'Now I'm Here' is now an audiobook! My sixth novel is narrated by Tim Curran.

 
Good news, everyone! (I love saying that. Dr. Farnsworth is so silly.) 

Anyway, to get to the point, my sixth novel is now an audiobook, and you can listen to it on Audible. Veteran journalist Tim Curran is the narrator and I had a terrific time going through the book and making slight changes and sharing thoughts on understanding the characters to bring their voices to life. It's really been a great experience and Tim is an audiobook narrator whom I highly recommend. 

 On to the story, which you may know about by now, but I think I'll just share some of the press release below.

 about Now I'm Here

 A passionate story of the love between a Queen-inspired piano prodigy and a pumpkin farmer, author Jim Provenzano’s sixth novel, Now I’m Here has been adapted as an audiobook narrated by Tim Curran, with a November 15 release on Audible.

Now I’m Here is set in the small fictional town of Serene, Ohio, in the 1970s and ’80s. Two boys from different families – Joshua, with his stable middle-class home in town, and David, raised by his alcoholic and abusive father on their isolated farm – discover, then lose, then find each other again. Thirty years later, as the town’s history is slowly erased by fading memories and encroaching suburbia, their childhood friend, Eric Gottlund, tells the tale of their quiet heroism with poignancy and a sharp eye for detail.

Narrator Tim Curran

Combining literature and music, the author blends historic and contemporary topics. In Now I’m Here, two Southern Ohio teenage boys, Joshua Evans (a piano prodigy) and David Koenig (a pumpkin farmer’s son) attend a Queen concert in 1978 on their first date. Their passionate affair grows into a life together full of farming and concerts in their barn.

Joshua’s brief fame as a musician includes an invitation to perform in a Los Angeles talent show. He also gains a bit of notoriety by performing unusual solo versions of pop songs at West Hollywood New Wave nightclubs of the early 1980s.

Fighting religious intolerance, “rehabilitation therapy,” the lure of fame, and the heartbreak of AIDS, the two boys grow into men before our eyes. Through their love of each other and of rock’n’roll, the English rock band Queen in particular, Joshua and David breathe life back into their home town, if only for a while.

Published review excerpts for Now I’m Here:

San Francisco Examiner
The British rock group Queen ­–a touchstone of Provenzano’s adolescence– serves as muse, role model and escape hatch for the rural Ohio teenagers at the center of Now I’m Here, a wrenching love story that delves deep into the experience of growing up gay in heartland America during the late 1970s.

The book and each of its chapters share titles, and themes, with Queen songs. The lyrical prose and fine-grained detail of his novel are a far cry from the jubilant bombast in the film’s trailer. Now I’m Here offers flipside of a biopic, focusing not on celebrities’ lives, but on the faraway lives of people they touched.

 

 San Francisco Review of Books
“California author Jim Provenzano joins the great novelists who have written important and lasting novels about men in love, and while he has won prizes for his work it is now, with his publication of Now I’m Here that he joins the ranks of the major authors who have had a lasting imprint on our society and the LGBTIQ community.

 “Words of admiration and appreciation fail the task of honoring this fine novel. Provenzano knows this period, the highs and lows of two men in love living in a world that simply could not or refused to understand their love. The only entry point into the glow of this novel is by reading it at least once – and probably more. It is a masterwork of the highest order.”

Edge Media Network
“Joshua and David, the brave couple brought to life in Jim Provenzano’s captivating, unforgettable novel, Now I’m Here, manage to experience a quintessential epic romance albeit in just a few short years. Were it not for the admiring (and admittedly jealous) eye of their friend, Eric Gottlund, who meticulously narrates this heartbreaking, breathtaking story, the saga of Joshua and David could have easily gone unnoticed.

“This storytelling method effectively and passionately conveys the lengthy, turbulent evolution of their compelling, inspiring and uplifting relationship. The love story of Joshua and David reminds the reader how to appreciate the extraordinary in the ordinary. Professionally speaking, neither of these men achieves fame or accomplishes anything especially newsworthy, but what they share emotionally is nothing short of remarkable. Some books you read for laughter, intrigue, debate or information. Now I’m Here makes you feel.”

