1) How long have you been writing? 

I have been writing since I was a very small child. I think I wrote my first story when I was maybe eight years old.  That was the first one I wrote down. I’d been creating stories for as long as I can remember. 

2) How long have you been writing vampire erotica? 

Frankly, I haven’t done a lot. I co-edited a vampire erotica anthology called Blood Lust with M. Christian that was released in 2005. Under my own name, I published an erotic vampire novella in 2004, I think. This is the first I’ve done since then. 

3) What appeals to you about this genre? 

What doesn’t? I’ve always enjoyed vampire stories—Dracula, ‘salem’s Lot, the old Dark Shadows TV show—where the vampires were truly evil creatures. I also enjoy the ‘vampire as romantic hero’ novels. There are a lot of themes that can be explored through the vampire—the outsider, the supernatural, religion, faith, sex, love, damnation and redemption. It’s also very cool that everyone who writes about vampires can create their own mythos, their own history of vampires, and aren’t bound to convention and tradition. And who doesn’t want to create their own universe? 

4) What is the sexiest thing about vampires and why? 

Their power. Power is incredibly seductive. 

5) Let's face it...most gays have an insatiable oral fixation. Vampire erotica must be an easy sell. What are your thoughts on this?  

I haven’t really thought much about it, actually. I know that vampire fiction has a huge following. Blood Lust wasn’t my idea; it was my co-editor’s and he asked me to do the book with him. Likewise, with the novella I wrote under my own name, I was asked to do it, as I was asked to write Blood on the Moon. When I worked as an editor, there was a ‘truism’ that ‘you can’t go wrong with vampires—they always sell.’ 

I work with several different publishers, and each has always wanted me to write a vampire novel. The only reason I haven’t done one myself is because I simply haven’t had time. I’ve always wanted to write one, and hopefully I will be able to in the next year or so. 

6) Are you turned on by your own writing? 

When I first get the idea and think it through, sure. But writing isn’t very erotic. You don’t get hard correcting grammar and typos—well, I certainly don’t, at any rate. 

7) Your protagonist in "Blood on the Moon" is versitile - he fucks and likes getting fucked. This gives him an openess of character, openess to new experiences, which thematically helps his transition into accepting himself as gay and as a vampire. How common is this in gay vampire fiction?  

To be honest, I don’t know how common it is. From what I can recall of the gay vampire fiction I’ve read (it’s been a while), I always came away with the impression that the vampire was always a top—the power and domination aspects, I suppose. I don’t know how correct that is, that’s simply the impression I came away with.  

8) Coming to terms with your sexuality is one of the most universal themes in contemporary and historical gay fiction. You and the other two authors explore this quite thoroughly in Midnight Hunger. Coming to terms with transforming into a vampire seems to echo this theme. Is this part of the appeal of gay vampire erotica? Outcasts finding accepting communities, etc... 

A friend of mine who was writing a y/a vampire novel was told once by an editor at a major publisher that ‘vampire novels are all about yearning,’ and I do think that is true to some extent. Vampires, like gay men, exist outside the mainstream and are outsiders looking in. The great irony, to me, is that in our entertainment—fiction, television shows, movies, et al—we are all drawn to the outsider, the outcast, the underdog you root for and identify with—because everyone has felt that way at some point in their life.  I’ve always thought it ironic that this doesn’t really translate to everyday life, where all too frequently the outsider/outcast/underdog is actually viewed with contempt and loathing. 

A good example of this, I think, is the stereotypic high school novel. The hero is always a boy or a girl that’s an outsider—and the villains are always the jocks and the cheerleaders. When I was in high school, the jocks and the cheerleaders were actually all nice kids. But because they automatically form a clique and seem to be ‘the beautiful people,’ all the other kids in school want to be a part of that and gain their acceptance—and from there it’s easy to turn them into ‘villains.’ Someone can read the book, remember not being a part of that clique, and thus identify with the main character. 

9) Your piece in Midnight Hunger feels like the first part of a serial novel, like it's part of a much longer narrative. Is it? And if yes, where can your readers look for the next installment? 

Well, as I said my editor has wanted me to write a vampire novel now for a very long time.  When I wrote the first novella all those years ago, I saw it as basically the prologue to a novel, or possibly a series. When I was writing Blood on the Moon, I also saw it the same way. And while I abandoned the first idea (again, not to a lack of interest but rather a lack of time), I really like my characters from this one and I do want to explore them further. I am editing an anthology of gay vampire erotica for Bold Strokes Books called Blood Sacraments, which will be released in October 2010, and I have written another Cord Logan story for it, called “Bloodletting,” that I also see as the first chapter of a book. The story is complete in and of itself, but it leads to the rest of a story I want to tell, and I am definitely going to write it. I am very excited about it, actually. 

