By A.J. Llewellyn

By A.J. Llewellyn

By A.J. Llewellyn

My latest release, “Christmas in Flip Flops” is one of my new favorites. The idea came for it whilst I was in Honolulu this past September researching my fourth and final Pearl Harbor series book, “Avenging Heart”.
Mt friend Shani had just taken up an unusual post as a dental hygienist at one of the many military bases on the island. It gave me the idea when she talked about how weird it would be to be spending Christmas in flip flops.
Yes, even though we live in LA, it’s still winter…to chilly for flip flops!
Of course, I took the idea, ran with it, turned it on its head and gave it some romantic angst.
How would you cope if you’d been unemployed for almost a year, you finally land a great job with good pay and full benefits…but it’s in Honolulu and your lover’s entire family is traveling from Peru to Los Angeles for the holidays?
Well, my character, Devon, takes the job and ignites his lover, Manco’s wrath. Devon wonders if he still has a boyfriend when he flies to Oahu reporting for duty…
I noticed with great interest the day after my book was released that the US pulled out its last soldier from Iraq this past weekend.
This doesn’t mean that the war on terror is over. Far from it. We still have men and women stationed in Afghanistan, Kuwait, other points all over the world, and, in military bases all over the Hawaiian Islands. In fact there have never been so many soldiers in Hawaii since WWII.
My story is timely but it is not a political one. It is a love story between two men whose problems – unemployment, disagreements, family, work – are real, but their love is strong and very, very romantic.
It is also my love song to the islands and all the people who call it home. To the many men and women stationed in those historic facilities that played such a significant part in history following the bombing of Pearl Harbor, I love you and respect you all. I hope you all get to have a peaceful Christmas, hopefully with your families, and definitely in flip flops.
For more info on “Christmas in Flip Flops”, please check out this link at the awesome Amber Allure site:

http://www.amberquill.com/AmberAllure/ChristmasFlipFlops.html

Aloha oe,

A.J.

by A.J. Llewellyn

I had an incredible experience on Saturday night that I wish many more people could have shared. But for those of us who witnessed the giant opening of a butterfly’s gorgeous, all-encompassing, shimmering rainbow wings at the Beth Chayim Chadashim, it was an evening none of us will ever forget.

The GLBT temple’s cantor, the enormously charismatic and talented Juval Porat, in the words of the PR brochure, threw off his cantorial  persona. He held a concert of songs and monologues on what he describes as the templates of love. Those of us who have been privileged to hear him sing week after week at the temple know he has that extra sparkle that superstars have. I have a feeling however that he himself has no clue of how seriously special he is, and that is part of his charm.

Yes, he has matinee idol good looks, a sweet smile that is haunting, and he has brains and mathematical talent on top of his high creativity. He also carries with him the heavy load of expectation. The formerly German-based Juval is the first cantor to be ordained in that country since the Holocaust. Yes, he is the shining hope of a nation still traumatized by the events of WWII.

It is his burden and an honor. I see the invisible bag of hammers he carries around and I empathize with him.

Since the city of LA snapped him up two years ago, he is the first to admit the transition was “overwhelming.” I too, came from someplace else and the culture shock of coming to America is huge.

As he performed last night with his partner, Todd, beaming from the middle row behind me, and his proud mother sitting a few seats away from me (she flew in from Israel for the event) I realized that Juval has done a lot of thinking and observing in his two years here. He has come to realize how love and fear have become horribly entwined. Not just here, but everywhere.

One of the monologues he performed from John Bowe’s book, US: Americans Talk About Love, was as a married mother of two who slowly comes to realize her true love is another woman.

His heart-breaking portrayal of Lisa Norgaard’s story was devastating. As he describes the loneliness of being free to be herself, fear transforms to slow acceptance. I saw many heads nodding. As he talked about the mingled thrill and terror of finding the one, who doesn’t come in the package she expected, it all rang true.  Juval went on to talk about how all of us at some time or other in our lives hide behind a persona of some kind, yearning to be loved. For ourselves. Just for us. For who we are…and yet, we hide behind fear.

There was humor too in his fabulous rendition of “I’m Hip” and some of his interactions with his incredible band. I personally loved his encore of Katy Perry’s “I Kissed a Girl” and as the audience rose to its feet, applauding him, his shyness seemed to rise to the surface. I hope this is the first of many loving concerts the cantor performs (the proceeds of this event are being donated to Project Chicken Soup, founded at BCC and ONE National Gay and Lesbian Archives). I hope we don’t end up losing him to a world tour and fame and riches, but I suspect not. I suspect that bag of hammers keeps him grounded and keeps him humble.

What I hope more than anything is that he keeps growing and exploring his art and the nature of Love in US.

