NEW COVER for TALES FROM THE SEXUAL UNDERGROUND

Tales from the Underground, my new collection of erotic fiction and non-fiction from MLR Press, is getting close to coming out...fingers crossed for March, but for sure in April. Check out the wonderful cover from artist Deana Jamroz.

FROM THE BACK COVER

I wanted to write about people who were not just out, but out there, people who lived their sexual lives in ways most of us could only imagine…and for whom the flavor vanilla had absolutely no appeal. I interviewed porn stars, prostitutes, self-proclaimed sex pigs, and delved into bizarre sexual practices. It was eye-opening, arousing, and a lot of fun (but never, never good clean fun). I also include here my favorite dirty stories. They all explore a side of life that exists not in the twilight zone, but in my favorite destination…the sexual underground.

EXCLUSIVE EXCERPT
Fill it to the Rim…Ask your mother, or any of your straight friends, to use the word “rim” in a sentence as a verb and they may be hard pressed to come up with a response. Oh sure, Mom might say, “Grandma’s lovely mixing bowl was rimmed in fleur-de-lis.” But for the most part, your straight friends probably think of the word rim as a noun.
 
But ask your gay brethren and you’ll come up with an entirely different response. The rim of their favorite coffee cup is probably the last thing to come to their filthy little minds when that particular three-letter word arises in conversation. “Rimming” or “tossing a salad” are just a couple of metaphors for the act known less delicately as “eating butt” or for those of a more clinical semantic bent, analingus.
 
But how safe is putting your tongue where the sun don’t shine? Once again, I will reiterate my claim, before I go any further, that I am not a doctor, nor have I ever even played one on TV, so what I say here should not be construed as medical advice. It’s only the results of my own feeble research into the topic that I present here, so take it with a grain of salt…or a shot of penicillin…or a hepatitis vaccination. Which brings me to my first point: hepatitis. Other than winding up with a shit-eating grin, your biggest risk when it comes to rimming is contracting hepatitis, A or B, maybe even C. Face it, butt munchers, the easiest way to get hepatitis is through fecal matter and you’re bound to come into contact with some if you go sticking your nose (and your mouth) in a loved one’s butthole, however tight, pink, hairy or beautiful that little rosebud may be. The good news here is that you can allay many of your worries by visiting your doctor and getting yourself vaccinated against the dreaded virus(es). Then you can munch away with abandon, bearing in mind that you have not been vaccinated against other nasty little critters you could pick up this way, like parasites. As with most any gestures of affection, you must weigh the risks and benefits of any such display and decide what is right for you. Keeping your nose out of others’ business is your decision, as an educated consumer. 
 
You may be wondering about that old bugaboo we hear so much about these days: HIV. From what I’ve learned, rimming is not all that likely to give you the dreaded virus, provided you have a healthy mouth (no cuts, sores, blisters, icky gums, etc.) and he has a clean ass free from any sores, rips or cuts. We won’t even get into felching here. 
 
I guess when it comes to tossing a salad, cleaning the kitchen, or whatever fanciful term you choose to dress up your taste for butt with, the key words are common sense and caution.
 
So, dear ones, I close with two clichés: bottoms up! And bon appetit!

DEADLY VISION Now Available in E-Book

For all of you Kindle and other e-book readers out there, I am pleased to announce my print novel, Deadly Vision is now available in a brand new e-book edition from Bristlecone Pine Press.

Click here to get your copy.

Synopsis
What If You Suddenly Became Psychic and Could Stop Two Cold-Blooded Killers?

What if...No One Believed You?

Small-town single mom Cass D'Angelo's life changes when a thunderstorm sweeps into her small Ohio River town. Cass must venture out in it to hunt for her son, seven-year-old Max. Lightning strikes a tree near her and a branch to the head knocks her unconscious. When Cass awakens a couple days later, she sees into the deepest secrets of those around her. Worse, some teenage girls have gone missing, and Cass sees their grisly fates. The discovery opens the door to a whole new life. The police are suspicious. The press wants to make her a celebrity. And the killers are desperate to know how she found their carefully concealed grave. Cass finds an ally in Dani Westwood, a local reporter. The two women begin to probe into the disappearances/murders and start to forge a romance. When Cass's little boy, Max, disappears, Cass must race against the clock to find him...before it's too late.

