A Literature of Hope for Gay and Lesbian Youth

   from Gay and Lesbian Review Worldwide Nov-Dec 2005 Issue

   by Don Gorton

TO GROW UP gay or lesbian any time before the Internet came into wide use, in most of America, was to experience a profound isolation. There were few places where one could go to see the possibility of a normal life. Many of us wondered whether we were alone in feeling the anomaly of same-sex attraction. Only slowly, as gays and lesbians began appearing in the mainstream media, could youths come to know that homosexuality is out there. Everything changed with the rise of the Internet in the mid-1990's. No young person with access to the Internet could fail to realize that gay people are everywhere, and other people of one's own age are going through the same process of self-discovery. In a parallel development, "gay/straight alliances" have sprung up at high schools across the country.

Still, finding one's way into a healthy gay life is largely a "do-it-yourself" affair for youths without a gay-straight alliance in their schools. The information one needs to find and follow one's path abounds on the Internet, but young people must sift through a veritable thicket for good coming-of-age advice. One option is a genre of fiction that's available on-line that offers information about being gay while imparting a message of proud self-awareness and a sense of being part of a larger GLBT community. The characters in these novels are often isolated youths with whom a teenager questioning his sexual identity might well identify.

Several writers, beginning in the 1990's, pioneered this genre of romantic adventure story, typically featuring heroic gay youths growing up in the American heartland. These stories follow all the formulæ of romantic fiction–vividly drawn, attractive characters give themselves over to love–with the added ingredient that the characters undergo an inner struggle over their sexual orientation in becoming aware of who they are. In coming out they confront the inevitable homophobia, but they find a way to have dignity and self-respect within themselves. True love follows (or precedes) this self-affirmation. The narrative is usually in the first person singular, and the focus is on the protagonist's emotions as he or she reacts to circumstances and chooses a course of action.

These works, most of them self-published, stand apart from the bicoastal GLBT literary mainstream; the word "sentimental" would probably figure into a conventional critique. Nevertheless, these gay youth romances have found an audience, and it is an important one, as the membership of the Mark Roeder fan club at Yahoo.com will attest. Three writers stand out as exemplars of this genre. Mark Roeder of rural Winslow, Indiana, has set most of his novels in a fictional town in his home state. Ron Donaghe of Las Cruces, New Mexico, and Mark Kendrick of Chicago both situate their stories in the desert Southwest. The Internet makes these works available everywhere: some of Mark Roeder's novels can even be read for free on the web at www.iuniverse.com. At web sites like Amazon.com, these titles appear prominently on lists of books recommended for gay and lesbian youth.

Roeder is the most prolific writer of this genre. His "Gay Youth Chronicles" center on Verona, Indiana (after Romeo and Juliet), and feature two interrelated generations of gay youths. Roeder's first novel, Ancient Prejudice–later revised and republished as The Soccer Field Is Empty–is the only one that follows a convention that used to be compulsory for gay fiction: the protagonists come to a bad end (the prototype of this genre E. M. Forster's Maurice, not Mann's Death in Venice).

In Soccer Field, the youthful gay lovers Mark and Taylor are driven to suicide by the hostility of their families and the threat of separation, but Roeder spends the rest of the Chronicles arguing against the finality of this tragedy. In Roeder's world, the obstacles are formidable but not insurmountable, and no good person is unjustly punished in the end. The shock of losing Mark and Taylor brings out of the closet their friend Ethan Selby, an accomplished high-school wrestler, who had been ashamed of his failure to support the two more vocally as the small-town mindset closed in. Ethan comes to terms with who he is and finds love with his co-worker on his uncle's farm, Nathan, in Someone Is Watching. He also manages to expose and vanquish on the mat a secret antagonist on his wrestling team, who had left threatening notes in his locker.

