A New Interview With QMO
Be sure and check out this new site at:
http://queermagazineonline.com/
The owners of QMO know I love to write and post interviews, so they offered me a spot, my very own little corner at the magazine, where I can interview to my hearts content–authors and publishers, actors and artists–absolutely anyone involved in the LGBTQ community. So, there you have it! Blak Rayne will have a queer moment a couple times a week! LOL And, I hope you’ll join me!
Welcome to AQM at QMO (you try to say that fast ten times). Our grand opening guest is Rodney Ross, newcomer to the m/m publishing scene, but not when it comes to writing.
Our readers would love to know whatever you’re willing to tell us, Rodney.
My name is Rodney Ross. That is, indeed, my real name. My mother is Diana Ross. She is neither black nor vocally gifted, but having a mother with that name left little to chance that I would be The Gay. And a little bit supreme.
I was a creative child, self-isolating and brooding. I’ve always written: little playlets that I would act all of the characters for into a tape recorder; grade school newsletter/ high school newspaper/college newspaper; magazine freelancer; finally, a Creative Director at a Midwestern ad agency – where, ironically, I did very little writing, my time spent mostly calming manic producers and diva directors. For creative sustenance, in my off-hours, I wrote screenplays -- two optioned but never produced. Later came a play, optioned twice on separate Coasts – again, never produced. The self-pity was abject: “Always the bridesmaid, never the bride!” Until ‘The Cool Part Of His Pillow’ (TCPohP).
I semi-retired and relocated three years ago to Key West, FL, the final island of the Keys in Southern Florida, a tourism-driven town steeped in literary tradition, from Tennessee Williams and Ernest Hemingway to, more recently, playwright Terrence McNally, Edmund White, even Judy Blume. It is here that I completed TCPohP and, for that, I am grateful to whatever wordsmith aura still encases the island (when it’s not shrouded in Summer’s oppressive humidity).
Here might be a good time to summarize the plot of TCPohP: Barry Grooms is a success by any measure: expansive interior design gallery, 20-plus years of stability with partner Andy, financial security, he still has all of his own hair and teeth. Then everything changes when, on Barry’s 45th birthday, a horrendous construction crane collapse kills Andy and their two pugs. His plunge into widower hood is surreal – casseroles of sympathy, being offered someone else’s snotrag, a parasitic grief support group – yet Barry is damaged, not destroyed, and as he slowly rebuilds a world largely destroyed, my hope is anyone who has experienced loss, felt backed into a corner, dealt with know-it-all-but-well-meaning-friends-and-relatives or retreated into denial, will find resonance. It’s also funny, full of wicked observation. Not rimshot jokes nor Neil Simon-ish set-ups…more humor that naturally emerges from situations…placing two very different people in a room and letting them have at it…characters who don’t seem to have a self-edit chip in their head. Misery is so much more fun when sprinkled with the macabre or the politically incorrect, the scatological or the blasphemous. Barry’s smartassedness, his skeptical eye rolls, are what ultimately save him.
Why did you become an m/m author?
I don’t know that I am. I resist pigeonholes. I’m not so keen on HEA. I reach for it in my own life, but in this particular narrative, it would be reductive and a boring simplification and, because of its 1st-person, present tense voice, overt sexual detail would be a little too salacious memoir. This isn’t prudery -- I can be quite vivid, as mortified friends can attest -- and it isn’t snobbery, because I think the m/m publishing arena has given firebrand, controversial and wildly talented authors tremendous opportunity that mainstream houses have traditionally not, but that landscape too is evolving. Simply put, I wrote the book I wanted to, about a gay man, once one of two learning how to be the me of we.
Does personal experience influence your writing?
Being a gay male, certainly -- and permit me to be demure and evasive as I add one of a certain age -- I wanted to voice something relevant to a certain demographic: loneliness borne of loss, not of abandonment or cheating or even illness, but unthinkable circumstance. I am remarkably fortunate to be with a man who has tolerated and treasured me for a very long time. If our relationship was measured in dog years, it would be something out of Jurassic Park. Having known this bliss, I wanted to talk about the absence of love after having had it…when AARP is about the only thing that may come courting.
