Author, A. J. Llewellyn

Honey Butter
Current mood: blessed
Category: Travel and Places

So I am in chilly, but beautiful Austin, TX visiting my best friend Tam and her two-year old daughter Lola. We have been friends for 15 years and although Tam travels a lot, with a baby and her busy working life — not to mention my busy working life– I am finally on her home turf visiting her and little Miss Lola. I came armed with a Fancy Nancy tutu, matching purse and sunglasses (am I gay or what?) and tried not think of all the deadlines I have. It’s only four days I reasoned with myself and I can still work.
Besides, it’s research.
Tam mentioned there’s a gay section of Austin — 4th Street– so from the second I arrived, I’ve been making notes.
I really like it here. Arrived late yesterday afternoon and Tam said she would drive me down the gay section of town so I could see it.
Austin has a very laid-back vibe. Tam describes it as a cross between Berkley and Venice Beach and I totally see that. It’s an eclectic town and she pointed out Whole Foods – this was the very first Whole Foods ever) and I saw tons of hippies and funky coffee shops you wouldn’t normally associate with Texas.
Tam’s family took me to dinner at a local barbecue place. I’m a vegetarian but managed to keep my squeamishness to myself when I saw these gigantic bones coming out of the kitchen. I’ve never seen ribs this size.
Things are bigger in Texas, I reminded myself. I scribbled this in my notebook. Of course, this opens up all kinds of possibilities for a gay romance set in Austin, right?
My mood got even perkier when a massive loaf of fresh bread arrived at the table.
“Try it with the honey butter,” Tam advised.
Honey butter?
They actually sell honey and butter mixed. It’s even in convenient packets on the table. I tried to imagine this idea flying in California and I couldn’t.
You have to beg a waitress for butter in L.A.
But I digress.
Hiney butter makes me swoon. I love this town! It sings to my senses!
On our way home, Tam and I discussed my setting one of my books here.
She daid she’d drive me down 4th street so I could check it out, get a feel for it. Groove to the vibe.
“I can’t wait to see it,” I said.
“We just did. we just drove right past it,” she said. “Didn’t you see it?”
No, I did not. Okay, so…not all things are bigger in Texas. the gay district is apparently two clubs next door to each other.
But there’s always Honey butter.
And my seriously overactive imagination.

Aloha oe,

A.J.
Currently listening:
Nina: The Essential Nina Simone
By Nina Simone
Release date: 2003-05-12

Current mood:  artistic
Category: Writing and Poetry

I am often asked by readers and interviewers what I have learned as an author of gay erotic romances. I’ve learned a lot. So much in fact, I have assembled a top 10 list of Lessons in Erotica.

10. I am no longer shy using words like ‘penis’ in public. Yes, I walked into an adult boutique the other day to purchase penis cupcake pans as gifts for a couple of readers. The store assistant called them pecker pans. They’re penis pans, woman. PENIS! It took me a long time to be comfortable with this. When I first started writing my books, I went to Circus of Books and felt like a deviate when I asked, “Do you have a movie called Fuck Holes?”

9. I no longer wait until a store is half-empty to ask the clerks what gay movies are hot. I ask the customers. Although I still don’t like the ones that rub up against me. Guys who rub up against you in adult book stores are not hot. They are usually creepy, smell and missing several teeth.

8. I feel quite comfortable discussing sex in public.

7. I am no longer shocked when readers email me with sex questions. I’m no therapist but I like to think I give good head…er, I mean advice…

6. I am stoked when readers ask me about sex scenes and ask if I really tried the licorice rope ties in Shipwreck Bay or the Popsicle blow job lessons in Summer Love. The answer is yes to both.

5. I am not above a bit of shameless self promotion, such as mentioning book titles. See Number 5 above.

4. I love it when readers email me quirky sexual experiences they’ve had, especially when they tell me I can use them in my books. Quirkiest one yet? The reader who told me he came just by his lover licking his ear repeatedly. I haven’t tried it yet but one of my characters did. He rather enjoyed it. I forget which book right now. Sorry. Missed opportunity for another bit of shameless self promotion, drat the luck!