In A Better Place, two boys from across the Mason-Dixon Line in Kentucky, Brendan and Casper, face staggering hardships. Casper is sexually abused by his psychopathic older brother, while Brendan's parents commit him to a nightmarish institution to "cure" his homosexuality after he's outed. Brendan manages to escape and join up with Casper, and together they run away to Indiana. Eventually they come to Verona, where they are taken in at the Selby Farm where Ethan and Nathan live with Ethan's uncle. The first stories in the Chronicles are set circa 1980. A second generation of Verona youths begin coming of age in the late 1990's. Ethan and Nathan inherit the Selby Farm and adopt a teenager named Nick, who, like Taylor, was kicked out of his house by his parents when they discovered he was gay. Nick finds a boyfriend, Sean, who lives in Verona's haunted house, Graymoor Mansion.

Someone is Killing the Gay Boys of Verona is one of Roeder's more imaginative works, high-flying but great fun. While a corporeal villain is targeting and murdering gay youths, a homophobic apparition (a high school antagonist of Mark and Taylor named Devon) stalks Sean through labyrinthine Graymoor Mansion. Coming to the rescue are the spirits of who else but Mark and Taylor. They help to banish the evil spirit Devon and also foil the anti-gay serial killer, who turns out to be a handsome fundamentalist zealot not above leading his victims on.

In Do You Know That I Love You?, Roeder opens a particularly engaging chapter in the Chronicles when he introduces Jordan, a second-generation character and the lead singer in the world's most celebrated boy band, Phantom. Jordan, it is revealed, is the son of Taylor, fathered when a sixteen-year-old Taylor went so far as to have sex with a girlfriend to conceal his love for Mark. Taylor died before Jordan was born, and the young mother was too depressed about Taylor's passing to show much love for her offspring. Handsome and talented, a superstar at seventeen but secretly gay, Jordan is devoted to his music, an all-consuming enterprise. Still, he feels incomplete. While on tour in Indiana, Jordan evades his bodyguards and serendipitously finds someone who has always loved him from afar.

This Time Around finds Jordan happily coupled with boyfriend Ralph as Ethan, Nathan, Nick, and Sean link him to the father he never knew. Moved by his father Taylor's story, Jordan goes to Verona to seek it out. He hears Ethan's anguished account of the episode. Nick and Sean give him the journals Mark and Taylor had kept before their deaths, which had been hidden in Graymoor Mansion. Jordan even reaches out to his grandparents, who had thrown Taylor out of the house when they discovered his homosexuality, precipitating his suicide. Having come out to the world after his relationship with Ralph was discovered, Jordan becomes a lightning rod for anti-gay forces waging the "culture wars." The remarkably diabolical Rev. Wellerson (the name apparently a blend of Falwell and Robertson) denounces Phantom and launches a jihad against funding for agencies serving gay youth. Jordan counters with a benefit concert in the fields of the Selby Farm in Verona, only to have his enemies escalate to terrorism. In a tear-jerking conclusion, Taylor and co-parent Mark intervene to rescue their son, averting a second-generation tragedy.

Another entry in the Chronicles, Masked Destiny, also set in the late 1990's, takes us into the realm of a veritable gay superhero. Skye is the biggest, strongest alpha male at Verona High School. Moved by the spectacle of fellow jocks harassing the presumed gay boys in his school, Skye is coaxed by an angel (Taylor again) to don a mask and seek out bullies in the act of thrashing smaller boys, in order to turn the tables on them. He relishes fighting, and with his physical superiority can overpower two or more bullies at a time. Skye becomes a masked sensation, even taking time to talk an overweight younger friend out of a suicide attempt in his disguise. Then, at Taylor's behest, Skye removes his mask (literally and figuratively) and becomes the openly gay tribune of Verona High. Far from vanquished, however, the bullies regroup, find strength in numbers, and acquire their own ghostly patron in the evil spirit of the undead Devon. A climactic confrontation between good and evil, combined with a dizzying series of plot twists, makes for gripping reading.

Ron Donaghe opens his "Common Threads in the Life" series in the southwestern corner of New Mexico and the fictional town of Common, rather implausibly, in the mid-1960's. Still, Common Sons relates with deftness and feeling the odyssey of two best friends from high school, Joel and Tom, who struggle with their homosexuality and the depth of their love for each other. Tom is the upstanding son of a stern Pentecostalist preacher, while Joel, a year younger, is a hot-blooded varsity boxing star with some dangerous enemies. Through the machinations of a self-hating homosexual secretly in love with Tom, the young lovers are exposed just after they find the courage to embrace their love for each other. They come out against all odds and manage to start a life together in Common, standing down their antagonists and writing off Tom's parents after they disown him for his homosexuality.

