Nine Hundred & Sixty-Nine: West Hollywood Stories, edited by Stephen Soucy, and published by the new Modernist Press, is now in bookstores and includes my short story “The Learning Curve,” about the struggling relationship of two gay men torn between wanting to be actors and making a living as waiters in Los Angeles. The story was inspired by friends I knew when I worked in the theater as an entertainment press agent many years ago.The anthology also features stories by John Morgan Wilson, Ben Scuglia, Rakesh Satyal, Joe Symon, Kyle T. Wilson, Max Pierce, Timothy State, Alex Roberts, Felice Picano, Shaun Levin, Paul D. Cain, Frank Bua, and Stephen Soucy.
I’ve also lived in Los Angeles twice as a boy — for a year in Van Nuys and a summer on Sepulveda Boulevard. I visited the city many times as an adult — several trips for research for the final section of my novel Where the Rainbow Ends, as well as celebrating my fortieth birthday (also, many years ago…) in a penthouse suite at the St. James Hotel (now the Sunset Tower) on Sunset Boulevard, courtesy of a generous boyfriend.
