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The love affair that began in Straight Jock Pussy continues in For the Love of Jock Pussy.

Travis O’Toole is still being blackmailed by John and eager for Spike to come to his rescue. Although Travis has asked for Spike’s help, he still hasn’t done anything to stop John from continuing with his demands. What is taking Spike so long? Why does Travis have to endure John’s sadistically cruel sexual tortures? And when Spike does arrive, how will he force John to pay for his evil deeds?

And then there’s Bart Findley, the colossal college football stud who, to his shock and utter disbelief, finds himself abducted from the Calderfield College locker room and taken to a private gym, where he is forced to explore a hidden desire he’d experienced only once before.

The fun has only begun, and the boys of Calderfield College will never be the same again.

Get to know Brian Centrone

Although Brian Centrone’s short fiction has been published in literary magazines, three of them collected in I Voted for Biddy Schumacher (New Lit Salon Press), he’s still  somewhat of an unknown author. With the release of his first novel, An Ordinary Boy (Seventh Window), all of that is about to change. I took some time to sit down with Brian to ask him a few questions so you could get to know him better.

In An Ordinary Boy, Tom seems to be lost with himself and where he fits into the world. What made you want to write about that type of character?

Primarily because I have always felt lost in this world. I never knew quite where I fit in, and I think a lot of people share that feeling. But I also wanted to highlight a side of gay culture we don’t normally see, and that is the side where ordinary gays have a hard time figuring out where they fit into the community. The LGBTQ community is full of subcultures that make it seem as if you have to fall into one or the other or else there’s no place for you. I think there are lot of LGBTQ people out there who think they don’t belong, and I want them to know that they do. There’s a place for everyone at the table. This is why I dedicate the novel to all the ordinary boys. The dedication extends to the ladies as well, and anyone else to ever felt as if they did not fit in.

Tom’s best friend, Marissa, is very popular and outgoing, which is the very opposite of Tom. Often times he compares himself to Marissa. Is that something you find yourself doing with other people?

I was actually telling someone the other day how I was always coming up second best to my childhood best friend, so in a way, I think my personality was shaped by the concept that there was always someone who was better at something than I was. But don’t cry for me Argentina, I think I’ve turned out pretty okay.

Of all the characters in An Ordinary Boy, which is closest to you?

It’s funny because everyone always asks me if I’m Tom, but I always answer that I’m really more like Marissa. We definitely share a wit and a talent for snappy comebacks. Of course, it’s Marissa’s charter who is the most obsessed with pop culture and celebrity. I even think we share some of the same vulnerabilities. I am very outgoing and effusive, and we share that characteristic to a T.

Fashion, glamor and pop culture play a part in An Ordinary Boy. How do you think these things shape the world around us and how we live in it?

Fashion, glamor and pop culture is such an important part of the world around us and how we live in it even if people believe otherwise. How we look and how we act is majorly influenced by what walks down the runways or what the Kardashian’s are up to. We are a celebrity obsessed culture. We have been for more than a century. We are a nation built on the idea of an “American Dream,” and a big part of that dream is glamor. Social media and reality shows only help to increase our obsession. Fashion is certainly a status of class. I think we see that in An Ordinary Boy, particularly when it comes to the character of Darren. He’s the boy who’s always on the outside looking in, and I think the character that holds a mirror up to Tom helping him realize just where he comes from.

At one point Tom goes to Fashion Week with his sister. Have you ever been?

I have! I have not been inside the main tents or to the major shows, but I got the chance to see Kara Larick’s (Fashion Star Season 1 Winner) Spring 13 collection last year. It was an incredible experience. I started watching the shows when they were first being televised on NY1 and following designers around the time I began writing An Ordinary Boy. My love of fashion grew out of that and made its way into the novel. It will also play a major role in my next novel, a glimpse of which we get in An Ordinary Boy during the Fashion Week scenes.

In college Tom shares a dorm room with a straight jock, which gives him some angst about coming out. How often do you think this happens?

Often enough. People seem to be more comfortable with the idea of homosexuality these days, but when you are living in such close quarters with someone you really don’t know, you are forced into a kind of intimacy. That can be scary, especially if there is any chance of a misconception or misunderstanding. Tom’s fears in the novel are not without warrant.

I like how the gay people and straight people mix at Blain’s parties. Is this common amongst college parties today?

I think so. I never remember being at a college party where there were not openly gay students alongside straight students. Of course, Tom goes to a Liberal Arts College, much like I did, and those schools have a tendency to be more open in terms of accepting differences in sexuality.

