I am sure it will be. If I wake up at my usual time, it will be four in the morning on the coast. But the day of traveling home will wear me out, plus I’ll be exhausted from being “on” panels and socializing. I just have to get over my intense FOMO and repair to my room to rest and relax periodically; I don’t need to be non-stop on the go, etc. and need to remember I’m an introvert who primarily is used to dealing with people quietly, one on one, and not in group environments. There will be lots of overstimulation.

But I can’t wait to see my queer crime writer friends again! Woo-hoo! They are always a good time.

I was tired when I got home last night from errands and so forth, and the thunderstorm and the damp chill in the air didn’t help matters very much. Paul stayed upstairs watching the US Open–so I have no need to fear Paul’s boredom while I am gone, as he’ll have the tennis to watch. We’re also hoping to get a cat at last once I get back, although my oral surgery is scheduled for that Friday; depending on how I feel, we could possibly get one on Saturday if I don’t still need painkillers and thus have a clear enough mind to drive, which would be super-great. All of my fall plans are currently on hold until I find out when my arm surgery is going to be. I hate that, because I feel like I am wasting time, which brings the anxiety out again. It’s so much fun being me, Constant Reader, you have literally no idea. But therein lies the rub; life really always is a endless string of “hurry up and wait” or “can’t make any plans until I find this out.” The joys of being older.

I think for now at least there’s nothing potentially going to develop that will threaten Louisiana tropically while I am gone–traveling during hurricane season means one more thing to check off the list. I am sorry and worried about those in the path of this Idalia monster that has Florida strictly in its sights. (If I were an evangelical piece of shit, I’d say something like “God is clearly not pleased with deSantis”–but I happily leave that kind of blame-shame to the “christian” cos-players. Funny how it’s usually red states at risk but they don’t see that as God’s punishment, but let something happen to a blue state–or New Orleans–and they start thumping their Bibles again instead of reading them. I’m so glad I’m not an evangelical piece of shit cosplay christian.)

I was hoping to get some writing done last night, but I wound up not doing a whole hell of a lot of anything. I watched some history videos on Youtube, started to watch the latest episode of Foundation–which, truth be told, is extremely well done but difficult to follow because it doesn’t always hold my interest, but I am definitely here for hot Lee Pace–but gave up as the opening credits rolled and went back to Youtube. I did end up watching something but couldn’t tell you what it was to save my life this morning, so clearly it made no impact on me. I did greatly enjoy the recent episode of My Adventures with Superman, which is quickly becoming one of my all-time favorite depictions of Superman and his cast of characters, but I think tonight–after cleaning the downstairs, packing, and cleaning out the refrigerator–I am going to read some more of Kelly Ford’s marvelous The Hunt, which I am enjoying; I do not want anyone to get the idea that I am not enjoying the book–it’s just that the heat and my mind being sort of fried has made it really hard for me to focus on reading something longform. I also finished reading the proofs for Mississippi River Mischief, which I’ll be bring with me to try to get some progress made on the proofing; if I manage to do that and nothing else while in San Diego I will be very pleased.

And on that note I think I will head into the spice mines for the day. Have a lovely Tuesday, Constant Reader, and tomorrow I will be writing to you before I leave for the coast. Huzzah!

Why Am I Like This?

So, Heartstopper, season two.

First, some preliminary discussion. Since the enormously popular first season dropped last year and turned the cast literally into worldwide stars, the almost constant speculation (and hounding he received) about the sexuality of adorable young Kit Connor, who plays Nick Nelson, forced him to come out publicly as bisexual earlier this year (He came out on Twitter, deleted his account, and hasn’t come back). Shortly after the second season dropped, Joe Locke, who plays Charlie Spring, the other lead and Nick’s love interest, voluntarily came out publicly; he’d been out to family and friends since he was twelve, but finally decided to go public with it. If we take away the sheer adorability factor of a young bisexual man playing a young bisexual male discovering his own sexuality, while playing against an openly gay man playing an openly gay male teenager discovering his own self-worth and value, this kind of visibility–as well as the visibility of the show, and its enormous popularity–is sorely needed and is probably changing lives as I type this. I didn’t know what to expect when I went into season one, and I have to admit the show turned me into an adoring, gushing teenaged girl….so obsessed that I also went ahead and bought the original ebooks of the story and read them all in one afternoon. So, as we go into my thoughts on Season Two and some thoughts about the show’s importance–as well as some of it’s failures (much as I love the show and the characters, I can also see why people would criticize it; I love the show but nothing is above critique.)–bear in mind there are spoilers for both the season and the books contained within.