Reviews

From Gregg Olsen, New York Times Best-Selling Author

Horror fiction's most original voice knows how to spin a tale that makes a reader double check the door locks and windows. It is at once smart and twisted.

From Victor J. Banis, author of Longhorns

Rick R. Reed moves to the head of the graveyard with this bone-chilling story of a reluctant psychic, a pair of maniacal killers, and the slaughter of innocence. Fiendishly good!

Excerpt

The Summitville Paper was nothing much. It never had been—reporting on the lives of some 15,000 citizens filled usually no more than twenty or thirty pages. The national news occupied the front page and maybe continued on to the second. The remainder was taken up by advertising, editorials about such things as high school activities and earth-shattering decisions like whether local merchants should continue to stay open late on Thursday nights, and reporting who had gotten married, divorced, arrested, been involved in automobile accidents, or admitted to the emergency room of Summitville City Hospital. There was a comics page and a crossword puzzle, sometimes a syndicated movie review. If someone wanted something meatier, they purchased the Pittsburgh paper.

But still, Cass was more than a little intrigued when a nurse’s aide brought her that morning’s edition. It had obviously already been read, clumsily folded, the crossword puzzle attempted. But Cass could count on one hand the number of times she had been celebrated enough to make its pages: her birth, when she had been on the homecoming court in high school (a Carrie-like fluke...Cass had already been deep into her first crush on another girl and hadn’t even known why she had accepted Tommy Nevins’ invitation), when she had given birth to Max, and when she had sprained her ankle and had been admitted to the emergency room.

And here she was on the front page. There was no picture, but the headline was identification enough. Cass had assumed that when people got hit so hard in the head it knocked them unconscious for hours, they eventually died. But, obviously, that wasn’t true, because here she was, feeling better, actually, with every passing moment. The article gave credit to quick action by the Summitville Fire Department in saving the “local woman’s” life.

“We were on the scene immediately,” paramedic John Fore was quoted as saying, “and were able to restore the woman’s breathing within a couple of minutes.” Cass smiled, thank God for that. She went on to read how she had been rushed to the hospital and was now in stable condition.

Cass was just about to put the paper aside when another article caught her eye. “Teenager Reported Missing,” by Dani Westwood. It wasn’t so much the headline that got her attention, but the picture of the young girl beneath it. Pretty. Long blonde hair. And disturbingly familiar.

Even though Summitville was a small town, the girl’s name, Lucy Plant, didn’t ring any bells. Perhaps Cass had waited on her at the Elite, the diner where she worked. But still, no specific recollection came back. Cass couldn’t visualize the girl sitting at the counter, nor at one of the booths.

And yet she looked so familiar, as if she were someone Cass was friends with, or even a relative.

Cass scanned the story. The girl had been reported missing by her mother yesterday afternoon, just before the storm that had caused such a turn in Cass’s own life.

There were no clues. The girl, at least according to her mother, could not possibly have been a runaway. “Lucy’s a good girl,” Karen Plant had told Summitville police officer Myron Briggs. “She wouldn’t even go down the block to visit a friend without telling me first.”

The last time anyone had seen Lucy Plant was when her mother looked outside the living room window. Lucy had been playing with her Barbie dolls on the front lawn.

Cass closed her eyes. She remembered, suddenly, the storm coming, and not knowing where Max was. She sympathized with the girl’s mother and the panic she must have felt when she couldn’t locate her daughter.

A ceiling fan. Beneath her closed lids, Cass saw a ceiling fan. She didn’t know why. She didn’t own one herself, and the one in her parents’ living room was an entirely different model from this one, which was white, with a plain globe. Her parents’ fan had four frosted-glass light fixtures and faux wood blades.

Cass kept her eyes closed, watching the ceiling fan whirl, its blades blurring and becoming singular: there was something wrong with the fan. It didn’t work quite right.