There are so many great secondary characters in An Ordinary Boy. Between the reserved father, controlling mother and in-the-spotlight grandmother, I truly can’t pick which one I find more entertaining. Who is your favorite secondary character and why?

My favorite secondary character hands down is Tom’s mother, Christine Grove. She was the best character to write for because she is so over the top, yet there is a truth to the type of woman she is. I never felt anything she did or said was too much, and that can be really freeing for a writer. Martha Stewart has nothing on Tom’s mother, and Tom’s mother knows it!

Did you set out to write a coming of age novel or did it just happen?

I actually intended to write a post coming of age novel. I wanted to explore what happens to a character after they come into their own. That’s not quite how the novel turned out, but for me, the main thing was that Tom’s sexuality wasn’t an issue for him. I didn’t want the novel being about Tom learning to be okay with being gay. Tom’s okay with being gay. What he’s more concerned with is making sure that everyone else will be okay with him being gay. Throughout the book Tom is dealing with finding out who he is in general and what he wants out of life.

A lot of authors talk about how their novel starts out as one thing and turns into something else. Did this happen to you?

Absolutely. The original novel was conceived as a diary. The catch was you didn’t know who the writer was until the end. It was only then you would find out that you were reading about a young gay male. I won’t give away the why and how the reader finds out, but I will say that the diary concept stuck around for the first or second version of the novel, though who the writer was was no longer a secret. The central plot has always been the same. There is a college anthology which the first part of an early version of An Ordinary Boy was published. My website briancentrone.com has information about that anthology as well as my other publications.

You’ve written and published short fiction. Do you feel that writing a novel has made you grow as a writer? Has it made you look at story and the craft of writing differently?

This is a hard question. Though short stories are technically harder to write because they have to do what a novel does in a more compact manor, I feel they are easier to manage. An Ordinary Boy was written over a period of years and my main concern was that voice and writing style would end up being inconsistent. I think what writing short fiction ultimately taught me was how to control those literary devices so that I wouldn’t lose control of them.

What else can we expect to see from you? Are you working on anything new now?

Coming up next is a collection of my erotic short stories which includes two new shorts. That will be published through New Lit Salon Press who did my mini collection of short stories, I Voted for Biddy Schumacher. I have a new Big Read play being performed in Ohio this spring. There is a second novel planned and I would love to get to work on that as soon as possible. But for now, I’m going to enjoy this moment.

Who are some of your favorite authors and why?

The author who inspires me the most is Jacqueline Susann. She did it her way and she didn’t give a f***. I love that about her. I keep a framed photo of Jackie beside my desk to remind me that I have to be the type of write I want to be, not who I think others want me to be. I’ve also been inspired by Grace Metalious and Bret Easton Ellis. Notice a pattern here? I absolutely love Jeanette Winterson and Truman Capote. Their prose, wit and intelligence are incredible. I really respect K.M. Soehnlein and Brent Hartinger. I’ve connected deeply with both of their works.

Do you like chicken wings?

I do! The best chicken wings I’ve ever eaten were from Pluck U in New York’s Greenwich Village. They’re outrageously addicting. They also make an appearance in An Ordinary Boy. That’s how good they are.

Out now from Seventh Window, An Ordinary Boy by Brian Centrone

Tom Grove’s family is rich, his grandparents are famous, and he’s beautiful. He can have anything he wants, but all Tom really wants is to be an ordinary boy. Like his best friend, Marissa, Tom wants to fit in, make friends and date sexy boys. It would also help if he could be free of his father’s weighty expectations, his mother’s insane demands, and his older brother’s snide remarks.

When Tom begins his first year of college, he believes he’s going to come out and start a new life. But Tom’s plan to come out of the closet and meet hot college boys isn’t exactly foolproof. His new roommate is a straight jock, the gay club at school is made up of outcasts, and the lines between going out to dinner and a date are blurry at best.

If that wasn’t a challenge enough, Tom has to learn how to navigate drunken college parties, the campus social hierarchy, and the attentions of the wrong sort of boys. What begins as a journey to independence turns into a series of mishaps, love, heartache, soul searching, awkward situations and the realization that life is less like an Abercrombie & Fitch catalog and more like the everyday low prices of Wal-Mart.

And to make matters worse, he still has to make it through freshman year.

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A chat with Ron Radle about his new book, Degrees of Passion.

