“All the Right Places” is a collection of short stories, most written for submission to anthologies or collections. Starting in the near future and proceeding to the near past, men interact with other men in the pursuit of love and companionship.
How many times have you submitted a short story to a submission call only to have the editor tell you the work isn’t a good fit? Most of us have received many rejection notices, some kinder than others, some even laudatory. Still, we’ve all been rejected at some point during our writing careers.
My name is Wayne Goodman. I live in the San Francisco Bay Area with my partner Rick May (and too many cats). My writing has tended to be historical fiction with a focus on LGBTQ+ characters. When not writing, I like to play piano music from the Gilded Age with an emphasis on Women, Black, and Gay composers.
From time-to-time I submitted short stories to anthologies or collections. Some got accepted and printed, many received polite rejections. After a few years my compilation of shorter works grew to a point where I wanted to publish them together. “All the Right Places” contains eleven pieces that take place starting in the near future and chronologically progressing to the near past.
Two of the stories (“Rumpspringa” and “Looking for Love in All the Right Places”) had been submitted to a journal looking for stories where a sense of “Place” drove the action. The journal never moved forward on that project, but I ended up with two good pieces.
One piece of public art that has fascinated me sits at London’s Piccadilly Circus. Atop a circular pedestal, the statue of Anteros (usually mislabeled Eros) has acquired a mystique for bringing potential lovers together. I find it so compelling that two of the stories begin and end there (the title story and “Nice Day for a Picnic”).
“Population Maintenance,” my first accepted work, went to Off the Rocks. Their call for submission asked to redefine “Gay,” and that’s what I gave them. “Noah’s Raft” got printed in the subsequent edition focusing on historical romances. The story involved quite a bit of local history for the area where I live and started out as a submission to the Best Gay Erotica series. The editor thought it too tame, but it ended up finding a home anyway.
And speaking of Best Gay Erotica, my partner frequently had his stories printed there. My piece, “Out of Yoshiwara,” made it into the final edition of the collection, along with one of Rick’s. We were the first couple to have stories in the same edition.
Ideas for stories sometimes come from unusual places. I am a member of KQED in San Francisco, and they produce a program called “Bay Curious” that responds to listeners’ questions about local points of interest. One such show dealt with Mile Rock Lighthouse, which sits one mile off the rocky coast. That led to “Stag Station,” the designation given to a lighthouse where women are not permitted.
“Sunday/Sinday” came from a quick glimpse at a television commercial for some event happening on a Sunday. However, either I saw it wrong or the text on the screen actually read, “SNDY,” and my mind filled in two sets of vowels.
Queering history has always fascinated me. I like to take little-known or nearly-forgotten times and reintroduce them with queer characters. A few years back I retold three historically-significant books: the first Russian-language book featuring a gay character (Mikhail Kuzmin’s “Wings”), the first American gay novel (Bayard Taylor’s “Joseph and his Friend: A Pennsylvania Story”), and the first English-language gay novel (Francis Lathom’s “Live and Learn”). The challenge for me was to revive these important works but for 21st Century readers. Much of the original language regarding same-sex couples relied on subtext, ambiguities, or inferences to get their meaning across. My works put the queerness right up front where you cannot miss it.
Since October 2018, I have hosted Queer Words Podcast, conversations with queer-identified authors about their works and lives (www.queerwords.org). Each week I release at least one 20-30 minute episode featuring writers from the barely-known to the well-known. We talk about their queer experiences as well as their literary works. If you are a published, queer-identified author and would like to be featured in a future episode, you can write to: queerwords@gmail.com.
According to David Pratt of Hosta Press in his Goodreads review: “Wayne Goodman writes with a welcome frankness and gives us some wonderfully sexy set-ups … Goodman reminds us that men had desires and knew what they wanted even in the old west of the U.S. or nineteenth century London. A very frank and refreshing change-up from the warm and delightful host of the Queer Words podcast.”
I hope you enjoy the stories in “All the Right Places” as much as I enjoyed writing them. Bon Voyage!
Wayne is giving away a $25 iTunes gift card with this tour – enter via Rafflecopter:
Something about this stranger seemed intriguing, inviting, alluring. So out-of-place in this ultra-modern wash of dark walls, neon strip lights and fake smoke. The designer had set up the entrance so that each person walking in would emerge into the main room from a cloud of fog, like walking out of a dream.
And this seemed much like a dream to Gary. A hayseed hick in a flashy lower Manhattan gay bar. The kind of thing he used to watch at home on video late at night when he couldn’t make a good connection at the bar. Just like in the dream, or video, the bucolic lad walked up to him.
“Hello, I’m Elmo,” the farm boy thrust out his rough-looking right hand, presumably to shake with Gary. Unfortunately, the surprisingly-different name sent him into a giggle fit. “Did I say something wrong? I’m awfully sorry if I did. Perhaps I should just leave now.” Elmo turned to go.