Out in Print
“I’ve always marveled at the contradiction of hundreds of thousands of mostly straight sports fans stomping their feet and clapping to ‘We Will Rock You’ as done by Queen, probably the gayest rock band in history with the gayest front man ever. But whatever chord Queen struck, it resonates to this day with both fans and authors. In his newest novel, Now I’m Here, Jim Provenzano uses his knowledge as a fan and his skill as an author to tell the story of two small-town Ohio boys.

“Joshua Lee Evans had a musical gift from the beginning, and was fortunate enough to have parents who encouraged him to use those talents. David Koenig lived on a pumpkin farm and had a hateful, alcoholic father whose wife left him because of his temper and bad habits. It was love at first fight. But the maturation of those feelings was a long road, punctuated by music lessons and farm work. When it finally came together, however, the boys knew what magic it was. A stupid school streaking stunt (popular during the late ’70s and ’80s, when this takes place) puts David in a ‘rehabilitation’ camp for wayward youth courtesy of his father as Joshua leaves town for the big time after graduation, a cover version of ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ in his back pocket. They will come together again, rest assured, but even reunions are fraught with frailty in this sweeping, epic romance.

“This story will confound your expectations. If you’re looking for a Happy Ever After, however, forget it. And that’s fine with me. Life does not always have happy endings, and sometimes we have to work to find meaning when our characters are given a less-than-optimal finish.

“All this would mean nothing in the hands of a lesser writer, but Provenzano has honed his craft and takes you on this dizzying ride with the able assurance of a pro. His rendering of the mid-‘70s is deadly accurate, and will bring a smile of remembrance to your face if you were coming of age then. He never missteps or falls short of the mark emotionally, either. The characters are all organic, built and embroidered on with well-chosen detail.

“So, even if you’re not exactly a Queen fan (and why not, I wonder?), you’ll enjoy this supremely well-plotted and populated romance. Highly recommended.”

25th anniversary of PINS: San Francisco Public Library event Oct. 15

 

25th anniversary of PINS

Author Jim Provenzano in conversation with Mark Abramson

at Eureka Valley San Francisco Public Library, Oct. 15, 6pm.

 

(posting my press release)

 

In celebration of the 25th anniversary of the debut novel by local author Jim Provenzano, he will be joined by popular local author Mark Abramson in a one-hour conversation about their early publishing successes with independent presses and self-publishing. Provenzano will also sign and give away free copies of PINS.

 

In 1997, having completed an early version of his Masters thesis novel about gay high school wrestlers, Jim Provenzano succeeded in getting the attention of two high-profile literary agencies. But after both failed to snag a deal, he continued writing and improving the work, changed the title, and decided to self-publish it on October 1, 1999. 

 

With the guidance of the late Richard Labonté and other colleagues, he succeeded in getting reviews and booked multiple reading events in Ohio, New York, California, and even Sydney, Australia. Part of his success, along with being a first-time author, was the fact that at the time Provenzano was an accomplished masters-level wrestler himself.

 

After the first 1000 print run sold well, he decided to print 5000 more copies. In 2000, PINS was the #1 gay fiction title on Amazon.com for several weeks. A commissioned stage adaptation followed in 2002 and premiered at San Francisco’s New Conservatory Theater Center. Since then, Provenzano’s books have been mostly self-published in print, e-books, and audiobooks. 

https://www.jimprovenzano.com/

 

With a legendary local history as a bartender, and as a benefit revue and dance party coproducer, Mark Abramson’s life in San Francisco is documented in his fiction and memoir books. He also recounts his youthful days in Minnesota living on a farm in his other memoirs. His earlier Beach Reading series follows the life of Castro Street waiter Tim Snow and the intriguing stories set in the Castro district and around San Francisco.

https://markabramson.net/

 

The two authors discuss their early books, their inspiration, and their successes in small press and self-publishing in the gay fiction genre. Provenzano will also sign free copies of his debut novel, PINS. Other books will be available for sale.

 

San Francisco Public Library/Harvey Milk Memorial Branch, 1 Jose Sarria Court

October 15, 6pm. (415) 355-5616 Free

https://sfpl.org/locations/eureka-valley

 

 (RSVP on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/874431874224738 )

Book-banned, or more accurately, book-dumped in Florida.

Well, I got book-banned, or book-dumped. 

