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Here's a
review that has
some really nice things to say
about my short story,
"As Sweet By Any Other Name"
from
Best Gay Romance 2009:
"...If I had to pick a favorite amongst the stories here, it would be a tie between Adult by Natty Soltesz, an hilarious and occasionally sexy excerpt of the life of a recent high school graduate working as a porno clerk in the town of Groom, Pennsylvania, and As Sweet by Any Other Name, by Mark G. Harris. That last story is about a delightfully bitter, love-stung guy called Ralph and his friend Yolanda, who tries to set him up with a blind date, to his dismay. It's a story about friendship as well as love; it's sweet and real, and it might me believe that yes, you can meet love like that. It happens every day. Even if you’re bitter and a bit slow."
You can
click on this link
to read
the full review:
The Short Review by Stefani Nellen
I managed to type
this entry
with a blown mind.
I didn't do too badly,
if I do say so
myself. : )
(wow-w-w-w-w...)
Edit: Here's a review written by writer 'Nathan Burgoine, which says:
"...For me, the two tales that stole the show were Jay Mandal's "Chiaroscuro" and Mark G. Harris' "As Sweet by Any Other Name." Mandal's beautiful progression through a relationship born, bloomed, and fallen, and the connection to a younger generation, was a delight to read. Harris' doughty ability to spin prose with a sly humor turns even the wounded and love-shy hero of his tale into someone you admire, and his witty plot leaves you grinning."
: )
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In the romantic short story
I wrote called,
"As Sweet By Any Other Name"
there's a treehouse...
...where two men
meet while working
on the treehouse
as a community project.
Is it heady stuff?
I use convoluted
in relation to a body feature,
if that's any indicator.
I wanted to use
doughty elsewhere
but my editor's
red pen said,
"Aw, hayull naw,"
and I still haven't
quite gotten over it.
[sniff]
There was a treehouse in my childhood, too. A treehouse; a farm for a couple of years complete with private lake and rushing creek; puppy after puppy; a bike... you know, a childhood with such ingredients should have produced the local pipe-smoking font of knowledge/mayor/sherriff/doctor shucking peanuts at the general store. Instead you got me. Feeling cheated, yet?
We built the treehouse. My mother drove me and my brother and sister to an abandoned house nearby, both for lumber and because it was 1975 and dumpster-diving had yet to become a fad and we had to do something for crying out loud.
The abandoned house looked a bit like the one featured in that R.E.M. video, or the finale of that movie that scared me.
I sometimes think nothing is creepier than an abandoned house.
Then I get a good look at John Davidson.
Anyway, it was while building our treehouse that I fell out of it and landed flat on my stomach on a floor of orange hard packed clay and tree roots. I'm lucky I didn't bite my tongue off. The air in my lungs expelled involuntarily in one large- or medium-size rush. Who else has had the air knocked out of him or her? show of hands? isn't it weird?
I might have featured a treehouse in my short story in order to exorcize some of the unpleasant, for me, psychological associations... because treehouses are neat-o and everyone likes them and I ought to be allowed to like them, too, all nice and unhindered and such.
But I'm no shrink, in addition to being
no font of knowledge/mayor/sherriff/doctor.
"As Sweet By Any Other Name"
(by me!)
can be found in
Best Gay Romance 2009.
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Henry the boxer, limited engagement, appearing nightly in Fool for Love: New Gay Fiction.
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There's a lot of fucking good music mentioned in "Love Taps," my short story in Fool for Love: New Gay Fiction. It goes like a little something like this. A-one-and-a-two-and-a...
( Hit it! )
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I thought I'd talk a little about my short story, which appears in Fool for Love: New Gay Fiction.
My story's called, "Love Taps,"
and a couple of my dolls are here to illustrate, in a tasteful manner, of course.
( More about Love Taps here! )
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| » 12 questions about writing fiction-- Question # 12 |
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Together, at last, in one handy volume are
Question # 1
Question # 2
Question # 3
Question # 4
Question # 5
Question # 6
Question # 7
Question # 8
Question # 9
Question # 10
Question # 11
and Question # 12....
( More! )
The writers:
*Marika Christian, a former article-writer for The St. Petersburg Times, is currently working on her first novel. She lives in New Orleans, Louisiana, with her dog, Dash.
*'Nathan Burgoine, a former writer for Hallmark, has recently had his short stories accepted by two anthologies, release-dates to be determined. He is at work on a novel, and lives in Ottawa, Ontario, with his husband.
