I am a gay author who writes fiction across genres of Horror/ Supernatural as well as Sci-Fi. Though the main protagonist of my book Wehr Wolff Castle, published in 2017 by NineStar Press, was gay, my goal was to appeal to a wide and diverse audience rather than to a LGBT niche group. I strive to continue to write fiction that includes LGBTQ+ characters that I hope intrigues and interests a large readership that is diverse in its makeup of sexual orientation, gender, and ethnicity.

I also write nonfiction. My recent completion is a 10-year project titled Queer Sense. This book is as much a synopsis of my life experiences as it is a culmination of my doctoral academic studies at the University of Houston where I completed my Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology. I focused on Queer Studies during my Ph.D. program, ranging from sexual identity within the workplace to understanding the development of not just gay sexual identity, but heterosexual identity.

Queer Sense provides a roadmap to how we develop attitudes towards LGBTQ+ individuals by focusing on three factors – role models, attachments we make with those role models and then the language we observe and use with our role models. In a world where sexual orientation and gender fall within a spectrum, the theory provides insight as well to why we identify with particular labels that for example may range from gay to queer to bi-curious. I recently released Queer Sense.

For the YA enthusiast, I write YA under the pen name of Bryce Bentley-Tales to include genres of horror, Sci-Fi, and dark fantasy.

I was raised in suburbs of Wichita, Kansas by my mother and father and most of my early childhood was spent in some form of solitaire. But not the bad kind. I lived out in the countryside where my only two neighbors were an older couple who lived about three city blocks away. From a young age I had an active imagination and I was often outside, making up stories in my head and battling imaginary enemies.

I attempted to come out three times when I was around 12/ 13 years old. The first time was to my parents. My parents, though not religious or necessarily anti-gay, did not have role models in society and were confused and surprised by my disclosure. They figured it was a phase and being the super sensitive kid I was, and not having my own role models, I returned to that closet where it was comfortable enough.

Near that time in 1987, my father’s work sent him to Seattle, Washington, for one year and he brought my mother and I up to live with him. During that summer they sent me back to Wichita, Kansas to visit my grandparents. I came out to my grandparents that summer, who were much more frightened by my disclosure than my parents had been and figured “I had some kind of chemical imbalance” and sent me to a reparative psychiatrist. I returned to Seattle that summer and never talked about being gay again until my early 20s. I would learn over twenty-six years later my mother and father never knew I came out to my grandparents that summer, nor did they know I had seen a psychiatrist.

I have lived in interesting places during my young adulthood though I never explored my sexuality. The most enthralling place I ever lived was Bangkok, Thailand, while I was in my late 20s. I lived there for one year, and worked as an English teacher. I guess you could say it’s where I met my first boyfriend. I returned from Thailand without a clue what I wanted to do with my life, except I fantasized of directing films or writing stories. This did not seem like a viable option though and I made preparations to start a Ph.D. program and was eventually accepted by the Counseling Psychology doctoral program where I completed my degree in 2010. I concentrated on queer studies as much as I could, and my dissertation was focused on assessing heterosexual attitudes towards LGBT individuals. Through my studies at University of Houston, I started down a path of discovering for myself, why I had labeled myself with different identities over the years – not sure, maybe gay, bisexual, gay, gay/ but a bit bi-curious, etc. This self-discovery process, along with my doctoral academic studies, led to the completion of Queer Sense.

My new fiction novel I’ve completed is a Sci-Fi Thriller titled Perceptesis and just needs the final touch of a great editor. It follows an American-Muslim elite soldier Gavin Rashid who discovers he has an unique ability —he can bend people’s perceptions. This ability is much needed as he must fight enemies who want him dead as he teams up with a Russian ex-operative and searches for a domestic terrorist group, that plans to kill millions of Americans. Time is ticking though, while he and his new Russian operative friend are on the search for the terrorist group, he has to figure out a way to break his family out of an American Muslim internment camp before the enemies take them ransom, and also locate his captured boyfriend, Lawrence who is being held in New York City at a terrorist cell site.