Category: cruising

Cover: The Littlest Christmas Tree; James Franco BDSM Gay Film

Cover: The Littlest Christmas Tree

Here’s the cover preview for my Christmas novella, The Littlest Christmas Tree. It’s 21,000 words, it will be available in digital only, and I’ll be putting it up for FREE early next week for the holiday season. Blurb is below. It’s the second book in the Second Chance series. I’m keeping this as a running series for a while, too.

In this bonus novella from the “Second Chance” series titled, The Littlest Christmas Tree, an unhappy man trapped in a relationship so bad he isn’t even allowed a small Christmas tree is granted a second chance to go back in time and rethink the most pivotal choice he ever made. In doing this, he becomes one of the lucky few who can alter the outcome of his entire life.

But there’s a catch. Although he’s offered the chance to return to his college days and make a different choice, when he actually does go back he’s not consciously aware of this and there are no guarantees he won’t make the same bad choice twice. Will he choose a stable life with a handsome, aggressive young law student? Or will he choose the scruffy young theater student who drives a motorcycle and works in an auto body shop?

   

James Franco BDSM Gay Film

James Franco and Travis Mathews have a short feature out called, Interior. Leather Bar. But I’d like to set this up first. In 1980 there was a film titled, Cruising, with Al Pacino portraying a NY cop doing what I think was under cover work in gay leather bars. I have seen the film and read the book, which had the same title. I read the book around the same time I read Dancer from the Dance and The Front Runner. At the time, there weren’t that many reading choices for gay men. And these three books stand out more than any others for me. What’s interesting about what Franco did is that he tried to recapture (not recreate) scenes that had been cut from the original version of Cruising (so that they could avoid an X rating at the time) and he re-imagined those scenes in his short feature, Interior. Leather Bar.

Their new short feature, Interior. Leather Bar doesn’t recreate Cruising but is a mix between their take on that lost footage and a documentary-style, partly scripted, partly real, behind-the-scenes look at how they made it.

Here Mathews shares the joys of difficulties of getting actors to have ‘real’ gay sex on screen and his reasons for taking on a subject many would rather he left alone.

Make no mistake, this isn’t M/M romance or anything M/M related. This brand of gay fiction brings me back to my roots as a gay author and it’s about as real as things got back then. When Cruising was written (and filmed) times were very different and gay culture was an underground sub-culture, in raw form. The only way to meet other gay men, and to interact with other gay men on any social level, was to go to bars and clubs that featured everything from country-western to BDSM. Or, in state parks and public rest areas. Or course there were ads in the Village Voice, but you had to be very brave to answer them.

There’s an interesting interview about how Franco and Mathews handled the gay sex scenes. You can read more here. You can view a clip of ILB here. IMDb mentions it here. In the UK you can check out where to order it here. The only place I could find that’s selling it now in the US on DVD is here. I sent a few e-mails out asking for more info on that. We’ll see what comes back. I’m dying to see it. Update: According to facebook update it will be available in the US in March. FB link.

Here’s the basic plot from the book, Cruising.

The novel is about an undercover cop looking for a homosexual killer in the world of sadomasochism leather gay bars in Greenwich Village, New York. While undercover, he begins to gain feelings for his gay neighbor at the same time he is in a relationship. He ends up cheating on his girlfriend.

This isn’t Fifty Shades of Grey BDSM either. This is the real thing, not “Mommy Porn.” I highly recommend reading this book, as well as Dancer from the Dance.


A Nice Book to Be In: "Cruising"


I feel like I’m going to extremes with every post I write this week. Yesterday I posted about my small self-publishing venture on Amazon, and today I’m posting about a short story I wrote for a book that’s been published by a “traditional” print publisher, Ceis Press. The title of the book is “Cruising.” You can find it here on Amazon, and I’ll post a publisher link below.

The reason why it’s so nice to be in this book is because I started writing for small LGBT presses (I can’t embrace the “Q” yet, maybe in time) a long time ago and I’ve always been a fan of LGBT anthologies. Before there was a sub-genre called M/M Romance, it was small presses like Cleis that published some of the best LGBT material ever written. It gave me experience and the opportunity to grow as a gay male author when no one else would. And there’s nothing like the feeling of getting that fresh print book in the mail and seeing the cover.