We rejoin Tom and Joel, still together, in The Blind Season five years later. They decide to have children and soon cross paths with a young female runaway from a Mennonite colony in Mexico, who agrees to be a surrogate of sorts. Improvising in a time before "alternative insemination," Joel and Tom take turns having sex with the young woman, Sharon, and contrive to keep the offspring's true paternity a secret, even from themselves. But the three come up against a torrent of homophobia as their plan for a family becomes known. A friend is battered by a reprobate police officer (an Alabama transplant) who also takes an inordinate interest in Tom and Joel's lives. In a thrilling display of manly prowess, Joel takes on and knocks out the bad cop, and frees a gay man he had kidnapped, bound, and tortured. More sustained maneuvers are required to neutralize the local fundamentalists, but the lovers never flinch, and expose child abuse and spouse abuse being perpetrated by their detractors. The family, friends, and supporters (including a couple of discreet lesbians) they gather round themselves through the hardships form a circle of affinity that serves to anchor them in the rugged New Mexico desert.

Donaghe's other main protagonist is Will Barnett, who grows up in the late-1960's on a farm in rural southwestern New Mexico. The books of the "Continuing Journals of Will Barnett" are written ostensibly as a diary he started keeping at age fourteen. In Uncle Sean, Will suddenly encounters his homosexuality when his mother's handsome kid brother comes to live with his family. He is overwhelmed by his attraction to his troubled uncle, who'd had an intense relationship with another gay man while stationed in Vietnam, only to see his lover killed by homophobic "friendly fire." Sean very properly rebuffs his nephew's repeated requests to lie with him naked in bed, but they do enjoy a bit of skinny dipping together after a hot day in the fields. As we later learn, Sean is more than a little turned on by his strapping nephew, and has to leave suddenly as Will's parents begin to suspect something. Will recovers from his adolescent crush on Uncle Sean and goes on to flourish in high school as a writer and football star. He fatefully meets up with a beautiful young runaway from New Orleans, Lance, who had been brought to New Mexico by his abusive stepfather and neglectful mother. With his father dying suddenly, Will is left in charge of the farm. Overruling his mother's reservations, he moves Lance into the house and his bedroom, and they begin living openly, if discreetly, as "husbands."

In the novel Lance, we find Will and Lance struggling to finish high school while fending off the hostility of their neighbors. Lance survives a horrific gay bashing; Will has to cope with homophobic football teammates. Yet the pair manages with some difficulty to find two other gay boys in their school; while Will's tomboy sister turns out to be lesbian. Despite their steadfast love through the tribulations of rural gay life circa 1970, Will and Lance decide to go to college in different cities: Will enrolls in the University of Texas in order to join his Uncle Sean in Austin, while Lance wins a scholarship to an art school in San Francisco.

All Over Him is perhaps the most painful novel of the Will Barnett series, as the "husbands" endure a long separation while they pursue divergent life paths. Each is exposed to urban gay life, with all its blandishments and disappointments. As they reunite for what Lance expects to be an all-too-brief Christmas sojourn, Will surprises Lance with the news that he will join him in San Francisco, his Uncle Sean having at last found happiness in a monogamous relationship of his own.

Mark Kendrick, a third exemplar of this style, has penned two relevant books, Desert Sons and the Jim Morrison-quoting Into This World We're Thrown. Kendrick's works, set in the Southeastern California desert around 1991, are essentially a pas de deux. Happy-go-lucky redhead Scott Faraday has an agreeable high school existence, highlighted by his energetic desert flute-playing (after Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull) and sound-mixing for a local rock band. Then the dark, mysterious Ryan St. Charles moves to town and brings Scott's homosexuality into focus. The story centers on the dynamics of the evolving relationship, as Scott helps the very troubled Ryan come to terms with his homosexuality, the loss of his parents when he was a child, and a relationship in which he was exploited by an older man.

