I recently stumbled upon a writer who intrigued me so much that I had to ask him personally to be a guest on my blog. Happily, he agreed to share his wit and humor. Since this is longer than the typical guest blog, I’ve put it here on its own page. Please be aware that the chapter included of his recent book, The Zombie with Flowers in her Hair, is sexual in nature and should not be read by those of you not interested in same sex books and/or erotica.
Without further ado, here is KevaD AKA DA Kentner:
First and most importantly, thank you so much, Jude, for inviting me to your blog. I truly appreciate the invitation, though you have no idea what you’re in for.
How long have you been writing romances?
Pretty much since I first discovered sex. While a teen, I was at a party and met a young lady I wanted to seduce. I slipped into a wine and pot (yes, folks, I was once a kid who experimented with life and believed the world was my personal playground and “free love” meant just that) induced diatribe about a knight in shining armor traversing a strange and magical land. I even told it using a British accent. The story went on and on, and the next thing I knew I was in bed with the lady’s… sister. That taught me two things:
1. This storytelling stuff could get me laid.
2. Not everyone was going to like my stories, but there was definitely a clothes shedding audience.
I suppose you want the truth now.
I didn’t write my first romance until two years ago. That said, it turned out I had been weaving love stories most of my life. I was ignorant of the difference until I decided I wanted to become a published author.
My first love story that grabbed publishers’ attentions was a very short piece titled “Confused.” It’s about an elderly man in a nursing home trying to go home to his deceased wife. Though penned to be a literary story, it was the love beyond the grave aspect that had a magazine editor email me. She wasn’t happy at all that the final decision was not to publish “Confused,” and wanted me to know how much she enjoyed the story. I subbed it to Mensa’s Calliope magazine, and the editor there told me she cried, wanted the piece, and asked if I would consider entering their annual fiction contest with another story.
I had written “Love and Crescendium,” a science fiction piece, which had been rejected by several romance magazines. One editor finally explained that she really wanted the story (she’d cried too), but my tale was a love story, and they only accepted romance. That gracious lady
took the time to educate me on the differences between romance and love stories. I sent “Love and Crescendium” to Calliope’s contest and it took fourth place. The next year I submitted “The Caretaker,” another love beyond the grave story, and that one captured first place. The clouds parted, the sun shone, dogs howled, a neighbor yelled at me to shut my dog up, and I knew where I wanted to take my writing.
I am a true romantic in love with love. Ever since I first learned Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet were characters borrowed from an ancient Oriental tale told from village to village, I’ve wanted to be that person going to those villages, telling my stories. That isn’t possible, so I write the stories that continually swirl in my head and hope someone enjoys them. Knowing a reader held their breath, smiled, or shed a tear because of one of my tales is my one and only writing goal.
I’m serious about that.
http://www.calliopewriters.org/issue_127/LoveAndCrescendium.aspx
http://www.calliopewriters.org/issue_132/TheCaretaker.aspx
I notice you write about same sex couples, both male and female. What got that started?
Credit or blame, depending on your perspective, British MM author Ash Penn.
I knew my work needed improvement, and I wanted to have a book published. Seeing my short stories in magazines was fun and satisfying, but I wanted my book length stories available to readers as well, and I wanted to be a better writer in order to hopefully pay a bill or six. Romance author Barbara Sheridan recommended me to the romance and erotic critiquing group ERAuthors. They foolishly took me under their wing.
I’d never considered writing a same sex story. I critiqued an MM (Man on Man or as some prefer Male Male) scene for Ash, and she asked if I’d considered writing MM. I nervously chuckled. She said I should because I write about human emotion, about love, and love knows no boundaries. Almost immediately, two characters sprang to life and grumbled about how they’d been waiting for me to tell their story, and what the hell took me so long. “Out of the Closet” not only became my first MM story, but my first published book.
However, I’m not strictly a same sex storyteller, even though those genres are my personal bestsellers.
What is the heat level of your books?
I run the full gamut from sweet and innocent to read this one in a freezer. I let the story dictate how much or how little active sex is required for the characters to tell their story. The romantic “A Dance with Bogie and Bacall” has no sex, while the four-part “Catherine’s Toys” psychological horror serial is basically porn wrapped in a plot.
