Conversation with Author William Maltese
Hello William!
I am thrilled to get a chance to sit down for a personal tete-'a-tete with you! You have to be one of the most endearing people I have ever had the pleasure to make an acquaintance, and you just happen to be one of the most talented also.
Teats to teats, did you say? Well, just let me slip off my shirt, first, and …
Ooops, got that wrong, didn’t I? What a way to start things off! Let’s blame you for lobbing that big hyphenated-French word to me.
Let’s start again, and see if I can modestly bow my head and kind of look up at you, gee-whiz-thanks like, because I’m always delighted and appreciative of nice things said —endearing, talented (considering some of the things that have been said to and about me); so, please don’t stop.
For those unfortunate folks that may not be familiar with you or your work, I'd like to bring them up to speed with the fact that you are actually an author of International fame. Please do tell in which countries your works have been published.
What do you mean: some folks may not be familiar with me? Is that possible? Surely not! Where have they been hiding, on Mars? Just kidding.
I’ve been published in England, New Zealand, Australia, French Canada, Canada. Holland, France, Brazil, Germany, Italy, France, Sweden, Singapore, Malaysia, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Spain. At least, those are the ones I can recite off the top of my head. Oh, yes, if you know anyone who can read Japanese, I still have some in-Japanese editions of LOVE’S GOLDEN SPELL.
I've noticed that you write in many different genres. What are they, and which do you feel is your favorite?
Well, Jfay, name a genre, and I’ll give odds that I’ve written it, including a children’s novel (hey, guys, Christmas is coming and a great gift for the little kiddies in your family is certainly my DOG ON A SURFBOARD AND THE REST OF THE ADVENTURE by Billy Lambert).
I’ve written so many genres, in fact, that it can, I admit, sometimes be confusing to readers who are used to one-genre authors. Possibly, I’ve been so diverse in my output, because I’m a Gemini and get antsy if I think I’m getting into a rut. For me, in just about everything, variety is the spice of life, and I need variety to keep up my interest (or keep “up” whatever), otherwise I can get bored to drooping pretty damned easily.
As for which is my favorite genre, it’s usually the one I’m writing at the time the question is asked. I have noticed, though, over the years, that I seem to have a penchant for adventure/espionage, as opposed to guy-or-gal next door. I like my characters involved in/with physical problems to be solved that are a little more complicated than what kind of bread they’re going to bring home from the bakery, or whether to date the local accountant or insurance salesman.
I really like hustler novels (AKA my short story “Wayne in Spain” in aspenmountainpress.com’s new ebook anthology FOREIGN BOYS, or my DIARY OF A HUSTLER, or my upcoming “I” series book, I, HUSTLER), because I’ve always found it fascinating that some people are so good-looking and/or so talented in bed that other people pay for the privilege of joining them.
As for sci-fi/fantasy, I don’t know whether or not that’s really a favorite of mine (although my first published book was sci-fi, and I’ve recently written GERUN, THE HERETIC and BOND-SHATTERING), or whether I’ve written so many, merely because a publisher once asked me to do one a month for about a year.
About how many books have you had published throughout your career?
Last count, over two-hundred. I’ve tried my best to keep at least one copy of everything I’ve written, and a couple of years ago, I actually started lugging all those copies out of trunks and writing a bibliography of sorts. Even I was surprised by how many books I’d written, even when realizing, of course, that there was a time, there, when I was putting out at least one book a month for literally years on end.
You seem to be quite an adventurer and have traveled very extensively. What are some of the most memorable places you have visited?
Oh, if it is one thing that I love to do it is travel, and I have been very lucky in having traveled a good deal.
Between my junior and senior year of university, a friend of mine, with more money than brains, discovered an old Inca treasure map in an old botany book (of all things) in the university archives (of all places). We did the hunt-for-Inca treasure thing that provided us, in the end, with very little to show for ourselves but a genuinely adventurous time, and serious cases of crotch-rot (because of the high jungle humidity). And since chronicling that search for Inca treasure was actually my first officially published piece (an article for the men’s magazine Argosy), I guess adventure and adventurous living simply continue to hold out their fascination for me.