And I’d like to continue to submit work to Cleis and other small presses as much as I can. Unfortunately, there isn’t much money involved. But for me it goes deeper than that. I read a blog post last night that was written by one of these loud, pushy “people” who write what “they” consider “LGBTQ Literary,” and I was amazed at what this author considers “LGBTQ Literary.” It’s schmaltz at best. Let’s just say she used the word “nookie” in an excerpt where a young gay man is thinking about having sex for money. No young gay man uses the word “nookie,” unless it’s in dialogue and he’s making fun of someone else. It’s as simple as that. And if this is what is going to be considered “LGBTQ Literary,” I think it’s important for gay authors to continue to keep LGBT presses like Cleis flowing with submissions so the distinctions are made and lines are drawn. There’s nothing wrong with schmaltzy M/M Romance. I’ve done it myself and I love reading it. But let’s be honest about it, too.

I also think it’s important for everyone who loves reading LGBT fiction to support small presses like Cleis and buy their books. If you don’t want the e-book, you can also go to the publisher’s web site and buy the book as a print book. You might not find the schmaltzy “LGBTQ Literary” fiction the author I spoke about above thinks is great writing, but you will find some interesting stories written by gay people who know what they are talking about. In other words, you’re not being scammed into believing the book is something that it’s not by someone who doesn’t know what she’s talking about. I don’t think you’ll be disappointed either. It’s a lot like the difference between real chocolate and “flavored” chocolate.

New Release Preview: "Cruising"


I have a story coming out in a new release from Cleis Press, “On the Bathroom Floor.”

The title of the anthology is “Cruising,” and it was edited by Shane Allison. I’ve worked with him before and I’ve always been more than happy with the end result.

You can read more about it here, on Amazon.

And here are the pre-release details:

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This title has not yet been released.
You may pre-order it now and we will deliver it to you when it arrives.
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com. Gift-wrap available.

I’m sure it will also be available in digital format very soon and I’ll post more when it is.

Short Galley Preview: "Cruising" A New Anthology by Cleis Press


I just finished reviewing the galleys for a new anthology that’s being released by Cleis Press. The editor is Shane Allison. I’ve worked with him before and I consider him an artist and author, not only an editor.

My story is titled, “On the Bathroom Floor.” I wrote it a long time ago, partly based on true experiences. My blogging buddy, Matthew Darringer, would like this book…at least I think he would. It gets into the reality of how gay men cruise, without making any political or social apologies to anyone. It is what it is; like it or not.

On the other hand, it’s not romance. This is erotica about gay men. The subject matter is for adults only and it’s different from what I usually write with regard to both content and storyline. And that’s because I’m following the guidelines of the editor and the publisher. It’s the kind of fiction I started writing twenty years ago as a freshman in college, for publishers like Cleis Press, before there was even a hint of something called m/m romance.

I’ll post more when the book is released. Here’s a quick excerpt that I’ve edited so it won’t be x-rated on a pg-rated blog. It’s also raw, before the line edits were submitted, so there might be an error or two.

On the
Bathroom
Floor
Ryan Field

When the weather is warm I like to jog at a small state park
on the outskirts of town, where it’s thick with tall, green
cedar trees; where the wildflowers dot the hills with colors of
the rainbow in spring and where extremely horny straight guys
stop to use the restrooms on their way to work. It doesn’t happen
every morning; about two or three times a month is enough to
create a certain anticipation of great pleasure so that the jogging
itself never becomes repetitive. It’s a beautiful park,
with paved walking trails and open pavilions and a Pennsylvania
stone restroom haphazardly glazed in lime-green moss.

This place is frequented often by guys wearing jeans and
work boots, driving huge, extended-cab pickup trucks on their
way to construction jobs. Married men in dark suits that smell
like aftershave, driving four-door Japanese sedans on their way
to office jobs in the city come, too. Men of all ages and from
all walks of life who stop to use the restrooms and see what’s happening on the down low.