And while I know Locke is over eighteen, posting sexy-style photos of him just feels kind of wrong. He looks like such a child…but then the entire cast does, which is why the sweetness of the show hits so strong…which brings up another point about queer young adult fiction–or any medium about queer teenagers for that matter: having queer characters in juvenile and young adult fiction is already seen as dangerous by the homophobes (“grooming! grooming!”), so how do you show queer teens wrestling with their sexuality and their identity without triggering the hypocritical pearl-clutching homophobes who want us all gone? Heartstopper danced around this by focusing on identity rather than sexuality; when season one opens everyone already knows Charlie is gay because he was outed the previous year and bullied mercilessly. The bullying has died down–which isn’t often the truth in reality, but will allow it for the sake of the show–and now Charlie, in season one, develops a crush on the school rugby star, Nick Nelson–who sits next to him in form (the UK version of homeroom), and Nick is actually a super sweet, nice guy. They begin to develop a very sweet friendship–Charlie of course develops a bit of a crush, which he knows is hopeless and his very protective friends think is a bad idea…but what nobody knows is that Nick is finding himself attracted to Charlie and drawn to him, which is confusing for him. This first season was all about Nick coming to terms with his attraction and feelings for Charlie–a constant refrain from both of them is “Why am I like this?” And the entire show was incredibly sweet and lovely and very teenaged; the cast were age appropriate as well; sexuality it a topic of discussion but it’s never seen. The boys are incredibly chaste for teenaged boys. There was also a delightful lesbian couple, a wonderful trans girl named Elle, and of course Tao, Charlie’s super-protective friend. (My personal favorite character of the entire cast is Charlie’s Goth sister Tori. I fucking love her.) The season ends with Nick and Charlie becoming “boyfriends” and Nick settling into his own bisexuality, coming out to his mother (the divine Olivia Colman) in the end.

I ain’t gonna lie, I loved season one to the extent that I watched it twice and then bought the books and read them all over the course of a day–graphic novels don’t take as long to read as novels–and loved them, and the characters, all the more.

If the first season serves to introduce us to the primary couple and cast of the show, and is very sweet (other than the homophobic rugby players and Charlie’s wretched ex, Ben), the darker issues that were merely hinted at–you had to pay attention to catch them–come more to the forefront in season two; just as the graphic novels got a bit more serious as they went on. I’m not seeing the same outpouring of love for the second season that the first got, but I may not be paying enough attention and let’s face it, both Facebook and Twitter have circled the drain since the first season aired. So I don’t know if the more serious tone of the second season played well with the audience or not; it’s not all cotton candy sweetness in the second season as we get to know the characters and their personal lives a bit more. Darcy, one of the lesbians, has a homophobic borderline abusive mother; the bullying Charlie dealt with that followed his accidental outing caused some mental health damage that hasn’t been dealt with or handled until Nick begins to notice and suspect something is wrong with the boy he loves; Tao and Elle deal with their feelings of attraction to each other (and he finally cuts off that wretched curly bang thing he had going); and Nick also has to deal with a homophobic older brother and an absent father–and discovers that coming out is actually a never-ending process. The charm and queer joy is still there, of course, but as everyone who has ever had to come out has learned, the joy and relief is all too frequently followed by having to deal with all the problems your concern about coming out pushed to the back of your mind. Coming out is just the start; your world has changed irrevocably and now you have to relearn how to navigate that world as your actual self, and that is hard.

And for me, one of the more interesting aspects of how Alice Oseman chose to tell the story is that we originally see everything from Charlie’s point of view, with some of Nick’s; the point of view shifts to be more from Nick’s point of view than Charlie’s as it moves on. Heartstopper is really Nick’s story, from his first bisexual stirrings to falling in love to coming out to learning more about himself and resolving issues he is facing while being strong and supportive for Charlie.

Spoiler alert for fans of the show who haven’t read the books: the stories will continue getting darker, but that hopeful optimism that underlies both the show and the novels is always there.

And if nothing else, the show’s depiction of queer joy is worth a watch.

You Never Miss a Good Thing (Till He Says Goodbye)

Saturday morning and I slept in. I stayed in bed until eight thirty (perish the thought! What a lazy lagabed!) with the end result that I will not, in fact, be driving over to the West Bank this morning to get my oil changed and fluids checked. It’s not due, but (anxiety) the heat has been so intense, I want to make sure the engine is being looked after properly and of course, the fluids. Now it will have to wait until I get back as the dealership isn’t open on Sundays and I leave Wednesday for San Diego Bouchercon. I am starting to get some anxiety about the trip, but I am trying to ride herd on that. Whereas before it was gnaw away at me and build, now I just dismiss those thoughts as “anxiety” and move on from it. I doubt this methodology will be a long term solution–I probably should see a therapist again–but I already take an anti-anxiety medication to control my mood swings; do I need something else on top of that? Probably not. I am leery of medications to begin with–the opioid disaster always is there in the back of my head, plus the fear of addiction.

