Today’s post is another interview for you! A while back, we spoke with Harry F. Rey about all sorts (including our Very Important Question regarding zombie apocalypses), including Jean Cocteau, trusting yourself, and an X-Files/James Bond crossover.
You can also follow him on twitter.
Let’s start at the beginning. How did you first get into writing?
I always wanted to write. I think a lot of writers know from a very early age. It’s like knowing you’re gay. You feel something inside you that compels you to tell stories. I was the sort of boy who hung around the library, who sat front and centre when anything book related came up at school, and who used to think up magic systems and great histories of fantasy worlds while other kids were doing perhaps anything else.
But growing up in very working-class Glasgow it’s hard to say you want to be a writer. Let alone you want to be a gay writer. I grew up in a time when there weren’t very many gay stories. Not in libraries, not in schools, and certainly not on television. As I got older, I wanted to tell those stories that I’d never had growing up.
It took me a long time, though. To get over the fear, to get over the voice that had always been inside saying you’re not good enough and writing isn’t for people like you.
It took me all the way until I was married until I finally put fingers to the keyboard. The week after my husband and I got back from being married in New York in January 2017, I sat down at the computer, and began to write all those stories that had been swirling around in my head for so many years.
What are your favourite genres to read and write, and are there any genres or tropes you wouldn’t write?
I love science fiction. It’s the first genre I started to write in. My sci-fi series The Galactic Captains is so much fun to write because it’s not just telling one story, but telling tens of thousands. Every page is another opportunity for a whole world of, well, world-building. Making up galaxy-spanning empires and turning space opera tropes on their head with a queer twist I really love doing. And it’s so interesting to see what readers come away with. I remember in the second book of the series, Forbidden Pursuits, I put in a throwaway line about a mythological Kyleri emperor having had one thousand husbands and one thousand wives, and satisfying each and every one. One reader said they would love to have a whole spin-off just about him! That’s the sort of detail in sci-fi, in all speculative fiction really, that is so much fun to put in.
In terms of reading, I love gay literary fiction. Alan Hollinghurst’s The Line of Beauty or Andrew Holleran’s Dancer from the Dance are two of my favourite novels and I came across both by chance in Gay’s the Word, the famous gay bookshop in London which is my Disneyland. There’s truly an undiscovered world of gay literary fiction that lives in second hand bookshops, things that aren’t online, never have been and likely will be. Those are my favourite books to read.
In terms of anything I wouldn’t write, I’d never say never. I’d love to do a crazy cross-genre mashup one day of all the best tropes from queer fiction. I love the controlled chaos of The Muppet Show, and something akin to that where there’s werewolf shifters and bears and twinks and drag queens all trapped in some sort of paranormal cozy mystery gone wrong would be a lot of fun to write.
How do you get inspiration for your books and what’s your writing process? At what point do you let other people read your drafts and who are they?
I take inspiration from all around. The novel which landed me an agent, Why in Paris? Which is about a group of gay Jewish sex workers in World War Two Paris who entrap high ranking Nazi’s with a secret movie camera came to me in a dream. I had this dream of Armie Hammer pushing a Nazi down the stairs and killing him, and I woke up and had to write it all down, and then I started building the novel around that once scene. I even tricked my husband into a trip to Paris so I could scout scenes and places for the novel. He later realised when I was dragging him around random streets in Paris with my note pad, but he was in Paris so I don’t think he was complaining much.
At the moment my poor agent is reading my drafts. I’m a quick writer but a terrible editor. I hate editing. I also believe there is no final draft. Only the point at which the story is cooked enough to serve. So at the moment I’m knocking out all the ideas I possibly can and clogging up her inbox with drafts!
I also like to have a few beta readers for each new project. People from writing groups or other people who I’ve done beta reading for I send along some chapters or the latest draft of something. I think as a writer it is important to get an external perspective on your work, but not get paralyzed by it.
Which three authors would you say influenced your writing the most?
Christopher Coe. He wrote one of my favourite gay novels Such Times which is a poignant, beautiful and tender love story set in the 70s and 80s in New York. It’s intimate and tragic and terrifying all at the same time and I always return to his book and his writing as what it means to write true and honest gay charachters that are touching and genuine.
Margaret Atwood. It’s not just her novels I love but her poetry as well. It’s epic and thrilling to read. And her conceptualisation of plot and story telling is second to none I think. The realism of The Handmaiden’s Tale is beyond speculative fiction. It’s like being inside a reality that she creates with such realness that after I put down that book it took time, several days, to fully re-adjust to the ‘real world.’