While I’ve taken in the typical tourist spots around the world, like climbing the great pyramid of Cheops at Giza, and roaming the Coliseum in Rome, and visiting the Tower of London, one of my all-time favorite places has to be Brazil’s Iguacu Falls. Admittedly, I have this fetish for waterfalls, and will go miles out of my way to see one, but this one, bar none, is the world’s best, and that includes Niagara and Victoria which I’ve, likewise, seen up close and personal. There is just something about all of that water, providing so many cascades, over so many huge and small and medium jungle-environment embankments, that is simply marvelous to behold.
Of course, I’m particularly fond of New Zealand’s Milford Sound (by sea), but I suspect that has something to do with the fact that I sailed it during a pretty bad storm, and all of the cliff faces of the fjord were simply awash with rain runoff, forming one extensive major waterfall.
Machu Picchu certainly is spectacular and something to see (and has provided me fodder for several books — my m/f Harlequin SuperRomance LOVE’S EMERALD FLAME, soon to be re-issused), my m/f BLOOD-RED RESOLUTION, and my m/m BEYOND MACHU).
And, I loved Great Zimbabwe (which appears in my soon-to-be-re-issued m/f Harlequin SuperRomance LOVE’S GOLDEN SPELL and in my upcoming m/m TUSKS), mainly because I found myself all alone in those ruins, not an official or fellow tourist in site.
Zanzibar was notable for its slaving historical significance (my SLAVES soon to be re-issued), and for the inconvenience of getting there, and the inconvenience of staying there, and the inconvenience of getting off again; not one of my most pleasurable stopovers but memorable to be sure.
I'm sure that you've had many many experiences dealing with publishers throughout the span of your very impressive career. Would you have any words of wisdom to share with authors who may be just starting out, and trying to get someone, anyone to notice them?
My advice has been, and will continue to be, that an author should always write for no one but himself. When you start writing for other people, including for a specific publisher, chances are you’re not writing what you want to write, the way you want to write it, and the person you’re writing it for is going to know, in the end, that it’s half-assed and reject whatever you’ve written anyway. If you want to enjoy writing and not make it a chore, write what pleases you and then shop it around. Publishers are people and put on their underpants (and panties, since there are female publishers as well), like anyone else. Like everyone else, too, they have their likes and dislikes and biases. Just because one publisher thinks what you’ve written is shit, another one is just as likely to find it pure gold.
Gird your loins and learn to accept rejection in the writing business as not something personal, although, yes, I admit, that is sometimes hard to do. I can only tell you that I have had more one publisher, in my long career, tell me (even me, can you believe?) that something of mine just “doesn’t work”, only to have another publisher grab it up as just exactly what it was looking for.
And, for God’s sake, save each and everything you write. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had a novel that didn’t sell, filed away in a deep dark trunk, only to be brought out sometime later to be appreciated and sold, My m/f SS&M just such a novel. At the time I wrote it, it scared even me, because of its violence and hard-core S&M, and it certainly had more than one editor shuddering in disbelief and sending it on back with a, “NO thanks, you sicko!”. It sat in a dark place for literally twenty years, brought out only recently for an S&M web-site whose web-master showed interest in seeing and then serializing it. At which time, it was spotted by a publisher and actually went into print. While it’s still not a book for everyone, it is proof-positive that something written not at the right place and/or not at the right time can still be resurrected if you’ve only had the foresight to have held onto it and not chucked it out as hopeless.
It really is smart, too, for a writer to have a second job; I’m one of the few authors I know who has actually been able to make a living out of just writing from the get-go (and mine has been a feast-or-famine career). With the present state of the publishing market (it has always has it ups and downs, but there have been an exceptionally large and long amount of downs, lately, possibly because each ensuing generation becomes less literate), it would behoove any author to have something, by way of money-making, to fall back on. This provides a couple of major advantages: one, you’re not starving to death while writing; two, you can write what you want and wait for a publisher to take interest, rather than scurry around trying to write something to please a specific publisher just to keep food on your plate.