Collectively these stories offer gay youths hope for a proud and happy future. The characters face hurdles even more daunting than the ones awaiting newly aware gay people, but with a resolute determination–including an acceptance that being gay is essential to who they are–the characters negotiate life's challenges and make it through hard times. They grow in wisdom and find completion in a dyadic union. Even through times of despair love nourishes them, rewarding patience and perseverance with a consummation that assures them of their place in the world.

The plots are inventively crafted to appeal to a generation that grew up with Harry Potter. The protagonists' character development draws you in and you find yourself caring deeply what happens to these boys. They triumph by living out a fully realized gay pride and arranging their own happy endings, which is what makes them role models for gay youths. At a time when the GLBT movement is at war with the religious Right for the hearts and minds of isolated youths, these stories can be just the armor that's needed to fortify readers against efforts to coerce conformity and enforce a false heterosexuality.

The stories bristle with didactic content, to be sure, as their authors are clearly out to impart a moral lesson or two. The values they espouse are essentially those of the heartland, with an emphasis on the domestic virtues: conjugal love, commitment, family, home, and children. The characters want a long-term relationship more than anything, and they usually find one, overcoming physical isolation. When we rejoin the first-generation characters of Roeder and Donaghe in later novels, where they appear as adults, we find them still coupled with their first loves.

The love these characters experience is only secondarily about sex: Roeder's Ralph and Jordan spend an entire summer together (on a rock concert tour) before they consummate their relationship. The transformational fusion of kindred spirits, incomplete until they find each other, is the ideal being held out. The idyllic, Romeo-and-Juliet-esque love of Mark and Taylor has an ethereal dimension. (Apotheosis follows their suicide.) Casper lives a nearly intolerable existence of abuse, neglect, and privation until he joins with Brendan. Ethan goes from a brooding fear of his unknown stalker to cathartic joy as he embraces his love for Nathan. Kendrick's Ryan recovers from a suicidal depression as he realizes the "sacred" quality of his bond with Scott.

Those characters who are drawn to sexual experimentation are eventually disillusioned by it. Jordan and Ralph each sleeps with another boy as a result of a tabloid misreport, and are chastened for their infidelity. Uncle Sean earnestly tells young Will not to pursue sex with the first willing male partner he finds. Advising the newly self-aware and seemingly sex-crazed Skye (the masked gay avenger), Taylor the angel tells him he must discipline his carnal appetites before he can find a mature relationship. Later aroused by Taylor's resplendent beauty, Skye is warned off with a penetrating glare from Mark the angel. On the other hand, the relationship between Kendrick's Ryan and Scott develops sexually and romantically in tandem; Kendrick's stories are the most erotically charged of the genre. Sex can transport you to a plane of ecstasy, but only when pursued with someone you love.

Monogamy is non-negotiable for most of the young gay protagonists. Jordan is annoyed with Phantom's randy bisexual drummer Ross when he hears Ross and Nick moaning from the loft of the Selby's Barn. He's only somewhat mollified when he learns that Nick's boyfriend Sean was joining them for a three-way desired by all concerned. Jordan resolves that he could never share Ralph with someone else. During their painful separation Will and Lance must fend off determined sexual importunities; they never waver, and steel their resolve by exchanging vials of their semen.

Children figure into the plans of many of the gay couples. Joel and Tom brook strong social disapproval to sire a daughter. Ethan and Nathan adopt Nick and become surrogate parents of a sort to Jordan. Urban gay life, however, does not call to these protagonists as it has to millions of post-Stonewall gays coming of age, like Jimmy Somerville's "Smalltown Boy" of song. Tom and Lance had both had contact with the urban scene before moving to New Mexico; they were not enamored of what they saw. The gay fellow students Will meets at the University of Texas tend to be jaded or adrift. One gay acquaintance goes so far as to drug Will in order to have him sexually, but the young hero resists when he somehow realizes that it's not Lance who's caressing him.

Finally, these characters seize opportunities to protect and be of help to others in need. Skye marshals his status as the dominant male in his high school to protect the vulnerable from pervasive bullying; he institutes a social order where beta males do not dare molest those physically weaker. Joel, passionate, powerfully built, and adept at boxing, will beat up any homophobe who acts out in Common, and get away with it. Along more respectable lines, Ethan and Nathan become leaders and mentors as adults for gay youth in Verona, hosting the members of a gay youth support group for Christmas parties and hayrides.

