• The Case of the Missing Drag Queen

    Broke, saddled with a mountain of debt, and dependent on his Aunt Callie’s support, aspiring writer Luke Tanner has returned to Kentucky to put his life back together after a failed five-year relationship. On his twenty-fifth birthday, Luke meets diminutive Pixie Wilder, a long-time performer at the Gilded Lily. After headliner Ruby Dubonnet doesn’t show up, Pixie takes her place as the star of the show—a motive that makes her a suspect in Ruby’s disappearance. Luke reluctantly agrees to help his new-found friend clear her name. He and Pixie set out to find the missing drag queen, and in the process, put themselves in danger.

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  • Aucune Bonne Action

    La veille de Noël, en 1966, Philip Potter, un conservateur du Smithsonian au grand cœur, termine ses achats de dernière minute. Au même instant, James, son compagnon depuis plusieurs années, s’ôte la vie chez eux. Inconscient de ce qui l’attend, Philip dépose des cadeaux à un refuge pour sans-abris, un acte généreux qui fera plus tard de lui un suspect dans le meurtre d’un prostitué. Après la mort choquante de James, deux hommes entrent dans la vie de Philip… et tous deux conduisent une Continental jaune. L’un d’eux, toutefois, est un tueur avec le sang de six prostitués sur les mains. Et tous deux cachent quelque chose. Comme Philip est sur le point de le découvrir, aucune bonne action ne …

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  • Equality: What Do You Think about When You Think of Equality?

    In the tradition of Dr. Martin Luther King’s Stride Toward Freedom and Malala Yousafzai’s, I Am Malala, Equality: What Do You Think About When You Think of Equality? presents thought-provoking and compelling personal essays that probe a concept professed to be the very foundation of our democracy—a concept that may even be more vital today than in the past. From international bestselling author, Anne Perry who asserts we must look within ourselves to our emotions, experiences, and beliefs before we attempt an honest and truthful answer, to Dennis Palumbo, psychotherapist and author, who claims diagnostic labels used in treating mental illness often stigmatize and dehumanize the patient causing clinicians to view their patients in terms of their diagnosis rather than …

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  • No Good Deed

    On Christmas Eve in 1966, Philip Potter, a kind-hearted Smithsonian curator,  wraps up his last-minute shopping. Meanwhile, his lover of several years takes his own life back in their home. Unaware of what awaits him, Philip drops off gifts at a homeless shelter, an act of generosity that will later make him a suspect in the murder of a male prostitute. Following James’s shocking death, two men enter Philip’s life—and both drive yellow Continentals. One of them, though, is a killer, with the blood of at least six hustlers on his hands. And both are hiding something. As Philip is about to discover, no good deed goes unpunished. (Originally released by MLR Press in 2013 as After Christmas Eve)

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  • Whippersnapper

    Tellumo Magnamater is a fresh-out-of-college, first-year English teacher at Salt Lick County High School in Kentucky. He rides the bus to and from work, and every day he walks to the gym behind his small efficiency apartment to exercise. Perhaps because of being raised by two lesbians, Tellumo is attracted to older men. He sets his sights on fifty-something available bachelor Oliver Crumbly. But Tellumo isn’t the only resident interested in Oliver. Peggy Tucker, a widow approaching her sixtieth birthday, is determined to marry again, and she thinks Oliver is her perfect match. Despite Tellumo and Peggy striking up a friendship at the gym, neither realizes they are interested in the same man. But the joke might be on both of …

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  • Happy Independence Day

    Terrence Bottom wants to change the world. Little does he know the world is already changing, and his part in it won’t be what he expects. A prelaw student at Columbia University, Terrence’s interests range from opposing the draft and the war in Vietnam, to civil rights for gays, to anything to do with Cameron McKenzie, the rugged blond hanging around the Stonewall Inn. Too bad Cameron bolts whenever Terrence looks his way. College dropout Cameron McKenzie left tiny Paris, Kentucky with dreams of a career on Broadway. Although he claims to be straight, he prostitutes himself to survive. Now the Mafia is using him to entrap men for extortion schemes. He’s in over his head with no way out—at …

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  • The Bear King of Snowbird Mountain