Cass felt nauseated and opened her eyes. Her face was glazed with sweat. Her stomach churned and she was afraid she would vomit. Why was seeing a ceiling fan so disturbing? Or was this some sort of aftershock, an effect of her accident in the woods near her house?

Cass didn’t think so.

She glanced down at the face of Lucy Plant and sucked in some air. “Oh my God,” she whispered, “she’s dead.”

The smell of the Ohio River, fishy and damp, suddenly came to her, even though her hospital windows were hermetically sealed and the river was a good four or five blocks away. Why had she said Lucy was dead?

What did she know about it?

She closed her eyes again and saw a blinking light: red.

What did it mean?

Part of her wanted to close her eyes again, to see if more of the vision would come to her; part of her dreaded ever closing her eyes again. Where was this coming from? It’s just aftereffects, Cass, she told herself. You suffered a blow to your head, brain-jarring. That’s all.

She lay back on the pillows. When she closed her eyes again, she saw the blinking red light and a shadowy figure behind it: a woman’s head. The image, for no objective reason, was horrifying.

Cass sat up in bed, heart pounding. “No,” she said loudly, then whispered, “no.”

She forced herself to breathe deeply. She looked down at Lucy Plant’s calm, smiling face again: the straight blonde hair, the kind someone more romantically inclined would refer to as “flaxen.” The wide eyes, too big for her little-girl face, but which would someday be beautiful. The dusting of freckles across the bridge of her nose. The chipped front tooth.

Cass felt her eyes brim with tears, a lump in her throat. “So innocent,” she whispered, rocking back and forth in the bed, unaware that she was even moving. “So innocent. What a waste.” She smelled the river again, and when she closed her eyes once more, she had another vision: the brown murky water of the Ohio River, its tree-lined shores and...and...

Cass bit her lip so hard she tasted blood.

A freshly dug grave.

Cass opened her eyes and batted at her own face, as if she could physically remove the odd imagery. She didn’t want to see these things. It was like a dream, a nightmare, but she wasn’t sleeping.

The images were so vivid—the knowledge so certain.

Lucy Plant wasn’t coming back.

Her gaze fell upon a line of type in the news story about the girl’s disappearance. Her mother was making a plea. “Please, if anyone knows anything about my daughter...if anyone has seen her, please, please, let us know. All we want is to know that she’s safe. No. All that we want is for her to be home again, where she belongs. Her little brother misses her. I miss her. Her father...we all do. Please, if you know anything about our girl, come forward.”

And Cass wondered what she should do. She visualized herself down at Summitville police headquarters, telling them she knew something about the girl’s disappearance. “Yes, I had a vision. The girl is dead and she’s buried near the river. I saw a ceiling fan and a blinking red light, like on a video camera.”

She would be treated with understanding and pity. Scorn and laughter behind her back. The police would call some mental hospital in Pittsburgh.

But what could she do?

She did know something about Lucy Plant. She was sure of it. She wished she didn’t, but there it was.

Cass flung the newspaper to the floor and forced herself to look out the window, where the tree-covered hills of West Virginia stared dumbly back at her, much as they stared dumbly at the shallow grave Cass was certain this poor young girl was buried in.

Footsteps. A child.

Cass sighed with relief. Max.

“I wanna see Mama!” he yelled.

And her mother was telling him to slow down.

It was the real world. Cass wondered if she’d ever be part of it again.                                        

Snappy new cover for ON THE EDGE!

I woke up this morning to the cover for On the Edge, my forthcoming (summer 2010) collection of gay erotic romance. As always, cover designer at Amber Allure, Trace Edward Zaber, has done an amazing, eye-catching job. The book will be a trade paperback and will contain eight of my hottest, and most romantic tales, previously only available in e-book format: 

• Incubus 
• Riding the El at Midnight
• Pottery Peter 
• Through the Closet Door 
• Fugue 
• MANamorphosis
• No Place Like Home
• Superstar
  

Leave me a comment below and let me know what you think!

