Sunday, August 30, 2009

New Gay Romantic Comedy Hitting Bookstores This Fall

Press release, as featured on MySoCalledGayLife.com:

Following the success of his self-published compilation, A Boy Less Ordinary, Fredric Joss Shelley marks his return with the long-awaited new novel, The Alphabetical List of Would-Be Princes. Princes is an inventive tale about Jack Bradley, a gay man embarking on a romantic quest, with “would-be” princes occurring in alphabetical order.

Shelley, a staple of the Philadelphia arts scene, has gained a loyal following as both a writer and actor through his numerous pursuits, including his memorable characters conceived and portrayed in cult-favorite comedy troupe The Dumpsta Players. Now in its thirteenth year, The Dumpsta Players, which has often been compared to sketch comedy acts like The Kids in the Hall, The Cockettes, and Saturday Night Live, is a monthly-themed interactive improvisational theatre experience that parodies society’s joys and ills in an irreverent and over-the-top style.
A Boy Less Ordinary, Fredric’s previous compilation, was based on his Six Degrees of Hayden columns, which ran for six years in various gay newspapers and zines on the East Coast. Readers followed the weekly misadventures of Hayden, a highly extroverted gay socialite on the run from malicious gossip and in search of unconditional love.

With his new novel, Shelley returns with another humorous take on the search for love featuring another affable and winning gay protagonist. Princes is an inventive tale about wanting to hold on and learning to let go; looking for love and allowing love to find you; and figuring out the rules and knowing when to break them. This is the story of one bachelor with twenty-six possibilities, from A to Z. This inspiring novel will take readers on an extraordinary journey full of amorous pursuits, zinger-spouting friends, and all the letters in between.

Deftly constructed at 201 pages, The Alphabetical List of Would-Be Princes is a realistic and contemporary novel whose perspective on modern-day gay romance will resonate with readers everywhere.

Fredric will officially kick off the launch of his new novel on Saturday, September 19th, 2009 at Philadelphia’s Giovanni’s Room (345 S. 12th Street, Philadelphia), with a book signing and reading by the author. The Alphabetical List of Would-Be Princes is now available on Amazon and will be available soon to online retailers nationwide.

Thursday, August 6, 2009

verbal dysfunction

I often say the wrong words.

I blame this on two things - routine and being too rushed. For example, when I am in the checkout lane at a supermarket, the last words are often, "have a nice day" - to which I reply, "thanks, you too." However, sometimes cashiers trip me up by saying something completely random like "enjoy your (whatever)" - and then my knee-jerk reply of "thanks, you too" seems kind of automated and wrong. Then, I feel like an ass.

Other times I catch myself mid-sentence and miserably try to correct the error with half of the wrong sentence and half of the right one. The mishmash of pleasantries is sometimes so confusing to the ears that all I can do is laugh.

Saturday, August 1, 2009

holes

The following is something I wrote some time ago. I think about this passage every now and then because whenever I'm in a situation where I'm trying to fix something that isn't mine, I have to remind myself to keep my focus on me and let others handle their own stuff.

I see him exhausted from the effort. Holes, nothing but holes. The hurried movement of the shovel to fill them up. All this time spent filling up holes he doesn't recall ever having dug. Maybe they weren't his to begin with, but they are his now. No one wants to own a hole. A hole is only appealing once it's no longer a hole. A filled hole. A sewn one. Or something on top to conveniently hide it. I see him fixing. It's no longer relevant to him just how those holes became holes. There is no time to understand. Only fill. When there is no emptiness, he can rest. Maybe, once the land is level again, the others will come back. I know they won't - they won't because half of those holes were theirs. They gave them to him. No one wants to own a hole.

A hole could represent a number of things I'm sure - the past, skeletons in the closet, fear, insecurity, someone else's baggage. I find that once in a while I write these things without really consciously thinking about what they mean. I'm creating songs or poetry, and then several months later, I'll excavate and find them again and know exactly what I meant and what I'd been going through. Hindsight being 20/20 and all that. It's intriguing though how when you're in the middle of something - a hole if you will - sometimes you have no idea what you're doing there or what it all means.