Author Eric Andrews-Katz

Today in studio with Alison is Author Eric Andrews-Katz

Episode Transcript

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Love. This is the Allison AringhamShow. Okay, some of you may
remember me as Evil Nellie Elsen,but tonight, thankfully, I am Alison

(00:27):
arm and this is the Alison IngrahamShow. Here on the Allison Aringham Show,
we talk about things that make youfeel good, the movies and the
television shows that made us feel goodand the people who made them, and
people who are doing things now tomake the world a better and more interesting
place. Oh, I got interestedin for you tonight. You know,
you know, I get excited whenI'm interfering one of my friends. You
know, it's like my friends that'scoming on. But he's also like a

(00:51):
famous writer person and you may readsome of its stuff and he's like hysterical
and amazing. Okay, I loveI Love to buy. Okay. Literal
literally is man's bio. Eric AndrewsKnn's has been writing since he could hold
a pen. Originally from New York, Eric was twelve when his family moved
to Florida without consulting him. Thisthis tells you everything you need to know

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right there. But yes, heyou know, he's got a degree,
he's got all that business. Andthen he also has a degree in massage
because you know you need you needa backup job. You need a backup
job, you know. So heread writing and massage. Okay, yes,
these two things can happen at thesame time. I know you're like,
wait what And he's absolutely amazing justthe titles of the I've known him
for ages and then he's like,here, you want to read one of

(01:36):
my books. I was like thatgood. The titles alone of the man
who writes books things called like aclear Bench on the Undead. He has
been involved in all of these kindsof Jesus injecting. Man read a book
called the Jesus Injection. It's notwhat you think, It's not what you
think. Balls in Shade, andof course my favorite tea, the detective

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series Agent Buck ninety eight. Yes, seriously, that's the thing. Okay,
ladies and journal No, my friendEric Andrews kids, thank you very
much for having your an honored pleasure. And I mean that are you?
How are you? How are you? Wait? What is behind you?
First? To explain what that is? The Temple of Poseidon at Cape Sunon

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in the outskirts of Athens. Ofcourse. Yeah, I was in Greece
two years ago. With a formerboyfriend, and I have fond memories of
both. Leg lovely lovely, lovelybackdrop. Yes, you are amazing and
you've always been writing. But wemet and we met through a benefit.

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Was it the benefit? And sad? How do we mean? We're doing
benefit in Seattle a lot of placethat's no longer there called the Rebar,
and it was the week. Itwas the week my late husband's father died,
and so I was like, hereally needs to have a good laugh.
He canceled everything, but he waslike, we're keeping the Nelly Olsen

(03:07):
tickets. And when you were there, I spoke to your agent and or
representation in Seattle, and I senta note back and I said, you
know all the work you've done withHIV positive people and the LGBTQ element op

(03:27):
community, no offense meant, andI just want to say thank you.
So I offered you a massage,and the note came back five minutes later
saying, if you're serious, I'llbe there at eleven. I was like,
yeah, yeah, free massage.Huh so? And indeed, and
I don't know, is he abetter massuse than a writer? Better writer
than messuse? I honestly can't tellyou because he's highly talented at both.

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Is all I can say my hands, thank you so. And you just
did a benefit. This was justthe other night, you just as your
your mom was in town, andyou just did this huge benefit the other
night, Seattle. You're so goodat this. Tell me, tell everyone
what you did. Because I wassupposed most people are familiar with the dine

(04:13):
out for Life concept, where yeah, one night a year, restaurants donate
proceeds to an HIV charity. Well, my late husband Alan and I got
tired of trying to play Julie McCoyto all of our friends. It's like
hurting cats, you know, Andfinally we decided, why don't we just
do it at our house and donatethe money. So it started in two

(04:34):
thousand and five with twenty people inour living room. We served the main
course, and everybody did a potluck and paid ten dollars entry, and
we handed in a decent check wereseveral hundred dollars. The following year we
did it again and we had fortypeople and we handed in a slightly bigger
check. Well the third year.Because I have a lot of connections through

(04:56):
massage and the writing that I do. We started the Enter to Win,
so we got items donated like theatertickets or signed books. And you've been
very gracious on two occasions at leastPalli Olsen swag it. Hey, you
know, it went well, andso we started to do that and sell
enter to Win tickets for ten dollarseach. Well, that year we handed

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in, we had ninety five people. We had to move it out of
the living room. Good good.We handed in a check for almost eight
thousand dollars. Well, it wascontinued through twenty sixteen when Alan's health turned
for the worse and he passed intwenty twenty, and I decided I wanted

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to do one more. The lastone was twenty sixteen, so I wanted
to do one more, and Ispoke to my good friends Justin and Ed,
who are huge fans of yours,and my great friend Kathy, and
we all decided to do one lastone and we raised well, we haven't
officially an I has to get,but let's just say it was over twelve
thousand dollars from this one night andthis year. The money went to the

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Lambert House, which is for LGBTQyouth services and why I wanted my mom
there because it's been a journey forher, but she's now We're so close,
and I wanted to present her tosay, you know, this can
happen, so hang in there.And she was just the bell of the

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ball. I see. I waswatching the pictures. That's why I brought
her, because I saw the pictureson Facebook. I'm like, Mom is
everywhere Mom is. It's going toall the parties with Mom. This is
great. She had a great timeand I love spoiling her and my friends
just ate her up. As Itold my brother, a room full of
gay men know how to treat anolder lady. There is that. This