3. I no longer get irate when church-abiding people who find out what I write make moral judgments about me and my books, especially when they haven’t read them. I just feel sorry for them. I go to church too, but I don’t tell them what to do in their bedrooms, but I can imagine fisting and water sports are part of their secret regimes…

2. I no longer get upset when I get bad reviews. That’s what voodoo dolls are for. (Kidding)

And the number one thing I have learned…drum roll please!

1. I am in the fortunate position of being able to tell supermodel Adam Killian to please remove ALL his clothing. And he does!! Yeah, baby! Unfortunately only cover photography is involved, but still…what a thrill.

What have you all learned from writing and/or reading erotica?

Aloha oe,

A.J.

Currently listening: Give Up the Ghost By Brandi Carlile Release date: 2009-10-06

Current mood:  bouncy
Category: Life

My love for Hawaii is no secret to anyone who has ever read my books. My passion encompasses the island’s myths, its spiritual history and its monarchy, of which I feel fiercely protective.
So it came as a shock today when I saw an item on Ebay claiming to be the last Queen, Lili’uokalani’s music cabinet.
Priced at a hefty $12.5 million, I felt indignant that this item was not being returned to Iolani Palace, where, had it truly belonged to the Queen, means it was stolen along with all her other belongings during her controversial 1893 overthrow.
Anyone who has ever visited Iolani Palace, which a few years ago was lovingly restored and opened as a museum, will tell you that the only palace on American soil is a lovely building but almost empty of furniture and other things that would make it a truly spectacular experience.
Without going into too much detail about who stole the Queen’s belongings (some of which included items she inherited from previous monarchs, particularly her brother, the last King, Kalakaua) but let’s just say they were Americans.
The Provisional Government which took over the Palace (when the Queen was imprisoned and tried in a shameful chapter of this country’s history) apparently saw little value in keeping her priceless objects, yet amazingly to this day, pieces are being found all over the world.
In the last decade, many things once stolen have found their way back to Iolani Palace. So when this music cabinet appeared on Ebay, the Palace’s charming and brilliant curator, Stewart, leapt into action.
I had no idea this item has been on Ebay more than once. The man who owns it has no desire to ‘do the right thing’ he wants money. Stewart checked into its provenance, but, he told me today, he has no proof the cabinet belonged to the Queen.
He also doesn’t have at his disposal the kind of money to buy it at $12 million.
So many wonderful miracles have happened that have led to the Queen’s treasures making their way home…from the King’s majestic writing desk being found at a thrift store…to portraits of King Kamehameha IV and his wife being found in a Scottish cottage. The most recent discovery he told me was of a table with a four-foot elephant tusk that was given to King Kalakaua on his 50th birthday by the then-Prime Minister of Hawaii.
“That came from Minnesota,” he told me. “The first item we’ve ever received from that state. That makes 38 states where royal treasures have shown up.”
He knows where the companion piece to the elephant-tusked table is – it’s right in Hawaii and he is trying his best to have its owner return it.
To that end, President Obama gave the Palace $147,000 in funds to help bring the Palace’s belongings back to where they belong.
Some families who have inherited pieces they know belong to the Palace have promised to return them in wills. Some simply refuse.
“It’s a case by case basis,” Stewart told me.
He is on a mission to refurbish three bedrooms, one of them being the small room that once imprisoned the Queen during her trial. It was where she sewed a quilt (which disappeared for years only to turn up at the Palace door one day) and where she wrote over 200 songs during her captivity.
I don’t know if the cabinet is hers and neither does the Palace. If it does, it belongs with its host of ghosts. Not on Ebay.
The Queen loved music and her gifts to us remain. Her song Aloha Oe is still sung every day somewhere…I know the cabinet is just a thing. But the children of Hawaii deserve more than photographs to remind them of how things were before we stripped them of their monarchy.
They deserve their rightful heritage. Each and every piece of it.
Aloha oe,

A.J.

