B.J. has Coffee & Cake with Harry F. Rey
- B.J.
- Oct 22, 2018
- 9 min read
Welcome to my coffee and cake time with M/M Authors.
Get to know a little bit more about your fave Authors as we chat over a coffee.
Today I have the company of the Harry F. Rey.
Find out what motivates this amazing Author how he got into this genre and his plans for the future.
If you enjoy these posts please share them and let me know. Big Hugs B.J.
Hey, I have been joined for a coffee and cake by Harry F. Rey, the Author of the several books including Line of Succession and Siege Weapons. He has agreed to come along and chat with me to give us a little insight into his world.
So, whilst I sort the coffee Harry, Tell us a little bit about your background and how you came to write Gay fiction?
I’ve been writing ever since I can remember. When I was about eight years old I wrote and drew this picture book, I think it was about dinosaurs, and I really wanted to tie the pages together. We went out and bought a hole punch, and I was so excited to get started I ended up punching holes all over the pages and ruining the book. Ever since I’ve taken every opportunity to write. In English class in high school as soon as the teacher uttered the words “creative writing essay” I would hand in 15 or 20 handwritten pages with a car chase and ask for feedback on the plot pacing. I think I even tried to submit a short story as a biology assignment once.
I grew up in a very working-class area of the UK. It was hard to say I want to be a writer. Even harder to say I want to write books that reflect the lives and loves of LGBTQ people. Where I come from, talking about dreams and aspirations is not something people do. But after I moved away and really began to understand who I was as a person, and met and married my incredible and supportive husband, I finally said okay, there's no excuse now not to get started. So the week we got back from our honeymoon, I took the years of notes, collections of bits and pieces of ideas, and just sat down day after day and wrote.
You have many years to fall back on then and I'm sure a lot to come in the future, I always find it interesting to know how writers start out in this business. What would you say is your greatest success story so far?
Well despite writing and publishing two separate series: The Line of Succession and The Galactic Captains simultaneously, I have to say the thing I’m most proud of is my poetry collection The Road Home: A Decade of Gay Poetry. I scribbled down stanza’s and half-rhymes almost every day for over a decade. Without being particularly aware of it, they really chronicled a crucial time in my life, from late teens to late 20s. Putting all those poems together into one collection and getting it out into the world was, at least personally, the best thing I’ve done so far.
I will have to have a look at that one, I do like something a little different. Now we all need a little help when we start out, I have met some fantastic Indie Authors who have given me good advice and helped keep me focused.
Who in the M/M community has help you on your journey?
One of the most incredible things about the MM community is how generous fellow authors are with their time. That’s why I love using twitter as my main author medium because people are so into sharing pearls of wisdom as well as their challenges and successes.
I wouldn’t want to single anyone out for fear of forgetting anyone, but I’m with two publishers at the moment, Nine Star Press and Deep Desires Press. I have to say that everyone, and I mean everyone at both those presses, from the owners to the editors to the cover artists to the marketing people and in particular the fellow authors whom I connect with online are fundamental to my success. I just wish I could spend more time helping them and reading and reviewing their works!
I have a connection with Deep Desires Press, but I only self publish at the moment, there are so many helpful people in this community it's great.
Do you still have a day job or are you a full time Author?
I have a day job still, but I’m lucky it is related to writing. I am the head of a writing department for a business consultancy. Being an author has helped that role greatly as I’ve always got my creative juices flowing.
That's nice they blend well with each other.
Whats is your favourite word?
My favourite word is a hard one. I think it’s actually a Scots word: glaikit. It means foolish or stupid. I like to use it because not many people outside of Scotland know it, so if someone annoys me I can call them glaikit and feel that little bit better that I called them foolish without them knowing!
What profession other than your own would you like to attempt?
As a profession other than author, I would say songwriter. I wish I was more musical. I can sort of play guitar, but I’d love to be able to write songs and play an instrument and sing them without sounding like someone beating a sack of ragged cats with a splintered bat with a rusty nail through it.
Ok, here's one that's probably not PC to ask but I like to see how people answer it. On a scale of one to ten, how weird are you?
I believe weirdness, like sexuality and gender, is a continuum!
Lol I wasn't expecting that answer..
The M/M community has its up’s and down’s. But what are some specific things you would advise newbies to watch out for in the community?
Ironically I think one thing for newbies to watch out for is too much advice. There is tons of it out there, more than you could ever read. To paraphrase the Dixie Chicks, shut up and write. It’s so easy to spend all your valuable writing time adrift in an ocean of good advice.
Just get on with it. Write the thing, then you can always go back and fix it. It will never be perfect, nothing ever can be. Sometimes you just have to stop and say it’s the best it can be with the resources I have available. But to get there, you need to start. So just start!
Thats very good advice, There is so much advice out there on the web and not always good so be careful. Let me throw in a couple more quick fire questions for you.
What was the last book you read ?
One of my confessions is that I don’t often finish books I start. I don’t know if it is wanting to have it always there waiting for me, or if it is because I have a very short attention span, but I don’t even remember the last one I completely got to the end of. I am reading a gay classic at the moment that I do think I will finish however – Dancer from the Dance by Andrew Holleran.
