My guest this week is none other than master storyteller, Victor J. Banis. I find myself at a loss to describe the marvelous man without heaping praise after praise on his head, so I’m going to let Victor’s words speak for themselves.

Q: What genre do you write in, and why?
A: Honestly, I can’t think of a genre I haven’t done, though surely some better than others. Over the years I’ve done both straight and gay, historical, romance, mystery, fiction and non, even a cookbook. It’s sort of like my life – I never wanted to be labeled or pigeon-holed. I never mixed just one sexual group or age group or whatever. I’m a Gemini. Variety is our lifeblood.

Q: How long did you write before you received your first contract for publication?
A: Gosh, I started writing as a kid, but I didn’t think about publishing for a many years. But, when I did, I started getting contracts almost immediately. Maybe too quickly. My early books would probably have benefited from my having to work a little harder.

Q: So, if you don’t mind sharing, would you tell us about your latest work in progress?
A: I’ve been working on a mystery series: Deadly Nightshade; Deadly Wrong; Deadly Dreams (due out in the Spring); and I’m now working on the fourth one, Deadly Slumber. Plus, I’ve done some shorter pieces for various anthologies. MLR has an anthology due out in the Spring, The Golden Age of Gay Paperbacks, edited by Wayne Gunn, and happily I have a piece in that, since I am convinced it will be an important contribution to the literature.

Q: Out of all the stories you’ve written, which is your favorite?
A: Can’t answer that. They’re all like my children, and I so love them all, even the ugly and inept ones. But I suspect those who say Angel Land is my best work may be right.

Q: Do you need to be in a specific place or atmosphere before the words flow?
A: No, I get ideas all the time (not all of them related to writing); but I am a creature of habit, so I work best in my usual place and routine.

Q: What’s the strangest source of inspiration you’ve found for a story?
A: Hmm, the strangest? I get inspiration from all over; the idea for Lola Dances came from something I was reading about how hard it was for women in the old gold-dust mining camps, and I thought, well, suppose you were an effeminate gay boy, think how hard that would have been.

Q: If you could offer one tidbit of information for new writers, what would it be?
A: Have fun. And don’t just write about it, live it.

Q: Do you have an evil day job or do you write full time?
A: I write full time. I admire those who can do a nine-to-five and write besides, but I never could. I have to fully submerge myself in the story; I’m no good at going back and forth from one world to another. I think maybe because I’ve never had a great talent, I just have to work harder at it than some others.

Q: What do you like to do in your spare time?
A: Write. Okay, I read, and watch movies on TV. And I like to cook. I have a very stripped down life, really.

Q: Name one thing readers would be surprised to learn about you.
A: Oddly, people always seem to be surprised that I have a spiritual nature, I don’t know why that is. But, people have always had these strange ideas about me, who and what I am. When I wrote The Canals of Mars, one of my favorite short stories, an editor wrote to say that obviously I didn’t understand the mind set of a man in his sixties (at the time, I was pushing seventy; since then, seventy has pushed back.)

Q: What’s your favorite dirty word?
A: I’m kind of prudish, actually, which I suppose is a strange thing for a guy whose career started in “dirty paperbacks.”

Q: What’s your favorite holiday, and why?
A: I’m a sucker for Christmas, although I think today they do it to death.

Q: Do you have any tattoos or piercings?
A:No.

Q: If you could be intimate with three people (not necessarily all at one time *g*) without getting in trouble with your significant other, who would they be?
A: Oh, goodness – living or dead? Well, no, I don’t mean after they’re dead, but, you know. I’m not all that up to date on today’s stars, but I think the guy who plays Henry in The Tudors is hot. A couple of those guys were. And the actor who plays the son in Foyle’s War; but, you see, I don’t know their names. I’d pick a woman, but I love glamour and I can’t think of any of today’s actresses who project glamour.

Q: If you were stranded on a desert island, what three things would you want with you?
A: A yacht, of course. Short of that, lots of good food and drink and some books – or, wait, hold the books, give me a handsome companion. I can tell myself stories.

