Welcome to my weekly Author Spotlight. I’ve asked a bunch of my author friends to answer a set of interview questions, and to share their latest work.
Today: I may just be the dirty oldest man of gay romance: After an award-winning career in news editing, I retired as managing editor of a legal news magazine in 2018. It may seem like, in the ensuing years, I turned from nonfiction to fiction, and not just any genre, but gay romance. Truth is, I’ve been writing stories, scripts, poems, books, and plays since before middle school; it’s just that, in almost all cases, I never sought publication. So, at the tender age of 70, I published my first interracial gay novella in December 2021. Both of us retired, my husband and I live in Chicago, enjoying all the art, theater, beach scenes, and fine food this city offers, and I put a bit of our toddlin’ town in all my work.Â
Thanks so much, Frank, for joining me!
J. Scott Coatsworth: When did you know you wanted to write, and when did you discover that you were good at it?
R Frank Davis: I’ve been writing almost since I could hold a pencil. (I learned to read at 3 years old.) I remember being in second grade and feeling the pencil in my hand, but I didn’t know what to write. My fourth grade teacher actually gave me an assignment—writing and reporting to the class about the book I was reading—as a way to learn what to write. And to this day, though I don’t have a regular writing schedule, if I stay away too long from the keyboard, I get antsy and upset. Good at it? I was a stellar student throughout school and a paid writer/editor for all my working life.
JSC: Do you use a pseudonym? If so, why? If not, why not?Â
RFD: I have had a fascination with pseudonyms for a long time, I never cared much for my first name, and when I started writing gay fiction with explicit sex scenes, I chickened out and went to a pen name rather than let my friends know what I was doing. I no longer care what they know, but I’m sticking with what I got started with.
JSC: Are there underrepresented groups or ideas featured in Love Gods Magic: The Black Pharaoh? If so, discuss them.Â
RFD: I am a gay, Black, and old man, so I have a few groups to represent. (Smile.) My gay romances have interracial or Black main characters. I have added age differences to some of my work, though I will sometimes depict men in their late 20s or 30s. They tend to be the “more active” types. As a former journalist, I want to reflect reality in my fiction, so there are intersectional issues: racial bias and homophobia are at least mentioned. They are the things that all of us—gay or straight–have to deal with.
JSC: What tools do you feel are must-haves for writers?Â
RFD: First, of course, is a burning desire to write. Otherwise you are not likely to survive the long haul and the many disappointments. Next is the ability to write the way people speak. If you write academically, then have academics saying it, because I believe readers relate to characters that are similar to them. Finally, have an editor. No author can see their work the way an outsider can, and when that editor has your work at heart, they will give you honest advice to make your writing better, more relatable, and more accessible.
JSC: What question do you wish that someone would ask about Love Gods Magic: The Black Pharaoh, but nobody has? Write it out here, then answer it.Â
RFD: What is Afrofuturism and why is this important for your readers? I often hashtag my book promotions with #Afrofuturism, but I find no one asks about it or comments on it. I use this term because my most recent novel, Love Gods Magic, reaches into Black African history, ancient magic, and the future of rare-earth metals and new technologies. The success of Black Panther and Wakanda Forever show there is huge interest in such stories, but tapping into that market is daunting. I can’t find an Afrofuturism site on social media except for a couple of Facebook sites that show only visual art.
JSC: What’s your writing process?Â
RFD: For gay romance, I find my own daydreams and fantasies are best. I have always played out scenes in my head, and I let ideas develop there over time, eventually becoming an entire story playing on my mental screen. Then, when I sit down to write, I know where I’m going and I let the characters and plot play out in words, adding and subtracting portions as I go along.
JSC: What are some day jobs that you have held? If any of them impacted your writing, share an example.Â
RFD: I was in the news business for 45 years (not counting when I delivered newspapers as a kid), starting as a cub reporter at the local paper that covered my home county. Perhaps the best lesson I learned there was to be sure of your work. As one top manager in another newsroom said, “Believe in what you do. They’re going to blame you for it anyway, so believe in yourself.” I learned to make my work the best I could before I let anyone see it, and I do not second guess myself. And, of course, in all those days working with words, I learned grammar, spelling, effective beginnings, ways to help readers stay with your story, and, most of all, the immeasurable value of truth.
JSC:Â If you could choose three authors to invite for a dinner party, who would they be, and why?
RFD: It would have to be a séance, because they are all dead. First, James Baldwin, because he saw and said the truth, even when this nation would not recognize it. Please read The Fire Next Time. It is still true and it is just as inciteful and important as it was when he wrote it. Then Truman Capote, a meticulous author and a fascinating storyteller. Finally, Hunter Thompson, because he was a mad man with a mad pen and a crazy-fun way of depicting the world.
JSC: Do you believe in love at first sight?
RFD: I believe in immediate attraction, but love requires more time, experience together, and growth beyond the skipping heart.
JSC: What are you working on now, and what’s coming out next? Tell us about it!
RFD: After all I learned and enjoyed in writing Love Gods Magic, I decided to expand the story into a trilogy: one book involves a North African trek inspired by the history of Mansa Musa, the richest man ever on Earth, and the other is a modern romance involving the rare earth minerals of the first novel and their magical uses in transforming an industry. I am sketching out the second book, which takes a secondary but very important character from Love Gods Magic and makes him the cynical hero who meets and falls for a heart-wounded Black scholar researching West Africa’s past. Meanwhile, I am retrofitting an unpublished romance I wrote about a young business intern and his boss. Hughs Wright Baldwin dreams of returning manufacturing glory to the United States; his boss, Asa Berrendt III, sees the young intern as a possible savior for his grandfather’s company, though his heart seeks a much more intimate connection. And their love story becomes entwined with technological magic through the use of rare earths. I have no deadline for these two, though I’d like to get them out in the world within the next two years.
And now for R Frank Davis’s latest book: Love Gods Magic: The Black Pharaoh:
Branden loves his college roommate. He’s a strong, serious African—and as overpoweringly gorgeous as a marble statue. He even has a statue’s name: Taharqa, the Black Pharaoh who ruled Egypt and Nubia in Old Testament times. But he’s just Archie to Branden. When Branden learns the secret that has brought Taharqa to the States, nothing can keep him from joining in the plan to bring needed material to modern technology. But there are forces seeking to uncover their efforts and take the glory for themselves. Their teamwork—and their love—are put to the test at every turn.
Taharqa loves Branden. He’s a joyous wrestler jock and a brilliant classmate. Unfortunately, Taharqa has a task—a world-important stratagem—and he doesn’t want to expose Brand to the perils shadowing his efforts and endangering his secret, ancient people. Complicating things further is a mythic challenge meant to change Taharqa from human to god. Love overcomes caution as the risks increase.
From the States to Sudan, sailing the River Nile, and battling multiple kidnappers across Rome, they confront the dark forces moving in. Will Taharqa’s powers and his love be enough to rescue Brand and save the secret of Nubia and his hidden home?
Amazon | Universal Buy Link
Excerpt
Do our minds understand what our bodies are doing? Do our hearts? And is there even time for this, what with classes and wrestling (and secret stratagems to save the world)? I grow closer to him each passing hour, and yet I lie to him too often, maybe just to be with him longer. (I am lying to the ones back home too, the ones depending on me to fulfill my role.)
This is wrong. This is wrong. The mission is primary; my penis is not. But my heart? Everything says I must shut this down. I must do it to save my secret—Nubia’s secret—and I must protect Brand as well. Strong and sweet, he is not made for this technopolitical skullduggery. I need to put my love away.
Can I lock down my heart? Can I? Do I dare to try to answer that?”