“When I Knew,” an anthology that includes my short essay, is among the hundreds of books that were dumped by rightwing anti-gay minions at New College of Florida.

The Herald Tribune and The Guardian have the story:

“Sarasota’s New College, the once liberal arts school subjected to a “hostile takeover” by well-rewarded, ultra-conservative DeSantis allies, was exposed by the city’s Herald-Tribune for dumping thousands of library books, including a clear-out of its gender and diversity center.

Democratic politicians likened it to Nazi-era book burning, and a preview of the extremist Project 2025 agenda linked to the Republican former president Donald Trump’s campaign to win back the White House in November.

“These messages are coming from DeSantis’s appointed and approved leaders, and the governor should just go ahead and admit he wants to be the dictator that Trump wants to be, because that’s what this is,” said the Democratic state congresswoman Yvonne Hayes Hinson.

“This shameful book dump is just the latest chapter in this Republican regime’s war on books and ideas. How insecure do you have to be to ban books on gender and women’s studies. They’re just plain weird.”

This is what happens when rightwing idiots think they’re going to take over and suppress books and ideas that they think are “woke.” Of course the opposite of being woke is being stupidly asleep at the wheel while the world continues to evolve.

The idiocy of all this is that these books still exist. You can’t make a book disappear. They can be republished in new editions, or be found in other libraries or sold at used bookstores.

Here’s my contribution to “When I Knew,” edited by Robert Trachtenberg, with a sweet –and accurate– illustration by Tom Bachtell. Contributions include short essays by B. D. Wong, Arthur Laurents, Simon Doonan, Stephen Fry, Marc Shaiman, Michael Musto and many others. Imagine trying to censor the voices of these accomplished people.

You can buy a copy on BookShop, and, if you’re inspired, donate it to your local library. 

The quiet understated heroism of baseball player Billy Bean

Billy Bean and Jim Provenzano. photo: Rick Gerharter

Only the second major league baseball player to come out after retirement, Billy Bean was a pioneer in a subtle way. He played for different teams, had ups and downs and a pivotal later success. Bean died of Leukemia on August 6, and is survived by his husband, Greg Baker.

What he's known for most recently is bringing Major League Baseball into the 21st century as an ambassador for diversity and inclusion in the league. What did Bean accomplish? 

According to The Advocate, 19 baseball players have come out in the past few years. If Bean helped that happen, let's give him credit. And only this week, The Boston Red Sox Jarren Duran was suspended for two games after shouting an antigay epithet to a fan. He later issued an apology.

Life-changing
"Billy Bean was never a star," wrote John Casey for The Advocate. "in fact, his career statistics, spread over six years with four different teams, were what one player would record in just half a season - if he’d last that long. Bean’s career batting average was a paltry .219, so theoretically, anyone hitting .219 for half a season would most likely be benched."

An All-American outfielder twice, Bean led Loyola Marymount to the College World Series in 1986, and retired at age 31. After the coming out news subsided, Bean actually shied away from doing the lecture circuit until he was convinced by Judy Shepherd to take advantage of that his moment.

So, when MLB asked him to become a Senior Vice President for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, Bean returned to the sport he loved, and developed and implemented initiatives aimed at promoting DEI within the sport.

Billy Bean flying to catch a ball in the outfield

Maura McGurk, writing eloquently for OverTheMonster, recalled that she was at the Mariners game on Tuesday night [August 6] "when they announced Bean's death before the game and paused for a moment of remembrance. They were playing the Tigers, Bean’s first team. With all our recent trade-deadline talk about prospects, here’s one to note: Bean was one of those coveted prospects who couldn’t make it in the big leagues. 

"His résumé and early successes promised great things, and he started to deliver right away. In his first game, he rapped out four hits, tying a record for a player in his first MLB debut. Detroit fell in love with him. But from those attention-getting beginnings, he made only 519 plate appearances in 272 total games, and retired at 31 years old.

A double
debut
After coming out in 1999, Bean made headlines in the media. His cover feature in a late December issue of The Advocate, coincidentally featured –on the last editorial page– the first major review for my debut novel PINS about about high school wrestlers.

At the same time, Sports Complex, my syndicated column for the Bay Area Reporter and other publications and websites included a different sport each week. Although I had already interviewed dozens of major LGBTQ athletes as well as hundreds of team members in amateur leagues, I tried to get an interview with Bean. 

