Goodreads Authors/Readers discussion

1) What is your name and bio?

Hi! I’m Huston Piner. I grew up more or less in same generation as the kids in My Life as a Myth and remember cheering when I first read about Stonewall riots. Over the years, I witnessed firsthand the ignorance and prejudice that drives the brutality and oppression against LGBT people. Sadly, prejudice and brutality continues even into today’s times. My writing focuses on the struggles gay teenagers and young adults of every generation experience as they mature and face questions about their sexual orientation. I live with my partner in Chadham, Virginia.

2) What is your book title, synopsis, and where can readers find it?

My Life as a Myth is a young adult gay romance. 1969 high school loser Nick Horton’s new friend Jesse Gaston promises to make him a superstar. But if would-be girlfriends, his dysfunctional family, and a suspicious principal weren’t enough to deal with, Nick falls in love with Bobby Warren and things really get complicated. It’s bittersweet, with humor, tragedy and, an open-ended conclusion. Nominated for the 2014 Stonewall Book Award.

My Life as a Myth is available from Amazon.

3) Where do you come up with your ideas?

In general, I think you have to have a basic idea for a story, but it’s essential to let the story tell itself. The results can sometimes be startling, but I think it’s always for the best. For example, in My Life as a Myth, I had a basic idea for the main character’s first day at school, a day in which everything that can go wrong does. Early on, I had thought it would flow in a certain direction, but the more I wrote the more the plot turned in ways I didn’t expect. As an example, the Christmas sequence almost literally wrote itself; I was shocked at how it unfolded. After I had a good cry, I gave up pushing my own ideas and from there the story took off.

4) What books/authors do you like to read?

Wow! How much time do you have? Here’s a short list of contemporary favorites (in alphabetical order): John Ames, Jay Bell, Dakota Chase, Jeff Erno, Drew Ferguson, Jamie Fessenden, John Green, John Goode, Jim Grimsley, Keith Hale, Kim Harnes, Bruce Hartinger, Amy Lane, JR Lenk, David Levithan, Kiyoshi Tanaka, Edmund White, Bart Yates.

5) What's your next writing project?

I’m currently working on a sequel of sorts; “of sorts” because it’s in the same setting ten years later, but Conjoined at the Soul doesn’t involve Nick and Bobby at all. Randy Clark would be quite happy being a gay teenager if his little brother would just disappear, if his best friend would stop trying to recruit him for the school drama club, and if he could only find a boyfriend. I hope to submit it for publication in the next month or so. I also have a second follow-up project, Breaths We Take, that is already in development.