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is what's why I'm hoping in mydotage I will be properly cared for.
I have every confidence there will bea long line of butlers, no pun
intendage. So the stuff you write, okay, there's gay fiction, but
you've got not just gay fiction.It's gay detectives, gay monsters, gay
vampires, gay fairies, gay merch, gay everything. What you really write

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a variety stuff across a spectrum.Do you consider it gay fiction or are
you just like, hey, I'mwriting whatever I feel like writing that day.
I write whatever inspires me. Imean, of course I lean heavily
towards the gay fiction genre because that'smy life as well. Well, right,
what you know more than fiction?That's true. Actually, I have

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written a lot of stuff about mylife into my writing. And yeah,
that's I've gotten yelled at it forit on two very different reasons. Did
you take a few friends and relativesin I'm accused of putting one of my
relatives into where let's just say theywere not happy, and I know my

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lawyer leave it to them. Charactersare purely fictitious in any resemblance. Stupid.
No, I know what I said. It's all the book right there,
all my imagination. I'm sorry,Yues, it totally sounded like you,
but hey, you know what,it sounded like a lot of people.

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It's not my fault. And thenwhat do you do if there's something
Yeah, and I've always heard aboutthis, okay, So if there's a
character in a movie or a bookand they're not a nice character, they're
they're negative and objectionable, and it'snot your name, and they've gone the
links to cover it up and makeit not you do you run up and
go, hey, that's me,and technically, by law, the law

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if I understand the law correctly,and I'm not a lawyer, So please
don't yell let me for anything,unless they can prove you wrote that about
them. That's very specific, thatpoints them out, and it's very identifiable,
and it has hurt their life,and it's like with mallows of for
a thought. Unless they can dothat, there's really not much to be

(09:07):
done about it. Schuman Capoti wrotethe whole answered Prayers thing. My god,
those women had enough money to suitthe hell out of him, but
there really wasn't much that they coulddo. Also, they didn't want they
want to affect their reputations. Butif you say, oh it's me,

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it's me, and nobody knew untilyou went and said, oh it's me.
Yeah, there's that, shut thehell up. Ago. I have
no idea what they're talking about,certainly not me, because I would never
do well. Once again, Alanused to always say, when you write
funny, you have a good voiceand people laugh. When you write serious,
it really is effective. And Isaid, thank you. He goes,

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I need to ask a favor andhe said, yeah, he goes,
you have. At that point itwas twelve short stories published. He's
like, you have twelve stories published, you have ten stories where someone is
sick, dying, or dead.And I said, yeah. He goes
stop killing me off. He's like, I recognize it, you need to

(10:13):
stop. And I just looked athim and said, better on paper,
Better on paper. You know.I'm people. I plotted his death for
relaxation. It was fun, youknow. I mean, you live with
what people just like. You're marriedto a writer, you gotta I'm gonna.

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I had HIV for thirty six years, so this was my way of
kind of dealing with it. Accordingto the therapist I've seen, he lived
for years. I don't know,contribute, I'll keep you live. Well,
I'm just gonna say that there's nostraight puppies in my neighborhood. The
older gods like their sacrifices, andthat's all I'm gonna say. But yeah,

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we were together twenty years and hewas in two hospices, expected to
die at least before we ever met, never mind me. He ever lived
a bunch of people. He outlivedall doctors' expectations. He was in great
check. Yea, he did.And he went up to some of the
doctors and said, I'm still hereand a factorless cook. Also, oh
yeah, he was a pastry chefand a cook. I'm the He died

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in March twenty twenty, right atthe beginning of COVID, So I am
literally the only person I know wholost weight during COVID. He had,
I didn't have his pastries to comehome to every day, And I know
because I stayed at your house.And I'm like another Napoleon. Yes,
of course, what Well, actually, you're indirectly for his specialty. When

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you and I accidentally ran into eachother in Paris, you introduced me to
my first, at least my firstacknowledged French macaron. Well, I bought
a box on the way home,put it in front of him and said,
you will learn how to make these, and they became his specialty.
I had several friends declare it thebest on three continents. Oh that puffy,

(12:05):
puffy meringue, almond flower things.And he did exotic flavors like cardamoon,
rose water. Anything you could make, white chocolate, raspberry he did
for me. I mean, theman didn't just stick to the pecan strawberry
that everybody has. He did reallyexotic flavors. Several friends of ours hired

(12:26):
him for weddings and he did it. As you know, this is my
wedding gift to you. I'll beglad to do this for you. So
yeah, I mean when I readyour stuff, it's like I can hear
your voice and see it's like,oh yeah, it's like insert life into
things. But a lot of yourstuff is incredibly far out. As I
said, there's there's monsters and thingsand tard there's stuff going into the underworld

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and let's cross the River Styx andwe're going to Hades and what is happening?
And then there was that that strangewarm woman, evil goddess, dead
lady who came back. What washer name? She came up in Golden
Gate Park, didn't she She wasa scary time. She came up in
in actually with Seattle, but MyrtleEdwards Park is where I had her creep