    Recently single Jeremy Jenkins is an average guy working hard as a landscape designer in the mountains of Tennessee. At a conference in DC, he meets gorgeous Donald Matthews, who says the strangest things—like how he thinks Jeremy is hot and wants them to spend the rest of their lives together. This story is part of A Taste of Honey, a Dreamspinner Press Anthology. Other stories in the collection: The Bear Fetish, by John Amory The Bear Next Door, by Jack Byrne The Bear at the Bar, by J. Scott Coatsworth Barefoot, by Lillian Francis Just Breath, by John Genest Bear Chasing, by Renae Kaye Golden Bear, by G. P. Keith Hunting Bear: A Fairy Tale with a Very Hairy …

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  • Until Thanksgiving

    Josh Freeman knows his best days are behind him. After his partner of seventeen years has an affair with a younger man, Josh buries himself in takeout boxes, half-smoked joints, and self-pity until his best friend gently kicks him in the ass and encourages him to try out a new job in Washington DC—at least until Thanksgiving. Though DC has its share of troubles, specifically in the form of a murderer targeting gay men, Josh soon discovers its charms as well. Unlike his old home, DC is crawling with men who want to date him—apparently he’s not as overweight, out of shape, or over the hill as the man he once loved made him believe. In particular, Josh would love …

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The Crotchety Old Man

Jul 24, 2011
By Michael Rupured
In Changing Times
3 Comments

Tomatoes: A Great Investment?

The older I get, the more I appreciate the taste of a good, home-grown tomato. Back in Kentucky the plants went in the ground toward the middle of May with hopes the first fruit would ripen by the Fourth of July. Without buying big plants or cherry tomatoes, the first ripe tomato didn’t usually appear until the end of July. Within a week or two everyone I knew had baskets of tomatoes, squash, and cucumbers they couldn’t eat. My first summer in Georgia I had a Kentucky-style tomato harvest. The surplus was quickly snatched up by coworkers and neighbors. That was thirteen years ago. Since then, thanks to deer, drought and/or excessive heat,  I’ve had precious little luck growing them. …
Jul 21, 2011
By Michael Rupured
In Television
2 Comments

My Last Remaining Vice

I gave up cigarettes, drugs, and alcohol a long time ago. Yeah, I’ll still have the occasional frozen margarita or something similar, but rarely more than one.  Thanks to Weight Watchers, I’m eating healthy, too.  Other than cussing now and then, I am almost completely free of vices. I’m not into porn. I don’t fool around on my partner of nearly ten years. Nor do I lie, steal, or cheat. Well, I do get a little help with Words With Friends, but only because I’ve got too many games going and I hate falling behind. I barely consider it cheating and if I was still in the church, definitely wouldn’t confess it to my priest. I do, however, have something …
Jul 20, 2011
By Michael Rupured
In Becoming a Writer
1 Comment

Encouragement from Above?

Here is the full text of the rejection e-mail I received nearly two weeks ago from my first-choice publisher: Dear Mr Rupured: Thank you so much for submitting your manuscript, Glass Houses. Upon review, we find that the work does not match our current list needs, and we are unable to accept this manuscript for publication. Another publisher may be looking for just this kind of work to fit their upcoming schedule and we wish you success with it. We appreciate the opportunity to have reviewed this work. Sincerely, <name removed> I know rejection is part of the process. But receiving such an impersonal rejection for what everyone agrees is a very personal manuscript was disheartening. I don’t blame the publisher. Providing guidance about how …
Jul 18, 2011
By Michael Rupured
In Dieting
6 Comments

My Ice Cream Diet

I don’t know about you, but every winter my weight goes up another five or ten pounds. Once summer arrives, I’m usually able to drop about half those extra pounds.  Consequently, my weight trends upward some three to five pounds a year. Once upon a time, those extra pounds arrived between Thanksgiving and Christmas. While I am a bit of a slow learner, I do eventually figure these things out. In recent years, I’ve taken steps to make sure I don’t pile on extra weight over the holidays. Now they show up after the holidays are safely behind me. They seem to have multiplied, too. Instead of five or ten pounds, I’ll pick up an extra twenty. Either way the …
Jul 15, 2011
By Michael Rupured
In Becoming a Writer
1 Comment

Back in the Saddle

After a month-long hiatus from blogging at The Crotchety Old Man, I’m back in the saddle with a new blog.  The hardest part of starting this blog was coming up with a good title. Glass Houses is a memoir about the first roughly fifty years of my life. My Glass House picks up more or less where the memoir left off. Prior to writing Glass Houses, the idea of writing a book intimidated me. Aided by my memory, personal journals dating back to 1982, and the encouragement of several supportive friends (especially Terri Clark and Larry Oberc), I started writing. With no awareness of the literary market or the craft of commercial writing, I knocked out the 110,000 word manuscript …