But at the time, when someone comes out big time, there's a kind of hierarchy. The cover story in The Advocate was published, as well as an extensive feature in The New York Times, where Robert Lipsyte told of Bean's multiple struggles in the sports industry while being closeted, even while he was briefly married to a woman. 

In the first rush of publicity, Bean's handlers rejected initial interview requests from smaller newspapers. Snub moi? We were in the same issue of The Advocate. I was a bit put off and should've perhaps requested a later interview. But by the time his memoir came out, I was onto other non-sporty work. 

Life "Lessons" - my interview in Philadelphia Gay News

Publicity is hard to come by even for an award-winning author, apparently. 

Here's my pithy Q&A with Greg Shapiro published in Philadelphia Gay News. 

An excerpt:

Gregg: I’m guessing that you’ve been out of high school for a while. However, you’ve succeeded in giving the setting gravitas and authenticity. What are the rewards and challenges for you when it comes to writing about the 1970s?
 

Me: I feel a kind of responsibility to describe that era because those who experienced that are part of an elder generation that needs to tell their stories. It’s also a very rich time in terms of music, fashion, good or bad, and just the whole era of it was innocent in some ways. And since the 1970s are now 40 years ago, I like to presume that it could be considered historical fiction.

 Read the full interview.

 

 

Pride month production, publishing and procrastinations

@ Fabulosa Books

Happy Pride Month! I know it's a bit late and it's almost over, but it's been a busy month. Who decided to make it a whole month, anyway? Remember when it was just a day or a week? It's kind of exhausting when you think about it.

This month, not only did I publish my novella, Lessons in Teenage Biology, I also arranged a reading at Fabulosa Books in San Francisco with two of my pal authors, Trebor Healey and Gar McVey-Russell. That was June 24.

 

And only days before that, I completed my 40-page portion of the Bay Area Reporter's annual Pride issue. I edited 12 articles and wrote two on my own. I'll get to those in a bit.

But the big news for me was publishing Lessons in Teenage Biology. I had a good time putting it together because it's short and sweet. It's based on a short story I wrote way back in 1986 and cleaned it up and made some artistic changes but basically tried to keep the same adolescent voice going for the story which expanded to 24,000 words. 

That's a bit too much for a short story. So that's why I didn't submit it to any anthologies, because I just wanted to do it myself and experiment with some marketing techniques. 

If you heard about the book, then it may have succeeded, but I actually found that several types of recommended promotions don't exactly work right, specifically the practice of giving away your book as an advance reader copy (ARC). Two different services mostly resulted in people who didn't read it, looked at it, or gave a negative review. So enough with that.

What's really surprising as a success are Ingram's promotions that go directly to libraries and bookstores for only $150. That was the real bargain. It saved me having to buy email lists, purchase them, do a mass mailing etc. 

I had a bit of a flop with MailChimp. I sent out press release to about 200 verified press email addresses and only got about three responses for any kind of coverage.

But moving forward, I set up reading event at the local bookstore Fabulosa Books, which is the location of the late great A Different Light bookstore. In its heyday before the Internet, the staff would hand sell-books by local offers like me. And going to see an author was a big big deal.

This time around we had about 20 people show up, including some known literary authors, which was great. Three people inquired on social media if there would be a live feed. We didn't set that up and that would not have been a hassle, but it's not the point. People have come to expect that kind of convenience since the pandemic and I've done quite a few since 2020 (including one at Fabulosa with Baruch Porras-Hernandez), but not this time around.

 For my day job as the Arts Editor of the Bay Area Reporter, the entire month was full of hundreds of emails. I had to sort articles, assign writers, collect photos to crop and edit, etc. It was a lot of work, and of course our big Pride issue came out today. You can read the PDF version or all the articles on the web of course. In San Francisco, you can get a print copy. It's quite a collectible.

One of those articles that I wrote was a review of the biography of Richard Hunt, the gay Muppet performer of who died of AIDS in 1992. Jessica Max Stein's biography is a very special and touching story about the affable and funny guy who played many characters on The Muppet Show, Sesame Street, and some of Jim Hanson's films. 

You can read my review here. I'll probably post that on Goodreads and Amazon later on.