But since I didn’t get up, I will be staying in for the rest of the day and working on the apartment and writing and so forth. Tomorrow I am going to get fitted for hearing aids, so anything I might need to get by going out into the world today (I was thinking about doing a minor grocery run to get a few things) I can get tomorrow at the Rouse’s on Carrollton. I am kind of excited about being able to hear properly; I don’t think I’ve ever been able to my entire life, although I always passed hearing tests. My problem is low voices and ambient noise. I can’t hear anything in a crowded bar or restaurant. And I have my appointment about my arm in a few weeks, and of course, I am getting my teeth taken care of once I get home from San Diego. I will be a completely different person by the end of the year than I was when I started the year, won’t I? Maybe not The Six Million Dollar Man, but the surgery isn’t going to be very cheap.

We finished watching Swamp Kings last night, and I was right–it was really a puff piece, focused on making Urban Meyer as good as possible and not focusing on any of the criminal charges or how the University covered it all up because at that time, Florida football was the face of college football and everyone was watching and they were making the University a shit-ton of money. (Not to single out the Gators–although this documentary was about them, so it does raise these questions organically–these kinds of abuses and corruption happen all too often at far too many programs. LSU has had its own history of cover-ups and looking the other way to protect star players in the past, for example, and I’ve always been disappointed at how those situations were handled by my own favorite team. Hiring Joe Alleva as Athletic Director at LSU was a huge mistake, as he repeatedly showed Tiger Nation, over and over again. His replacement has done a fantastic job rebuilding LSU athletics from the ashes left by Alleva’s miserable tenure.) But I love college football, and I remember that time period particularly well. I have always stuck to the SEC mantra of “hate them in the conference, root for them in the post season” (which everyone does except Alabama fans for the most part–which I just now realized is probably a leftover remnant from the Civil War “us against them” mentality and my stomach turned a bit; but that’s also a good focus for the essay I want to write about LSU and football in the south in general, “Saturday Night In Death Valley.”) I am very excited and happy college football season is nigh. Woo-hoo!

I spent some time with Kelly J. Ford’s The Hunt, which is actually quite marvelous. I haven’t had the bandwidth lately to read novels–mostly sticking to my Alfred Hitchcock Presents project–but I was enjoying her book when I started reading it a few weeks ago and had been wanting to get back to it. But anxiety and stress and the fucking heat have sapped so much out of me every day that it was hard to focus on reading a novel. Kelly is a marvelous writer, which is terrific–there’s really nothing like a queer writer with a working class background writing about the South they grew up in, is there? Kelly is kind of a lesbian cross between Tom Franklin, Carson McCullers, and Dorothy Allison, with some Faulkner and Ace Atkins thrown in for good measure. Her debut novel Cottonmouths was a revelation (I can’t tell you how thrilling it is for this old man to see so much amazing crime writing coming from new queer writers), and her second, Real Bad Things, is nominated for an Anthony Award next week–so she joins the few queer crime writers of queer crime novels who’ve been nominated for an Anthony Award! We’re a small but growing club, which is also very exciting. GO QUEERS!

So, yes, a lovely day of preparation for going away next weekend. Today I should go ahead and make my packing list–I could even go ahead and pack the rolling briefcase, couldn’t I?–and clean and do things around the house and read and maybe even do some writing. It feels cool today in the house–but of course it’s still morning–and just checked my emails and yes–there it is; today’s heat advisory with temperatures feeling like up to 114 until eight pm tonight. It’s really going to feel like winter to me in San Diego, isn’t it?

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Saturday, Constant Reader, and I will check in with you again later or tomorrow.

Alabama Pines

I sometimes wonder how dramatically different my life would be had my parents not migrated to Chicago when I was a child to provide us with a better life than we could expect in Alabama. I’ve always been somewhat grateful to them for this, because I can’t imagine or fathom what growing up in the rural South would have been like for teenaged gay Greg; Kansas was bad enough. But my heart will always have a place in it for the state I was born and where my parents grew up (and will both eventually be buried), and whenever I mine Alabama for fiction, it always comes up roses.

I was enormously pleased and flattered to be asked to participate in the Crippen and Landru anthology School of Hard Knox, and the last thing I was expecting was to get a co-editing credit. Art, Donna, and publisher Jeffrey Marks (a fine writer in his own right; check out his novels and short stories) did the majority of the heavy lifting; my contributions were more along the lines of sending an email cheering the others on or giving a thumbs up/thumbs down to a design question.

If you’d like, you can preorder a copy right here.

The premise of the anthology was that Father Ronald Knox, a scholarly clergymen, had come up with the ten commandments for writing crime fiction during the Golden Age, and each of us could chose a commandment and write a story breaking it. Obviously, it was pretty clear to me that Rule 2 was perfect for me:

All supernatural or preternatural agencies are ruled out as a matter of course.

And I knew precisely which story in the archive I could revise and rework to break this commandment and fit perfectly into the book, “The Ditch.”

I also cannot believe who I am sharing the table of contents with. Check out this talent!

Now THAT’S a table of contents! Not sure what I am doing there with these amazing writers, but I am most pleased to be there.

