Fiction • Anthologies • Nonfiction
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New and Noteworthy:

Men of Mystery: Homoerotic Tales of Intrigue and Suspense edited by Sean Meriwether and Greg Wharton
Men of Mystery gathers gay erotica's best and boldest writers to take you outside society's boundaries to do with you exactly as they please. Some of the stories return to the days before Stonewall, to a time of secret lives and hidden sex, when every tryst was still a crime. Others introduce you to the shadowy figures of the underworld; mobsters and hit men, chop shoppers and classic villains. Private dicks nosing their way into the tawdry underbelly of society, feeding their own desires while they service their clients; cops who are as hard on each other as they are on their suspects. And tales from beyond, where sensual spirits tease mortal men into paranormal submission.
Nominated: 2007 Lambda Literary Award for Gay Erotica
Read More about Men of Mystery

Sex in the West Village, NYC : Photography by Jack Slomovits
Bruno Gmunder has published a collection of some of the most inspired, and inspiring, images by photographer, Jack Slomovits. The series spans a decade of young lads in the Big Apple, and captures their their innocence and excitement of sexual conquest and adventure. Sex in the West Village, NYC, stands apart from the "beefcake" collections that dominate the market. Here are real sexy gay guys in their natural habitat, the bedroom, exploring their bodies and each others. A tantalizing portfolio from one of New York City's most prolific photographers.
View some images from the book at: www.jackny.com

A History of Barbed Wired by Jeff Mann
In intense, lyrical language, Jeff Mann's short stories give us an array of tormented characters: adulterous lovers, a kidnapper and his handsome victim, the sadistic ghost of a Confederate soldier, a yearning forestry student, an eager masochist, and a hairy biker. These tales explore the sex and psychology of BDSM and of bear culture, and most are set in Mann's native Appalachia, an area often mythologized as a place where the wilderness within converges with the wilderness without.
Winner: 2006 Lambda Literary Award for Gay Erotica
Read "Raspberry Moonshine" from A History of Barbed Wire

Hot Cops: Gay Erotic Stories edited by Shane Allison
What is it about cops that so excites gay men? Could it be the buzz cut and chiseled jaw, those bulging thighs under tight blue serge, the cool mirrored glasses that reflect unbridled lust in the eyes (and other body parts) of their beholders? Maybe it’s the promise of punishment at the end of a nightstick. Perhaps it’s the sheer pleasure of transgression — of getting down and dirty with a man who’s supposed to enforce the law but seems more interested in the perp than in his crime. Hot Cops: Gay Erotic Stories explores the hotter, wilder side of these masculine icons.
Read 'Raise Your Expectations' by Sean Meriwether from Hot Cops

His Underwear: An Erotic Anthology, edited by Todd Gregory
His Underwear: An Erotic Anthology takes a provocative look at the underwear fetish that is prevalent among gay men. This sexy collection offers erotic takes on the sexual attraction of underwear--and the men who wear it--when underwear plays the starring role in everything from pro wrestling fantasies to lonesome nights in the bunkhouse to a high school reunion. Boxers, briefs, and bikinis inspire steamy encounters in locker rooms, laundry rooms ... even department store changing rooms, in no-holds-barred action that includes jocks, cowboys, and altar boys!

So Fey: Queer Fairy Fiction edited by Steve Berman
Despite its provocative title and aggressive opening vignette, sex and sexuality fade into the background of Berman's quiet compilation of fantasy tales. The modern urban and suburban settings that dominate the anthology may be partly responsible. Two of the 22 stories feature New York backdrops, and a number of others occur in unnamed cities that might as well be the Big Apple. Most tales also feature classic Shakespearean or Celtic-inspired faerie folk, though Eugie Foster's Year of the Fox and Craig Laurance Gidney's A Bird of Ice draw effectively on Asian motifs, and Christopher Barzak nods toward Egyptian myth in Isis in Darkness. The tone is mostly light, often with more than a touch of ironic humor, as in Elspeth Potter's Detox; hauntingly tragic romances from Kenneth D. Woods (The Kings of Oak and Holly) and Laurie J. Marks (How the Ocean Loved Margie) provide some ballast. Neither pornographic (despite a handful of explicit sex scenes) nor militant, this anthology is wholly readable and likely to engage general readers as well as its target audience.
Read 'Raise Your Expectations' by from So Fey