Shooting Your Child

Finishing a book is just like you took a child out in the back yard and shot
it.
- Truman Capote

A statement like that makes a reasonable person gasp. The idea of "taking a child out in the back yard and shooting it" is such an arresting and shocking image that it takes one's breath away.

But if you're a writer--or anyone who creates--you might understand. First off, to say that Capote had a flair for the dramatic would be an understatement. In life as well as in his writing, he loved to push buttons, which is probably why he's remembered as much for who he was as much as for what he wrote. But Capote's point, about the sadness and loss a creative person feels at the end of a project is a lot like a death. A death that you bring about by your own hand.

I understand the quote because I feel a sense of loss and despair when I write the words, "the end." For me, who rarely writes a series, it is as if I have effectively killed off my characters. More prosaic people in my life think I'm crazy when I say that my characters come to life for me when I'm writing a book and that they often surprise me with what they do or say. Other writers--for the most part--understand.

For me, writing a book is all about taking a journey with the characters I have created. In the course of that trip, I nurture them. I love them (even the bad ones...and as many parents might attest, sometimes you love the bad ones the most). I don't always see it as me giving them life, but them giving something to me--surprises, emotions, a better understanding of not only them, but myself. They become dear to me, real to me.

When I finished my novel Deadly Vision, I asked my friend Mary, who was an early reader of the book, to give me her opinion on it. In the course of our conversation, I told Mary about that sense of loss I felt now that my characters' journeys were over and how much I missed them. She laughed and said that maybe I should "host a tea party" for my "little friends." She didn't quite get it. Or maybe she did. One of the best tests of friendships is sometimes the ability to be mean with each other and get away with it. But I digress.

The point is, when I get to the end of a book, it's not a cause for celebration, it's an occasion for mourning. Because, to use Capote's rather melodramatic analogy, I have taken my offspring out in the backyard and shot them. They are gone and for me, they won't be back. Once a work is published, I never reread it. And maybe that's why, because when I'm done, I'm done. And those people I came to know so well are gone forever, like dead loved ones. It's bittersweet to revisit their world.

Call me fickle, but after a suitable period of mourning, I find comfort in the arms of new friends, new characters and seldom look back on those I've shot. Heartless bastard.

THE BLUE MOON CAFE Gets a New Cover

It's always with some trepidation that I approach what a cover artist has come up with for a book of mine. After all, this is the face of my baby. I want it to be beautiful. I also want it to be compelling because I know it's a big, fat lie when people say, "Don't judge a book by its cover." In whatever context they mean it, they can and do. The cover helps sell a book almost, if not as much, as what's on the interior.

With the cover artist I work with at Amber Quill Press, Trace Edward Zaber, I am not as afraid when I get that e-mail telling me a cover design is ready. Trace is a great cover artist and I am usually over the moon with what he comes up with for my work. We've worked together on enough books that I hardly have to give him much suggestion or direction on what I hope to see. We're in sync.

The cover for my upcoming novel, The Blue Moon Cafe, is no exception. Trace managed to encapsulate exactly what I wanted to get across: that this was a horror story, yes, but at its heart, it's a love story. It's a book that I hope will make a reader's heart race for many reasons.

And it's appropriate that I'm sharing this with you today, because tonight is a blue moon, the first in a decade.

I'd love to know what you think of the cover. Please feel free to let me know your thoughts in the comments section below.

The Blue Moon Café releases on March 7, 2010 in ebook format, with the paperback version to follow approximately two weeks later. To read the first chapter, e-mail me at jimmyfels@gmail.com and I will send it to you.

What The Blue Moon Cafe is about:

Someone—or something—is killing Seattle’s gay men.

A creature moves through the darkest night, lit only by the full moon, taking them, one by one, from the rain city’s gay gathering areas.

Someone—or something—is falling in love with Thad Matthews.

Against a backdrop of horror and fear, young Thad finds his first true love in the most unlikely of places—a new Italian restaurant called The Blue Moon Café. Sam is everything Thad has ever dreamed of in a man: compassionate, giving, handsome, and with brown eyes Thad feels he could sink into…and he can cook! But as the pair’s love begins to grow, so do the questions and uncertainties, the main one being: Why do Sam’s unexplained disappearances always coincide with the full moon?