Currently listening: Nostalgia Release date: 1999-11-02

Current mood:  amused
Category: Jobs, Work, Careers

So with the economic slump still in force (no matter what the TV pundits claim) I took a catering job this week and found it was grueling but fun work. I am a food whore so this was also a side benefit, free eats.
I was amazed at the array of catering staff. There were four writers, five actors, a poet, a musician, a war vet…but I was particularly tickled by a woman I shall name Zelda who is a hooker. Not just any hooker. Zelda has a niche field.
She whores out her titties (her words, not mine) and for around $100 allows guys to come over and jerk off into her er…massive assets. Zelda is proud of her ability to eke out a living with her breasts, but now that she too is experiencing a ’slight financial crisis’ she refuses to corrupt her niche by having actual sex with her clients.
Business isn’t bad she told me, except that some guys have been finding it difficult to come up with cash. So Zelda, being another food whore, will work for saucepans. Yep, saucepans. She told us that she’s given discounts to regulars (a nice thing to do when you work in customer service) but newcomers who ask her to reduce her rate are scolded. One guy told her he had a brand new ten-piece saucepan set he’d give her in exchange for her services.
She asked him to email her a pic and he did. The entire wait staff at this big Hollywood shindig stopped working to examine the pic as she showed it to us on her camera phone.
The pans looked good to me but then what do I know? I’m much more interested in what is going on inside a pot than outside of it.
She told us the client went to her house and had his fun and she kept her eye on the prize: the saucepans. He’s going back next week with a George Foreman grill – not really, I just made that up, but really, it got me thinking.
The saucepans cost way more than a hundred bucks and were unopened. Where did he get them? Did he pinch them from his wife? A store? Did they ‘fall off the back of a truck?’
“I gave them a good washing,” Zelda said. “Not that I cook much, but they look so pretty in my kitchen.”
This didn’t make sense to me. “Why didn’t you sell them on Ebay if they’re new and worth good money?”
She looked embarrassed. “I took them into one of those Ebay shops. they wanted 30% of the sale and they told me they probably wouldn’t sell too good because of the shipping charges.”
She became upset when other people mentioned Craigslist and Pennysaver.
“I made a good deal,” she shouted. “I got expensive saucepans.”
Yes, that to her are apparently completely useless.
“Is there any cooking utensil you wouldn’t work for?” Our boss asked her. He said it jokingly but she took it seriously.
“Potato peelers,” she said. “I already got way too many of those.”

Aloha oe,

A.J.

Currently listening: Je l’ai jamais dit à personne By Étienne Drapeau

Current mood:  chipper
Category: Movies, TV, Celebrities

I was heartened this morning by the news that one of my favorite actors in the world, Colin Firth has been nominated for an Academy Award for his portrayal of a gay man learning to cope with the death of his lover in Tom Ford’s movie, A Single Man based on the 1964 novel by Christopher Isherwood.Though the movie has no other significant nominations, it is encouraging to me that an actor of Firth’s stature considers this one of his best film roles and a part that he wanted so much, he was willing to physically transform himself for it. It’s interesting, he notes, that this role came to him after a huge body of work.

It’s also encouraging that his peers within the ranks of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences nominated him at a time when gay Hollywood is still battling straight Hollywood for equality.

Though I hope Firth wins, I suspect it’s Jeff Bridges’s year and I wouldn’t mind that at all. I am pleased that we have such a rich pool of talent this year in movies both serious-minded and funny.

A small corner–no, a large part–of my heart hopes Colin Firth wins, although I am a huge fan of Jeff Bridges. I hope Colin Firth is proud and pleased with his nomination. I hope he continues to pick the roles that call him. He’s never struck me as being a money-grabber. He’s always struck me as being an actor to lead with his heart.

He recently gave an interview where he talked about the significance of Isherwood’s book. A Single Man, considered to be one of the earliest and best front-runners for the gay lib movement, is still a searing book to read, perhaps because its core issues remain to this day.

Firth’s role in the movie focuses on a professor’s life after the death of his partner. I was impressed that this notion of a man–not necessarily a gay man’s–emotional life is the subject of intense scrutiny in the movie.

Ford has not shied away from the heart of the book.