Q: If you won the lottery tomorrow, what would you spend the money on?
A: I like to travel, especially when I can visit friends, so I guess that would be a priority.

Q: Which household chore do you abhor and why?
A: I’m a lousy housekeeper.

Q: What’s your favorite comfort food?
A: I love to eat. Fried chicken, I guess, but I love all kinds of food.

Q: Do you have any guilty pleasures you feel comfortable sharing?
A: I have lots of pleasures, but I rarely feel guilty about any of them. If I did, I wouldn’t tell you.

Q: Do you have a favorite book or movie?
A: Scads. Old movies especially- Stanwyck, Davis, Marilyn, Gary Cooper. I reread Maugham’s short stories often; he keeps me on track as a writer.

Q: Anything else you’d like to share?
A: My bed, but there aren’t many candidates these days.

Q: In closing, tell us a bit about your latest release (& share a yummy excerpt for those who aren’t yet familiar with your work)
A: Yummy? Okay, I can do that. Try this one.

The latest out is Deadly Wrong; this is the 2nd in the series. Tom (essentially straight) and Stanley (decidedly gay) met and started an affair in the first book, Deadly Nightshade; but that one ended with their relationship in limbo. Tom felt he just couldn’t handle it. Of course, they get back together in Book # 2.

Tom looked over his shoulder to make sure he really had gone. “Nobody else around?” he asked.
“No, I…”
“Good.” Tom grabbed Stanley and pulled him close, kissed him hard, brutally in fact, his teeth drawing blood from Stanley’s lower lip—and began to rip Stanley’s clothes off him—literally. A couple of shirt buttons flew across the room with loud pinging noises as Tom tore the shirt open.
“Whoa, whoa, Tarzan, I can do it,” Stanley said, pushing Tom’s hands away and laughing. He made little waving gestures. “Why don’t you, you know, concentrate on your things, if we’re going to get naked?”
Which Tom did, shedding his clothes in something near a frenzy, so that he was done before Stanley, was bouncing up and down on his toes in some kind of nervous jitterbug, his dick jutting out in front of him at full attention.
The sight of that dick slowed Stanley down some. He couldn’t help it, he had to feast his eyes on it while he undressed. He’d been so sure that had been forever denied him, and there it was, proud and tall. He got the shirt off, salvaging the rest of the buttons and making a mental note to find the two that had gone sailing—it was a favorite shirt.
He sat on the edge of the sofa to slip off sneakers and socks, stood to drop his trousers, Tom getting more impatient with each passing second—too impatient, as it turned out, to wait for Stanley to slip out of his bikini briefs.
Stanley had barely hooked his thumbs in the waistband of his bikini when Tom pushed his hands away, grabbed the briefs in both of his own hands and gave a mighty tug, ripping them apart so violently that Stanley half lost his balance and fell against him.
Stanley stared down in astonishment at the pieces of cloth that had a moment before been his underwear. He had never heard of anybody doing that. He had never, in fact, heard of anybody being that horny. It was scary. Still, a little ripple of excitement zigzagged down his spine, like an electrical current. Jesus! What had brought this on? Was it him? He’s so hot for me that he has to rip my clothes off? The electric current went back up, and down again.
He’d have asked that very question, too, about the state of Tom’s arousal. Had, in fact, opened his mouth to do so, but Tom was too horny as well for conversation. He lifted Stanley up by his waist and, tossing him over one broad shoulder like a bag of potatoes, strode quickly with him into the bedroom.
Which Stanley found so thrilling he almost came right there and then—until the point where Tom tossed him onto the bed, so unceremoniously that it knocked the breath out of Stanley, and before Stanley could mouth a protest, Tom had fallen on him, was kissing him again, with a desperate kind of intensity.

Is that yummy enough?
I would say that definitely does the trick, Victor. Thanks for sharing with us. It’s been a pleasure having you on the blog.

For more information about Victor, please visit his website: http://www.vjbanis.com