So, when the actual Pride day comes, I'm so exhausted all the rainbow stuff that I've had to process and produce and publish, that I haven't even gone to Civic Center in a few years, even though it's only a few blocks away from my home. 

It's just a big crowd of young kids, which is great, but it's just not to my taste to be enveloped by clouds of cooked meat, loud music, and drunk people. In fact, most of my friends don't even go anymore. 

We went during the earlier days in the '80s and '90s when it was a radical thing to march in the Pride parade. Specifically, my New York days where I was just coming out were pivotal. 

Well, I had been out, but I was officially out and marching up (or down) Fifth Avenue to/from the West Village and Central Park. It was quite a revolutionary exciting wonderful time. Now it's more about consumerism and an overload of drag brunches.

Not that there's anything wrong with drag brunches! There's just so much going on now in terms of the entire month being full of LGBTQ events. It's hard to keep up. But that's my job.

I hope you're going to have some fun with your friends at Pride in your city, whether watching or marching in a parade; something I did many many times with sports groups and Mikes on Bikes in years past. 

It's always fun to participate and I've done my share to participate, and encourage other people to do so.

Happy June, happy LGBTQIAetc. Happy Pride.

Lessons in Teenage Biology, in stores soon. Buy the ebook now. It's in the syllabus.

 

 It's a book! 

It's really amazing how much work goes into doing such a thing even when it's a small project. If I only knew I would have so much technology to conquer back when I wrote this story in 1986 I might not have even bothered.

 Raise a hand if you're one of those antiquated old-fashioned people who actually used a manual typewriter back in the 1980s. And then there was remembering all the events from the 1970s and trying to get it right.

What followed was the manuscript of my first long short story (I don't think I even knew what a novella was back then!), moving it around from box to box until sometime in the 1990s I decided to scan it. I only had a photocopy as a back up. I think I had to wait until they were scanners.

Then, with the text, I read it and re-wrote it a few times, but put it aside. Many books later, I thought I had learned all there was to learn about publishing, specifically self-publishing where you get to do all the work yourself (Yay?), make a little bit more money than a small press would pay in advance (Yay!), but not much because you don't have an army of editors, publicists and distributors, and begging for agency is off the table.

But I thought I'd learned all the tricks in the book; personal website, migrating content, layout code on my website, domain linking. But there were so many new things to try. I decided to crank up the old Mailchimp and only sent out about 100 press releases. Three replied, so far. I'm told that's a good rate. I don't know anymore.

I have yet to send out stuff other than a few social media spots. A book trailer's on its way, not that I think it leads to sales, but it's fun to do. And I know how to do it.

Then of course, is looking at a multiple series of PDF proof and making correction after correction after correction. And then you find out that the Library of Congress only sends out your control number after you've approved the final interior PDF (It's 2024909132, by the way).

Lessons in Teenage Biology, my 1970s-set novella, coming soon!

 
Lessons in Teenage Biology 

 my new novella, out May 6 (Kindle) and June 1 (paperback)

A lot can happen in two days. For Tom Mollicelli, passing out in gym class, being saved from a bully by his sister, getting drunk at a party, going camping with his straight crush, and almost ditching a speech tournament, all lead up to his first kiss from a guy. 

 

Set in a small Ohio town at the peak of the 1970s, Lessons in Teenage Biology offers a searingly honest depiction of a gay youth struggling to just get through another day or two.

 

  

“Provenzano’s gift for recreating the mindset of the American teen boy is such that this fairly typical story of a fairly typical lovelorn high school boy never falls into cliché. Most readers – queer or otherwise – will identify on some level with the adolescent angst, and revel in the sweet conclusion of this story.”

– Larry Duplechan, author of Blackbird and Movies That Made Me Gay

 

“Lessons in Teenage Biology is a delightful journey back to a small Ohio town in the late 1970s. And it enveloped my attention right away. That was my upbringing, though mine was years earlier and his classmates were more hip and aware than mine. Through Tom, we hear his thoughts about friends and high school classmates and imagined gay partners, as he navigates a world of trying to fit in, to not stick out, and to still be himself.”