*David Puterbaugh's short story, Me Too, appeared in Best Gay Love Stories 2005, published by Alyson Books. He is currently enrolled in the MFA program at Queens College, is at work on a novel, and lives in New York City.
*Timothy J. Lambert is one of the co-authors of the Timothy James Beck series of novels,It Had To Be You, He's The One, I'm Your Man, Someone Like You, and When You Don't See Me, from Kensington Books. Someone Like You was a finalist at the 2006 Lambda Literary Awards. He is also the co-author of the novels The Deal and Three Fortunes In One Cookie, from Alyson Books. His short stories The End Of The Show and The Dance appeared, respectively, in Alyson Books' Best Gay Love Stories 2005 and Best Gay Love Stories: New York City. His short story The Last Time appeared in The Mammoth Book Of New Gay Erotica, from Carroll & Graf Publishers. He has co-edited two short story collections, one with Becky Cochrane, and the other, Best Gay Erotica 2007, with Richard Labonte, which was published by Cleis Press. He lives in Houston, Texas, with his dog, Rex.
*Greg Herren is the author of the Chanse MacLeod series of novels, Murder In The Rue Dauphine, Murder In The Rue St. Ann, and Murder In The Rue Chartres, published by Alyson Books. He is also the author of the Scotty Bradley series of novels, Bourbon Street Blues, Jackson Square Jazz, and Mardi Gras Mambo, published by Kensington Books. With Paul J. Willis he co-edited Love, Bourbon Street: Reflections Of New Orleans, which won the 2006 Anthology Award given by The Lambda Literary Foundation. For Alyson Books, he has edited Full Body Contact: Sexy, Sweaty Men Of Sport and Fratsex: Stories Of Gay Sex In College Fraternities. For Kensington Books, he has edited Midnight Thirsts: Erotic Tales Of The Vampire. His other works, as editor and/or author, include Shadows Of The Night: Queer Tales Of The Uncanny And Unusual, Upon A Midnight Clear: Queer Christmas Tales, and Wanna Wrestle?, among many others. He lives in New Orleans, Louisiana, with his partner and their cat, Nicky.
*Becky Cochrane is one of the co-authors of the Timothy James Beck series of novels, It Had To Be You, He's The One, I'm Your Man, Someone Like You, and When You Don't See Me, from Kensington Books. Someone Like You was a finalist at the 2006 Lambda Literary Awards. She is also the co-author of the novels The Deal and Three Fortunes In One Cookie, from Alyson Books. Her short story, Never Judge A Book appeared in Alyson Books' Best Gay Love Stories 2006. She has co-edited a collection of short stories with Timothy J. Lambert. She is the author of the novel, A Coventry Christmas, from Zebra Books, and is currently at work on the second book in the series. She lives in Houston, Texas, with her husband and their dogs, Guinness and Margot.
_________
...It was a great thing that these six agreed to do-- that is, to share their experiences, offer their wisdom, and bare their souls. I've learned a great deal, have delighted at reading everything they had to say, and feel fortunate and richer. I don't know how to thank them. Typing, Thank you, doesn't seem like enough. But, thank you, very much.
Oct. 31st, 2007 @ 01:01 am
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| » 12 questions about writing fiction-- Question # 11 |
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There are six reasons why I am delighted with the responses to Question # 11....
( More! )
Oct. 30th, 2007 @ 01:08 am
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“It is not the critic that counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done better.
“The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, and comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement.
“And at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.”
~Theodore Roosevelt, Paris, 1910
_________
“If you want to read the answers to Question # 10, you're more than welcome to.”
~Mark, Paris [doesn't he wish], 2007
( More! )
Oct. 29th, 2007 @ 01:14 am
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Byron is known to have chiseled graffiti-- his name-- on a column of the temple of Poseidon, in Attica, Greece... though, had he intended someone to learn he had reached Greece, he knew enough to pen a letter back home, and could afford a stamp. It's quite a beautiful job, the vandalism, not hasty or clumsy, and the mystery of whom he expected to find it and read it is something that intrigues me.
After receiving a "particularly venomous critique" in the Scottish journal, The Edinburgh Review, of his series of poems, Hours Of Idleness, Byron wrote the satirical English Bards And Scotch Reviewers, perhaps to get back at who he thought had written the review, Francis Jeffrey (though, it turns out, Henry Brougham was the one who had ridiculed Byron's work).
Whether it's a message in a bottle meant for whomever chances upon it, or an epistle-clad rock targeted for a specific intended's window, I wanted to know how these six writers felt about the matter. I'd ask a certain vandal/dead poet, but everybody already knows Lord Byron swung both ways concerning Question # 9....
