Please welcome this week’s guest author, Rick R. Reed. Many thanks to Rick for volunteering to speak with me and share a small glimpse into his world.

Q: What genre do you write in, and why?
A: Oh honey, I defy categorization. My writing has been called horror, dark suspense, thriller, mystery, paranormal, romance, speculative fiction, erotica, and GLBT. There’s probably some I’m leaving out. My point is I dabble in a lot of different genres (sometimes in the same story or book) and my goal is not to write a piece of genre fiction, but a piece of fiction that captivates a reader.

Q: How long did you write before you received your first contract for publication?
A: Well, since I wrote my first story at about age six, a long time. My first real big publishing contract came in 1991, for a novel called OBSESSED. It was published by Dell (in their then-new line of horror called Abyss). I was six years old in 1964…so you do the math. I’m terrible with numbers, which is why I’m a writer and not an accountant.

Q: So, if you don’t mind sharing, would you tell us about your latest work in progress?
A: I am working on a novel I am calling MUTE WITNESS right now. I don’t generally like to get into a lot of detail about what I’m doing, but I will say that this could most likely be categorized as a thriller with a GLBT couple at its center.

Q: Out of all the stories you’ve written, which is your favorite?
A: DEADLY VISION because it’s some of my best suspense writing, because it’s one of the few pieces I set in the small Ohio River town where I grew up, and because it ultimately has a powerful underlying message of redemption and the power of the bond between mother and child. It was also dedicated to my mom, who, unfortunately, passed away from cancer just a few months before it was published.

Q: Do you need to be in a specific place or atmosphere before the words flow?
A: I work every morning in my home office. I do NOT write in coffee shops or outdoors. I need a familiar place and absolute silence.

Q: What’s the strangest source of inspiration you’ve found for a story?
A: My dreams bring me a lot of inspiration. I often wake up either laughing or screaming.

Q: If you could offer one tidbit of information for new writers, what would it be?
A: Read a lot. Write a lot. Learn from your mistakes. Never get cocky; listen to your detractors more than those who praise you.

Q: Do you have an evil day job or do you write full time?
A: I write full time. Lucky me! I will not complain about what a lonely job this can be.

Q: What do you like to do in your spare time?
A: Pick my nose.

Q: Name one thing readers would be surprised to learn about you.
A: I am a virgin. Well, you didn’t say it had to be true, only that it would surprise readers.

Q: What’s your favorite dirty word?
A: Fuck.

Q: What’s your favorite holiday, and why?
A: Halloween. It’s when the things that go bump in the night come out and they’re my people.

Q: Do you have any tattoos or piercings?
A: One of each…a Celtic circle on my upper left arm and an ear piercing (just the humdrum lobe).

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: Clive Owen, professional wrestler John Cena, and Seann William Scott. And all at one time would be more fun than a barrel of monkeys.

Q: If you were stranded on a desert island, what three things would you want with you?
A: A deck of cards, Bruce (my partner), and Lily (our dog); I would also like my son, but only if he could also bring his partner.

Q: If you won the lottery tomorrow, what would you spend the money on?
A: Houses for Bruce and me (one in Chicago, one in Hawaii, and one in NYC).

Q: Which household chore do you abhor and why?
A: Vacuuming. I live in a townhouse that’s on four levels and it’s a bitch to vacumm all those carpeted stairs.

Q: What’s your favorite comfort food?
A: Roast chicken

Q: Do you have any guilty pleasures you feel comfortable sharing?
A: Judge Judy. I watch her almost every day.

Q: Do you have a favorite book or movie?
A: Many of both. I suppose my standard answer for this question is Wizard of Oz (movie) and A Confederacy of Dunces (book)

Q: Anything else you’d like to share?
A: My recipe for banana nut bread. It’s the best! The secret is using flaked, unsweetened coconut in the batter.

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: My latest release? Isn’t that kind of personal? Oh, you mean my latest book release. Well, the absolute latest one is MAN-amorphosis, a short e-book available from Amber Quill Press (under the GLBT imprint, Amber Allure).

Here’s a taste:

…I awoke one morning from uneasy dreams to find my penis had transformed itself into a vagina.

I was lying on my back and, as is my custom, reached down to give myself a good morning grope. It was my perky way of welcoming in the day. Usually, what awaited my wandering hand was a large column of flesh, with the tension of a steel girder, and the approximate length and width of professional wrestler “The Rock’s” forearm.

My blood ran cold when the hand felt nothing. Imagine how stressed you feel when your wallet or keys have suddenly vanished. Multiply that to the nth degree and you’ll maybe get a hint of the alarm I felt when I discovered my penis had disappeared.

Hoping for a different outcome, I reached down again. Yes, the pubic hair was there, in all its curly, silky glory. The cock, however, had flown the roost. But as I groped, I discovered that, in its place, was not nothing, but something new, different…and damp. Although much of my sexual experience had of late been with the male gender, I had, in my misspent youth, explored the other side of the sexual coin to a ridiculous, self-denying extent (and if you’ve ever met my little daughter, you know it’s true), so I recognized the contours and texture of the feminine apparatus referred to by doctors as a vagina. Everyone else calls it a pussy, box, hair pie, beaver, muff, bush, twat, cunt, quim, red snapper, bearded clam, and God only knows what else.

But what was one of these things doing between my legs? How had it managed to get there? Where had what doctors referred to as a penis gone (you probably call it a dick, cock, wee wee, prostate poker, Johnson, prick, sausage, rod)? Albeit a moustache of sweat had formed on my upper lip, I couldn’t restrain myself from beginning to explore my lower lips. They had a silky smoothness, a not unpleasant bumpiness, an unevenness that appealed to my sense of aesthetic asymmetry. As I gently massaged them, I felt them unfold, like a small, fleshy flower. They sort of puffed up, which made me think how much money people like Melanie Griffith and Barbara Hershey could have saved on collagen if they could have mastered this trick on their upper lips. But I couldn’t be distracted by thoughts of movie star snatches when I suddenly found I had my own…