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out of the water. She isone of the most ancient Greek gods.
She's pre Titan and one of thelast Titans of She's the mother of all
monsters, the cerebras, the gorgans, the hydra, all that stuff.
She created them. And in thisbook, Tartarus. She comes out of
her prison Tartarus and comes back tothe contemporary Pacific Northwest to hunt down the

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descendants of the Greek gods. Seattleactually has a very large Greek community and
and it turns out, according toyour book, many of them are actually
Greek gods and simply don't know it. A few of them. Yeah,
I want, I mean say asI told them one of the strangest things
I'd read, because ah, yes, spooky and there ah, she's just

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gonna revenge yourself. And there's thesethese regular people going about their busy Seattle,
and how are they gonna be?And he's actually a Greek god.
He just found out now, Andit's like coming out of the closet,
is a Greek god? Like nobodytold him? Wait what Well, it's
a gene that's passed down and likemost genes that are hereditary, a lot
of them are dormant and never getactivated. Well, of course, when

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it's born under the right circumstances andall the you know, the crapshoot comes
out. Great. You happen toget that gene and after a certain time
period, which is different for eachperson, they kind of discover it and
they come out of the Greek mythcloset. That's a fascinating There's a lot
of ancient mythology, in ancient historyand mythology and different cultures woven into a

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lot of your stories. They're notjust the right day fiction. They also
go off, as I said,on these things, and I'm like,
I got to go start reading upon my Greek mythology. This is getting
complicated. You do that, youdie in to various ancient histories and cultures
and go, well, that'll beexciting and throw that in as well.
Well. I love Greek mythology.I was raised on Greek mythology. I

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had my first visions of the godPan when I was three years old.
It is one of my earliest memories. And when I was seven years old,
I had a dream and several dreamshere and there, and then when
I was seven years old, heappeared to me in a dream and said,
you're going to follow me the restof your life. You're mine.

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I claim you, Okay, Imean Mary Martin is Peter Pan when I
was three. This is not thesame thing, the same Pan No no
Pan is a very chaotic, organized, chaotic but chaotic god. Technically he's
supposed to be very, very veryugly. Will leave that to the viewers
to decide. Not fishing for compliments, I assure you, but he's supposed

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to be a very ugly god.He's also the god of fertility, which
you imagine what goes with that,which is usually why he's presented with a
very large erection, which again Iam not looking for any comments there.
I'm just saying that that's what he'srepresented as. I prefer my fertility god
to be a little more subtle,so that's not necessary the focal point of

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my interest in this figure. He'sa god of herbology, a god of
earth, total god of partying indebauchery. He's a god of intense fear,
which is where the word panic comesfrom. Where he's the sexy goat
boy with the Piotte goods from thewaist down and half man from the waist
up. And I found out onlya few years ago that he's the god

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of massage, which I was justlike I read that and I was like,
holy shit. You know I've beendoing massage for you know, I've
been self employed in my business forover twenty six years licensed for over almost
thirty. So so wait a,there's a god of massage really like wrapped

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my mind, every good for everything. Always it's like the Catholic Saints,
the Saint of the television, andthat's where the Saints came from us,
from pagan gods exactly. It's allthere's a god a massage, okay,
and then it's Pan your guy andyou off. I mean, I've seen
you know your Facebook, You're like, got my pipes go into the woods.
I've heard to keep that side tomyself unless I want to show that

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to certain individuals who I choose.I've had a lot of people say that
they've looked at me and they're like, across the room, I just look
at you, and I see theselittle horns on your head. Oh yeah,
yeah, it's not a bad thing. It's not a good thing.
It's just that's the mood that I'mfeeling, and I never fight it.
You've had the mischievous pan spirit goingon about you that I think that's where

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I liked you right off plain exceptfor one and well we didn't last very
long years ago, you got Sothere's a lot of this mythology. Like
I said, I saw reading thebook and going, where is this guy?
This is a trip and a half, but you kind of go all
over. You just have a newset of short stories. I'm just started

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in Jack the Ripper. Suddenly aboutthat. It's Jack the Ripper. Wow.
The new collection which is currently underconsideration at a publisher. I'm keeping
all things hoked here. It's calledGames of Chance and Fate thirteen Dark and
Twisted Tales, and the title storycomes from a Pans story, which of

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course appears in the book. Andit's just a whole bunch of dark and
twisted tales. Several of them havebeen published before in different sources, and
several of them are original, anice balance of the two. My mentor
Police Picano, who is a groundbreakinggay author, very very essential of getting

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GOLBT literature into mainstream from the seventiesof the currenties. He once suggested to
me, he goes, you know, you're a horror rider, and I
was like, no, I'm not. He's like, have you read this
stuff you've written? I guess Ido have a dark side to me.
So that's how the story came out. And there are dark fairy tales in

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there. There's one that I thinkyou'll like. It's called Gingerbread. It's
an updated version of Hansel and Gretelthat takes place in a Nazi ghetto.
I will say it is very dark. It is not for the people who
just think, oh, this isgonna be a little fair. No,
it's a dark story. Not forthe kids, it's not. I have

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two twists on Hansol and Gretel,one twist on snow White and one Cinderella
twist in there. And then Ihave two different pans stories, one about
the Inquisition. I have one abouta sex game that goes very wrong,
and a whole bunch of other disks, sick and twisted things. But the