Firth has won a legion of new fans for his work. I hope he and Tom Ford team up again.
Regardless of what happens on Oscar night, I hope Ford comes away with the idea of telling more significant stories of GLBT life. We need all the help and recognition we can get.
Both of these men stepped way out of their comfort zone for A Single Man. yes, Isherwood deserves nothing less. But Tom Ford, stepping away from his flashy career as a fashion designer to direct this labor of love took a huge risk, as did Firth, for trusting Ford with his ‘image.’

With California battling over the issue of gay marriage and the rest of the world still struggling with the notion of gay rights more than forty years after Isherwood wrote his novel, it is a step in the right direction that a love story, not a war movie, should lead the fight.

I wonder if Firth and Ford can know how much they sincerely achieved through their passion, their creativity…through love alone?

Aloha oe,

A.J.

Currently listening: Ke’Alaokamaile By Keali’i Reichel Release date: 2003-12-09

Current mood:  determined
Category: Life

My author buddy Stephani Hecht and I have become obsessed with the TV show “Hoarders.” It is my one guilty pleasure along with “American Idol” that I allow myself each week. I’ve mostly given up TV to accommodate my deadline crunch so when I do watch, I’m like a happy little kid playing hooky. I can’t even tear myself away from the endless TV ads (is it just me or do they go on and bloody on?).
Steph and I always say the show makes us feel normal. It’s also nudged me into cleaning up cluttered corners – do I really need those old copies of “Viz” comic?
Last week, my friend Cate decided to watch “Hoarders” on my recommendation and called me to confess that she realizes she suffers from this problem. She said she was ashamed of it and was relieved to find it’s an actual sickness and that she’s not the only one (according to the show’s stats, millions of Americans are hoarders).
I was very surprised to hear this since she is always immaculate in her grooming and the front of her house is a Japanese zen garden.
“Inside,” she assured me, “It’s a different story. It’s a catastrophe.”
I wasn’t sure how I was supposed to respond.
Cate is an employed TV writer and a woman of means. She immediately found a feng-shui expert who for the whopping charge of $400 arrived at her door and almost (according to Cate) fell over.
The expert said Cate needed to de-junk the house before she could help her with the necessary feng-shui ‘remedies’.
Along came the cleaning crew.
And yours truly.
I arrived this morning and found my normally efficient, hilarious friend in hysterical tears over a box of wire coat hangers she simply has to keep.
I knew she collected stuff. We both do.
I collect old typewriters and books and yes, there a few piles of books in my home office but Cate has piles everywhere. I was stunned by what I saw. She has thousands of newspapers piled up from years ago. She’s never opened any of them. Many are still in their plastic delivery bags with sample packs of toothpaste, shampoo and cereal boxes attached to them.
I spotted a five-year old LA Times and felt a pang of nostalgia when I saw the “Outdoor” section long dropped from the paper.
“Oh, this is bad feng-shui,” the expert kept muttering. She charges a bomb and like some demented Queen Bee, took charge but didn’t actually lift a finger to help.
Cate’s husband, who moved out last year and lives in the guest house in back of the property told me that he filed for a new home owner’s insurance policy several months ago. The insurer insisted on a home inspection. Cate’s husband waited until she went on location for her TV show and emptied the entire house, taking photos of every single room first.
He had the house cleaned and it looked fantastic for the inspection.
As soon as it was over and the paperwork signed, he put all the rubbish back.
In spite of his careful replacement, she knew stuff had been moved – but not to what extent.
She won’t throw out anything. Cate collects…well…anything.
Teapots, mirrors, picture frames…I am guilty of collecting 50s Hawaiiana that perhaps isn’t considered useful or even tasteful but in fact, I use my trays and tiki glasses.
She has a house full of bolts of fabrics, hundreds of boxes of cereal out of date and crowded with weevils. I was sick to my stomach when I saw her cat’s sad face. She was sitting on top of a box filled with God knows what.
“I can’t throw away any of it,” Cate said. She’s a hidden hoarder. Her home-owning, bill=paying status means nobody’s coming after her to clean the crap up.
Oddly, her work table where she belts out episodic TV is pretty clean – for a writer. She has rings on it from coffee cups, files and folders, notebooks…but it is tidy.
The rest of her life…man oh man…the kitchen almost made me throw up. It is so infested with bugs she’s pasted yellow insect paper everywhere, and tiny black bodies are stuck to the many surfaces.
We couldn’t figure out where these insects were coming from and threw out the overflowing garbage and still they circled the room.
I was given the task of cleaning the walls, the fridge and the oven.
After two hours, I started to realize the stove is white.
I think.
It is currently sitting under layers of oven-cleaning foam and my arms ache.
We cleaned off one section of living room and her carpet is emerald green.
“I tell you what’s weird,” the feng-shui lady said, bending over to examine it. “It’s pretty clean. She has so much crap on top of it, it’s stayed pretty clean and green is the color of money, which is why she’s been able to make an income.”
I rolled my eyes around this woman so much that they were about to tumble out of my head.
Progress is slow and every box Cate packs for storage has to be examined and half-emptied behind her back.
That’s the only way we can help her. The show “Hoarders” features legendary battles with its subjects who scrutinize boxes. When we allowed Cate to do so, she held up progress.
I threw out 17 green garbage bags full of half-filled cereal boxes and 10-year old cake mixes. Rancid meat made me retch so badly, her husband took over the fridge cleaning so I could take a break.
So much was going on Cate grew more frantic, but then she realized she was uncovering things she thought had been stolen.
Stolen!
She is finding lost gems and I suspect when I go back and finish my job of the stove, there will be more tears and triumphs.
Unfortunately I suspect too, in six months she’ll have accumulated more crap, but for now, I hope the good feng-shui wins over the bad feng-shui.
And I hope her cat has somewhere much more comfy to sleep tonight.
Aloha oe,