Of course, the disadvantage to doing writing on the side is that your other career may end up so time-consuming that you don’t have enough time to write at all. Although, that said, I always believe that a real writer always finds the time to write, no matter what else he or she may have going.
You have quite an extensive gallery of artwork on your site that I'm sure your fans pant over, called Artists "Do" author William Maltese. How many artists would you say have "done" your photograph in their artistic view to date?
Ahhh, yes. All of that wondrous artwork based upon that one black-and-white nude photo taken of me just a few weeks ago (don’t I wish it was just a few weeks back!). Surprising how much attention the collection has garnered me in its relatively short span of existence. Certainly, I think more than my writing did in as short a time-span. Leading me to wonder if I shouldn’t have followed through on the publicity photo shoot from which the original black-and-white photo originated and not nixed the whole thing because I didn’t like the way I looked naked at the time (my finding, today, that I look a helluva lot worse now than then).
Presently, I think I’ve about twenty-six artists who have graciously participated, although some of the artists, like Rick Chris, and Daniel Holz, and Kerry Dikken, have done more than one piece. So, there are more than just twenty-six pieces in the collection. “Kinrod” has done about twenty-two (and still counting), all by his lonesome, and I ended up providing him a whole separate gallery. Plus, I have pieces from three artists finished and in the line-up, just waiting for me to officially post them. In fact, I just uncrated this absolutely marvelous (in my humble opinion) stained-glass panel by Diego Tolomelli, an Italian artist, which portrays me as St. Bartholomew.
Oh, I must mention that we can add "Eye-Candy Cover Hunk" to your very long list of accomplishments! I thought this was just the tops when you told me about it (and which by the way, I am now going to make everyone jealous due to the fact that I am a proud owner of an autographed copy!). How did this project come about?
You’re referring, of course, to the cover graphic for my S&M short-story collection, LOVE HURTS. This, yes, is, indeed, a depiction of yours truly in all of my semi-nude, gas-masked, spiked, leathered glory. It’s actually the artwork of John Abrahamson who did it for my ARTISTS “DO” author WILLIAM MALTESE collection; although, yes, the dangly bits of me have been covered over in the cover-graphic for propriety’s sake.
Initially, the portrait was intended as just another important piece of my collection, until Laura Baumbach, my publisher at MLR PRESS, and the head of the collective advertising group, manloveromance.com, of which I’m a member, made the decision to attend the New York City S&M/B&D Street Fair to promote manloveromance.com m/m books and authors to the leathered elite. My having written a lot of S&M books for Greenleaf Classics, back in my pulp days, and having continued with the genre, by way of including S&M in several of my more recent books (BEYOND MACHU, THE FAG IS NOT FOR BURNING, THE GOMORRHA CONJURATIONS, SLOVAKIAN BOY … et al), I had copies of those pertinent books sent along for display at the booth. Also, I had some commissioned steel cockrings by Kerry Dikken about which I’d written a couple of S&M stories. And, I had a couple of S&M pictures by Dutch artist Johan Ekkel about which I’d written a couple of stories; all of which were put on CDs for free distribution at the fair. When Laura began looking around for an S&M-themed poster to accompany the exhibit, I told her that she could use any of the S&M-oriented works from my collection, and she selected the one by John Abrahamson. The poster came out so damned good, that it — as some person, place, and thing, so often does for me, by way of creative inspiration — had me thinking that the poster graphic would look really great as a book cover. And since I, already, had a stockpile of S&M/B&D short stories, and since MLR PRESS was willing to publish my short-story collection, the rest is history.
Since then, of course, I’ve been thinking that my “Sebastian of the Western Plains” by Rick Chris, and my new stained-glass “St. Bartholomew” by Diego Tolomelli might likewise make great covers. I feel the creative juices starting to bubble away so who knows but that I may, once again someday soon, narcissistically be displaying my half-nude body for readers’ viewing.
Ok William, I'm going to get a bit more personal with you now and ask, What is the most surprising fact about you that your fans would be shocked to know?
Possibly that that I’m not very good in bed (although I have mentioned that in other interviews, and it’s not going to come as any particular shock to any fan who has been to bed with me).
