Remembered Places

I had an exciting career in communications with the National Security Agency in Maryland. Retired in San Antonio TX, now I travel and write fiction. My work has appeared in magazines, an anthology, and on internet sites. I've written five volumes of short stories dealing with the gay experience. HEIGHTS OF PASSION (2009), OUT OF THE BOX (2010), DISCOVERY OF FIRE (2011), LOVE WANTED, WILL TRAVEL (2012) and STILL YOUNG (2018).
These are realistic stories, not intended as erotic fiction but listed under that heading because of their honesty. Sex happens because it's part of the plot, just as sex drives our lives. In 2019, I collaborated with a longtime Dutch friend, Jaap Cové, to produce REMEMBERED PLACES (2020). We had traveled the world in our full lives and certain stories recall their foreign, or local, settings. The longest tale is the true story of the man who gave the gay world The Spartacus Guide and the tortuous path he took rising to success only to tumble ignominiously from the heights.
I used my life experiences in a series of novels. A COMPLEMENT OF LOVERS, published in 2013, is a full-length novel that describes the romance of a young couple, Meg and Rodney, who try to make their own rules for living, but come into conflict with the conventional thinking of the 60s. THE ROAD TO FRANKFURT (2014) continues their struggle to adapt while maintaining their individuality. UNCOUPLED, the third novel in the series, was published by Smashwords in August 2015.
It follows Meg and Rod through the mid-70s. The fourth in the series, NEVER PROMISE FOREVER was published in 2016. In CUSPS, volume 5 published 2018, Rodney accepts that he is gay, while his daughters are becoming young women, and the family must adjust to a new reality. I'm currently at work on the final volume in the series. Rod begins an open, live-in relationship, hoping that his daughters can adapt to two dads.
I hold degrees from Columbia University in both Arts and Engineering, and an Arts degree from Loyola University. Jaap Cové is an author of thrilling, spiritual stories. He has a continuous fascination for the way in which people express the unknown-that which cannot be known-in symbolism, in cults and religions. It keeps him mystified and fuels his own yearning for answers. Jaap Cové grew up in The Netherlands, and lives and writes in Palm Springs, CA (USA).
After high school, he traveled the world, developing an interest in anthropology, in which he holds a Master's degree from the University of Amsterdam, specializing in cultural symbolism, myths, cults and religion. The cultures of the world, and the diversity of spiritual insights, are inexhaustible sources of inspiration in his writing. A second, but no less important, passion for Jaap is music, a recurring theme in his stories.
As a drummer and percussionist, he has had many years of experience on the road from Holland to the United States. He toured the Pacific Northwest and Canada during the 90's with his indie band Outcry. His novel, Walking Among Us, is a tribute to that band and era. The gripping Cajú, his next novel, breathes with the restless spirit of Brazil, a country where he did field research and to which he will always return.