How long have you written for Noble Romance? Have you published under any other epubs?
Noble contracted “Out of the Closet” in 2010, and I now have ten titles published with Noble. I’ve just begun to spread my wings with other publishers.
“Whistle Pass,” an MM suspense novel set in 1955, is being released by Dreamspinner Press February 27th, and an MF (Male Female) romantic paranormal suspense novel, “Kantu’s Heart,” is finished and due to be released by Decadent Publishing sometime this mid-year for their Western Escape line.
Cats play important roles in a few of your books. How important are they in your writing?
The Cat and The Cat Too (TCT) from “Out of the Closet” and “Back in the Closet.” Love those two beasts. Chaz and Mike aren’t very original when it comes to pets’ names. In “Back in the Closet” they christen their horse “The Horse.”
I’m an animal lover, and my wife and I currently have one dog and cat. Some bats live in my work shed and I leave them alone. They keep the mosquito population almost nonexistent around our country home.
One of these days I’ll add a dog that’s been insisting on being in a book to one of my stories. In “Kantu’s Heart” a captured mustang plays an important role. Animals are fun to work with, though sometimes it’s difficult not to give them too many human traits and allow them to be who
they really are.
What is your favorite book that you’ve written and why?
Tough question. Kind of like asking which of your children do you love most.
I guess I have to say “Sunday Awakening.” That novel exemplifies the kind of story I really enjoy writing – suspense built around two characters who have a lot to go through before they discover and understand their strengths and what’s really important to them… each other.
Where can my readers find you online? Do you have any free reads?
My web site is http://www.kevad.net/
I have two blogs: http://dakentner.blogspot.com/ & http://kevad-author.blogspot.com/
I can also be found on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000734965695&ref=tn_tnmn
I was on Twitter – da kentner – but the account got hacked and I haven’t reactivated it yet, though folks can follow me if they enjoy silence.
Besides the two links I provided earlier, I have the free read “Wallace’s Voice” on smashwords.
It’s a literary fantasy I wrote a while back, so it’s a little rough and unedited: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/11872
I have plans to write and post a story or two on my web site. I just haven’t had the time lately.
Well, Jude, you asked me to talk about “The Zombie with Flowers in Her Hair.” Apparently you like torturing your readers with my blather. However, I’m always up to the task.
On the surface, “The Zombie with Flowers in Her Hair” is a slapstick comedy revolving around a zombie lesbian trying to unravel the mystery of a beautiful zombie with flowers in her hair. The story takes place in 1969 shortly after the lead character’s death during a tryst in a Volkswagen.
Isis is a lonely young woman who doesn’t see any more benefit in being undead than she did alive. Then the zombie with flowers in her hair makes an appearance, and Isis is smitten both by the mysterious zombie’s beauty and how the flowered zombie retains her beauty while Isis’s parts keep falling off. Isis embarks on a journey, but not the one we expect, as the path Isis travels isn’t one of her own design, and her final resting place is far more than she could ever have imagined.
Multi-published author Amber Green conceived the concept of a line of stories entitled Lesbians vs Zombies: The Musical Revue, and asked if I’d be interested in contributing to it. Each story had to include zombies, lesbians, music, and college. Considering I’d never written a tale about lesbians or zombies, I had to accept the challenge.
But… I didn’t want to follow the “expected” course. I needed a reason for my zombies not to behave in traditional zombie fashion. The sixties peace, love, and drugs era fit perfectly into my vision. In my party days, there was a young lady who used to put dandelions in children’s hair when we hung out at the park. She wore flannel shirts and bellbottom jeans, and that memory quickly became Isis. The joy she found entertaining children became the story within the story. I listened to Neil Young’s Sugar Mountain over and over while Isis told me about her journey and her desire to know love. When she finished, all I had to do was write it down.
Thank you again for having me here, Jude. You are a generous host. I hope I was polite enough. I fooled you into believing I know what I’m talking about. I have to go now. The nurse says it’s time for my shock therapy.
Thank you for taking the time to answer my questions, David. I fully enjoyed your sense of humor and wish you the best of luck with your writing!