I’ve been accused of being a bit too distant and analytical of the sexual process to provide the spontaneity that usually makes for good sex. Namely, I’m usually so intensely involved in the mental process of sorting out, for instance, the “why” of a partner’s particular response — for instance a mere nipple erection (did it happen because I licked, caressed, or pinched?) — that I’m very seldom, if ever, ecstatically caught up in the moment.
So, while, I’ve marvelous endurance, you’re probably far better off with someone less voyeuristic and robotic in bed.
I’ve never actually ever been overtaken by the “lust” aspect of sex, where the two partners are so caught up in the rut that they can’t think of much of anything else but doing “it”, wherever they may be at the moment.
Therefore, the best sex you’re likely to get from me is in reading my books.
Do you consider yourself a humorous person? What makes you laugh?
Well, damn, Jfay, if people aren’t always pointing at me and saying, “Now, there, is a guy who is genuinely funny.”
Oh, you mean, ha-ha funny?
Well, yes, as a matter of fact, I do, at times, think I can be genuinely humorous (but then sometimes I’m delusional, too, into thinking I’m hung like a horse).
Certainly, I believe there can be a certain amount of good-time humor, even sexiness, in sex, in foreplay, in after-play; although I was once told by a publisher that sex is very serious business to most people, and humor is best kept out of the literary bedroom.
I have been told that I can be very amusing. I’ve been told that I have humor in many of my books (DIARY OF A HUSTLER, and SLOVAKIAN BOY immediately come to mind). The problem is, of course, that what one person finds funny, another person finds offensive. So, some people probably think I’m humorous, others probably think I’m offensive. That’s no better illustrated than in the entirely opposite reactions I’ve received from my recently released ARDENNIAN BOY which has some readers laughing and other readers wrinkling their noses in disgust.
As to what makes me laugh, I admit to being prone to the comedy found on BBC AMERICA, like Graham Norton. For some reason, American humor, especially American TV sitcoms, leave me stone-cold.
You're going to be impressed. I actually did my homework and read that you are indeed very adventuresome when it comes to trying new things even exotic and strange foods. Please do tell of your adventures in exotic delicacies (food-wise that is!)
Well, color me as impressed, Jfay, as someone who has just found his penis enlarger actually does the job it’s advertised to do.
And, yes, absolutely, definitely, I am seriously “into” exotic eats — any kind, anywhere, any time, at least once. (Are we just talking food here?).
I’m always looking at these contestants on these reality shows who are fed these strange and exotic things but end up puking out their guts before they’ve even have a taste. I’m always thinking, “Jeez, give me the chance.” I can’t wait to get back to the orient and eat puffer fish, although prepared wrong it can kill you. Even now, I have alligator steak in my freezer, the kangaroo, emu, and rattlesnake (yep, the latter does taste like chicken) having already been consumed.
Much as I’d hate to admit it, you’d find me hard-pressed to turn down an invitation to dine clandestinely on endangered species. Millennia-frozen mammoth makes my mouth water.
I ate monkey in South America, although having since learned that AIDS might have been transmitted from eating (or doing whatever with/to a) monkey, I’d have second thoughts about trying it again.
I remember how excited I was to eat durian, that genuinely smelly fruit found in Southeast Asia. The wife and children of my host diplomatically chose to leave the house while the fruit was being prepared.
Do you have a favorite author and do you ever have time to read others' work?
I remember having had favorite authors. Like Herman Hesse, Fyodor Dostovsky, Gore Vidal, W.G. Hardy. For a couple of years now, I haven’t really had time to read purely for pleasure. With over eight books still contracted for me to write though 2008, I find about all I get to do, these days, is proof my own stuff (boring after the second or third read-through) and/or read an occasional book to review, usually as a (big) favor for some author (Pat Nelson Childs having just promised me a harem to read and review his ORPHAN’S QUEST; and since, I do want a harem . . .).
Would you say that there has been any one person that has made a profound impact on your life?