Prepare yourself for a unique blend of horror and erotic romance with The Blue Moon Café, written by the author Unzipped magazine called, “the Stephen King of gay horror.” You’re guaranteed an unforgettable reading experience, one that skillfully blends the hottest romance with the most chilling terror…

A Stellar Review for SUPERSTAR

Rainbow Reviews gave a stellar review of my rock star love story, SUPERSTAR, on their site recently.

In part, they said:

"'This July day is a stunning one, clear, sunny, low humidity and a temperature in the mid 70s ... It's a lovely day to commit suicide.' This statement is a wonderful scene setter. Such deft phrasing is maintained throughout this short story, making it a joy to read...This was a most thought-provoking story, rich in emotion and humanity. I expected it to be mostly depressing, but, although it had its sad moments, the tale was uplifting. I know it will remain long in my memory."

Read the rest of the review here.

Read an excerpt and a synopsis and get your copy here.

On Writing and Its Stigmatisms

Not too long ago, I had a conversation with someone in a different country and the question of occupations arose. "I'm a writer," I replied. The response was a bit of a shock to me: "That's not a real job." What he meant was "that's not a job with a W-2, regular biweekly paychecks, and some security". It reminded me of something my mother once said. Upon telling her aunt she wanted to be a writer, she was told, "Why, that's a great idea! All you have to do is sit there and type up something and get paid for it!"

Both extremes have their points... yet neither gives you a true picture of what being a writer really is. it's grueling research, back-story writing, drafting, and a billion other things... all penciled into regular life with the hopes that someone, somewhere will recognize it as "worthy of publication" and hand you over a meager farthing for your toils. Unless you're a Stephen King, you're lucky to make minimum wage.

Let's face it. Writing is hard work (though maybe not physically) and while many people wish to do it, few follow through with the daunting task of finishing a book. No matter what your topic or genre, it's rough out there. Critics can be downright cold-hearted. Being a nobody can land you in front of a dozen padlocked doors. You're the new kid in school, trying to find a few pals and a click that accepts you.

From my own experience, being a nonfiction writer comes with its own set of stigmas and opinions. There are those who feel you're not a "real writer". After all, you're just regurgitating someone else's work, right? Well, not exactly. You're researching like a fiend, pulling together resources and information to create an original work without saying what others already have. But unlike fiction, you have to check, double check, and triple check your sources, separating opinion from concrete truth. All this and it has to be in your own words. Believe me, it can be a nightmare.

The hardest pill for me to swallow was opening up the first copy of my book, Queer Hauntings, and seeing "Compiled by Ken Summers" glaring back at me. Compiled? Is that how some people view nonfiction? You're just gathering someone else's work and tossing it into your own binding? I can't count how many booksellers I had to talk to and explain that I wasn't the editor. Each chapter was my own work, not copied verbatim from elsewhere. After slaving away on a breakneck three-month deadline, I wanted people to know that a lot of hard work went into my first "official" book (I say that because, I self-published a small book of local interest prior to finding an actual publisher for a book of wider interest).

For all writers, fiction and nonfiction, our work is our baby. We put everything into what we create and send it out into the world, hoping that it can walk on its own two feet and someone will appreciate what we did. It's a branch of our own self, a piece of who we are. We might get a little sensitive at the words and criticisms we hear, but it comes from being that protective parent. No one wants a product of their labors to be torn apart, nitpicked, or belittled. Still, it comes with the territory.

So, is it worth it? Is venturing forth to write the next novel or biography a wise idea given the strong probability that there will be negativity to endure? Without a doubt, yes. Bad comes with good in every aspect of life. For every jibe, there's a pat on the back waiting. Just a simple "thank you" from a reader at a book signing can make all the not-so-pleasant obstacles seem unimportant. A wise person once told me, "Don't let the music die within you." Good books are only written when the creators have the courage to take the leap and let their words be heard.