Now here’s a sample chapter of The Zombie with Flowers in Her Hair. Again, please do not read if not interested in same sex stories and/or erotica.
Chapter One
_
“Nice ass,” I said, and handed hers back to her. “You should carry Vaseline-coated covers with you in your bag. Next time, I might not be here to notice your cute little tush stuck to the toilet seat.” I put on my best smile and slipped my blasé look into the pocket of my brown flannel shirt. “So, what was your name?”
“You-you know?” Uncomely lines creased her slick forehead, a feature in full view because she wore her dark brown hair parted in the middle and draped behind nicely rounded shoulders. Pert little tits jiggled under her ankle-length, egg-white linen dress.
Aside from the stutter, the undead creature’s voice contained a musical interlude all its sexy own. The words strummed from her tongue, soft as a guitar played in a garden. A delicious-looking tongue, I might add. Not to mention the smooth, nearly perfect lips that parted for every rich note to pass between. I noticed. So did my clit. The unexpected throb hinted in that direction, anyway.
My nipples strained against the flannel. A wave of tightened muscles softly crept from one side of my vagina to the other.
Damn. I hadn’t been so turned on since Karen had been sucking my tits in the passenger seat of my VW and I’d accidentally kicked the gearshift into neutral. We hadn’t noticed until the car rolled over the cliff. All that ear-shattering silence and the car’s perpendicular attitude were hard to miss. And kind of broke the moment.
The rock quarry’s water, sixty feet below, broke everything else.
Why the turtles ate Karen and not me . . . . Maybe it had to do with the cherry cough drops she always had in her mouth. I hadn’t touched cherry cough drops since. Better safe than sorry, and all of those other clichés.
Or it could have been the THC, I suppose. I’d smoked a nickel bag of Columbian buds all on my own. Karen was a straight. Well, about drugs anyway.
“Uh, yeah,” I chimed, my voice as pleasantly interested as I could manage. “The living don’t leave their butts behind. Pull up your dress”–Oh hell yeah–”and let me see if I can figure out a way to reattach—”
“No, thanks, I can get it. Not the first time.” She walked back to the toilet, a former utility closet, and closed the wooden door.
Huh? Not the first time? I’d glued Velcro to the corners of my mouth in order to switch lips. But I certainly had no clue how to attach anything else that fell off.
If I did, I’d have swapped out my tits, as my left was smaller than the right. Karen hadn’t seemed to mind, but one of the boys I’d banged in high school had shared my imbalanced secret with an entire shop class. Unfortunately, I had taken the class motto of Under the Covers Doing Fine, We’re the Class of ’69 a tad too literally.
Word spread like a cold in the hallways. Come to think of it, after that’s when Karen, my world literature substitute teacher, first offered to privately tutor me. I really couldn’t have cared less about Siddhartha or Rasputin—I’d been promised a B if I filled the last slot for the class. But at her apartment, while we listened to Joni Mitchell’s latest album Clouds on Karen’s Marantz stereo, the copy of the Kama Sutra she showed me grabbed my full attention. Had to give her credit, she never made an actual physical move on me until the night of graduation. At the rock quarry.
Sure wish Dad had fixed that emergency brake.
Thing was, I awakened from the dead as horny as when we’d gone over the cliff, the taste of Karen’s cherry-flavored lips on my tongue, the wild thrill of her mouth on my breasts, and her teeth nipping my nipples. And no idea how to get a living woman to finish the job Karen had
started. I wanted to come under a woman’s touch.
I’d briefly considered one of the male zombies I’d encountered, just to clean my mind of this constant state of near-orgasm. But somehow, I couldn’t get turned on by the thought of a dismembered member stuck up me while the owner frantically tried to reclaim his detached manhood.
The sock-it-to-me girl in the john, however . . . .
With a sigh so heavy my shoulders sank, I turned to the sink and cranked on the cold water. She’d ignored my request for her life-name. Maybe she wasn’t into women or experimentation. I cupped my hands under the flow and splashed water over my face.
