Category: Gone with a Wink

Young, Hung, and Hitched…Or Gone With A Wink


Getting a book out isn’t an easy process. After you’ve done it enough times the mechanical process isn’t that hard, but the emotional process…and the creative decisions you make as an author…is always difficult.

It was that way with my new release, YOUNG, HUNG, AND HITCHED. The original title was GONE WITH A WINK. I posted about it here. I wrote the book with this title, GONE WITH A WINK, in mind and it wasn’t easy when I decided to change it at the last minute.

In short, this is a book about a young gay couple who are getting married in spite of the fact they aren’t legally allowed to marry, taking a trip halfway across country to begin new lives in New Orleans with a huge silver trailer, and fighting demons from the past because one of the characters was a refugee during the Katrina floods. The last place this character wants to be is New Orleans. He’s knows what it’s like when his entire life is “Gone With A Wink.” The reason they are hauling the huge trailer is because he wants that security in case he has to leave New Orleans again. But he’s moving there anyway because his partner is offered a wonderful job. It’s a sacrifice he’s willing to make for the love of his life, which to me is what it’s all about.

The title YOUNG, HUNG AND HITCHED, is campy, sexy, and it suggests erotica. It’s as fun as it is trite. I still like it for these reasons…and this book isn’t pg rated and there is plenty of erotica. But the erotica in this particular book is far less important than the emotion these two characters share. And I think if I could do it again, the title would have been as planned: GONE WITH A WINK.

This is the moment (Jekyll and Hyde)

When I got tickets to see this play, Jekyll and Hyde, at The Plymouth Theater ten or eleven years ago, I was looking forward to seeing Linda Edder on stage. But I didn’t know much else about the play. And when I started reading reviews about it, I started to become less than thrilled as the day approached. For whatever reason, most reviews were mediocre; some were awful. And driving into the city on a 95 degree day in June didn’t make me smile.

However, as is sometimes the case with most reviews of anything, the reviewers were dead wrong. They missed this by a mile. Not only did I love the show and all the music that went along with it, it was my first experience at The Plymouth Theater. It’s not the largest theater on Broadway, but it’s probably one of the best I’ve been in.

And now I’m thinking of using this song, This is the Moment, as a wedding song for a scene in my next book, GONE WITH A WINK. I’m just not sure it’s appropriate. For a straight wedding I don’t think it would be. But for a gay wedding considering all the obstacles gay men and women have to overcome in order to get married, legally or illegally, it might work out very well.