And this is how my story, “The Ditch,” opens:

I‘d just finished reading my book–The Hardy Boys, The Secret of the Lost Tunnel— and was reaching to turn off my bedside lamp when my phone chirped on my nightstand to let me know I’d gotten a new text message. I frowned. It was just past ten on a weeknight. Sure, it was summer, but Mom and Dad were strict about phone usage after eight o’clock. My orange-and–-blue Auburn Tigers clock, hanging just over my desk, read a few minutes past ten [on a weeknight]. I picked up the phone and looked at the screen. My wallpaper was a photo of me standing on a white sand beach on the Florida gulf coast.

I need your help. Come over! Please! Emergency!!!

It was from my best friend, Zane Tidwell.

I closed my eyes and exhaled.  Classic Zane, always sending desperate–sounding text messages expecting me to drop everything and rush right over. Everything was an emergency to Zane, from not getting his homework done to failing a test to not having any clean underwear to having a nightmare of some kind—all of these things qualified as emergencies in Zane’s brain. He worked himself up into quite a state over the stupidest things.

“The boy who cried wolf” was all Mom would say.

The problem being, sometimes it was an emergency, like that time he broke his arm when he was home alone, or when his mother fell and hit her head, or when his dog ate rat poison.

He always counted on me keeping my head on straight and not panicking and solving the problem for him. We’d been best friends ever since we were little boys in Bible study, and things had always been this way.

I was the calm one and Zane–well, Zane was a drama queen.

He knew I wasn’t even supposed to use my phone after eight, let alone leave the house after ten.

I typed out you know I can’t it’s too late to leave the house and if I get caught they’ll take my phone and ground me forever with my thumbs.

Please you have to come I don’t know what to do I am really in big trouble now PLEASE!!!!

I stared at the screen. In big trouble? What did that mean? But if the needle on the Zane drama-meter was going up, he wasn’t above calling me on the landline.

And that would send Mom and Dad over the edge.

I sighed. I was going to have to go over there.

“You’re more trouble than you’re worth, Zane Tidwell,” I whispered, typing out Be there soon and hitting send.

“The Ditch” is an Alabama story, of course, and has a teenaged protagonist (I’m not sure why I always write about Alabama from a young person’s perspective; probably because most of my memories are from childhood, I suppose) whose name we never really know. The ditch is actually a real place; my main character’s house is based on where my aunt and uncle lived–which is where we would visit–and about twenty or so yards behind the house was this ditch–or rather, what they called ‘the ditch.’ (I’d share a photo from Google Earth, but all it looks like from the air is a line of trees.) We used to spend a lot of time playing down there, and of course to me as a child it seemed enormous, but it’s probably a lot smaller in reality than I remember (everything seemed enormous to me when I was a child). I never knew what created the ditch, or why it was there, but it’s very similar to what I describe in the story, if smaller. There was all kinds of garbage down there–broken bottles, rusting cans, and so forth, so we were never supposed to go down there barefoot. I also remember that when we were in the ditch we weren’t visible to anyone not standing on the edge–which was a bonus for us as kids. The rope swing was also there (and now I think how fucking insane was it that adults let kids play like that? You could break your neck falling off that thing!) and I’ve also included the ditch in another, unfinished longer piece. There was something creepy yet idyllic about the place, and of course whenever I think about it as an adult it’s always what a perfect place to hide a body! What a perfect place for a ghost! and so on.

I wrote “The Ditch” originally for another anthology’s open call, but I knew when I finished it and turned it in it wasn’t going to get selected. (I was right.) I also knew it needed to be revised and the ending changed as well as some other things (minor but important) but had never gotten around to getting the revision done. So when this opportunity presented itself, I was going to use a different story but had some trouble with its ending and then was despairing when it hit me: you know how to fix “The Ditch” you just haven’t done it yet, so stop spinning your wheels with this one and do that instead, so I dug back into it and really had a great time with the revision. I’m very pleased with how it turned out, and I hope you will be, too!

(Ironically, this week the ending to the other story popped into my head, so I will be working on that this week, too.)

I Can’t Believe She Gives It All To Me

And just like that Wednesday has rolled around again, and today is the day I meet with the orthopedic surgeon to determine just what needs to be done to repair my torn left biceps muscle. I am a little nervous, to be honest, and more than a little trepidatious about it. I’ve not had any kind of surgery since having my tonsils out as a child and a potentially cancerous lesion removed in 2007, so I’ve kind of been lucky on that score (I don’t consider tooth extraction–even the wisdom teeth–as surgery; just how my mind works so don’t @ me, okay?). Dr. Google has told me that I’ll need physical therapy, a soft cast, and a sling (not the fun kind) for a while, maybe as much as six months to a year, which is definitely not pleasant or anything I want to happen to me at any time, but if needs be, it needs be, I guess.

At least after today I won’t have to wonder any more.