A Perfect Scar and Other Stories by Trebor Healey
This welcome volume marks the first time that a collection of short stories by the prolific Los Angeles writer Trebor Healey has been assembled in book form. The eleven selections take the reader on far journeys in space and time, from Ireland, the forests of Alaska, and the cobblestone streets of Guanajuato to the streets and saloons of California's post Gold Rush prosperity and San Francisco in the age of AIDS... Pulls the reader in immediately and offers a journey to the distant coasts of emotion, which may be as far as the moon or as close as the hand of a dying old man, as in 'A California Death'. Libraries wishing to enhance their collections of contemporary gay fiction should make A Perfect Scar a priority purchase to support undergraduate and graduate courses in English and LGBT studies.
Read 'Winter Count' from A Perfect Scar and Other Stories
Read an Interview with Trebor Healey

35 Cents by Matty Lee
"He was the victim of a horde of vultures who wouldn't leave him alone. 'Everywhere I went they were there: at the bathrooms in the park, at the YMCA, at family gatherings, everywhere.' He was molested so many times he began to think it was normal human discourse. There must have been something special about this boy, because he was tragically popular. He grew to hate being alone, for instantly they would ruffle their vulture wings, seeking a sacrifice. 'Every time I was alone for five minutes or more, one of them would turn up.' They played a game, pedophile and abandoned boy. "Always the same game, touch me, let me touch you.' The wonder is that, in recounting these events thirty years on, Matty Lee is able to bring so much humor and clarity to his story. He brings to writing the gifts of a great comedian, the timing, the knowledge of human nature, and the capability for forgiveness and redemption. " - Kevin Killian
Read an Excerpt from 35 Cents
Read an Interview with Matty Lee

Seventy Times Seven by Salvatore Sapienza
Seventy Times Seven is a poignant, sexy, funny, and romantic novel set in the early 1990s about a young man's struggle to integrate his religious beliefs with his sexual desires. The gap between sexuality and spirituality is punctuated throughout the novel with quotes from the Scripture, and from song lyrics from Prince and Madonna, artists who merged the two worlds in provocative and groundbreaking fashion. Vito struggles too, with the idealism that drives his desire to change the archaic ways of the Catholic Church and its views on AIDS and homosexuality.
Read an Excerpt from Seventy Time Seven
Read an Interview with Salvatore Sapienza

Postcards from Heartthrob Town: A Gay Man's Travel Tales by Gerard Wozek
In Postcards from Heartthrob Town: A Gay Man’s Travel Tales author Gerard Wozek examines the link between geographical locale and the compass of his own heart. A mix of both personal memoir and fiction, the book contains nineteen stories which serve as both a travelogue of various locations as well as a guide to the interior life of a man questing for meaning in the world, redefining travel as both an inner pilgrimage as well as a sensuous trek across the globe. Postcards from Heartthrob Town was selected for the Haworth Press "Out in the World" Travel Literature Series by renowned travel writer and Senior Editor at Haworth Press, Michael T. Luongo, who edited the anthology, Between the Palms: A Collection of Gay Travel Erotica.
Read "Woof" from Postcards From Hearththrob Town

 

Velvet Mafia's Award Winners and Nominees:

A Scarecrow's Bible by Martin Hyatt
In a house trailer in rural Mississippi, Gary, a married Vietnam veteran, addicted to drugs, haunted by memories of the past, is on the brink of collapse. Just when he thinks the dream of another life is over, the unspeakable happens. He falls in love with a frail, ghostly younger man who reminds him of youth, beauty, and the possibility of a life beyond the prison he has created for himself. A Scarecrow's Bible is about what happens when love occurs at the most unexpected moment. It is the story of how working-class men and women in a small town adapt to changes that somehow seem impossible. It is a novel of hope and transformation that challenges our ideas about diversity and social change, breaking your heart all the way.
Finalist: 2006 Violet Quill Award
Winner: Edmund White Award for Debut Fiction
Read an Excerpt from A Scarecrow's Bible
Read an Interview with Martin Hyatt

Dirty Words by M. Christian
In the words of Cecilia Tan, the author of Black Feathers, "M. Christian's fiction has a sexy logic all its own. "He's inventive, and he's irreverent. His language can seduce, surprise, and then body-slam you." In this new book, the editor of Guilty Pleasures and Rough Stuff presents a wide-ranging collection of stories about sex and sexuality, some funny, some frightening, and some amazing; stories that take you on voyages to places as familiar as the house next door and as horrifying as your wildest nightmare, with companions as recognizable as your own reflection and as unimaginable as your darkest fear. Dirty Words is an exploration of both the beautiful and the disturbing landscapes of desire, which will excite and challenge you, both as a reader and an erotic explorer.
Nominated: 2001 Lamda Literary Award for Gay Erotica