Christopher Pike. I read his YA books growing up, particularly The Last Vampire series which I love and have re-read several times as an adult. I love how he can weave in myths and legends into his work and the characters, and give his world a mythological sense and still make it a page-turning thriller with the best vampire in all literature.
And for something that is also very important to us & what we put a lot of emphasis on when blogging. What does ownvoices LGBT representation mean to you?
LGBT representation means more than just seeing ourselves in stories. It’s more than a side character or even, gasp, a lead. It’s about us telling our own stories for ourselves. With all the good bits and bad bits which comes with that. There’s a lot to talk about, and a lot of things which don’t often come up when it’s not someone who has direct experience in telling that story. I don’t believe that’s a prerequisite, but personally I think it is quite apparent when someone knows what they’re writing about versus someone who doesn’t. Simple things like the dynamics between gay men; there’s pecularities – so to speak – that if you haven’t been a gay man or spent significant time with them – one might not pick up.
What’s one piece of advice you would like to give your younger self?
Trust yourself, and no one else. Your spirit is trying to take you in the right direction, don’t fight it.
Summarise your most recent/next book in up to 5 words and a meme.
Achilles. Wrestling. Houston. Hades. Poppers.
If (when!) your books were to be made into movies, who would you like to direct them?
Either Baz Luhrmann because I need it to be a non-stop show stopping musical extravaganza, or Greta Gerwig because of how amazing Lady Bird is and that closeness and intimate real life veracity is just beautiful to have in a movie.
If you could have dinner with one member of the LGBT community, dead or alive, who would it be?
Jean Cocteau. He was a very famous French director, actor, writer, playwright, and a main character in my novel Why in Paris?. He’s fascinating as a historical figure. He became well known in the 20s in Paris, was friends with everyone and enemies with even more like Hemmingway. And he was openly and unapologetically gay for his entire life, all through the 20th Century. One of the themes of Why in Paris? Is the historical thought experiment that if it hadn’t been for the war, gay life in the second half of the 20th Century would have looked very different. There was a sense of freedom and openness bursting out of Paris that died with the occupation, but could very well have spread around the world and brought liberation much quicker if it hadn’t been for the war. It’s a fascinating what might have been, and I think Jean Cocteau represented the ‘what might have been’ of the gay world.
Which of your characters would you most want to fight a zombie apocalypse with?
Probably Disco Styx from my forthcoming YA novel Of Gods and Boys. They are the drag queen alter ego of Charon, the boatman of the underworld. They have an unlimited supply of Nyx cocktails and a magical bottle of poppers and can shade the hell out of any creature, living or dead or undead.
Is there a famous franchise or simply a movie/TV show you’d like to be able to write for?
I’d love if they brought back X-Files but crossed it with James Bond so I could write Gillian Anderson but as a mix of Scully and her character from The Fall and she is a no-nonsense MI5 director who’s got no time for a damn secret alien invasion.
Do you have any secret non canon ships in your books you wish people would write fics for?
That is a very, very hard question. I would like to think I’ve discovered all of the potential ships between my characters, and if they didn’t get together there’s a very, very good reason for it. But probably Ukko and Turo from The Galactic Captains. If they didn’t live in the galaxy’s Outer Verge those two would be an Instagram famous power couple who would tempt pop star twinks to do threesomes with them then Turo would release the videos just for fun. They would be a total car crash of a couple but I’d love to see it.
Rec us some great LGBT books you’ve read recently!
Pyrrhus by Mark Merlis. It is quite simply one of the best books I’ve ever read. It’s a modern re-telling of the journey of the son of Achilles to Troy. But Pyrrhus is a hustler, and has to be coaxed out of his rent boy world to go and fight the Trojans. It’s a masterpiece. And I don’t mind to say it’s the kind of book every other queer Greek mythology story wished it could be. You know which one I’m talking about. 🙂
Also What’s Left of the Night by Ersi Sotiropoulos. It’s a really great portrait of the late 19th Century Greek poet Cavafy and a wonderful journey into historical Paris just as it was becoming the centre of the world.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Harry F. Rey is an author and lover of gay themed stories with a powerful punch. He writes sex-positive stories that explore realistic queer lives and loves, whether in deep space or wearing a crown.
From contemporary to historical, romantic to dramatic, his books are packed with love and heartache, action and adventure and gripping characters which range from erotic shorts to galactic space operas to tender gay love stories. Harry strives to deliver plot-twisting, action-packed, edge-of-you-seat queer stories he wished he had growing up gay in Glasgow.
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