About Me

I don’t really know everything. I just try to keep my mouth shut about what I don’t know.

About my work: I write fiction. My Timothy James Beck writing partners and I wrote IT HAD TO BE YOU, HE’S THE ONE, I’M YOUR MAN, SOMEONE LIKE YOU, and WHEN YOU DON’T SEE ME (all from Kensington).

My writing partner Timothy J. Lambert and I wrote THE DEAL, published by Alyson in 2004, and THREE FORTUNES IN ONE COOKIE (under the name Cochrane Lambert, from Alyson, 2005).

Timothy and I also edited a collection of romantic stories from some brilliant veteran and new writers, FOOL FOR LOVE: NEW GAY FICTION. The anthology came out in February 2009 just in time for Valentine’s Day. It doesn’t matter if you’re gay or straight, these stories are for every reader. A second anthology, FOOLISH HEARTS: NEW GAY FICTION will be released by Cleis Press in 2013.

My novel A COVENTRY CHRISTMAS, a contemporary romance, was released in October 2006. My second solo effort, A COVENTRY WEDDING, was released in January 2009. Both books are from Zebra.

About my life: I live on The Compound with my mellow husband and two quirky dogs–Margot and Guinness–who run the place. Also located on The Compound is the residence of Timothy J. Lambert and his dogs Pixie P. Lambert and Penny D. Lambert, as well as the occasional foster dog from Scout’s Honor Rescue.

Here’s a tl;dr account of what this blog is about–as I quote myself from February 23, 2012:

Every day, when I wake up, I feel I have a choice. I can embrace what’s positive or get mired down in what’s negative. Over the years, I’ve used blogging for many different things. To connect with readers. To keep up with friends. To talk about whatever random thing caught my attention on any given day. To reminisce. To talk about stuff that’s important to me. To be silly and play. To share photos. To share moments in my life or my friends’ lives. To celebrate dogs and books and movies and pop culture.

When I did the Magnetic Poetry stuff [in 2011], it was to engage with words again because I felt like my writing well had run dry. After a few months, when it felt too routine, I began either to find existing photos to match the randomly-drawn word poems, or shoot new photos and try to make those random words match them.

[In 2012], I decided to let photos from my past help me access memories or share stories from my life. Once again, this effort is mostly about retraining myself to write consistently. As in: every day. I’m not sharing all the stories of my life, or my family members’ lives, or my friends’ lives. Beyond everyone’s right to privacy, including my own, it’s also a matter of choice, just like when I wake up in the morning. I choose to celebrate as much of the good stuff as I can. Everyone I know has not led a charmed existence of joy and joyness. Among the group of people who’ve populated my life, we’ve known all the hard shit, too: death, loss, abuse, divorce, miscarriage, betrayal, deceit, cancer, AIDS, Alzheimer’s, loss of faith, despair, dementia, cruelty, suicide, disease, adultery, abandonment, unemployment, hunger, poverty, abortion, disability, molestation, addiction, mental illness, broken bones, broken hearts, broken relationships, broken lives, broken marriages, broken families, broken friendships.

In other words, we’re human, with the entire range of human behaviors and experiences and flaws…nobody gets to be born and live and grow old without experiencing pain. But I have no interest in exploiting the pain in my life, or the pain in the lives of people I know, on a public blog. Instead, writing here is most often another attempt to focus on whatever I can that’s positive. That’s who I choose to be publicly, and anyone who wants something grittier can certainly find it in abundance in about one zillion places online.