But my rebooting the week seemed to have done the trick. Yesterday was a good day; I slept really well and was in a very good mood when I came to work. A friend texted me to remind me that it was also my first birthday since Mom died, and so subconsciously I was probably grieving, which was why the energy felt so off Monday (the news of Tiger’s passing didn’t help much in that regard) and it really should have hit me when I got Dad’s note in the mail. It’s funny, I keep trying to tell Dad that it’ll gradually get easier but it really never does, does it? Hell, just typing since Mom died makes my eyes fill. I need to remember to keep being kinder to myself, and not so hard always on myself. After work I ran errands again–much as I hate driving all the way uptown every day, at least when I do there’s a place to park when I get home, and Paul’s expecting something, and I needed to make a little groceries on the way, too–and followed my Monday strategy of showering after emptying the dishwasher and putting my groceries away. I did finish the new draft of “Whim of the Wind” last night–and I have a place to try getting it published now–so I am going to let that sit for a couple of days before digging back into it. I’m glad that I let go of the sentimental attachment to the story since I wrote it back in college; it makes so much more sense to revise it into something different but keeping the same feel and vibe. I don’t think I stuck the landing on the second draft, but I have something to work with now, and that’s terribly important.

I tried working on another story after I finished that revision but alas the fountain had run dry by then. I did pull up both stories I want to get to work on, and maybe after my appointment this afternoon–and errands after that–I’ll be able to sit here and finish both stories tonight. I slept great last night–even better than i had the night before–and actually didn’t wake up until four (then five, then the alarm) which was probably the longest stretch of “straight through” sleep I’ve had in I don’t know how long. It was again miserably hot yesterday, but these last few days haven’t felt quite as hellish as the ones before. Paul was late getting home last night (board meeting) and after I finished writing for the evening, was kind of lost. I did do a load of laundry and another load of dishes, even going so far as to clean and straighten up the kitchen (I also showered when I got home; the twice daily showers seem to be doing the trick–getting things done and sleeping well) before repairing to my easy chair to watch some Youtube. Yesterday evening I revisited some scenes from old soaps, mostly General Hospital and All My Children–I still haven’t accepted that it’s no longer on the air–and I was also thinking about all the actors from soaps we lost to HIV/AIDS back in the day; and how many really gorgeous young men had appeared on the soaps when I used to watch and then just disappeared…which, of course, makes me wonder. (I love that the actor who played Derek Mallory, the police chief on Edge of Night back in the late 70s and early 80s, started in gay porn movies.) Someone really should write about that; and how actors had to remain closeted to have careers until the modern day era where there are only four soaps left, but they often have gay characters and storylines now. (was it Christian McLaughlin who wrote Glamourpuss, about a closeted gay soap star who gets outed, so the show makes his character gay and turns him into the villain?), I remember when Donna Pescow played the lesbian nurse on All My Children back in the day–she wasn’t around long, of course, the occasional queer character rarely lasted for long–but i would love to read a book about the history of queer actors and queer storylines on the daytime soaps–I remember the gay teen storyline on One Life to Live back in the day (Ryan Philippe’s first big break as an actor was playing that gay kid) and remember thinking wow what a difference this storyline would have made to teenaged me back in the day.

Representation matters, people. It really does. And if you’ve never not seen yourself reflected back to you in popular culture, you literally have no idea what it feels like or how moving it is when you finally do.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely day, Constant Reader, and I’ll check in with you again later.

Play Guitar Play

Sunday morning in the Lost Apartment, and all is well.

Yesterday started well, but I got very tired in the afternoon after running errands. By the time I had the groceries put away and emptied the dishwasher, I was tired. I repaired to my chair for a bit with a protein shake (I read another Alfred Hitchcock Presents story, “Edward the Conquerer,” which was really a lovely story that turned horrifically dark at the end; I think its author, Roald Dahl, has been found to be problematic in the modern era, and after reading this story, all I can say is good.) and then tried to do some other chores and things around the house while letting ideas cook in my head. I hate this exhaustion that comes and goes ever since COVID last summer; while I am grateful it doesn’t happen all the time, I hate when it does because it’s very derailing. My mind can’t really focus while I am feeling that exhausted, too. I think the heat triggered it yesterday–and more regularly lately, too; I usually am fine when I get off work but just being out and about in the heat? It’s no wonder I’m exhausted when I get home.

Of course I am concerned about all my Southern California friends, who are in the path of a massive Pacific hurricane, which is just insane. I am hoping the colder Pacific water will have a deleterious effect on the size and power of it. And even if it does come ashore as merely a tropical storm…southern California isn’t built to handle a storm like that. There’s going to be so much flooding, and mud slides, and damage to highways and roads and low-lying areas. And what happens when winds that strong come through the desert? Does it pick up sand? Yikes indeed. And instead of laughing at Californians who’ve never experienced tropical weather before and don’t know how to handle it or what to do the way the rest of the country laughs at the South when we have a blizzard, I will send them positive energy and hope everything turns out well for them and they remain safe and unharmed. At least it’s down to a category one now before it hits this afternoon. STAY SAFE CALIFORNIA FRIENDS, PLEASE.