Jordan, the international rock star, has perhaps the most pronounced social conscience of all: after being attacked by the evil Rev. Wellerson he goes to great lengths to secure social services for gay and lesbian youth. He even buys the gay youth support group in Verona a new facility, named for his father Taylor and co-parent Mark, after a homophobic landlord evicts them from their original quarters. Jordan's fondest wish for his music is that it will bring reassurance and a smile to young fans facing loneliness or other troubles.

These imaginative raconteurs offer stories of love, conflict, and personal triumph to inspire the millions of gays and lesbians still growing up in relative isolation, for whom the Internet is a lifeline. Unabashedly romantic, books of this genre resonate with the values and aspirations of the American heartland. What they lack in literary or moral complexity is made up for by the feeling depictions of the trials of growing up gay, which bring hope to gay young people who feel marooned in the U.S. With characters who can engineer happy endings and new beginnings wherever they are, these stories reinforce the faith that pride and self-confidence can get you through most any crisis, and that there is power in being who you are.

Don Gorton, a Boston lawyer, grew up in isolation himself, in the Mississippi Delta.

Interview with Mark Kendrick, iUniverse Star Author at Blogcritics.org

October 2005

by Parker Owens

Did you try to publish the traditional way before embracing self-publishing? Can you talk a little about your experience and frustrations?

When I was hawking my first manuscript, traditional publishing was the 'only' way to be legitimately published. I sent out the requisite query letters to about 40 publishers in NYC, LA and the various odd places. In addition, I tried unsuccessfully to find a local agent. I called at least five that were advertising in the local yellow pages. Every one of them had a disconnected number. Ultimately, eight publishers looked at the manuscript and suggested why it wouldn't sell in a rejection notice. The rest of them rejected it outright due to the manuscript being an unagented submission. So, I was left between a rock and a hard place. I felt I had a good story but couldn't get any takers. I should point out that I was targeting a gay male audience. Thus, I did indeed do my homework and submitted the manuscript to well-known gay-oriented publishing houses. Regardless, at the time, they were in the midst of shutting down or turning away new business.

Did you ever hawk your work to agents?

Since I live in Chicago, I thought it would be easy to find a literary agent. Not so. After not finding a local one I decided that it would seem rather odd to try to go to another large city (NYC or LA, for example) just to find an agent. So, I didn’t try that route.

So how did you finally end up choosing the POD (print on demand) route?

I submitted the manuscript to a website that was touted to be something like a clearing house for prospective publishers to be able to peruse manuscripts. I got no bites there either. During a conversation with one of the other prospective authors on the site, the person suggested that I go the POD route. I was instantly turned off to the idea. I wanted to be paid for my work, not have to pay someone else for it. But the idea grew and I started investigating. I finally settled on iUniverse. I must point out that I'm positive that gay publishing houses and publishers in general don't really know how to determine if a book is good or not. After all, they said my story wouldn't sell and...well...it has.

What made you choose iUniverse?

Easy. They were the least expensive of the PODs and I was completely unfamiliar with the process. I didn't know what would happen or how the process would turn out. So, I wanted to limit my losses if it turned out to be a flop.

Can you tell us a little bit about the editorial process?

The editorial process is pretty straightforward. An author is assigned a rep at iU that basically guides one through the process. Everything is done through email. You submit the manuscript and pay your money. They format your manuscript (ie, justify the book block, create the chapter section, etc.). You read through the galley after that’s done. You make corrections as needed on their provided form. You get to request a certain type of cover art. Eventually, after all the approvals, you simply wait for the novel to be available and printed. They will send you your initial one copy or more, depending on what kind of package you’ve purchased.

How did you become a Star Author?

It was purely due to sales. The original figure, if I remember correctly, was that an author with 500 or more unit sales was considered a good moneymaker for the company. After all, iU gets 80% of gross book revenues. (The remaining 20% is your royalty figure.) My sales figures started out slowly, but within a few months, sales took off. So, I was singled out, along with about two dozen other authors in their first batch of Star authors who had those kinds of sales figures.