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story I just went about the Inquisition. Of course there is he says that,
but talk about that, one doesthat, someone does the thing as
you mentioned about having a mentor,and the whole thing of getting gay published
in the mainstream. It's like,so there used to be sort of like,
oh, well, this is gayliterature, and it was kind of
like same, same a lot.You know, well, people talk about

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all the movies and books and everythingabout gay lesbian people's tragic, tragic Indigan
souicizes tragic that's you and getting outof that. The idea that there could
be humor, that there could behorror, that could be stories about everything
was sort of a revolutionary concept awhile back, and now we're seeing so
much more of that to a variety. But you've really got a variety,

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have you. Are you do feelyou've gotten in more into the mainstream or
are you working with mostly gay publishers? Are you breaking out into everything?
My first three novels are with thelargest LGBT publishing house in the US.
The collect is not for not theirparticular cup of tea, for their genre,
from what they published, and that'stotally cool. So that's why I'm

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sun of consideration with a different publishernow. I write, as I said,
what inspires me. There are somestories that might have an incidentary and
said, I have a character that'sgay that's not the main feature, or
I might have characters that aren't gayat all. It all depends what really
is the story is about. Iwrote one story called the Booby. It

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was published in an anthology a fewyears back, and it's about three people
in Seattle. They're twenty somethings.They go down to the Pike market,
and one guy's gay, one's not, and the girl, of course is
not. Well I shouldn't say,of course, apologies, she's not.
And she buys a doll that lookslike a you know, one of those

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apple faced dolls, like it's dressedlike a Jewish grandma. So she finds
it adorable until it tries to killerand you know, as as one does,
and it says nice dolls and antiquechops. Yes. Yeah. It
starts off with like you're wearing that. Fine, fine, I won't say
a word. You just go aheadand look like a hooker. It's okay,
you know, And then it startstrying to kill her, and you

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know, then they find out howto exercise the Devik spirit from it.
And while the character is one ofthe characters is gay, he's not the
primary focus of the story at all. So I write whatever comes to mind.
But I focus on the gay literaturebecause that's what I know, and
a lot of its mini stories arein Seattle or start in Seattle, and

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that's things. So it's like Seattle. It's like, well, write what
you know. It's like so it'slike everyday life in Seattle. And then
things go horribly spectacularly hauntingly wrong forpictures. It's collection in there that takes
place in the in a swamp inGainesville, Florida, because several years and
that's called the Ghosts and Gaiters andit's in the Collections and Gaitors. I

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may jump ahead to that one.That's like, so, what what were
the first things you published? Whatwas the first stuff you got published?
Yeah? Well, I was eightyears old and it was published in like
a school newspaper. It was likea ten rhyme lines that were very very
poor, but you know, hey, that gave me the bug. And

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then I started writing pornography under afake name, which many famous authors have
done. That's true. I reallyit made a very nice income for a
while, and then I decided Iwanted to have something that my mother could
read and brag about to her friends, because she asked He's like, I

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can't brag about this. So mymy late husband Alan and I we were
we were a little relaxed one eveningand uh, just laughing and we were
just finished watching a movie called Debs, which is a very adorable movie about
a lesbian top secret agent and it'sreally funny. Right, I turned to

(24:10):
him and I said, you know, between that and Buffy, this is
what I want to write. Sowe started coming up with the Agent Buck
ninety eight series. Arle, Yeah, he's Agent ninety eight and his name
is Buck ninety eight. Agent Buckninety eight. Just there. Well,
yes, yes, the gay,the gay detective, the dancer cotes very

(24:32):
well. Unfortunately London doing the bookshow and I had to explained what a
buck was and that just kind ofkilled the joke. But you know,
it's they still like the book,That's all that matters. Did they call
him agent like whatever was a smallamount of money in their country? Agent
sense? I had to explained,it's like pound and a half gay audience

(24:56):
has so many different connotations. Didthey have Did they have a lot of
flipnotes? I mean that was thething my book Confessions. We put it
in French and so it's just likeeight million footnotes because it's like what's the
TV Dinner? It's like the tenthousand things of super duper nineteen seventies American
references and they're like, no,mine is the extraordinary caliber of yours.

(25:21):
But mine translated well enough, andit was the English version of the American
publishing house, so it didn't didn'thave notes or anything like that. But
yeah, so you have the detectivestory, which is quite funny like and
then the Jesus Injection BUK ninety eightstory, which everybody flips out over the
title, and it's like, no, it's a science fiction story. It's
okay. So I had somebody comeup to me at a fair once,

(25:44):
this young man, Hispanic young man, who is probably like ten years old,
eleven years old, and he comesup and he goes, Mommy,
mommy, Jesus, Jesus. Ohno. She comes over and she's like,
what is this about? And Icould tell from the jewelry she was
wearing she was I'm guessing very devoutlyreligious. And so I told her,

(26:04):
in very pc G rated terms whatthe book was about, and she very
nice. She went thank you andput it down and walked away. I
wouldn't want anybody to be misrepresenting mybook, and you know she would not
have enjoyed it. But yeah,no, it's it's a very sort of
you know James Bond, villain Blofeldevil world domination plot kind of scary story.