A.J.

Currently listening: Kahea O Keale By The Makaha Sons of Ni’ihau Release date: 1999-02-16

Stealing My Heart
Current mood:  ecstatic
Category: Writing and Poetry

I know that many people involved with ebook publishing – and those who critique it – roll their eyes at the mention of ebook theft but the fact remains, it is killing us. It is killing those of us who sit there day after day creating stories for people to read. It is killing the publishing industry. I am not going to listen to comments about libraries and friends sharing paperbacks.

The average lending life if a book is 200 lends before the book is withdrawn from circulation. I know this because I’ve worked in a library for 3 years.

The average lending life of a pirated ebook is limitless. The theft goes on and on.

So rather than whine, my lovely co-author on many books, D.J. Manly, decided to lend his considerable weight to actual change.

And now, I am pleased to say our project, the anthology Stealing My Heart is soon to be published by Total eBound. Its objective is to provide the thrills and gasps we normally do BUT to also make readers aware that we do this job with passion – and stealing from us comes at a price.

We want to thank the dedicated readers who spend their hard-earned dollars on our books. We also hope to make persistent ‘file-sharers’ aware that when they upload books and thank one another, they really ought to be thanking the people who really made these books possible in the first place.

In this antho, we have stories from me and DJ, my other frequent co-author Stephani Hecht, Jaime Samms, Jambrea Jo Jones, Carol Lynne and my soon to be next co-author, Serena Yates.

I am also thrilled that my cover-model-for-life Adam Killian donated a pic from the shoot he and I did together last year for this cover.

He is gorgeous and his face tells our story.

Ebook theft is not a nameless, faceless crime. We are all people who are wounded where it hurts every time an ebook is uploaded and shared illegally.

Money raised from this book will go to a fund to directly combat piracy.

I hope this is the beginning of a huge, wonderful, sexy sea of change.

Ebook theft steals from our wallets but also steals from our hearts.

Thank you to Claire and the wonderful staff at Total eBound for supporting our cause. For realizing our dream.

And thanks to our many, many wonderful readers who make us want to sit in our chairs and to keep writing. You all in so many good and glorious ways, mend our hearts, each and every day.

Aloha oe,

A.J.

Currently listening: Gentleman Cambrioleur By Garou Release date: 2009-12-08