Do all iUniverse titles have an ISBN, and are they all listed on websites like Amazon and Barnes and Noble?

Yes, all published novels or novellas get an ISBN. There are various levels of market penetration that one can purchase now thru iU. One of them is to be listed with the major retailers like Amazon and B&N, etc. It was a given that I had to have that kind of market penetration if I were to have any chance at getting my story noticed.

Did you hire someone to do your cover? Could you tell us a little bit about that process?

The original cover art was a photo I took and submitted along with the manuscript. Any author has that opportunity if they have a good piece of non-copyrighted artwork (drawing, photo, etc) that they'd like for their cover. If they don't submit a piece of art, iU has a full art department that will provide photos or drawings. Once I became a Star Author, they gave me a small budget for new cover art and an opportunity to rework the manuscript. My main goal was to make the cover more sexy. I went to a stock photo website and looked for the 'perfect' photos (by this time I had published the sequel to my first novel and it was included in the Star program because it also was a bestseller) for the covers. After finding the photos, I requested that they be purchased by iU. They did so.

How long did it take your book to become available for sale after signing up with iUniverse?

After I submitted my first manuscript, it took about five or six weeks. The process takes far less time nowadays, though.

How many copies have you sold?

Nearly 10,000 copies. I will hit that number by the end of 2005. And believe me, it was a complete surprise that my sales figures would even come close to this number. Yet there are other iU authors that I know personally who have surpassed that. It’s entirely possible to not only make a name for oneself but to also generate some very nice revenue using POD.

Do you get a percentage quarterly, monthly, etc.? How do you receive payment?

I get 20% of gross revenues. That is my royalty. I receive quarterly checks and can check on monthly progress (sales numbers and royalties figures) by logging on to the iU site.

What marketing technique generated the most sales?

The vast majority of them have been sold to top-level distributors. This is where major outlets such as Amazon, B&N, etc draw from to purchase a particular quantity for their stock. This includes brick and mortar stores as well. Although iU has an online bookstore, only a tiny percentage of the novels are actually purchased directly from them. Most books aren’t purchased that way anyway, so it’s no surprise that market penetration has been through the ‘normal’ channels.

Can you outline some of your marketing plan?

I purchased an expensive enough package that would push the titles into the most markets without breaking my budget. Then, I went to the local gay bookstore (Unabridged Books in Chicago) and begged the owner to take my books on commission once they became available. He agreed. I purchased the books in bulk from iU, signed them and he displayed them. They started to sell like mad (and he cut me a monthly check). In a short while, the books were on the Star program and thus had the standard return policy as well as normal discount available to brick and mortar bookstores. So the bookseller started purchasing them through his normal channels instead of through me. I will still occasionally stop by and sign fresh batches - they constantly sell out, even today.

I also sent postcards to every gay bookstore in the US and Canada that I could find an address for and an owner’s name (I used the Internet to find them). I submitted my books to the local gay library (Chicago’s Gerber/Hart Library), implored everyone I know to buy one, put them into silent auction fundraiser events (I still do this), and went on book signings in a few cities, mostly ones where my partner and I were vacationing. I also set up an extensive website that has loads of information about my background, the stories, and sample chapters.

The majority of my sales (at least 80%) come from online sources: Amazon, B&N, other large and small online bookstores, and my website generates some sales, too. Next is brick and mortar stores because I don't have as much market penetration there (that's where the real effort occurs). For me the majority of those sales are specifically from gay bookstores. Lastly, sales are generated from other sources such as the publisher's bookstore, book signings, and silent auctions. Any author has the exact same advantage I do if they're willing to spend the time, effort and some money. But sales ultimately depend on at least two factors (that I’ve been able to identify). One, is that a writer must have a good story or it won’t sell to readers. There are plenty of awful stories that writers feel are good but don’t have the proper elements in them that make for a successful story. There are tried and true elements that must be in a dramatic story for people to want to read or finish them. Second, you have to be willing to market yourself and your product.

How did you become willing to market yourself? Do you have an abundance of self-confidence, or did you develop the ability out of necessity? Are there any suggestions you can give to writers who feel 'shy' about marketing themselves?