(26:30):
Straight you're such a variety, didyou now the first stuff you got
published, Like seriously, with anthologies, did you start with the short stories
or the novels? Short stories?Short stories? I had eight or nine
short stories and different sources, differentsubjects. I like being eclectic. I
don't want to be limited by onething. Oh clearly. I've even written

(26:51):
lesbian porn, which believed me.I had very little information on it until
one of my females this well,she one of my good friends, invited
me over and said, okay,you're going to get a crash course,
and when you're done, you're goingto probably know more than most males know
about the female anatomy. And shegave me a test afterwards, which I'm

(27:12):
she took knowledge is power. Iprobably will never use that knowledge, but
it's still good to have important.It's good to have absolutely So the shortsors.
I like that because it gives youa chance to like try out different
characters and things and go, well, okay, now I even gonna do
a whole book on this. I'mgoing to do this, and now I'm

(27:32):
going to be this person over here. I enjoyed the short stories because it's
like writing a novel, but youhave to be condensed and you have to
get the full arc of a storyin a limited amount of pages. Most
anthologies say, generally speaking, theywant a story no more than five thousand
words. Well, I usually runfive to seven, and then I spend

(27:53):
a couple of weeks or days,depending on how much time I have editing
down to five thousand, praying togods that they still make sense. And
then you have to be careful ofthe subject matter, because I've written a
couple of short stories that one gothate mail, and there's another short story
that I think is really good,but people are afraid to touch it because

(28:15):
of the subject matter. And Iget it, but it'll find it's home
sooner or later. It was okay, the Spanish Inquisition was okay, But
you've managed to come up with stuffthat was scary. And I believe it
because you you don't shine away.You're like, hey, it's what if
this? What if this? Andit's not to say hey, not saying
this is a good idea. Hell, this is the bad guy in the

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story, but what if, ohmy god, this happened and you got
to go there? I mean,when, as I said, I even
the target Tartaris thing I was readinggoing okay, and then my mind was
blown. It's like, hey,this is kind of terrifying. Okay.
I was gonna I'm gonna have nightmaresabout this stuff. And I remember I

(28:57):
said that was the one. Isaid, please tell me someone is talking
about a movie of this has anythingbut option for any I've put it out
there on that web page that yousent me about how to put ideas out
for screenplays, so it's out there, but I've never heard anything back and
again without shooting my own horn,and I've had several people say the same

(29:19):
thing. It's very visual. Youwrite, get a cinemagraphic, you know,
when you write, you can visualizeexactly what's happening. And that's how
I do the writing process. Inthe reverse, I will close my eyes
and visualize what I want to say, and then I'll do it screen by
screen and just write and describe whatI'm doing. And that works for me.

(29:40):
Some people fly by the seat ofthe pants, some people are plotters,
and it all depends on your style. There's no right or wrong.
But the short stories, I enjoythem because you can do anything, and
I like to push myself for that. I mean, if I find a
subject matter that it's like, well, hill billy zombies. Okay, that's
not Alan loved zombies. I lovemusicals. So I found a I found

(30:06):
a thing for gay zombie stories.And I wrote a story called Zombalian,
and it's about Higgins and Pickering whowere lovers and they find a zombie flower
girl named Eliza drool Little, andone of them bets to the other that
you can't pass her off as aliving girl at the Embassy Ball and they

(30:30):
make the bet, and there's onescene where you know, he's leading her
around with a rat on a stickand she's trying to learn how to walk
upright by chasing the rat on astick and zombie. You wrote my fare
zombie. That's the alternative title.Yeah, Zombalian, that's just wrong.
I mean, it was just myway to combine the two subjects. You

(30:52):
know, you should never be limitedon these things. This is funny.
She would do this. It's asaun same process. Now. I notice
you often will talk about I wrotethis much to day. I wrote this
much to day. Your process.You're very dedicated. You're one of these
writers who I'm gonna write today.Please tell me of your process, because
that's what I'm terrible. I'm terriblemy process. You like my writing,

(31:14):
but it's like getting my ass inthe chair and doing it. Is like
I tell other people like you shouldget up and write, and then meanwhile,
I'm like, you know, Ide one day to my writing and
one day to my chores. Imean, it's just that way. When
Alan was still around, when hewas still alive, it was like on
Sundays, I would take him overto a friend's house because he was home

(31:36):
no on disability. So I wouldtake him over to a friend's house and
say, you're going to spend theday here. I need a day to
myself. And I would stay home. I would know he was maambed with
his best friend. It was nota problem. They could, you know,
kiddits and watch baking shows, whichI have no interest in at that
time. I do know they wouldwatch zombie movies. You know, more
power to you. I got stuffto do, you know. I knew

(31:57):
he was in good hands, andso I would come home. I would
have a little relaxation smoke and thenI'd be like, Okay, let's see
what we're going to write today.And then I'd read the last few pages
to get back into the zone andthen just go with it and see where
it flies. And there have beena few times, like in that Gingerbread
story where it went into some darkplaces where I was like, there's no

(32:21):
way I'm writing this. Let's deletethis last two pages. That is the
last time I let one of mycharacters take over, because that was way
too dark. Can you scare you? You scared you? It went into
places that I was like, thisis uncomfortable for me. This is too
dark. I don't want to dealwith this. We can imply the darkness

(32:42):
without having that, you know.And so I went back and I rewrote,
and that's that's much better. I'mimpressed that you actually creeped yourself out
considering some of the stuff. Thereare some things that just I don't want
to be the author of. Letother people do it. I don't want
to write that dark material. Butthat also like like a method actor that