And yes, today is my birthday. Sixty-two, to be exact, which is in and itself a kind of miracle. I slept okay for the most part, and woke up shortly after seven, as per usual. I’ll probably try to get some stuff done this morning–writing wise, writing waits for no man–but will probably take the rest of the day off to read and chill out and relax, overall. I certainly never thought I would make it this long and this far, to be honest. It isn’t bad. I don’t have the energy I once had, I tire out a lot easier than I used to, and my memory is a thing of the past, but it could easily be much worse. I get aches and sores and pains more so than I used to, but that’s part of the price you pay for living longer. We’re in another heat advisory, and I think Mercury is about to go retrograde again (yay). Paul went out with some friends last evening and wasn’t home by the time i went to bed, and I watched Youtube videos while aimlessly trying to find something to watch. I also rewatched an old black-and-white suspense movie on Youtube that I watched and enjoyed as a kid, The Spiral Staircase with Dorothy McGuire, George Brent, and Ethel Barrymore. It was based on the novel Some Must Watch by Ethel Lina White, which I’ve not read but have on my Kindle app, but it wasn’t as good as I remembered…it was actually not very good at all. (Sidebar: I am amazed at how many old movies were based on books…which often turn out to be better than the movies based on them–which is nothing new.)

I read some more stories last night as well: “By the Scruff of the Soul” by Dorothy Salisbury Davis, which was in Stories That Go Bump in the Night and “The Cocoon” by John B. L. Goodman, from Stories for Late at Night. I did enjoy both stories–the Davis in particular–and of course, reading the three stories I read yesterday gave me the answer on how to finish another story of mine that is incomplete and I didn’t know how to finish. I’m actually finding the answers to a lot of my short story problems by reading these marvelous old Alfred Hitchcock Presents anthologies. It’s never too late to learn, after all, and I am itching to get to work on these stories again. I also need to get back to work on the WIP. Sigh. Why is there always so much writing that needs doing? I need to be writing. I did finish my blog about writing Mississippi River Mischief; I do need to finish writing the blog post about the other release I have coming out this fall that I’ve not told you about yet. I also need to do some cooking this morning–I want to try to make meatballs again, so I can take them for lunch this week–and some cleaning and organizing, too. I was terribly lazy yesterday, worn down a bit, as I mentioned already–I did literally nothing for most of the day after completing my errands–but that’s fine; obviously I needed the rest. I also need to unload the dishwasher and make salad (not a euphemism). I think I may even go so far as to treat myself to a cappuccino this morning; I’ve not used those accoutremént in quite some time, and that energy boost would be rather welcomed this morning. I always worry about my sleep, though, and since tomorrow is the start of another work week…heavy heaving sigh. Maybe I can set it up tonight so I can just turn it on tomorrow?

Ah, well, and so it goes.

And on that note, I am going to bring this to a close and head into the spice mines for a while. Have a great Sunday, y’all, and I’ll check in with you later.

Old Man River

And somehow, almost twenty-one years have passed since Scotty Bradley burst forth into the world with Bourbon Street Blues, one of what I hoped was the most unconventional and original amateur sleuths in the history of crime fiction. This is neither the time nor the place to again tell the story of how I created him, or how what was supposed to be a one-off stand alone book became a series spread out over twenty years (!!!); I’ve told those stories endlessly over the last twenty years both here and on panels. But Scotty remains very precious to me all these years later, and I still care about getting him and his life right on the page. I don’t torture him or make his life as miserable as I do Chanse’s (poor, poor Chanse), but he has his own problems and issues that he has to face–but his endless optimism and willingness to face things head on and deal with them, rolling with the punches and always getting back up, has never once wavered in all the years I’ve been writing him. I love him, his family–even the stuffy Bradley side; I love that the unconventional family their son married into pushes every single one of their buttons–and I love his New Orleans.

The other night I was scrolling through Youtube and, just for the hell of it, searched for a song that I’ve been trying to find a digital copy of for my Spotify or Apple Music accounts; Erin Hamilton (Carol Burnett’s daughter) remade Cheap Trick’s “The Flame” as a dance song (she also did the same with that old 1970s classic, “Dream Weaver” and I prefer her versions to the originals), and I love the extended remix. I found the video on Youtube and as I listened to it, it brought back a lot of memories of going out to the gay bars, hitting the dance floor and staying out there all night, getting caught up in the music and just having a great time. I think this song predated the turn of the century, so it’s a late 90’s recording…anyway, it really made me think, put me back into a Scotty place in my mind, and as I listened, sang along, and bopped my head, the next Scotty book started forming in my head….and I realized that’s been part of the disconnection I felt writing the last few Scotty books; sure, I could and can still write him, and sure, I could get back into his head space, but it was much harder for me to do than it used to be. I thought it might be because I don’t go to the Quarter at all anymore, or that I don’t spend any time in gay bars anymore; that I don’t know what it’s like to be a gay man in his forties (almost fifties) today–my own memories are of a completely different world than the one we live in now. But now I know what I was doing wrong–I was listening to the wrong kind of music while writing him. If I want to ease back into Scotty’s mind and world, I need to listen to dance music I used to hear in the gay bars.