Where do you find the greatest inspiration?
The observation of people both unknown and known to me. I find great sport in sitting quietly in the corner of a ginmill, pedestrian piazza or suburban mall and writing down the detail of humanity on the backs of ATM receipts and fast food bags, cackling the entire time. The nasty-ass parent who thinks they’ll calm a crying child by slamming them ferociously; the slightly-thick man in the too-tight tee against the wall who is holding in his stomach so intently I can feel his back pain; the couple in their twilight years who share a pudding cup and talk in shorthand. Those are the details one might be able to concoct but could never get the minutiae, the way that plastic spoon is dipped, quite right.
Beyond that, little slices of dialogue, or an anecdote, have been purloined from my life, but usually so altered as to be unrecognizable by the people who lived it or said it. While I am not interested in writing some roman a clef, some meaningless guessing game of “Who is really who?” among friends and associates, any writer who denies that his or her characters, certain passages and dialogue aren’t couched in real-life are liars. My focal character Barry has a pessimistic skepticism that comes easily to me, and his mother in the novel mangles the English language the way mine sometimes does.
Mostly, I make shit up, but it’s couched in realism. I escaped from the 7 Circles of Hell, a/k/a Advertising, so I know puh-lenty about research, stats and historical precedent, so anything I don’t know, I Google. Sloppy fact checking and inaccuracy annoys the hell outta me in fiction. Know where your characters live, where they frequent, what they spend of clothing and liquor, the specific geography, inhabit their era if it’s a period piece. Gone are the days of trips to the library, the stern shushes from the wretched crypt keepers at the front desk, the photocopying and note-taking. Scant or lazy detail in novels is inexcusable.
If you could indulge, which one of your characters would you have an affair? Explain the attraction. And, yes, I am determined to drag you anyway I can.
So, so determined to drag me kicking and screaming into the salacious, aren’t we? Affair connotes something covert, which I am not prone to -- I am remarkably fortunate to be with a man who has tolerated and treasured me for a very long time -- but if I were single and sought a nightlong bout of sweaty sex, I would choose Jarod, the young man with whom Barry finds (short-lived) physical intimacy. His life outlook sucks and his kneejerk politics would prove irksome, but if we’re just talking about lust and dick, sure, a lean 23 year-old with few boundaries might prove the fine-tuning my rusty vehicle needs.
Do you read erotica? If so, what is your favourite novel to date? And, why?
I am not, candidly, a huge fan of erotica, by the definition I think you’re utilizing. I find sexual tension, and its eventual realization, far more appealing. I would point to Michael Cunningham’s recent By Nightfall that steamed my glasses (and, peculiarly, I wasn’t wearing any). The percolating sexual energy between the focal character, straight-identifying, married art dealer Peter Harris, and his troubled brother-in-law Ethan, is so palpable, I may have to turn the hose on myself just typing this. By page 193, I had come undone. Or vice-versa.
If you could give an up-and-coming author one piece of advice, what would it be?
The inclination to write is so embedded, I cannot imagine NOT writing. Most is nature….a bit is nurture…all of it is heavy lifting. Still, it’s a challenge, being depressingly aware that the final polish is so, so distant. Writing is so damned isolated, and isolating. A writer -- this one at least -- seeks distraction: the litter pan to scoop, sit-ups to attempt, a martini that’s just yelling to be shaken. I always have a notepad and pen, or a mini-cassette recorder, handy. I treat my muse like a sneeze: I gotta catch the spray when I can!
Of course, writers must read. John Irving continues to be an inspiration. The World According To Garp opened my eyes to possibilities in literature that didn’t exist to me prior. His subsequent work has been just as vital, and his style brings an empathy, clarity and humanity to the most unrelentingly cruel encounters and unexpected character pivots. I can only aspire to his literary prowess.