Through It Came Bright Colors by Trebor Healey
Through It Came Bright Colors is the story of Neill Cullane, a closeted, conflicted 21-year-old who lives in two worlds, light years and a short drive of his beat-up VW bug apart. At home, he's the dutiful son of Frank and Grace, and devoted brother to Peter, whose battle with a cruel, disfiguring cancer pulls the Cullane family together, however reluctantly. But in the shadows of the San Francisco underworld, Neill finds release with his secret lover Vince Malone, a beautiful junkie/philosopher/thief whose burning desire for truth lights the path Neill always knew he'd travel. Through Vince, Neill learns about honesty and love and finds the courage to confront his family in the face of tragedy and loss.
Winner: 2004 Ferr0-Grumley Award
Nominated: 2004 InsightOut.com Violet Quill Award
Read an Excerpt from Through It Came Bright Colors
Read an Interview with Trebor Healey

See Dick Deconstruct: Literotica for the Satirically Bent by Ian Philips
What would happen if you combined an English Lit scholar with a S&M master? Why, you'd get Ian Phillips, of course. This series of shorts is not for the prude, nor the under-read, for here you will get quotes from Walt Whitman and discussions on gender theory mixed with hot realistic sex (warts and all). Ian Phillips would make the perfect college prof, the one who teaches you by example (as he does in the title story). Perhaps, if you ask nicely, he will stop by and teach you a thing or two about Foucault… - SM
Winner: 2001 Lamda Literary Award for Gay Erotica
Read an Excerpt from See Dick Deconstruct
Read an Interview with Ian Philips

Sugar by Martin Pousson
Martin Pousson takes the hard-earned wisdom he's gained as an American outsider three times over—Southerner, Cajun, and queer—and lets it dissolve on his burning poet's tongue.

This cycle of short, but far from syrupy sweet, poems begins with a fey boy's odyssey through the labyrinths of masculinity, race, desire, and family tragedy in his childhood home of Louisiana. It follows the man as he escapes the South to find himself an outsider again, only this time in the gay ghettos of New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. It ends with the man reborn a fierce writer who embraces No Place as his home and himself and other enlightened misfits as his family.
Read an Excerpt from Sugar
Read an Interview with Martin Pousson
Nominated: 2005 Lambda Literary Award for Gay Men's Poetry

How I Learned to Snap by Kirk Read
If I were a rich philanthropist, I would ensure that every high school in America carried Mr. Read's book. Though he admits that his West Virginian coming out story is unique in that he had the support of his family and friends, his tale is a guide on how to begin the lifelong commitment to coming out. He recommends that you do not disappear from your hometown, but make appearances to allow the locals to know you as a gay adult, to answer questions and remove the mystery of gay life from the equation, and to be honest to your calling at all times. He also makes an appeal for more openly gay role models and understanding teachers who can answer questions of both gay and straight students. Each short chapter contains a lesson learned, including the title story, where an older gay teen shows him how to snap as means of saying, "I am not afraid." A must read for any gay teen and their parents. - SM
Nominated: 2001 Lamda Literary Award for Autobiography/Memoir

I Do / I Don't: Queers on Marriage edited by Greg Wharton & Ian Philips
Everyone has an opinion, most of which aren't heard in the national media's echo chamber. Especially those from within the sprawling L(esbian)/ G(ay)/ B(isexual)/ T(ransgender)/ I(ntersex)/ Q(ueer) community. Some consider this a fight for equality. Some see it as the wrong fight. Many are anxiously waiting a chance to wed. Many others find the idea absurd. I Do/I Don't collects a diverse array of queer voices on the subject of marriage. Stars and ordinary Janes. Saints and sinners. Anarchists and poets. Journalists and dreamers. Personal essays, fiction, poetry, nonfiction, vows, rants, love letters, and sermons. Silly to serious. In favor and against. Yay and nay, in between, neither, and D) all of the above. All valid. All from inside the community.
Winner: 2005 Lambda Literary Award for Nonfiction Anthology

 

Fiction • Anthologies • Nonfiction
Photography • Collections • Poetry • Book Reviews

Reviews taken from Amazon.com unless otherwise noted