“No, wait, Elmo,” Gary managed to blurt out before he started laughing again, almost spilling the pricey drink he had fought the jaded crowd to purchase. The liquid in the glass glowed blue in the light of the plexiglass bartop. “Can I buy you a drink? Are you even old enough to be in here?”
The farm boy had a very fresh and youthful appearance, except for the roughness of his palms. Elmo gazed down into those work-worn hands before responding, “I am not in the habit of accepting charity from strangers, but,” and he glanced up at Gary’s shirt and then his face, “I believe I am prepared to try something new tonight. Oh, and yes, I just turned 21 last week. What are you drinking, sir?”
“A Blue Moon,” Gary responded as he pointed his free hand at the glass. “Two things”–he held up two fingers–“First off, this is not a drink for rank beginners, and two, if you call me ‘sir’ again, the deal’s off.” Elmo looked down. “Hey, up here, man. My name is Gary.”
Elmo looked up and smiled. “Thank you… Gary.”
And Gary returned the smile. Possible fantasy scenarios began to form in his overcharged imagination. “Do you like beer?”
“Of course!” Elmo’s smile widened. “We have all kinds of beer at home: Apple Beer, Ginger Beer, Root Beer –”
“Do any of them have alcohol?” Gary interrupted.
“Oh, no,” his moppy head shook side to side, “we’re not supposed to drink alcohol.”
“But you do, Elmo, don’t you?”
A wicked smile spread across his face, “Oh, yeah, sure, but please don’t tell my pa.”
Gary gently grasped Elmo’s arm. “Don’t you worry yourself none, Elmo, your secret is safe with me.” He then turned to the bartender and ordered a lite beer. Once he had finished settling, he took the bottle in his free hand and turned back to Elmo. “I wish we could find a place to sit and chat, but this bar is so crowded.”
“What about there?” Elmo pointed to a café table where two nattily-dressed men had just stood up.
“Well, aren’t you my little lucky charm, Elmo.” He guided them to the recently-abandoned seats. “So… what brings a nice young boy like you into a filthy old place like this?” Once he had set the two drinks on the table, he waved his arms around to indicate the space.
“Oh, no. This is far from filthy. If you want filthy, I can show you the cow stalls.” Elmo’s head rotated around as he took in the new surroundings. “And why did you start laughing when I told you my name?” He confronted Gary directly.
“Oh”–he smiled–“it’s not a name you hear very often. The only Elmo I ever knew was the one on Sesame Street.”
“Is that far from here? Is it in Manhattan?”
Gary burst out laughing. “Are you for reals? Or are you just pranking me?”
“I’m not sure I understand what you are asking me, sir–Gary.” His wide eyes suggested his innocence to be sincere. “Where I live, there are quite a few of us–Elmos, that is. In fact, folks usually call me Elmo Number 2, or just Number 2 for short.”
“You are just full of surprises, Elmo Number 2.” Gary grinned. “At first I had to suppress the urge to tickle you all over.” He wiggled his fingers and moved his hands up and down.
“Why would you want to do that?” Elmo sipped at the beer.
“Well, a few years back there was this toy that… oh, never mind.” Elmo seemed focused on Gary’s shirt. “Is there something wrong with my shirt? You keep looking at it.”
“Oh, no.” He blushed. “It’s the color. It’s what drew me to you.”
“Blue. Blue is what made you bee line from the door up to me and tell me your name?” Elmo nodded his head. “Think you could you help me out with a bit of an explanation?”
“Oh, sure,” he took another sip of the beer, “And thank you for this. It’s not bad. You see, at home, that shade of blue has a special significance for us.”
“Home?” Gary gave him the once over once again. “And where might that be, Elmo?”
“Lancaster, of course!”
“Of course. I should have known. And you pronounce it way different from what I am used to. We say Lan-caster, but you call it ‘Lank-a-ster.’”
“Really? I’ve never heard it pronounced any other way.”
“Uhn huhn,” Gary started searching out other faces, just in case this cute little fantasy disappeared into a dust cloud. “So… what brings you to New York, Elmo Number 2?”
The farm boy giggled, “Number 2. It sounds so different when you say it.” He giggled again. Perhaps it was the beer kicking in. “I’m on Rumspringa. Are you familiar with that?”
“Is it some new drug?” Gary stared down into his drink.
“Oh, no, silly. It’s my time to discover what the outside world has to offer before I commit to my adult life.”
“I think I saw a movie about that. Are you Amish or something?”
“Sort of. We like to call ourselves Pennsylvania Dutch, but it’s very similar. My folks are more modern than some of the other groups.”
“Obviously.”
“Obviously?”
“Don’t you people ride around in horse buggies? No electricity, no cell phones.”
“Oh, that’s the older ones. We’re not so strict like that anymore.”
“I see,” Gary’s eyes wandered over Elmo’s body anew as fantasies began to redevelop. “So… you’re in New York to see the sights?”
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Thank you for posting me and my book on your blog page. While a few of the stories can be called speculative fiction, most of the pieces take place on our current timeline or are works of historical fiction.
Wayne Goodman