The advice: stay at it. Write. Write some more. Worry not about genre; others will make that decision for you. Market yourself as single-mindedly as you did crafting your chapters. In the world today, the author can be as much the product as the printed page --or, rather, the page that floats on a digital cloud – so stay ready for the opportunities to get your work into the hands of others. The endgame is being read and appreciated.
http://queermagazineonline.com/
The owners of QMO know I love to write and post interviews, so they offered me a spot, my very own little corner at the magazine, where I can interview to my hearts content–authors and publishers, actors and artists–absolutely anyone involved in the LGBTQ community. So, there you have it! Blak Rayne will have a queer moment a couple times a week! LOL And, I hope you’ll join me!
Welcome to AQM at QMO (you try to say that fast ten times). Our grand opening guest is Rodney Ross, newcomer to the m/m publishing scene, but not when it comes to writing.
Our readers would love to know whatever you’re willing to tell us, Rodney.
My name is Rodney Ross. That is, indeed, my real name. My mother is Diana Ross. She is neither black nor vocally gifted, but having a mother with that name left little to chance that I would be The Gay. And a little bit supreme.
I was a creative child, self-isolating and brooding. I’ve always written: little playlets that I would act all of the characters for into a tape recorder; grade school newsletter/ high school newspaper/college newspaper; magazine freelancer; finally, a Creative Director at a Midwestern ad agency – where, ironically, I did very little writing, my time spent mostly calming manic producers and diva directors. For creative sustenance, in my off-hours, I wrote screenplays -- two optioned but never produced. Later came a play, optioned twice on separate Coasts – again, never produced. The self-pity was abject: “Always the bridesmaid, never the bride!” Until ‘The Cool Part Of His Pillow’ (TCPohP).
I semi-retired and relocated three years ago to Key West, FL, the final island of the Keys in Southern Florida, a tourism-driven town steeped in literary tradition, from Tennessee Williams and Ernest Hemingway to, more recently, playwright Terrence McNally, Edmund White, even Judy Blume. It is here that I completed TCPohP and, for that, I am grateful to whatever wordsmith aura still encases the island (when it’s not shrouded in Summer’s oppressive humidity).
Here might be a good time to summarize the plot of TCPohP: Barry Grooms is a success by any measure: expansive interior design gallery, 20-plus years of stability with partner Andy, financial security, he still has all of his own hair and teeth. Then everything changes when, on Barry’s 45th birthday, a horrendous construction crane collapse kills Andy and their two pugs. His plunge into widower hood is surreal – casseroles of sympathy, being offered someone else’s snotrag, a parasitic grief support group – yet Barry is damaged, not destroyed, and as he slowly rebuilds a world largely destroyed, my hope is anyone who has experienced loss, felt backed into a corner, dealt with know-it-all-but-well-meaning-friends-and-relatives or retreated into denial, will find resonance. It’s also funny, full of wicked observation. Not rimshot jokes nor Neil Simon-ish set-ups…more humor that naturally emerges from situations…placing two very different people in a room and letting them have at it…characters who don’t seem to have a self-edit chip in their head. Misery is so much more fun when sprinkled with the macabre or the politically incorrect, the scatological or the blasphemous. Barry’s smartassedness, his skeptical eye rolls, are what ultimately save him.
Why did you become an m/m author?
I don’t know that I am. I resist pigeonholes. I’m not so keen on HEA. I reach for it in my own life, but in this particular narrative, it would be reductive and a boring simplification and, because of its 1st-person, present tense voice, overt sexual detail would be a little too salacious memoir. This isn’t prudery -- I can be quite vivid, as mortified friends can attest -- and it isn’t snobbery, because I think the m/m publishing arena has given firebrand, controversial and wildly talented authors tremendous opportunity that mainstream houses have traditionally not, but that landscape too is evolving. Simply put, I wrote the book I wanted to, about a gay man, once one of two learning how to be the me of we.
Does personal experience influence your writing?
Being a gay male, certainly -- and permit me to be demure and evasive as I add one of a certain age -- I wanted to voice something relevant to a certain demographic: loneliness borne of loss, not of abandonment or cheating or even illness, but unthinkable circumstance. I am remarkably fortunate to be with a man who has tolerated and treasured me for a very long time. If our relationship was measured in dog years, it would be something out of Jurassic Park. Having known this bliss, I wanted to talk about the absence of love after having had it…when AARP is about the only thing that may come courting.