A writer must be willing to work hard at marketing or their story will just sit and do nothing. I really pushed. That part came naturally for me since I own a computer networking business. I’m constantly marketing my business, so putting on my salesman hat when it came to promoting my stories was also important. I have a natural enthusiasm and exuberance; plus, I don't mind selling or self-promoting. As for suggestions for 'shy' authors, well, I'm not the right person to ask. Perhaps a person is naturally gregarious or they're not. I can't say for sure. I can only recommend that if you believe in your story (and it has the right elements in it!) you should knock on every door available to you.

Writing for me is a process of self-discovery, not a retreat from the everyday world. It's a place where I can 'vacation' in my head during the time I'm writing (which can last for hours during my fugue-like writing jags). But it's a bit difficult for me to sustain that 'mode', if you will, since I'm normally an extroverted person. I suspect that I may be the exception to the 'normal' writer in that respect.

What are some of the advantages to POD?

An advantage to POD over traditional publishing that I’ve discovered over the years can’t be overlooked. As long as your story is in their database, the book is available for printing and purchase. In the traditional route a publishing run of, say, 5,000 books is most likely all you will ever have in most cases. Not all authors can boast Stephen King-like sales and most will never approach that number. So, if you want to have long-term exposure it’s important to have your novel(s) available as long as you want them on the market. POD allows that. Plus, there are almost no carrying costs (due to almost no warehousing costs) for POD publishers, so they can carry quite a few titles.

POD sort of reminds me of music file-sharing in one respect. Music file-sharing allows little-known or virtually unknown musicians to be heard by a wide audience. People who might never hear of an artist or band because they’ve been by-passed by record companies (for whatever reason) have the opportunity to hear music they might never have the chance to hear otherwise. Record companies are just like book publishers. If they can’t ‘guarantee’ a specific number of sales, you’re toast. POD doesn’t necessarily allow one to share an electronic version of the book, but rather it allows a totally unknown and bypassed writer to finally get their due. It worked for me!

                                                           

Mark Kendrick Talks About Writing, Gay Issues, and Sci-Fi

A Stonewall Society Interview, by Duane Simolke.

This interview was conducted after the publication of Into This World We're Thrown. (March 22, 2002)

DS: First, please tell us about where you live and where you grew up, as well as how either of those have affected your writing.

MK: I’ve lived in Chicago since 1989 with my partner of 14 years. Before that, I lived in California and Wisconsin, and spent a year in Japan, but I grew up in Texas. Virtually nothing about my childhood environment has influenced my writing. I wasn’t particularly encouraged to be a writer while growing up, even though I constantly wrote poetry, short stories and wrote school plays all my teenage years. Perhaps I inherited a previously dormant gene or something, since there are no other writers in my immediate or extended family.

DS: Your first two novels (Desert Sons and Into This World We’re Thrown) involve a gay teen couple, Scott Faraday and Ryan St. Charles. Where did you get the idea for those characters, and for their stories?

MK: I was stationed at Twentynine Palms (the Marine base) in CA when I was 18, and visited nearby Joshua Tree Nat’l Park as often as I could. So, Desert Sons was greatly influenced by my love of the desert in general and the Mojave in particular, thus the setting. Ryan is a composite of several people I’ve known over the years. Scott is perhaps my alter ego, but doesn’t resemble me in any recognizable way. Many of the events that take place in the story (the trip to Parker and Crescent City, rappelling in the Monument, and many others) were taken from my past, but I greatly altered them to fit the story. All in all, I weaved a mixture of real and imaginary events together. I didn’t come out until I was 23, so perhaps the story is a reflection of idealizing what it might have been like if I had had the courage to do so in high school.

The sequel came as a complete surprise. Ron Donaghe (author of Common Sons, The Blind Season, etc.) suggested one. I had no intention of writing one. But I’m not kidding when I say this: I woke up one morning and the storyline began revealing itself to me. I started writing it down, and within a week I had a complete outline for the sequel. I really had no idea that Scott and Ryan would force me to write about them again or that the new characters would be in the sequel.