It’s a classic piece of gay literature about the New York gay dance scene in the 70s. For me it bridges the gap of the time period between the pre-69 Stonewall era and the mid to late 80s Paris is Burning era. I married by husband in New York, even though neither of us is from the US or lives there, but I love reading about gay NY because I feel a part of it when we got to stand in City Hall and exchange our vows.
What was the last movie you watched at the cinema?
I saw Crazy Rich Asians recently and absolutely loved it. First of all the music was really good. The versions of well-known songs sung in Chinese, in particular Material Girl and Yellow were spectacular, and I’ve been streaming them ever since. The movie itself was a fun rom-com and having been to Singapore before, I loved the setting. Overall it was a very well written and acted, as well as entertaining movie. It made me want to go off and write the gay version!
Not one I've seen but it looks interesting.
I have to say meeting you today has been good and you are doing great so far, What is coming up for you on the horizon?
I’ve got some exciting recent releases Siege Weapons - the first book in my all-queer space opera series The Galactic Captains was released on September 24 by Nine Star Press. I was so excited for this to come out as it is the first of eight books in this series. And readers won’t have to wait long for the next book either. The Galactic Captains Book 2: Forbidden Pursuits will be out December 3, with the third book following earlier in 2019 and the fourth by next summer while I’m currently busy writing the fifth in the series.
Early in 2019 the follow up book to the first novel in my contemporary royal romance series The Line of Succession will be published by Deep Desires Press. Book 2 – Acts of Treason will take all the back-stabbing, intrigue and skull-duggery readers loved in the first Line of Succession and ramp it up quite a few notches. I’m getting started writing the third book of the series, with another three books planned for a total of six.
Earlier this year I released three erotic M/M shorts in a series called The Cruising Chronicles. The stories are not connected, as they are about a runner cruising guys in a public park, a guy in Mississippi who has a crush on a basketball player, and the journey of a young man discovering his sexuality in rural Australia, but each of them I feel captures the heat and excitement and even the drama of cruising. It’s a unique experience that many gay and bisexual men are familiar with, and I think so ripe for short fiction. I hope to release more of these stand alone erotic shorts in the coming months too.
And while all that’s going on, I’m busy plotting out a completely new series M/M series. It will be an adventure series, with touches of mystery and the supernatural, and I can’t wait to share it!
Wow your a busy boy then, I will keep an eye out for those coming releases, lastly before we say goodbye, How do our visitors get in touch with you?
The best way to reach me is on twitter. I’m pretty active there and make all my main announcements, from new releases to upcoming giveaways and freebies on twitter.
You can follow me here https://twitter.com/Harry_F_Rey.
Of course if you want to buy anything you can go straight to my Amazon author page here: https://www.amazon.com/Harry-F.-Rey/e/B07BPKN725
Or see what people have said about my books on my Goodreads page: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/17876363.Harry_F_Rey
I’m also on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/harryf.rey
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HarryFReyAuthor , or you can visit my good old fashioned website https://harryfredrey.wixsite.com/harryfrey.
Thanks for joining me and Harry for Coffee & Cake. If you have enjoyed our chat join me soon when I meet up with Meg Bawden very soon..
Books from Harry F. Rey
Line of Succession - Harry F. Rey
Blurb:
Families are built on secrets, but when it's the royal family, the stakes-and the secrets-can be deadly. Fifteen years ago, Prince James's father, Prince Richard, was killed in a mysterious helicopter crash, along with his secret Irish lover. The young James became heir to the British throne over his twin sister, Princess Alexandra. With Queen Victoria II turning ninety, James's personal life, now that he's thirty, has come more into the public spotlight as he's expected to marry and produce an heir. Known for his playboy lifestyle, he'd gladly accept that reputation to hide the truth that he's gay and in a secret long-term relationship with his best friend and press secretary, Andrew. His twin sister knows his secret, and plans to use it to create a scandal that will help her take the crown for herself, but her plans rely on trust, and she will soon learn her allies are not as trustworthy as she thought. Will James win his throne, while keeping the love of his life? Or will the monarchy topple in the face of naked ambition and public scandal? The Line of Succession is a 38,000 word erotic romantic drama. If you love TV's The Crown or The Royals, then you'll love this deliciously sly royal drama filled with sex, secrets, and lies. Buy The Line of Succession now and dive into a royal family of secret gay lovers, ambitious lusts for power, passions for revenge and hidden secrets that will shake the monarchy to its very core. This isn't your real-life fairy-tale wedding; this is a royal family at war.
Like the Blurb Amazon Buy Link
Click the Cover
Siege Weapons - Harry F. Rey
Blurb:
Captain Ales is a lonely smuggler at the galaxy’s Outer Verge, and the last of his people. He’s been trying to move on from a life of drugs and meaningless sex, but finding love in this forgotten corner of the galaxy is difficult. When he’s sent on a mysterious smuggling mission to a world under siege, he’s enticed by promises of the domination he craves. But soon Ales finds himself entwined in a galactic power struggle that could cost him everything.
Like the Blurb Amazon Buy Link
Click the Cover
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Come back soon for more Authors who join me for Coffee, Cake and a Chat?
Thanks B.J.
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