(33:06):
you so get into the characters andthe story that when it gets dark,
you go, oh, wait,no, I don't want to be here.
I'm actually going into this world I'mgoing to need to get I can
just spin the wheel and pick personalities, and people ask me, why don't
you write in public, and Isay, I talk to myself too much,
and how many thinks I'm crazy asI am? But I'll sit there

(33:28):
and write and start having conversations withmyself and sometimes different voices, just so
I can get the dialogue to flow. The first rule of writing dialogue is
if it doesn't sound right to you, it's not going to sound right on
paper. So see, I applythat to all writing. And I just
was telling a friend who just wrotea book, and she was writing a

(33:49):
book and NSA and it was great. When it came out like this is
great, I said, okay,whatever, you read it a laut.
At some point, after you bangout a chapter or so many paragraphs,
you go, now, let's readthis out loud. One. You will
catch any grammatical mistakes very quickly becauseyou go pull thought a word. But
you'll also go, oh, thatmakes sense if it doesn't flow, and
it doesn't sound either for writing tobe funny or you're writing to be moving.

(34:10):
If it's not moving or funny orwhatever the heck it's supposed to be
while you're reading out aloud, hi, then it's not working. It to
sound like you. When I reada work in progress at like an event
or where I'm heah, read tenminutes, okay, I'll know. That's
when you do the work in progressbecause I've learned from my mentor that if
it's something to be funny and theydon't laugh, you make a little mark

(34:31):
next to that sentence, so youknow to go back and rework it.
If it's supposed to be really scaryand they're laughing, you make a little
mark next to that sentence or paragraph, and you know to go back and
rework it. And that's why readingworks in progress is really important. My
mom, God bless her mom.I always read it out loud. Yeah.

(34:52):
Yeah, oh your mom, youwrite read stuff to your mother.
Oh my god. My mom actuallyis a big fan of my work.
She has not at the point shedoesn't want to, but she's a big
fan of my work. I meanshe brags about it. You're not vine
breath, so like every mother shouldscary, even the scary stories she tells

(35:14):
me. You know, it wasn'tmy cup of tea and it was disturbing.
But yeah, my last one thatI wrote, which is included in
the in the collection, it's calledsnow White and Blood Red, and it's
a twist on snow white as youcan tell, and she pointed out.
She was like, do you havetime? And I was like yeah.
She goes, let me tell youthe points of your story that I had
troubles with and I was like,let me get my headphones and I will

(35:37):
go through it page by page.And she's like, you use this word
and it's too fancy for what youwant to say. She's like, people
are going to stumble over it?What does it mean? And I told
her She's like, it's an accurateword, but if you're just throwing it
out there, it's lost. Makea reference to let us know what that
word means in context. And I'mlike, good point. You know.

(36:00):
It's kind of like the pairing itdown him and it's like, yeah,
you want to cut to the chase. Simple. You don't want to says
he's a fancy word. He isfancy word. You want to go this
is what's happening and go into people'sheads. Yeah, a good edity,
but he does throw his French wordsin just to show that he knows good
French. You know, I lovehis work, but he does that.
He was pompous. I don't wantto be pompous. I want to be

(36:21):
good, so I took my mom'sadvice and it was a much better story.
Did you work with an editor regularorder? Alan was a great editor.
He worked for a newspaper for manyyears before we met, so he
had a sharp eye and he readeverything. And he'd be the first one
to say, this sucks. Youneed to go back and rewrite it.

(36:43):
And that's what you want from notonly a partner, but from an editor.
And then I'd go back and rewriteand he's like, okay, much
better. This is cloudy, butyou can clear that up. I've been
lucky. My last boyfriend also isa bit of an editor, and he
read through a lot of my stuff. I've I've had author friends who have
told me my partner has never reada word I wrote, and I'm just

(37:06):
like, it's it's a requirement.If you're going out with me, you
will be reading my work eventually.Hopefully you have a good eye for editing.
But I'm not going to hold thatagainst you if you don't, you
know, but I can guarantee yousooner or later you're going to be reading
it. And you know, Bob, you're not going to be too long
you know Bob proofread Prairie b Yeah, he proved it. He's like,

(37:29):
can I prove it. I'm like, oh, you want to be the
proof reader, because I want tobe the proofreader. I'm like, this
is great when that happens. Imean, it's like a built in editor.
Wonderful. Now when I sent it, when I had the publishing the
first three books, I sent itin, you will appreciate this story.
My editor at Bold Strokes Books wasGreg Herron, a wonderful mystery writer,

(37:49):
gay mystery writer. He has severalseries out, very good. He's a
good editor and a good man.And he sent me my notes back and
he said, Okay, tomorrow,I'm sending you back your notes with corrections.
This is your first time. Donot freak out. Everything that is
to make you a better writer.Do not freak out if you have any

(38:12):
questions asked. These are suggestions,and my notes are there about why I
circle things or cross things up.And I was just like, okay,
I can handle this. So thenext day I get my email. I'm
all alone at the house, I'mall excited. I'm like, okay,
I can deal. I open itup and there was more read than a
Sharon Tate murder scene. I mean, I freaked out so bad. I

(38:37):
was just like closed it down.My hands were shaking. I had a
little relaxation. I took a deepbreath, I remembered Greg's words, calmed
down, and then went to work. But yeah, the first time you
get the notes, why so manyexactly? And he was right. Most

