Author Interview by A.J. Llewellyn
1. Hi Alex and welcome to the Divas’ den! I would like to thank you for stopping by and want to start by asking about your two nome des plume, Alex Morgan and Alan Scott. I know Alan’s work is mainstream rather than erotic, but there is a paranormal element threaded through these stories. Please tell me a little bit about both these talented authors.
Thank you, AJ! I appreciate and am quite honored with the invitation. I wrote my first two novels under the name Alan Scott (since my last name is difficult to pronounce) and those did have the paranormal elements of psychic powers such as telekinesis, telepathy and clairvoyance. I’ve always been fascinated by comic books and the super-hero genre as well as mysteries. So I created a group of men who were trained to develop psychic powers and apply them to solving crimes. Think of X-Men meet Hercule Poirot!
When loveyoudivine Alterotica was asking for gay erotica short stories for publication, I saw an opportunity to have my creations finally in print. So I developed the character Corey Shaw (handsome, telepathic and gay) to solve a murder involving the BDSM community. I wasn’t prepared to mix my mainstream with my gay erotica works so I went with the name Alexander Morgan, my ‘pirate’ name since 1995, for loveyoudivine.
2. Which of them is closest to your heart and do they ever fight with each other? Do you ever have to pull over on the side of the freeway and tell Alex and Alan to play nicely?
LOL! No, I’m not that over-the-top. Think of them as the super-hero and his secret leather identity.
3. His secret leather identity? I love it! Provincetown features heavily in your stories…is this a place you love?
Yes, I’ve been to Provincetown several times and just recently to do a little research for “Safe Word”. When I came up with the idea of a murder in the gay BDSM community, I thought that Provincetown would be the ideal setting for the story.
4. I know you live in Washington DC with your partner and your cat…please tell us a little about your life there. It is a place of inspiration for you?
Not yet. But I’m thinking about picking up where Margaret Truman left off. All of her mysteries took place in the DC area, but she never wrote “Murder in Adams Morgan” or “Murder at the Green Lantern” (the Green Lantern is a popular gay bar here).
I draw most of my inspiration from my travels around the country (much like Agatha Christie who wrote her books based on her travels around the globe). For example, my first novel “Inside Passage to Murder” is set on a cruise ship in Alaska. “A Faire Day for Murder” takes place during a renaissance festival in Oklahoma.
5. I thought Corey Shaw was a convincing hero in your short story “Safe Word” from the MEN Anthology. He is also in another short story I believe…”Provincetown.” Any plans to bring him back?
I first introduced Corey in a short story written for a contest on Writing.com and then featured him again in another story “Provincetown” for an erotica contest. I created “Safe Word” with him specifically in mind. “Provincetown” is now a chapter in the extended version of “Safe Word” which I discuss a little later in the interview.
You will see Corey in future works, although I have no immediate plans for him.
6. You seem to favor BDSM as a genre…what is your feeling about the genre in general? May I ask if you practice this in your life?
Oh, you’re getting rather personal here, AJ! LOL
Thank you, AJ! I appreciate and am quite honored with the invitation. I wrote my first two novels under the name Alan Scott (since my last name is difficult to pronounce) and those did have the paranormal elements of psychic powers such as telekinesis, telepathy and clairvoyance. I’ve always been fascinated by comic books and the super-hero genre as well as mysteries. So I created a group of men who were trained to develop psychic powers and apply them to solving crimes. Think of X-Men meet Hercule Poirot!
When loveyoudivine Alterotica was asking for gay erotica short stories for publication, I saw an opportunity to have my creations finally in print. So I developed the character Corey Shaw (handsome, telepathic and gay) to solve a murder involving the BDSM community. I wasn’t prepared to mix my mainstream with my gay erotica works so I went with the name Alexander Morgan, my ‘pirate’ name since 1995, for loveyoudivine.
2. Which of them is closest to your heart and do they ever fight with each other? Do you ever have to pull over on the side of the freeway and tell Alex and Alan to play nicely?
LOL! No, I’m not that over-the-top. Think of them as the super-hero and his secret leather identity.
3. His secret leather identity? I love it! Provincetown features heavily in your stories…is this a place you love?
Yes, I’ve been to Provincetown several times and just recently to do a little research for “Safe Word”. When I came up with the idea of a murder in the gay BDSM community, I thought that Provincetown would be the ideal setting for the story.
4. I know you live in Washington DC with your partner and your cat…please tell us a little about your life there. It is a place of inspiration for you?
Not yet. But I’m thinking about picking up where Margaret Truman left off. All of her mysteries took place in the DC area, but she never wrote “Murder in Adams Morgan” or “Murder at the Green Lantern” (the Green Lantern is a popular gay bar here).
I draw most of my inspiration from my travels around the country (much like Agatha Christie who wrote her books based on her travels around the globe). For example, my first novel “Inside Passage to Murder” is set on a cruise ship in Alaska. “A Faire Day for Murder” takes place during a renaissance festival in Oklahoma.
5. I thought Corey Shaw was a convincing hero in your short story “Safe Word” from the MEN Anthology. He is also in another short story I believe…”Provincetown.” Any plans to bring him back?
