Going the Distance: Ashland's Rhodes Twins' Coming Out

When reality coincides with my fiction in a good way, it's slightly amazing, like when a young cross country athlete comes out to his father. Such is the case with Reid Conniff, the narrator of my Lambda Literary Award-winning novel (I still love typing that) Every Time I Think of You. 

In reality, the popular Rhodes twins came out to their father in a very modern way, and of course became an internet sensation.

While I was aware of the twins as they came out online (their now-famous video has been viewed more than 15 million times), I wasn't aware of the connection beyond the fact that the two young men, like my fictional character Reid, who were cross country athletes in high school.

Hot Dudes Reading...my books?

It's been around for a while, but once some under-inspired blog-intern on Huffpost regurgitates it, it's viral: it's Hot Dudes Reading! Leave it to New Yorkers to turn something as basic as reading a book on a train into a "trend."

Some say it's a bit creepy to snag random pics of people in public. Some say it's cool. How retro! How analog to not be hunched over one's phone/toy/device!

Rioty: the Language of Violence

My street, cordoned off by police cars and crime tape.

This was supposed to be a December post about the violence and protests in Oakland and San Francisco, the reactions to the violence in Ferguson, Missouri. But then it became about the murders in Paris at a magazine office. And now it's about four people shot dead around the corner from my home.

But let's go back to the Ferguson protests. You remember them. They were about the other senseless violence. I didn't feel comfortable reducing such a national movement with my own little perspective.

One of my Daily Kent Stater editorial cartoons, 1980

But then the Charlie Hebdo shootings happened in Paris. I thought, as a journalist, I had a connection.

But I didn't feel comfortable writing about that, other than posting some supportive million-forwarded meme jpg graphic or crowd shot from France. Because my situation as a much safer writer couldn't compare to the horrors in Paris.

Message of Love, excerpt: Naked Handstand

Ah, new year's resolutions. We resolve to cease some behaviors and start others. The night had a special meaning in the previous book, Every Time I Think of You. And again, what happens a few years later on the same holiday reflects how Reid and Everett's relationship has grown, and changed.

I resolved to break a literary rule once again, as I did in Message of Love. One of the main conceits of the romance novel is the idea of monogamy; one love between two people. But what if the rules are changed because of a variety of reasons, or just one reason?

In this excerpt, set after a New Year's Eve party in Pittsburgh, boyfriends Reid and Everett push their own boundaries of honesty, faithfulness, and fidelity. Critical reviews have called it "cheating," but others who know how love works, and that sexuality between young men isn't always the magical happily ever after.