– JD Doyle, author of 1981: My Gay American Road Trip

 

Lambda Literary Award-winning novelist Jim Provenzano brings a swift wit to his latest story, which is actually his first. Hand-typed on a manual typewriter in 1986, the author of seven subsequent novels and other works recently rediscovered his early novella in a box of documents, then scanned and converted the pages. While expanding the story, he retained its sense of urgent eccentricity. While fitting for the Young Adult genre, Tom’s wild two days, a somewhat autobiographical coming of age tale, will spark a nostalgic light for readers who remember teen life in the 1970s.

 

$10. Paperback

Fiction/Gay Fiction/Young Adult
ISBN-13: 979-8-218-35678-1
Ebook: 979-8-218-35680-4

 

Pre-order the ebook now at https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0D32F7Y3M/

 

(Booksellers and librarians; available from Ingram.)

 

"The Lost of New York" - Family history, authorial advances, and technological hindrances

I finally completed the trailer for my late uncle, John Rigney Jr.'s novel, "The Lost of New York." Yes, it was published in May 2022, but as the saying goes, better late than never.

In putting it all together, I realized there was a vast difference between my uncle's ability to hand-type his novel, as well as other stories, never knowing if they'd ever be published. Compare that to my spending a few hours on an upgraded video editing application to try to capture the tone and spirit of his book. This is after spending months scanning, editing and twice formatting it in book form!

If you didn't know the background of this book, you can read more on my website, which talks more about uncle Butch's story, and how he managed to assemble a novel, a few short stories, and parts of an incomplete novel. At the time he was dealing with drug addiction, unemployment, and being apparently shipped off to Alaska for a government job in lieu of a federal prison sentence.

So how did he manage to save all these pages with no such thing as a photocopier in the late 1950s and early '60s? He must've held onto it dearly. Did he own a typewriter? I don't know how he managed to do all this. His history is kind of lost, other than stories from my mother, and remembrances of repeated stories via my brother.

But his sheer determination is what inspires me. I'm pretty sure that the writing instinct comes from my mother's side of the family, although Uncle Butch was the only one who actually got this far. The fact that he'll never know that I actually ended up publishing his book –and made a few editorial changes, but basically tried to get the spirit of it and clean it up a lot– might amuse him.

In putting together the trailer, I was noting how technological advances have made it so much easier to put together a book and promote it. I'm part of the last generation that spans these two eras, the hand-typed manuscript, which I actually did a few times before I had a computer in the 1980s, to the now-commonplace ebook and audiobook. And then we have artificial intelligence that's basically rewriting books in a bootleg style and robots are selling them online.

For my technological advances over the years, I've had to make changes and adjustments and adapt. I have a website. I have a blog. I have social media. I've made video trailers for almost all of my books, because I can. Also, I learned all these skills after literary agents failed me, and publishers ghosted me, or were occasionally polite enough to reply with a 'No thanks.'

For Christmas, I bought myself a new Macintosh Mini after 11 years of dealing with an old one from work that was sluggish, but functional. So when I bought the new computer, I knew there would be a lot of changes to make. Specifically the video editing software, which is terrific (Filmora Wondershare; not a plug, but it actually works.

Oh, I also composed the music! I did a lot of that back in the 1980s, and fortunately the song I use totally fits the mood of Butch's book. When I composed and recorded it, we used cassette tapes, kids. The internet was not widely used by the public, and Uncle Butch manuscript sat hidden in a box in my parents' house in the attic.

Anyway, there are a lot of adjustments to make the basic things; moving text, old video, as well as lots of new doodads and ways to move things around. So it's a good thing that I waited to make this trailer, because there were certain things I wanted to do that we're unable to do in the previous version. And in Uncle Butch's time, I don't think there was any kind of book trailer.

The downside is that with the new computer, I forgot to export my bookmarks, so my passwords for virtually every single website that I use had to be updated and changed and verified, along all that other baloney that goes along with 21st-century technology.

Not that I'm complaining. Thanks for double-checking to make sure it's actually me doing this blog post, Google!

As I share my new book trailer on the Internet, perhaps even boost it on social media here and there, I'm happy that I was able to actually get this done. I've actually made a few hundred dollars off of Uncle Butch, so thanks for that. It's basically paid for the cost of publishing, etc. Mostly, it's libraries that have purchased it, another advancement that would make Uncle Butch proud. 

I encourage you to give it a try. In paperback or e-book, it's a bargain because it's an archival document of lost era in our history, specifically, New York history and that of my family.