I first introduced Corey in a short story written for a contest on Writing.com and then featured him again in another story “Provincetown” for an erotica contest. I created “Safe Word” with him specifically in mind. “Provincetown” is now a chapter in the extended version of “Safe Word” which I discuss a little later in the interview.
You will see Corey in future works, although I have no immediate plans for him.
6. You seem to favor BDSM as a genre…what is your feeling about the genre in general? May I ask if you practice this in your life?
Oh, you’re getting rather personal here, AJ! LOL
AJ says: I've been told that before!
No, I do not practice this in my life although I’d love to. There I’ve let out my deepest darkest secret. I do love the BDSM concept and the Power Exchange between two men. To me there is nothing hotter than a handsome man tied up and at the mercy of another. This can create many different situations for a writer of BDSM to develop, since the dynamics have endless possibilities!
7. Alex, I am on my way over! Ahem...let me ask you, which erotic fiction authors do you read? And which are your favorite authors?
The erotica authors on Writing.com are excellent and I love reading their works. For the longest time, I shied away from reading any type of gay literature because I found the stories to be more unbelievable than a group of super-powered mutants or a 200-foot tall, radioactive Tyrannosaurus Rex destroying Tokyo.
I enjoy reading Jon Michaelsen’s work “Pretty Boy Dead”, a murder mystery set in Atlanta’s gay community and Sephina’s “Servants of Night”, an erotic vampire story.
8. I know you are a big mystery lover…if I was new to the genre, what would be my five top must-reads?
These choices are my opinion only, so another mystery lover would probably disagree and have an entirely different list, but mine’s better! LOL
1. Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie. This was the first book I read outside of the “Hardy Boys” and loved it. Hercule Poirot figured out the mystery without being in the wrong place at the wrong time like Frank and Joe. What a concept!
2. Any Brother Cadfael novel by Ellis Peters. She is probably the best author of historical mysteries. Her works have been made it onto the silver screen with Derek Jacobi in the title role.
3. Ashes of Aries by Martha C. Lawrence. Ms. Lawrence is the only other mystery writer I have found (so far) that has a psychic sleuth. Elizabeth Chase is a psychic investigator and based on Ms. Lawrence’s own experiences studying the paranormal. “Ashes” is not her first novel but I find it to be a better work. I think she was working her way through the Zodiac but for some reason, she only has five novels.
4. Green Grow the Dollars by Emma Lathen. Emma Lathen is the pseudonym of two women who also wrote under the pseudonym R. B. Dominic. Lathen’s sleuth is John Putnam Thatcher, a Wall Street banker. Dominic’s is Senator Benton Safford from Ohio in Washington, DC. In “Green Grow the Dollars”, Thatcher solves the mystery in a very simple way. He makes a phone call and asks one question. Lathen’s books are also fun to read since many were written in the 60’s and 70’s, when bankers’ offices had mini-bars but no computers.
5. Absolution by Murder by Peter Tremayne. Tremayne is the pseudonym of a well-known expert on ancient Ireland. His sleuth is a young nun Sister Fidelma. I like his series because he puts so much of the society and environment from that era into his stories that ancient Ireland comes to life in his pages. Margaret Frazer also has a great historical series with her Dame Frevisse character.
9. My to-read list just grew bigger! LOL...I know you have some upcoming releases…one for LoveYouDivine in the MOH Anthology and a Halloween story. Please tell me about them and also please tell me what else you’re cooking on the stove.
Actually, my short for Men On Holiday is “Soumets-toi á moi”, a Mardi Gras theme. The title can be translated loosely to mean “Surrender the booty”. It involves the ghost of the pirate Jean Lafitte stalking two young men who have discovered a piece of his treasure.
I have also submitted a story to loveyoudivine titled “Love’s Snowblind”. The idea came from a friend of mine in Canada who has extremely poor eyesight. “Love’s Snowblind” is about a man getting lost in a forest during a blizzard and is rescued by a (near) blind man, who takes him back to his cabin and nurses him back to health. There is a short but unique bondage scene in it, of course!
And I am in the process of expanding “Safe Word” into a novel! I’m very excited about that. It is in the first editing phase right now so no date for its release has been set.
10. If you could get a publishing deal to write one non fiction book on anything in the world you wanted, what would it be and why?
I have been so intrigued by the works of Erik Larsen “Isaac’s Storm” (Galveston Hurricane of 1900), David McCullough’s “The Johnstown Flood” and David Laskin’s “The Children’s Blizzard”. It’s not that I have a morbid fascination with weather-related catastrophes but I am so impressed with the authors’ abilities to chronicle the changes in weather prior to the disasters, and then recreate minute-by-minute the series of events as experienced by the people in those communities.
I would like to write about the destruction of Port Royal, Jamaica by earthquake, fire and then tsunami in 1692. It was a haven for pirates during that era and was nothing more than a heathen den of iniquity and hedonism and its destruction was heralded as God’s punishment on the evil. I’d like to recreate the catastrophic events of that dreadful day in the same manner as Larsen, McCullough and Laskin.
On behalf of Dark Diva Reviews, I'd like to thank you for stopping by today Alex and for putting up with me!
On behalf of Dark Diva Reviews, I'd like to thank you for stopping by today Alex and for putting up with me!
Thank you very much for giving me this opportunity to reach out to your audience, AJ!
To find out more about this talented author, please visit his links:
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