And can I say that it’s a real shame that it’s so hard to track down old gay bar dance remixes?

Knowing this means I’ll probably keep going with Scotty for a while longer, at any rate. I love him, I love the character, and I know I’ve been avoiding dealing with some things in that series that will eventually have to be addressed…but it’s absolutely lovely to know that I can slip back easily into his mind-space just by listening to great old gay dance remixes.

“I think we should turn it into a home gym,” I said into the gloom. “I mean, wouldn’t it be great to just have to go downstairs to work out? And we can put in a sauna and a steam room. What do you think, guys?”

It was the Monday night after Mother’s Day, and the termites were swarming.

That was why we were sitting around the living room in the dark. The only illumination in the entire building came from two blasphemy candles, flickering in the center of the coffee table. Modeled after Catholic prayer candles, one had a picture of Drew Brees in his Saints jersey with a halo and heavenly light shining on his head with the words Pray to Breesus around the base. The other was St. Chris Owens of Bourbon Street.

So, yeah—blasphemy candles. They’re very popular here.

Yet even the scant pale light from the teardrop shaped flames was enough to draw an occasional scout termite from the gloom. We wouldn’t see it until it landed on the glass lip of one of the candles, before dive-bombing into the flame. There would be a brief sizzling sound, and then the yellow flame flickered and turning briefly reddish as the termite immolated. Once it was consumed, the flame would be steady and yellow again.

The swarming rarely lasted more than an hour, but that hour seemed to last an eternity.

Termites have always been the bane of New Orleans’s existence. The domestic kind were bad enough. Houses and buildings were tented to get rid of infestations, the bright yellow and red stripes announcing to the world that a termite Armageddon was happening inside. The city’s original termite problem had grown exponentially worse since the particularly vicious Formosan variety had hitched a ride on a freighter to the fertile feeding grounds of our old, mostly wooden city shortly after World War II. The dampness of our climate must have made them feel like they’d arrived at termite Disney World. The little fuckers love wet wood, so the entire city was an all-you-can-eat buffet. They’d killed live oaks that had survived hurricanes, destroyed historic homes, and I’d heard that they could even chew through brick and mortar.

Maybe that was an urban legend, but it wasn’t one I was interested in proving.

Formosan termites swarmed.

The first rule of surviving Formosan termite season was speed. Every source of light had to be turned off the moment you spotted the first scout. They’re drawn to the light, like moths, but unlike moths, they’re drawn to the light in the hundreds of thousands, turning your home into a scene from Cecil B. DeMille’s ultimate cheesefest The Ten Commandments. The big streetlamps along Decatur Street outside drew the swarms, horrifying clouds of little monsters flying around, frantically trying to mate while shedding wings like revoltingly nasty snowflakes.

It is incredibly hard for me to believe that I have written seventeen or so books and countless short stories set in New Orleans and never have once addressed the swarms of Formosan termites we live through every spring. They return after Mother’s Day and haunt us in the evenings, usually between eight and nine pm, until Memorial Day, give or take. They aren’t a nightly occurrence, thank the heavens, but they are usually at their worst on Mondays and Tuesdays. No one had warned Paul and I about them, so the first time we were swarmed we didn’t know what to do. Remembering that horror from the old apartment on Camp Street (we had a massive security light attached to the house right outside our living room, so any light at all inside would draw clouds and clouds of them inside), how was it possible I had never written about the Formosan termite swarms? And with Scotty having bought the building on Decatur Street from Millie and Velma–who I sent into retirement along the Gulf Coast of Florida–and learning about the responsibilities and drawbacks to being a New Orleans home-owner, as well as trying to figure out how to redesign the interior for more functionality as a single-family dwelling? Of course, the question of what to do with the empty retail space on the first floor would be an issue; I wouldn’t want a living space right on the sidewalk of Decatur Street at any time of day or night or month or year. I also wouldn’t want to deal with renters, either, and thus neither would Scotty. But the space can’t just be left vacant, either. So, I thought it would be a great way to open the book with them sitting out the swarms in the dark, with a couple of candles lit, talking about the renovation plans?