( More! )
Oct. 26th, 2007 @ 01:07 am
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| » 12 questions about writing fiction-- Question # 8 |
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While a character once confessed that "laughter through tears is my favorite emotion," I've always wondered how she would rate another favorite, one I posed to these writers in the form of Question # 8....
( More! )
Oct. 21st, 2007 @ 10:22 pm
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Sometimes I think about how Robert Plant's fans felt betrayed and then turned on him, after he left Led Zeppelin and released a remake of "Sea Of Love."
More often I think about how George Lucas got crucified for not including a "Han Solo-type character" in his most recent three episodes of Star Wars.
About the only time I can think of, when an artist abandoned what his fans enjoyed to set out on his own personal journey and they stuck by him, is when Picasso caught that 5 o'clock Le Train Bleu out of The Rose Period, next stop: Cubism.
It's enough to make me wonder about the risks involved in doing one's own thing, or the joys of giving an audience what it craves, enough to make me ask Question # 7....
( More! )
Oct. 19th, 2007 @ 12:48 am
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| » 12 questions about writing fiction-- Question # 6 |
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Here it is, Halftime, already. No better time, really, than to give up some love for these six brave, vulnerable writers who have agreed to expose themselves so fearlessly. They oughtn't be rejected. Especially since rejection is the theme of Question # 6....
( More! )
Oct. 18th, 2007 @ 01:57 am
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A while back, I mentioned this foreign mystery woman, and her unique way with words. Tonight, I checked in on her, to see what she had to say.
(While those two sentences, above, are meant to sling the reader forward and-- crossed fingers-- get him or her interested in what's about to be revealed, these next sentences do, to me, the same thing that a handsome face, a marvelous painting, a kind gesture, or a gorgeous view do, which is to bathe me in the [literally] stunning.) She writes:
Her dress filled the feeling. She is wearing a black and a little romance of the Merlion attire. The embellishement black lace, with gold ornaments, add luxury flu.
I stopped reading to wonder, Who would think to define luxury as an ailment? And, whose hand do I have to shake to come down with it?, and tonight had to research what a Merlion was. That kind of halt can kill the momentum of a story, in my opinion... or add a delightful little case of the luxury flu, also in my opinion. It's a tough call, and that's what Question # 5 concerns....
( More! )
Oct. 17th, 2007 @ 12:49 am
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Here are some thoughts about the curves writers get thrown. Cue that Gloria Gaynor LP, and settle in for Question # 4....
( More! )
Oct. 14th, 2007 @ 01:24 am
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Please excuse yourself from this debate, if you feel slingshot can't be a verb if it wants to be one. But, what's the past tense of it-- slingedshot?-- slungshot?-- fine as it is?
Anyway, here's Question # 3....
( More! )
Oct. 6th, 2007 @ 02:45 am
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| » 12 questions about writing fiction-- Question # 2 |
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One of my favorite movie fibs occurs during Amadeus, in which the character Salieri is stunned-- almost to insultedness-- that the first drafts of Mozart's sheet music bear no corrections, and appear almost as dictation from the divine.
When I later learned that Mozart's surviving manuscripts do reveal rewrites, I was a little disappointed that he was just like us, and not supernatural. Then I thought about it, and felt encouraged that perhaps such sublime stuff is attainable, through hard work. Which leads to Question # 2....
( More! )
Oct. 4th, 2007 @ 01:11 am
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| » 12 questions about writing fiction-- Question # 1 |
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It's harder than it looks, summoning courage and e-mailing several writers to ask them to share their views on fiction. Since I'm lucky enough to have the treasure of a few writers' e-mail addresses, though, it would seem like a horrible waste if I were to let such an opportunity get past me, so I put my curiosity in written-form, closed my eyes and pressed Send. Each writer to whom I sent my questionnaire took time out and had the charm and the generositiy to reply, and I should've known, all along, that they would have.
Back in June I was fortunate enough to get frank perspectives on fiction from the readers' side. Here comes the mate to that bookend, presented in installments, rather than in one gigantic post:
( More! )
Oct. 3rd, 2007 @ 02:13 pm
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| » ...a very strange, enchanted boy... |
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This is to document a journey down the street I took, today. It's photo-intensive--20 pictures-- and might bog your computer down, so it's up to you if you want to go further. If you're at all squimish about cemeteries, or don't like people poking a little fun at the dead, you might want to skip this one as well. Ye Be Warned.
( more )
Jun. 23rd, 2007 @ 12:14 am
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markgharris's journal