Other than one of my parents, you mean? In that, everyone usually mentions one or both of their parents, and mine were truly supportive. My poor mother had to fend off, “What’s Billy up to these days?” questions for years on end while I was pumping out nothing but porn. I finally wrote some sweet romances, some straight adventures, and DOG ON A SURFBOARD AND THE REST OF THE ADVENTURE, so she could brag about, and pass around some of my books, without turning her face, and the faces of her friends, an embarrassed beet-red.
Aside from my parents, however, there was an absolutely delightful lady friend of mine who took me in tow, at just the right age, and spent a good deal of love, time, and money (a whole lot of money, in fact) literally showing me the world. She introduced me to ship cruising while it was still dress-up-for dinner and first- versus second-class. She was generous, she was sweet, and she had an adventurous spirit that saw her still hopping into truck cabs for harrowing rides up the mountainside to Machu Picchu when she was in her eighties.
If you could travel back in time, is there anything that you would like to change, such as a decision that swayed an outcome in your life?
Nah! I’m a firm believer that there’s little sense in crying over spilled milk. Things are what they are. I am today, because of what I was and did (right or wrong) in the past, and, frankly, I’m quite content and rather pleased with the way I turned out. Anyone can always over-analyze in retrospect (I’m no exception) and wish that he were kinder to someone when he could have been, or wish he’d taken advantage of a situation he let slip, but life ain’t perfect, and I wouldn’t have it that way. Perfection, as you can observe by taking a look at some of those Greco-Roman statues sculptured according to mathematical formulae, can be downright boring.
I have another "If" question for you ~ If you could be anywhere in the world right now where would it be? Let's say you had a magical genie at your command!
Rome, Italy. I’d be wandering the corridors of the Vatican Museum with special permission for hands-on as regards the really extensive and extraordinary collection of Greco-Roman statues on display (and in not-available-to-the-general-public storage) there. You can’t imagine (anyway I couldn’t) what it’s like actually to touch a Michelangelo statue until you touch it. To do so provides a delight to the senses that I find … well … on occasion … downright … arousing.
After a hard day at work typing your masterpieces, what's your favorite way to relax and unwind?
Give me a pair of European-cut skimpy swim trunks, a comfortable and well-padded chaise-longue, a private tropical beach, a bottle of chilled Veuvre Cliquot champagne with Baccarat ice bucket and Baccarat flute (maybe throw in a good book), and you’ll likely see me content enough to purr. I might, on occasion, ask for an almost naked beach boy or Hooter gal to pour the champagne, but probably not. I’ve had some of the greatest times in my life with just myself and a bottle of Veurvre Cliquot. Although there was that exceptional bottle of vintage Chateau Lafite Rothschild and a hamburger that is still pretty damned hard to beat.
Any wicked indulgences you'd care to share?
I like exceptional wine. I like exceptional liquor. I like exceptional liqueur. I like exceptional food. I have been known to spend exorbitant amounts of money on any and/or all of the above.
I have a thing for “artwork”, and I’d own more of it if I could afford to do so (and not just for my ARTISTS “DO” author WILLIAM MALTESE collection). I think a lot of really exceptional artists, these days, are finding it harder and harder to make ends meet (or, has that always been the case?).
Oh, yes, I take great pleasure in seeing really attractive and well-put-together men and women stark naked. There’s no greater piece of aesthetically pleasing artwork in my book (pun intended) than a well-toned and naked homo-sapiens physique.
You recently joined ranks with some of your fellow authors at Man Love Romance. How's that going for you?
It’s an advertising cooperative, and my joining it was one of the best things that could have happened to me, or, in my personal opinion, could happen to any other writer. It has at its head, guiding light and human Alpha-female dynamo, Laura Baumbach, who is a real go-getter and does all the right things someone should be doing to promote writers and writers’ works. She does them, does them with real gusto, and obviously enjoys the doing, while some authors (like I) can find promotions tedious and boring and don’t do them (even though they should be done to get our names and works out there before the always dwindling buying public).
Laura is a social animal. She interacts well with people. She makes friends easily. She knows how to meet and greet and promote, and she does it. She researches her markets. She attends conferences. She’s always on the outlook for new ways to put the authors in her group, and their works, in the all-important spotlight.