Where do you find the greatest inspiration?
The observation of people both unknown and known to me. I find great sport in sitting quietly in the corner of a ginmill, pedestrian piazza or suburban mall and writing down the detail of humanity on the backs of ATM receipts and fast food bags, cackling the entire time. The nasty-ass parent who thinks they’ll calm a crying child by slamming them ferociously; the slightly-thick man in the too-tight tee against the wall who is holding in his stomach so intently I can feel his back pain; the couple in their twilight years who share a pudding cup and talk in shorthand. Those are the details one might be able to concoct but could never get the minutiae, the way that plastic spoon is dipped, quite right.
Beyond that, little slices of dialogue, or an anecdote, have been purloined from my life, but usually so altered as to be unrecognizable by the people who lived it or said it. While I am not interested in writing some roman a clef, some meaningless guessing game of “Who is really who?” among friends and associates, any writer who denies that his or her characters, certain passages and dialogue aren’t couched in real-life are liars. My focal character Barry has a pessimistic skepticism that comes easily to me, and his mother in the novel mangles the English language the way mine sometimes does.
Mostly, I make shit up, but it’s couched in realism. I escaped from the 7 Circles of Hell, a/k/a Advertising, so I know puh-lenty about research, stats and historical precedent, so anything I don’t know, I Google. Sloppy fact checking and inaccuracy annoys the hell outta me in fiction. Know where your characters live, where they frequent, what they spend of clothing and liquor, the specific geography, inhabit their era if it’s a period piece. Gone are the days of trips to the library, the stern shushes from the wretched crypt keepers at the front desk, the photocopying and note-taking. Scant or lazy detail in novels is inexcusable.
If you could indulge, which one of your characters would you have an affair? Explain the attraction. And, yes, I am determined to drag you anyway I can.
So, so determined to drag me kicking and screaming into the salacious, aren’t we? Affair connotes something covert, which I am not prone to -- I am remarkably fortunate to be with a man who has tolerated and treasured me for a very long time -- but if I were single and sought a nightlong bout of sweaty sex, I would choose Jarod, the young man with whom Barry finds (short-lived) physical intimacy. His life outlook sucks and his kneejerk politics would prove irksome, but if we’re just talking about lust and dick, sure, a lean 23 year-old with few boundaries might prove the fine-tuning my rusty vehicle needs.
Do you read erotica? If so, what is your favourite novel to date? And, why?
I am not, candidly, a huge fan of erotica, by the definition I think you’re utilizing. I find sexual tension, and its eventual realization, far more appealing. I would point to Michael Cunningham’s recent By Nightfall that steamed my glasses (and, peculiarly, I wasn’t wearing any). The percolating sexual energy between the focal character, straight-identifying, married art dealer Peter Harris, and his troubled brother-in-law Ethan, is so palpable, I may have to turn the hose on myself just typing this. By page 193, I had come undone. Or vice-versa.
If you could give an up-and-coming author one piece of advice, what would it be?
The inclination to write is so embedded, I cannot imagine NOT writing. Most is nature….a bit is nurture…all of it is heavy lifting. Still, it’s a challenge, being depressingly aware that the final polish is so, so distant. Writing is so damned isolated, and isolating. A writer -- this one at least -- seeks distraction: the litter pan to scoop, sit-ups to attempt, a martini that’s just yelling to be shaken. I always have a notepad and pen, or a mini-cassette recorder, handy. I treat my muse like a sneeze: I gotta catch the spray when I can!
Of course, writers must read. John Irving continues to be an inspiration. The World According To Garp opened my eyes to possibilities in literature that didn’t exist to me prior. His subsequent work has been just as vital, and his style brings an empathy, clarity and humanity to the most unrelentingly cruel encounters and unexpected character pivots. I can only aspire to his literary prowess.
The advice: stay at it. Write. Write some more. Worry not about genre; others will make that decision for you. Market yourself as single-mindedly as you did crafting your chapters. In the world today, the author can be as much the product as the printed page --or, rather, the page that floats on a digital cloud – so stay ready for the opportunities to get your work into the hands of others. The endgame is being read and appreciated.
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