Aloha oe,

AJ

By A.J. Llewellyn

When I was twelve years old, my father gave me the best Christmas present of my life. It was an Olivetti portable typewriter. He was a little concerned about my obsession with writing and reading, but somebody must have given him the idea of the typewriter (he says he regrets it now because he hates my books!) and I will be forever grateful. I loved that thing. For me, messing with the typewriter ribbon, blue carbon paper (memba those?) and thick pieces of paper on which I taught myself to type was the stuff of dreams.
I wrote my first celebrity fan mail to actor Richard Chamberlain on it. I wrote stories, poems, ideas…and have never stopped.As a journalist, which was my first and only career choice, the company I worked for had giant behemoth manual typewriters. You had to pound on the damned things. Hello carpal tunnel!
To this day, I can always tell if a person learned to type on a typewriter first by the way they pound a computer keyboard.
By the time the company I worked for invested in electric typewriters, I was in love. Mine was an IBM Selectric and it came with an extra corrector ribbon. Remember those fiddly little orange plastic spools?
Gone were the days of having to retype each and every page because of one misspelling.
I bought my IBM from my boss because I was working on articles for a magazine in my private time. I had become attatched to the machine and was worried it would disappear one day the way the behemoth had…but I did feel as if I was cheating on poor Olivetti.
That beautiful machine has traveled the world with me. He (I think of him as a he) sits in my office in my loft and has been looked after by the House of Typewriters here in Studio City for decades. When computers became big, the store changed its name to House of Office Machines, but they still love handling typewriters.
I covet many they have on display (people dropped them off and never picked them up again) and once had a sizable collection. I cut them all back and have kept Olivetti and my laptop. The thing of it is, I can’t let go of my first love. The machine that listened, without judgment and let me pour my heart out. Computers will come and go but Olivetti will be with me until some natural disaster separates us.
How about you? What was the first thing you learned to type on and do you still have it?

Aloha oe,
A.J.

By A.J. Llewellyn

My new book Abiding Heart is out today and this third installment of the Pearl Harbor series is probably my favorite. Tinder and Jason are together, united in their desire to protect Hawaii and help rebuild their precious island home in the aftermath of the attack on Pearl Harbor.

I’ve immersed myself in history to write the love story of Tinder and Jason, two gay men living in war-torn Honolulu. When I was in Hawaii in September researching Book 4, Avenging Heart (which will be released April 23, 2012 by Total-e-Bound) and my upcoming December 18 release Christmas in Flip Flops (Amber Allure), it was a very different Honolulu I visited from my previous one.

The Honolulu of this very minute actually gave me a small glimpse into what the island city must have been like after Pearl Harbor. Anyone who reads my books knows I love Hawaii and I am guilty of romancing its past…wishing I could have experienced it before ‘we all came there’. The truth is there wasn’t really a gentle past. In King Kamehameha’s time the kapu system was so rigid it was easy to commit a fatal offense. Even looking the king in the eye guaranteed a death sentence.

In Tinder and Jason’s time, with America’s entry in WWII, neighbors feared one another. Food was scarce, martial law was in effect… Gossip, slander, unfounded rumors, the threat of Japanese internment camps…all of it was real.

The islands swarmed with servicemen…and today they do as well. I noticed a huge surge of armed forces on my most recent trip. Some 15,000 families have recently come to the islands, their men and women preparing to ship out from the various military bases scattered around the islands to Afghanistan and Iraq.

Hawaii today is experiencing a deprivation I’ve never witnessed before. Whole families are losing their homes and camping on beaches. Ewa Beach, for example, has a two-mile tent city that is heart-breaking to see.

On the flipside, what is uplifting is the way the islands have rallied behind these many military families – all of whom are sacrificing for our country, for our freedom. Movie theaters, the snorkel bay of Hanauma, restaurants, cafés, supermarkets all have special discounts for them. And so they should. When I first started working on my Pearl Harbor series and talked to the families of Pearl Harbor survivors and a few remaining ones still with us, I learned to thank them all for their sacrifices, for what they are doing for our country.

At Hanauma Bay, as I stood in line to go snorkeling, I met a young military family newly arrived from Texas. He was a new recruit and seemed excited. He was so young and sweet I couldn’t help but pray he comes back to his family when so many don’t.

I am grateful to this young man and all the other brave men and women who’ve given so much in the war against terror. I thank them all and their families who are also sacrificing by having to cope without their loved ones. I thank them for their priceless gifts.

For more information on this book and the Pearl Harbor series, please follow this link:

http://www.total-e-bound.com/product.asp?strParents=&CAT_ID=&P_ID=1433

Aloha oe,

AJ