Stories

Rigby, impossibly innocent, swaps suffocating middle-class New Zealand for love and liberation in nineteen-sixties London. Revelling in the freedom granted by anonymity, he becomes an actor, stripper, rent boy, teacher and resolute seeker of new experiences while living and travelling in Europe, North Africa and the Middle East, when travellers were uncommon.

{A year ago I posted several chapters, then stopped because I needed to make a few changes. Apologies to those who began reading, only to have it rudely terminated.

Spelling throughout is English English.}

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Jake's adventures continue in this funny book about the small Los Angeles apartment building he lives in. It's full of hot young people who spend a lot of time nearly naked around the pool. But they're often bonkers.

A couple of young guys in the present try to figure out a mysterious legend from the past.

Meanwhile, some years earlier, a young, Native American wife is being admired by a young warrior from another family, temporarily stranded because of an injury.

And there are bears.

Jim Blazak lives in a terrifically accepting world. If only his boyfriend would cooperate. Yeah, there are a couple of other problems. But Jim's bright. And funny. And he looks pretty hot without a shirt.

Harry Sussman is a perfectly nice guy in his early 30s. He's a successful architect who lives in western Massachusetts. He's intelligent. He's stable. He's reasonably good-looking. He just wants to meet a nice guy to marry. Now how hard can that be?

Bodark Creek is a small, former mill town, north of Dallas and close to the Oklahoma border. Starting in 1908, Addy Bronner Braden spends most of her very long life there, surrounded by her large, close family. She loves them, leads them, and depends on them.

There is one gay person in this book – my husband. That makes sense, since the book is based on one half of his family tree. But he only turns up at the very end and as a visitor. And that about defines the relationship between gay people and this part of his family.

The tale of a high school student desperate to make his mark on his peers. He wants to come out, and he wants to come out big enough that no one will forget it, but somehow it always goes wrong.

A lighthearted story of friendship, family, and of course, courage. It's a tad cliche, some things in life are meant to be.

Kevin is an insecure teen boy on a journey to find the love of his life.

There's Kevin's best friend, Torry and his brother Dexter. There's also Sarah, the prettiest girl in school. And let's not forget James Mitt. The man. The myth. The legend.

These are my responses to some of the story prompts found in the forum. Click on the "Link to prompt" at the end of each story for details of the prompt and to see what other authors have come up with. This is my 2012 collection.

Brandon works for a company that sells point of sale equipment in the IT department. His life has been on hold since his husband and their daughter died, but now there is Hal in Sales and Isaac from across the hall. How, exactly, do you make a family?