10) Your first novel Every Frat Boy Wants It reads like a gay love story with romance/erotica genre stylings. Do you prefer writing this type of fiction or do you prefer your vampire work more? 

Well, thank you, because that was my intent with that book! I really don’t prefer writing one style over another. What excites me in the characters and the story. I have been very pleased with the response to Frat Boy.  

11) "The Fratboy" fetish is a pretty big one for North American homosexuals. Why does it appeal to you? (ie is it a personal fetish that you're sharing through your fiction)   

It’s not a fetish for me; I actually was a fratboy. I also had no idea that there was such interest in the subject. The last erotica anthology I edited under my own name was FRATSEX, and that book came about because of a casual conversation on the phone with my editor at Alyson. I was a fratboy, my partner had been one, and as it turned out, so had my editor. I was simply amazed that so many gay men had belonged to fraternities, and to the best of my knowledge, it really hadn’t been explored much in gay fiction much. My editor then asked me if I’d been interested in editing an anthology of erotic fraternity stories, and I said, sure. That book turned out to be one of the biggest selling gay erotica anthologies of all time. Four years after publication, it still sells at a much higher volume than one would think. It’s the all time bestseller at Insightoutbooks. Who knew? I had always wanted to write a novel set in a fraternity, and when the opportunity to do Frat Boy came along, I jumped on it. I am currently working on another fraternity novel, a little darker than Frat Boy, whose working title is Beautiful. I think it’s due for a 2011 release. Whether I will keep writing fraternity books, I don’t know—there’s obviously a market, and there’s also a lot of story there. 

12) Online written erotica was my first exposure to gay pornography and this was back in the early early 1990s before there was a world wide web, back when you had to use a dial up modem to access online databases, before computers could display pictures online. Do you think that written erotica is still a "first point of access" for teenagers and young men who may questioning their sexuality and if so, why? 

I don’t think so, but I am not an authority on the subject. Given the preponderance of visual porn on line, as well as the ‘hook-up’ sites, I would tend to think not. 

13) What are your thoughts on the resurgence of interest in vampire culture? I remember Anne Rice's Interview with Vampire series mania in the 1990s, which also had homoerotic overtones and appealed to teenagers and young adults at the time. Now it's all Twighlight, True Blood, the Vampire Diaries etc...Why vampires (again)? Why now? 

Vampires never really go away. The fiction is always there—it’s just that every once in a while a particular writer creates a series that explodes into the culture. As you said, it was Anne Rice in the late 80’s and 90’s; now it’s Charlaine Harris and Stephanie Meyer. There’s also Laurell Hamilton. 

I haven’t read the Harris and Meyer novels, have read a few of Hamilton’s, but I read all of Anne Rice’s vampire and witch novels. Again, I think it goes back to the notion of the outsider, and how the reader can identify with those feelings. This is particularly true of teens and young adults, especially those that read. 

14) How have you tried to subvert the genre and make it your own? 

That will become evident in the novel, and I’m not going to give anything away this far in advance. ;) 

15) Why have you chosen to write with a pen name? Is that a standard for erotica writers? 

Yes, most erotica writers do seem to use pen names. For me, it has nothing to do with the subject matter. Early in my career, I published erotica under my own name.  

In my case, I use different names to write different styles. Under my own name, I’ve published to date eight gay mystery novels. I also used to write gay erotica centered around wrestling. I started using the name ‘Todd Gregory” to write something besides wrestling erotica, and for the most part the Todd Gregory stories always seemed to have a kind of supernatural theme to it—not vampires, but mermen, angels, telepaths, etc. Not all of them do, of course, but the majority of them. 

16) As an Canadian author, I've noticed at readings of my own work that the gender split of attendees in this country is usually 5 women to 1 man. Of that 5:1 split, I'd also venture that most of those men are hetero (this is poetry mind you, which attracts a lot of lesbians). What are your thoughts on gay male literacy? Are gay men still reading books? How hard is it to get them to buy them? 

Gay men still buy books and read them—and I am eternally grateful that they buy mine and seem to like them.  The trick is letting them know your books are out there, and that’s always been the problem. I know I’ve been very very lucky. 

17) Any advice for aspiring writers hoping to break into the vampire scene? 

Create fully realized three dimensional characters. The story will come from that, and never forget it’s the characters the reader connects with.