After I finished writing Royal Street Reveillon, I was pretty damned pleased with myself. I thought it was perhaps the best Scotty book of the entire series, and reflected my growth as a writer along with Scotty’s growth and development as a character. When I finished it, I had the thought I always have whenever I finish writing a series book: maybe that should be the last one. But I immediately dismissed that thought from my head; I had left something in the personal story of Scotty and the boys hanging with a bit of a cliffhanger, so I knew there had to be one more book at least to tie off that loose end. I was also thinking about a local-ish political scandal of the last decade–the usual, a conservative Christian pro-family politician outed for having an inappropriate relationship with a teenager (who was over seventeen, the age of consent for boys in Louisiana), and a political powerhouse dynasty that had ruled a near-ish parish for generations was dead in the water. I had been thinking a lot also about taking Scotty and the boys outside of New Orleans and the safety of Orleans Parish for an adventure; as my knowledge of Louisiana grew exponentially along with my study of the state’s history, I really wanted to set a book in a part of Louisiana I could fictionalize and have some fun with. I had already created a couple of fictional parishes and towns in previous work; The Orion Mask particularly was set in fictional Redemption Parish–but Redemption wouldn’t work for this one, so I needed another one.

While I was thinking this through, I remembered that two Nancy Drew mysteries were connected to New Orleans–she was only here for a couple of chapters of The Ghost of Blackwood Hall, but most of The Haunted Showboat was set here, or just outside of the metropolitan area (a quick reread showed that “Carolyn Keene’s” Louisiana and New Orleans bore no resemblance whatsoever to the reality…but I knew I had a Nancy Drew Easter egg in Bury Me in Shadows (Blackwood Hall), and I wanted to put one in a Scotty book–so why not a showboat? The ruling dynasty of the invented parish–St. Jeanne d’Arc, for the record–was given the same name as the relatives of Bess and George’s that they and Nancy were visiting in The Haunted Showboat, Haver. I even named the house in Mississippi River Mischief the same name as the Havers’ home in The Haunted Showboat, Sunnymeade.

And yes, the Havers’ showboat/gambling casino was also named the River Princess.

I originally planned on the case coming to Scotty through his sort-of-nephew, Frank’s blood nephew Taylor; someone he met in group therapy (which he is doing to help get through what happened to him in the previous book), or possibly even a boyfriend, someone he’s seeing. I could never get it to work right…and finally, I realized it couldn’t come from Taylor. Taylor is going to continue growing as a person and as a character, but this was too soon after his own trauma for him to be trying to help other people. And then I remembered David, Scotty’s best friend, the music teacher. David’s not been in a book since Mardi Gras Mambo, but I’ve never forgotten about him. And it made sense–David has moved on from his old school and now teaches at NOCCA (our local Fame high school), and the kid is one of his students–and David finds out by confiscating the kid’s phone in class. I wanted to create a character based on this absolute sweetheart of a young man I met; I don’t remember how we met, but friends of a mutual friend were in New Orleans, and wanted me to meet them for drinks…and they had a daughter who went to school here. The kid was a friend of hers, absolutely adorable and sweet, and a ballet major at Tulane. After the daughter and her friend left, the parents immediately turned to me and asked me, “is he gay? <The daughter> think so, and so do we.” What I should have said was, “Well, he’ll let people know if and when he’s ready”; what I actually said was “absolutely.” (I did later find out the kid did eventually come out; wherever he is, I hope he is happy and living his best life. He was so sweet and charming and likable…) When I started writing the character, I made him unlikable, arrogant and sure of himself and his own beauty, and the effect it had on other people. That was wrong, and I went back and made him more of a naïve kid, with a strong sense of right and wrong; and the story worked a lot better. It wasn’t like Scotty to be so judgmental about this kid; if anything, especially after what happened to Taylor, he’s be super-protective.

And this tale–the corrupt old politician and the beautiful teenager working at the food court at Lakeside Mall–gave me a chance to dig into something from Scotty’s past that’s never been truly explored: that his first lover was his high school wrestling coach when he was about fifteen/sixteen. This came up in Jackson Square Jazz–which of course has been unavailable for thirteen years–and I always meant to circle back around to it, just never did…but over the years there have been throwaway lines in books about how Scotty has always preferred older men (Frank is fifteen years older; we’re not really sure how old Colin is), and so to bring it up again in this instance? Yes, perfect.

I loved my story about the corrupt politician, the wrecked showboat in St. Jeanne d’Arc Parish, and the teenager, but something was missing.

I realized two things: something very important was missing, and the crimes of the Haver family were just too big and too many to fit into this book, so I chose to focus on only one…and then the Murdaugh case broke. The Murdaughs were a real life Haver family, and their crimes were almost exactly the same! So, I ripped one of their crimes from the headlines and made that the primary focus of the story, and it was the right choice: the book started falling into place and the story began flowing. I was very nervous about the book–slicing out all the other crimes while building up only one was tricky, since they were all woven through the entire manuscript and the new one had to be as well. I also wasn’t sure if the subject matter was handled appropriately; the old/young daddy/boy thing is the gay community is often mistaken for something much worse than it is, and talking about gay teenagers’ sexuality is also kind of a third rail. But I trust my editor, and she loved it.

I hope you will, too.

You can preorder it here, if you like, or from your favorite e-retailer or local independent!