Ron Radle, the author of Degrees of Passion, took the time to answer a few questions.

Degrees of Passion takes place during the Reagan years, can you tell us why you chose that time period. 

I grew up during that period, matured sexually and in other ways, so it seemed natural to choose it as the setting of a novel.

One of the things I really enjoy about Degrees of Passion is the relationship David has with his straight roommate, Laddie, who doesn’t have a problem with David being gay. Their relationship is pivotal to the story, IMHO. How do you view David and Laddie’s relationship? 

It’s a complex relationship. They’re total opposites in so many ways, politically, sexually, temperamentally, but they love each other and accept each other like brothers. Perhaps it is because they are, deep down, seeking the same thing – which is romantic love and sexual fulfillment. They understand each other very well.

Men are very physical beings, which is shown in Degrees of Passion. How does  the aspect of being a gay man help and hurt David?  

He’s drawn as being attractive himself physically, although no Colt model or Falcon Studios stud. So he is able to attract, for the most part, men he truly desires. On the other hand, his idealism hurts him,  He doesn’t always understand that physical beauty and character are not entirely correspondent.

As a publisher, I think that Degrees of Passion has a very personal feel to it. How much of yourself was put into the writing? How close to this book are you? 

It is one of the most personal things I’ve ever written. I’ve experienced so much of the hurt and passion David experiences. There was a Derek Windsor in my life, the blond, handsome prince, the physical ideal, and much of the background of the book comes from my own background.

The south plays a big part in both Degrees of Passion and Two Sides of the Coin. I know that you’re a southern boy yourself, and southern fiction has its own niche in literature (i.e. Faulkner and Tennessee Williams); do you think you could ever write about a non-southern person.

Yes. I’ve written pieces with non-Southern settings and non-Southern characters.  Human nature is, basically, the same, whether we hail from north or south. Writing about the South allows me a bit more creative use of the language. What was it Flanner O’Connor said? The South produces so many good writers because we have the Bible and Shakespeare.  Language, and specifically language in the cause of storytelling, flows naturally from us.

I’m an east coast, northern boy through and through, so reading about the south and having it so ingrained into a story gives it a texture that’s alien to me, which is also what attracts me to it. A lot of what I like to read for my own personal pleasure are books that bring me out of the place I know, into another reality. Books like The Help by Kathryn Stockett and possessing the Secret of Joy by Alice Walker made me look at the world around me in a different way. Is this something you hope to do with your writing? Do you hope to show people the south as a gay man? 

Yes, I do.  So much gay writing is urban centered.  Even books set in Atlanta do not always give an accurate feel for the lives of many, many thousands of gay men live in the so-called “boondocks.” I’m very interested in the boondocks, Southern or non-Southern, and how gay men carve out their lives there. In a way it is more of a challenge than living one’s life in NY, LA, or Atlanta.

What other projects are you working on?

I’m always working on short fiction and have some pieces set to appear in various anthologies.  And I’m kicking around some ideas for a new novel.  One may be a sequel to Two Sides of the Coin in which the two main characters, Danny and Brad, become involved in the mystery of an abused young gay man.

What do you hope people will take with them after reading Degrees of Passion? 

A sense of how gay men love and bleed the same as anyone else.  And of course hardons.  I want them to close the book feeling frisky and ready for love themselves.

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Seventh Window

Seventh Window is looking for new authors

publisher/editor Seventh Window

Seventh Window Publications is looking for unpublished authors with new and innovative manuscripts. Do you have a desire to write a sizzling gay romance? Now is the time to put your fingers to the keyboard and tell your story. We’re looking for novellas and novels that are well written and fresh. They don’t have to be full of sex…unless that’s what you want. Story matters more than sex, along with interesting characters and vivid settings.

I would like to stories with minorities, interracial romance and some dark paranormal. A fun, spooky ghost story would really make my day. Take a look at our web site to get an idea of what Seventh Window publishes to see if your story might fit in. http://www.seventhwindow.com/

If you want to submit your manuscript, go here: http://www.seventhwindow.com/index.php?main_page=contact_us and tell us about your story. Please include the word count, your name, and a brief summary of the plot. Keep the plot to the basic, don’t tell every nuance of the story.

Our most recent titles are Light and Shadow by GL Roberts, Missing by Drake Braxton, Velvet by Xavier Axelson and Out of the Past by Jeffrey Ballam. We have published NL Gassert, MJ Pearson, Eric Arvin, Michele L Montgomery, Christopher Trevor, Bebe Burnside and others.