(38:57):
of his suggestions were for the better. Were a couple that I questioned,
and we went back and forth,and he worked with me on it.
He was a really good editor forthat. He is good. And then
you talked about your whole thing abouthaving a writer mentor and how that was
Police Pricano has been writing groundbreaking novelssince the seventies, and he has lived

(39:19):
through the seventies, of the eighties, the AIDS crisis, the whole huge
fire island scene before, during,and after AIDS in New York, and
he's still alive and relatively healthy inall respective purposes for still writing and recording
this. And I was lucky enoughto meet him at a convention and I

(39:40):
asked him for an interview and tookhim out for dinner afterwards, and we
just became really good friends and notjust for me, but he has used
his name to open the door fornew writers, introducing them to bookstore owners,
you know. And he's very generouswith his advice, and he has
been a guiding source for me,not just through my writing, but because

(40:06):
the minute he saw Alan, he'slike, Okay, so how long has
he been positive? And I said, how no happened? What gave it
away? He's like, Eric,I've known more men than you can possibly
imagine. You have died in theseventies and eighties. He's like, I've
learned to recognize it. And hegave me advice about what I needed to

(40:27):
have in place for when the inevitablewas going to happen, and how I
needed to handle things. And sohe mentored my private life a great deal,
and he's mentored my professional life.And he's I consider him to be
a companion, a confidant and afriend and a mentor. And he's a
nice yeah, and he has agreat sense humor, and he's a very

(40:49):
talented writer. He wrote The NewJoy of Gay Sex, so he literally
wrote the book on gay sexy.He actually knows it. Between him and
you and your lesbian poor less Imean literally everything coverage. It's like that,
Wow, I'm not writing Joy ofLesbian sets. Other people can do
it much better than me, andI'll leave it to them. You can
give them a blurb for the backcover. There we go. I learned

(41:14):
so much. I'll show you myoriginal notes. Right, So what would
you tell writers for the writing process? Would you say, yes, go
write every day, get a mentorwhat the thing? Both of those I'm
lucky enough to have. But there, I mean, I'm not where I
can write every day. You hadit backwards, so nice of you to
say it that way. But Imake my living from doing massage and I

(41:37):
write on the side, so atthis point until it balances out more,
yeah, listening anyway. So Ican't write every day, and that's why
I make time. That's why Ido Sundays or Mondays. Actually these days
it's Mondays. I do my writingon Mondays. I get done with my

(42:00):
chores by ten am and the restof the day is my day to sit
at my computer and right. Ialso do celebrity interviews, as you know,
and I do a lot of theaterreviews. So I've been doing theater
reviews and interviews in Seattle since twothousand and fourteen now twenty twelve, viewing

(42:22):
Perfect Kid Out doing my first interview, second second interview. I was the
first person to interview her in twentyyears from what her agent said, and
I was from what I can tell, I may be wrong, but I
think I was the second to lastbefore she passed. Wow. Yeah,
her agent told me. Her agenttold me. At that time they knew

(42:45):
it was off the record, andI couldn't discuss it then, but it's
common knowledge now that she was sickand she now her life was coming to
an end. She had cancer,I believe. And I asked, why
me, Not that I'm questioning it, but I'm a'm my little person in
my newspaper here, local newspaper.Why did she agree to do mine?

(43:07):
And she said, because you're inthe gay newspaper. She's like, the
gay community are the only ones thatwelcomed her back when she first was blacklisted
in the United States. They gaveher her first gold record, her second
gold record. She's never never forgottenthat. And she did so much work
like you do with the community.She used to work with the Gay Men's

(43:28):
Health Crisis, doing concerts for them, and she really showed the love back
to her community a great deal andI was honored and she to this day
is one of my favorite interviews becauseshe was just awesome. She was an
amazing person. Yeah, it justreally was very personable, I mean,

(43:49):
easy to talk to. People gotintimidated because she had that voice. And
I told me I'd never make itto Hollywood because my life was so weird.
I asked her. I said,Orson Wells called you the most beautiful,
exotic woman in the world. Doyou still feel that way? And
she said, if you're a man, does not think of you as the
most exactic, beautiful, a erraticcreature in the world. You'll need to

(44:15):
find yourself a better man. Shewas right about everything. I've always shown
heard that which right about everything.Was awesome. I had the honor to
interview Carrie Fisher and two weeks afterI interviewed her mother, which was just
incredible to put them so close together, and that is one of my highlights.

(44:37):
Carrie was just straight from the hip. I know, she just answered
bluntly and honestly, and you couldn'ttake that out of the way, and
that's what you wanted an interview.It's like you you ask one question,
and you just full barrel ahead,which is the perfect thing. Incredible.
It's you did get all the bestpeople when and you have me. You

(45:02):
one that's recorded, you can seeit on YouTube, and the other ones
are in the newspaper archives. Allright, So we got how many books
and how many short story anthologies?Okay? At this point I have three
novels out and published, The JesusInjection and Balls and Chain, which are
the Agent Buck ninety eight series.And then I have Tartarus, which was

(45:24):
honorable mention for Best Gay Fantasy oftwenty seventeen. That's the Greek myths story.
Currently under consideration at a publishing houseis My Games of Fate and Chance,
which has eight stories that have previouslybeen published and five that are original.
I have been included in eighteen differentanthologies. Of all, there's a