As someone with a marketing/advertising degree, I can tell you that it costs an arm and a leg to advertise in the media, these days, and the only people who normally can afford do it, and who normally do it, are the big publishers, and even they’re not inclined to do it all that much any more. An individual author, even one, like I, who has achieved some success in the business, often finds it too expensive to advertise in, say, The Advocate, or Instinct, or reFresh. Manloveromance.com takes a bit of money from each of us, puts it all together, and buys the ads we can’t buy individually (or won’t buy, because of the expense), and promotes the Devil out of us as a group. Great exposure. Big bang for comparatively very few bucks!
Any new and exciting works that fans should be on the look out for in the near future?
I’ve always something new and exciting for my fans to look out for in the near future. In fact, every time I drop my….
Okay, so I won’t go there.
Do let me say, that readers should definitely be aware of my ARDENNIAN BOY which finally hit the book stands this month. It was a long time coming (no pun intended), and is about the infamous m/m relationship between the mainly gay French poet Arthur Rimbaud and the closeted bisexual French poet Paul Verlaine. Granted, not a book for everyone, but certainly different, in that I think the only other historical I ever wrote was my novel GAIUS MAXIMUS (and my short Roman Emperor Hadrian short story Paen to Pain in LOVE HURTS). Historicals are not easy for me to do, which is why I usually steer clear of them but, in this case, college professor Drewey Wayne Gunn had done some extensive translations, real gems, of the poets’ genuinely risqué poetry from the original French, and he wanted an erotic literary setting in which to place them. I only hope I did them justice.
Of course, look for my contribution to the scary anthology SCARED STIFF, written with three fellow MLR PRESS authors. It’ll soon hit the book stands, if it hasn’t already. The book, also, of note because of the three commissioned absolutely wonderful candles you did to represent each of the stories in the book.
Very soon, Wildside/Borgo Press will be re-issuing ten of my out-of-print books, including my three m/f Harlequin SuperRomances (LOVE’S EMERALD FLAME, FROM THIS BELOVED HOUR, and LOVE’S GOLDEN SPELL), my m/m books SLAVES written as Alex von Mann, YOUNG CRUISERS written as Cort Forbes, and WHEN SUMMER COMES, as well as my short-story collection SUMMER SWEAT.
MLR PRESS will shortly be re-issuing my m/m sci-fi epic BOND-SHATTERING (November 2007), and my m/m short-story collection CALIFORNIA CREAMIN’ (November/December 2007). There will be my upcoming m/m anthology (with Laura Baumbach) WET SKIN (December 2007), my m/m South African novel TUSKS (February 2008) and my m/m “I” series books (I, DEBAUCHEE in March 2008, I, HUSTLER in April 2008), my m/m Aussie epic SNAKES in May 2008, my m/my NAZI BOY in July 2008, and my my/m ARMY BOY: A ONE-HAND READ® in September 2008).
Thank you so much William for spending some time to let all of us get to know you a little more. You are truly a unique and fascinating person that I'd say is a one of a kind work of art!
Ah, “unique”! Ah, “fascinating”! Ah, “one of a kind”! Ah, piece of art! Ah, “William”! All mentioned in one and the same Jfay breath, it’s enough to make a grown man blush (see jaded me holding my breath to achieve the stereotype effect?). Really, though Jfay, favorite candle-maker of mine, it’s always a pleasure to join you — for a chat or whatever. Thank you for the opportunity to be a participating author in your conversation forum.
Speaking of you as a candle-maker, I was wondering if you couldn’t, now, provide me with some insights as to the best ways to dip my wick?
Be sure to visit William online and check out all of his very exciting works as well as his art gallery:
(18 and older ~ mature content)
You can also visit William on myspace:
www.myspace.com/williammaltese
The following are William's Books in the Spotlight Features:
Scared Stiff from MLR Press includes ghostly short stories from Author William Maltese as well as Authors Sarah Black, Josh Lanyon, and Laura Baumback. The "A Rendering of Souls Wedding Candle" is the candle that was designed for William's story in the book. The other 3 candles can be found on Books in the Spotlight.
18 and older ~ mature content