A few questions for Xavier Axelson

Xavier Axelson

Xavier Axelson’s first novel, Velvet, was just published by Seventh Window. I decided to ask a few questions about the novel and Xavier’s writing process.

Tell us a little about how you came up with the idea for Velvet.

The last page of a fashion magazine inspired Velvet.  There was a pair of velvet shoes accompanied by a write up about velvet, the 15^th century, and how back then you could be killed for wearing it.  I began doing research and discovered the laws of sumptuary, and the seed of a story was discovered.

The laws of sumptuary plays a pretty big role in Velvet. Can you tell us a bit about these laws.

The laws of sumptuary were enacted for a number of reasons, most involving the need to make clear the distinctions between levels of society.  It was believed that if you couldn’t distinguish a peasant from a prince, moral chaos would certainly ensue.

The language in your books is strong and particular to each story and sets the tone while giving the reader an added sense of the surroundings. In Velvet, I feel this is your most lush use of language. How much thought do you give your word choices when writing? Does it just flow with the story?

It really just flows with the story.  My brain tends to naturally gravitate towards the language tones in Velvet.  I love the Elizabethan, and Medieval periods and find the language incredibly satisfying and lyrical.  The characters also guide me.  All I have to do is follow their lead and they usually give generously of their voices.

Some authors write one type of story stick with it, but you seem to bounce around the board. You’ve written a western, a pulpy police story, two paranormals (egads, a repeat!) and now a historical. Do you think this has helped you grow as a writer?

Well, to be fair, Velvet is historical in the sense that it is based on an idea in history, but I was sure to make the world a place out of time.  I did not want to be held to the hard and fast rules of history.

I think everything I write helps me grow as a writer.  With Velvet, I did learn to take control and not let the story become the boss.  There were moments when I would tell myself, “Wait a minute, I’m writing this. I can fix whatever isn’t working, I can write my way out of whatever predicament I’ve gotten my characters into.”

Like in The Birches, there’s an almost magical quality to Velvet.  Is this something we’re going to see more of in your fiction?

The idea of writing magically is unintentional, but apparently ingrained in my creative process, so I would have to say yes, it would be something that will pop up again in future writings.

All your titles (Earthly Concerns, The Incident and Velvet in particular) have a strong sense of story. Do you feel that story is more important than genre?

Genre is a myth.  It’s like the idea you can only drink red wine with red meat. I wrote a zombie story called, “Cravings,” in between Earthly Concerns and Velvet, I’d never written anything in that genre before.  I was stunned when it was accepted for publication.  It was a challenge to see how far I could push myself.  If a story comes to me, I write it, regardless of what genre it falls under.

 Clothing plays a role in Velvet, do you pay attention to fashion?

 I pay attention to design.  I love architecture, art, fashion and the design process.  I find fashion to be a facet of inspiration and expression, and I do read many magazines involving these interests.

 What new projects do you have awaiting your fans?

 A short story called “The Sons of Orion” will be part of the Tricks of the Trade anthology with Bold Strokes this January.  I also have the first book of a trilogy submitted for publication and apparently, my column at examiner.com will continue its crazy journey with new interviews and fringe culture madness.

Xavier Axelson’s first novel

Velvet
By Xavier Axelson

The first novel from Xavier Axelson is set against a backdrop of decadence, privilege, and intrigue. Virago, the royal tailor, makes a discovery that will test the bonds of brotherhood, unravel the forbidden secrets of his heart and threaten the very fabric of his existence.

In a land where cruelty is disguised as allegiance, loyalty is masked by obligation and the laws of sumptuary govern the people, nothing is more dangerous than Velvet.

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Degrees of Passion

The new Ron Radle novel, Degrees of Passion,  is out.

Love and lust combine in the sizzling new novel from Ron Radle.

It isn’t easy to be a gay man in a small southern college, especially during 1986, the Reagan years. Nobody knows this better than David Meador, small town Southern boy whose desire for men is a secret shared only with his closest friend and roommate, Laddie Crawford.

When David is asked to become a tutor for college football player Derek Windsor, his life is turned upside down. David has been fawning over Derek ever since he first saw him on campus, which makes his job as tutor for the handsome jock with a possessive girlfriend that much more difficult. And to make matters worse, David suspects that Derek might have some hidden desires of his own.

David is about to learn that in college, students learn more than what is in their textbooks and that heartache and lust are tempered by Degrees of Passion.

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