A while ago I finished reading Jonathan Langford’s new novel, No Going Back, which is a coming-of-age story about a fifteen-year-old protagonist, Paul Ficklin, who is Mormon and who is attracted to boys. I was actually debating about whether or not I was going to read this novel when I heard Jonathan was writing it, [...]

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Fear is, I’ve come to realize, one of my great personal enemies as a creative writer (along with laziness). Part of this is probably just because of the kind of person I am. I suspect, though, that part of it may be endemic to the [...]

I’m cross-posting this from my blog partly because I think it’s relevant to our site focus — and relevant to some other recent posts — and because I don’t think very many people even know yet that my blog exists. Thanks for your indulgence.
It’s interesting being the author of a novel about a topic [...]

Print copies of my book No Going Back are now available from Zarahemla Books and Amazon.com. (And at a pretty  hefty discount off the cover price, too.)
No Going Back is a coming-of-age novel about a gay Mormon teenager who is torn between his feelings and his desire to stay in the Church. The cover [...]

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A couple of months ago, I was listening to an interview on NPR with someone who was talking about the death of mass marketing and mass media. I can’t really do justice to the man’s arguments — I didn’t hear the whole thing, and besides, [...]

First, a quick update: My book, No Going Back, is wending its way toward publication with Zarahemla Books this fall, and should be out (a term I use advisedly in this context) within the next couple of months. Much, much thanks to all of you who read and commented and some or all of it; [...]

Apologies if this is only semi-coherent. It’s based on a set of thoughts that have been composting for a while. I want to post them before they rot entirely…

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I used to not have a lot of respect for writers who had trouble remembering the details [...]

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It is a well-established fact that any writer, in possession of a manuscript, must also be in need of readers to review and critique his or her work. However, actually getting those critiques – and then deciding what to do with them once you have [...]