DS: I gather from comments at your website that you mostly seem interested in reading and writing science fiction. So, why the detour from that for your first two books?

MK: Good question. I’ve loved science fiction since I can remember. And I set out to write what I love to read—but I got sidetracked. Regardless, I’ve discovered that my first two novels have helped to fill a gap that was missing in gay fiction for quite a while. At the time I was writing the first one (it took about 5 years to work out the plot, characters, etc.), stories like PINS, The World of Normal Boys, Rainbow Boys, and others that fit into the same general category, hadn’t been published yet. Now those, other similar novels, and my contributions, have filled this gap. The next novel on my slate will definitely be sci-fi, and will feature gay main characters—something that’s noticeably absent from that genre.

DS: Your novels have sold well at the online bookstores. Have you had the same success at walk-in bookstores?

MK: They’ve sold online beyond my wildest expectations, I might add. I haven’t really pushed the issue for the more traditional outlets, although there is an independent Chicago bookstore in the heart of Boys Town that I negotiated with to carry Desert Sons. It’s sold quite well there. I’ve received some wonderful email feedback from local readers as a result, so I know I could expand my brick and mortar market and get a wider audience that way. It just takes time.  [Author's note:  My novels can be found in dozens of brick and mortar stores now!]

DS: How much does being gay affect your writing, and how much does being in a long-term gay relationship affect your writing?

MK: So far, I’ve been writing about what I know (with a healthy dose of imagination). Being gay helps to keep us visible in the world of contemporary fiction since we’re everywhere in real life. As for being in a long-term relationship, well, it’s helped to create a stable home environment where I can do the grueling work of spending long hours with my characters, and doing the editing that’s required.

DS: What are some books (gay or otherwise) that you especially like?

MK: There’s your fiction collection entitled The Acorn Stories, which I really enjoyed reading. There are the novels I mentioned above along with War Boys, Maurice, the Riverworld sci-fi series, every one of Michael McCollum’s sci-fi novels, some of Andre Norton’s pure sci-fi works, and lots and lots of other science fiction way too numerous to mention here. Recently, I’ve been reading as much gay fiction as I can so I can keep in touch with what other authors that write in that genre are doing in the marketplace.

DS: Do you write anything besides fiction?

MK: I’ve written volumes and volumes of poetry, some gay-themed, but most of it is not. Despite the fact that I couldn’t stop writing poetry for decades, my poetry Muse ceased functioning once I started writing novels. I was always of the notion that I would eventually be a novelist and only pursued having one poem published.

DS: What can visitors to your website expect to find?

MK: Excerpts from my published works, teasers from upcoming novels, some of my better poetry, links for authors and aspiring writers, and a few photos.

DS: What are the most important issues facing gays right now?

MK: I think the marriage and adoption issues are at the forefront. For those of us in long term relationships, this issue, which is being dealt with in a very adult fashion all over the Western world, except for in the US, is a real problem. I don’t have the solution, but here’s what I would say to our elected officials who’re opposed to it, “Get past your medieval philosophy and thinking: we’re not going away.”

DS: Do you have any advice for aspiring writers?

MK: Make a step sheet, create biographies, trace out your plot, and have an end in mind. I recommend making sure you create characters that people can strongly identify with. Have those you trust read your manuscript and get their feedback. Edit until your hands fall off, then use the stubs to continue. It’s hard work and it requires a lot of attention, but it’s worth the effort. Beyond that, find an agent and plead mercilessly. If that doesn’t work, try the print-on-demand route.

DS: What should readers expect from you in the future?

MK: At least four, if not more, sci-fi novels featuring strong gay characters, time travel, inter-dimensional travel, intrigue, high adventure, lots of conflict, and all at great prices!

DS: Is there anything you’d like to say to your readers?

MK: The responses I’ve received from my first two stories, in review form and via emails, are nothing short of amazing. In addition, I entered a whole new world by corresponding with other authors, as well as with fans of Scott and Ryan. It’s a great feeling to know that I’ve touched other people’s lives with my work. People have even told me how their lives have changed knowing my characters! That’s saying a lot and lets me know that what I’m doing has a purpose far greater than what it seems on the surface.