Midnight Cowboy had, only a couple months ago, snagged the public’s raw fascination with gay, oddball characters. That didn’t mean Joe the bartender would bed Harry the lawyer anytime in the near future. The film had simply provided Harriet the opportunity to share heretofore unspoken fantasies with Josephine next door while they hung clothes on the line. Hidden desires to lick each other’s clits probably didn’t come up in the conversation.
Not the first time. The young woman’s words crashed center stage.
“What do you mean, not the first time? And how can you stick your—?”
The door creaked open.
“All better.” White and yellow camellia formed a band around her forehead and hair. I blinked. The vending machine on the wall dispensed condoms, not flowers. Where’d she have those hidden? She flipped the back of her hand against her incredibly straight tresses, sending several strands over her shoulder. Hazel eyes shone as if a light inside her beautiful face illuminated them. The skin on her neck glistened like silk under the lone fluorescent bulb. A pale shade of rose colored her cheeks. Colored her cheeks?
I glanced in the small wall mirror at my own ashen features. How had she managed to put what looked like natural color in her cheeks? Oops. The charming smile was all wrong for the circumstances. I retrieved the blasé one from my shirt pocket and made the exchange.
A muted giggle trickled from her delicate mouth. A shiver of want rattled through me. I bit back an urge to tear the body-hugging dress off her and suckle what had to be a perfectly matched pair of tits. Tiny, but definitely mouthwatering. I swallowed hard. She reached out a slender arm.
Wait a minute!
Her arms were bare, and sleek as a toddler’s. My long-sleeved, flannel shirts hid the gray skin drapery hanging from my arms—same reason I wore denim bellbottoms even in the muggiest weather. I filled bowls with skin softener every night in order to soak my hands and disguise the wrinkles that never stayed away for as much as a day. Her hands were smooth, with manicured nails tipped in cobalt.
What the hell? She had to be a zombie. Had to be. But if I hadn’t seen her tush planted on the toilet seat with my own two eyes, I’d have sworn she’d never died.
“Close your mouth,” she whispered.
I snapped my jaw shut. My teeth clicked together. Hadn’t known it had fallen open. “H-how—?”
Damn. Confusion knotted my tongue. I held my breath and tightened my chest. Then I forced the question out in a rush of air. “How come you’re so beautiful?”
Another marvelous giggle shot straight to my already-erect nipples. The dual points poked at the flannel, leaving no doubt of their location.
She stopped at the mirror and licked her little finger before dabbing at one of her pencil-thin eyebrows.
“What are your plans?” she asked, and then shot me a stony glance.
My back stiffened, and I scraped my fingers through my unruly, over-the-shoulders, brown hair. “I don’t know. Usual, I guess.”
“And that would be?”
What was with the interrogation? It wasn’t like zombies had a lot on our minds. Eat, rest, eat, stagger around, eat some more, and eventually wither to nothing.
“Maybe smoke some pot later, if I can find a party somewhere that’s got some decent smoke. Why? You looking for something to do?”
Are you? Huh? Please say yes. Because I could find lots to do with you.
“Has anyone ever said you resemble Janis Joplin?”
Her smile sent a shudder between my thighs.
“Yeah.” I groaned and winced. “All the time. I don’t consider it a compliment.”
She stepped to me and placed the tip of her index finger on my hand. Then she traced her touch up the sleeve covering my arm and over my shoulder as she walked past me to the bathroom door. My stare followed her like some puppy about to be abandoned in an alley.
“I do,” she said without looking back. “We made love once. She has a pleasing body, but I’ll wager yours could please me even more. And one more thing. Do you really believe I went to all this trouble to bring you back just so you could smoke pot and eat raw meat?” She opened the door, and let it click closed behind her.
I was dead. Without a doubt, I was dead. But every nerve within me came screaming to life.
“What? You and Janis Joplin? You’re a lesbian?” I blinked. “Janis is a lesbian?” I bolted to the doorway and threw the door open. “And what’s this you brought me back shit? Are you high or something?”
A soloist plucked a guitar. The lyrics of Leaving on a Jet Plane filled the smoke-clouded coffee house. Longhaired heads nodded in rhythm to the music. Every seat at every round table had an occupant. Barefooted men and women lined the walls.
But the zombie with flowers in her hair had vanished.
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