Down Under Showcase Author: Cecil Wilde

Meet Cecil Wilde!

Cecil Wilde is the author of No Straight Boys, The Wish Auger and other listed below.

To get to know Cecil Wilde a little better, the author agreed to an interview. Look for the interview below and the Down Under Scavenger Hunt word found somewhere within.

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Cecil Wilde resides in Australia, accompanied by a cat who takes up most of the bed, a family of possums in the roof space, and more spiders than they’re entirely comfortable with. They write altogether cuter queer romance than their image as a grumpy cynic might suggest.

 

• Website: http://www.cecilwilde.com
• Blog: http://www.cecilwilde.com
• Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/queerlyobscure
• Tumblr: http://www.queerlyobscure.tumblr.com/
• Facebook Author Page: https://www.facebook.com/CecilWildeAuthor
• GoodReads: https://www.goodreads.com/Cecil_Wilde

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Out now:

No Straight Boys (Liquid Silver Books):

 Blurb:  Not dating straight boys is a pretty good strategy for long-term relationships if you’re a gay man, but what happens when one particular straight boy turns out to be the man of your dreams?

Cute, funny, and sometimes borderline philosophical, No Straight Boys is about what happens when perfection isn’t what you think it is, and love is best found via late-night text message.

The Wish Augur (Less Than Three Press)

[this is not actually out RIGHT now but it will be by January]:

Blurb: Gabriel Juarez has only one wish for Christmas, uttered moments before midnight on Christmas Eve: a hug. He wakes up the next morning to find his wish being haphazardly granted in the form of an insecure elf called Felix, who works as a wish augur and couldn’t bring himself to let Gabe’s wish go unfulfilled.

First Guy Kiss from Missed Connections Anthology from Less Than Three Press

Blurb: A fleeting glance across a crowded space. Trains passing by in the night. Paths that once split unexpectedly cross again. Old friends reunited. Sometimes rediscovering a person and having new feelings can be just as intense as an initial spark. Less Than Three Press presents an anthology of stories about people who get a second chance to connect…

 

Genre(s):

No Straight Boys, First Guy Kiss and Defying Convention are contemporary

The Wish Augur is fantasy with a contemporary setting (and an elf!)

Perfect Match is contemporary BDSM

Tea and Werewolves (Torquere Books):

Blurb:  As soon as Connor walks into Sev’s tea shop, Sev knows there’s something different about him. It could be his charming smile, his obvious intelligence, or the way he howls at the moon when it’s full. Either way, sparks start flying straight away.

Sev and Connor both know there’s more to their relationship than simple mutual attraction, and the question of taking the next step is foremost in their minds even as they tumble into bed together for the first time. Will they work things out, or will the suddenness of it all get the better of them?

Coming Soon:

Defying Convention (Less Than Three Press) [28th January]:

Blurb: Danny and AJ have been online friends for years, and secretly in love with each other. When the opportunity to attend a comics convention comes up, they decide to go and share a room. But friendship online does not always translate to friendship offline, and both are anxious about how the meeting will go, and the friendship change, when faced with challenges easily avoided behind the safety of computer screens…

Perfect Match – Playmates #1 (Liquid Silver Books) [23rd February]

 

Genre(s):

• No Straight Boys and Defying Convention are contemporary
• The Wish Augur is fantasy with a contemporary setting (and an elf!)
• Perfect Match is contemporary BDSM

 

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Contests and Giveaways:

1. Today’s Giveaway (thank you, Cecil Wilde) is an eBook copy the reader’s choice of Cecil Wilde’s backlist. Enter using this Rafflecopter link here. Must be 18 years of age or older to enter.
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2. Down Under Scavenger Hunt – find the Hunt “word or phrase” in bold green . Collect all the words from each author and submit the list in writing no later than midnight on February 1st. Make sure you include an email address where you can be reached. Prizes will be given to 5 people selected, from 1st place to 5th! Happy Hunting.

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Q When did you start writing?

 Other than the usual writing for school–which I enjoyed, but never really did more of than I had to–I started writing for something other than grades when I discovered fandom, in my last few years of high school. After that it was sort of a slippery slope which I did describe recently to a friend as my accidental descent into a writing career.

Q. Were you a reader as a child?

 

Yep! To the point where school librarians would encourage me to go outside for once. As a kid, I never met a book I didn’t want to read. I’ve always been enchanted by stories of all kinds.

 

Q. Title or characters or plot?  Which comes first?

 

Characters. Almost without fail, characters come first. The ones who are most compelling or whose circumstances as they occur to me have the best potential for a decent plot tend to be the ones who get written into books. Titles are lucky to come at all. I’m terrible at titles.

 

Q. Do you have a favorite character that you have written?

 

Don’t get me wrong, I genuinely love all my characters (even the seemingly unpleasant ones), but right now I have to say that AJ, of Defying Convention, is my favourite. They’re a quiet kind of person, but warm and full of sunshine and giggles and pink hair. Danny, the other MC in that book, is about as in love with them as I am.

 

Q. My first impression of AUS/NZ was from stories and novels like Colleen McCullough’s The Thorn Birds or Nevil Shute’s A Town Like Alice as well as from movies like The Man from Snowy River, The Dish, Rabbit Proof Fence, Strictly Ballroom, and yes, Crocodile Dundee!  There are so many out there.  What is your favorite AUS/NZ stories and favorite Australian/New Zealand movies?

 

I love Crocodile Dundee! It was a favourite of mine as a kid (call that a knife? This is a knife!) I don’t think I could talk about great Australian tales without mentioning Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, Muriel’s Wedding, or The Castle. Films like The Wog Boy are great for illustrating stuff about Australian culture that doesn’t really get talked about outside of Oz, and indie stuff like Better Than Sex can actually be really great (if you can lay hands on a copy of that I highly recommend it as an alternative romance).

In terms of books, I don’t think you can go past Paul Jennings’s entire body of work, which is bizarre and wonderful and what Australian literature looks like to me. Also worth a read (though feel free to skip the film) is The Monkey’s Mask, which is a mystery novel in verse that takes place in the Blue Mountains and surrounds, and has lesbians (which, obviously, is a huge draw). Speaking of verse, Judith Wright is a wonderful poet, and her narrative poems about Australia truly capture the spirit of the land as I know it. The rest of her work is also powerful stuff (I will never get Double Image out of my head).

If you want something more lighthearted that really captures the spirit of small town Australia, Seachange is a great soap opera-style drama. As an added bonus, you might even get to see David Wenham in his budgie smugglers!

I could talk about Australian literature and film all day, but I’ll stop there.

 

Q. What’s your favorite spot to visit in your own country? And what makes it so special to you?

 

I’ll never get tired of going into Melbourne. I don’t live far away–about an hour by train–but it really is a phenomenal city. As they say in the song, I’ve been to cities that never close down, and they’re lovely, but nothing’s ever compared to Melbourne for me. Not London, not Singapore, not Los Angeles, not even Belfast, which I think of as my other home. Melbourne’s beautiful. I discover something new every time I make the trip in. I could write an entire book on everything I love about Melbourne. (And if anyone wants to experience that, I fully recommend Long Macchiatos and Monsters, by Alison Evans, as a beautiful love song to Melbourne with a gorgeous romance to boot).