(45:49):
list that goes down, has aQueer Fairy Fiction, Best Date Ever,
Charmlives, Gay spur and Storytelli,Gay City, zombb Reality, a Queer
Bent On, the Undead Zombie A. Yeah, They're all listed on my
website, which is Eric Andrewscats dotcom. Find you there. So what
do you think is next? Well, I am working on continuing while doing

(46:14):
more short stories, which I reallyenjoy. I'm working on continuing the Greek
Myths series. I am almost finishedwith a book that I'm calling Gods Slayer,
and it is a Poseidon descendant storywhere they find the entrying behind it
say yeah, we actually that's partof the story. I was inspired I

(46:35):
could write the trip off. Yeahyou can't. Oh, I love my
CPA anyway, and I candles athis feet. But uh. It's about
two descendants of Poseidon who are formerlovers. They're in their forties and fifties,
and they get hired by this veryexotic private bazillionaire to enter Atlantis because

(47:00):
she believes she found the entrance andshe wants them to retrieve a weapon of
legend called gods Slayer, which isthe only weapon that can kill a god
because she collects weapons from history andmythology. Yikes. She doesn't know they
are descended from Poseidon, and theydon't know she has connections as well.

(47:22):
And we'll leave that alone because Idon't want to spoil anything. No,
as descendance of Poseidon, they wouldbe sort of the good guys. They
might not go running around helping likemythical arms dealers. Well, Poseidon had
a dark side to him as well. All the gods did. Even Hestia,

(47:45):
the goddess of the Hearth and homeshit, had a very dark side
to her as well. But theyall had their balances and this nobody's perfect.
So one of the two guys wantsto go there to make sure that
nobody else forgets this weapon, becausehe's like, if you bring a weapon
that can kill a god to ourworld, think of whoever has the power.

(48:07):
And the other ones just like we'regoing to the homeland, our homeland,
and I want the money and thefame. So they're kind of they're
former lovers, so they have thatconnection and headbutting as well. And that's
what I'm working on currently, andI have a few ideas for a few

(48:28):
of the other gods and goddesses.Eventually, you're god to have very very
human impulses. One of them islike, we need to do the right
thing that no I want the buddyof the fame, and even the evil
goddess who came up up in thepark there, she was like, Hey,
I need to revenge. I havebeen wrong. I am bitsed.
I I'll tell you a private,inside story, private, just between you

(48:51):
and me and thirty thousand of yourface and just everybody is tuned in right
now. Okay, there was awoman who was French and she had an
office in my building, and sheand I clashed terribly, very different personalities,
and she ticked me off so muchthat when I had to write this
character taking human form, you justpicked it up. She takes the form

(49:16):
of a French woman. The name'snot the same, you know, everything's
been changed. But I used thatpersonality as part of the monster because I
figured I didn't really have to writemuch and it's good therapy and again,
nobody gets hurt and I get moneyfrom it, so of hers, like,

(49:37):
I may have possibly incorporated elements ofyour personality into it when I when
I did my debut of that,it was here in Seattle, and my
friends, of course, were inthe audience, including several of the people
from my building, and so Ihappened to read that section and I had
to be sure not to look atthem because they were just like, because

(50:01):
they knew exactly who I was talkingabout. She's the Karen of the building
and they all know pretty much.Yeah. Yeah, the Millennium's old Serpentine
goddess is our neighbor. Then exactlywhen I said she took the form of
a French woman, they just startedlaughing, and I just had a ticket

(50:21):
breath and continue with their reading,so I didn't start laughing with them.
I love it. Yes, it'strue. Writing a way to get revenge
on all of your enemies. Itdoes happen. You're always a strange I
can't wait for the next thing Ichose and said, I'm reading the Lady's
Anthology. I just got through,you know, the one the Jack the

(50:42):
Ripper, and I can't then gettingthe vampires and things, and there's gonna
be Hansel incredible, and I'm gonnahave nightmights. Gonna give me nightmares with
the stuff Mortitia and Hannibal. Ihad Handible Clarice, and I have Mortician
Roswell because you're the one who setme up with the Helter Skelter tour.

(51:02):
These stories give you nightmares. Thatwill be the greatest of compliments. Right
if you're scaring me, you're good. Thank you so much. And where
do we find you again? It'smy full name without any spaces. Eric
Andrews Kats dot com. No hyphenin the name. All my books say

(51:25):
e R I see Eric with aC Andrews kats k A d Z e
r I c A N d Re w s k A t z dot
com. My novels are up there. You can get them through Amazon or
any bookstore because they're not no disrespectto anybody else, but they're not self
published, no disrespect to that.Everybody who is and there just in gay

(51:47):
bookstores are all over the place,all over the place, and you can
get them on e book as well. Excellent. That's options for anybody out
there who is interested. And Ican't say how my I've enjoyed this,
and thank you as always for notonly your support of the LGBT community but
of me as well. I reallyappreciate it. All right to name also

(52:08):
anyone when you're in Seattle massage guymassage guy dot com. That's me scary
to death. But it's okay.He'll get all the knots out of your
back later. It'll be fine.It's balanced. It's very good. Thank
you so much, Thank you allfor watching. And yes it's the Elephant
Arm Show and I'm mellows at