On Aug. 1, I'll be at The DCCenter for the LGBT Community's OutWrite Book Festival with my novel "Water Music" -- about the loves and rivalries among four gay athletes. I'll sign some books, do a reading (at 3:25 p.m.) and share news about "The Penalty for Holding," the second book in my series "The Games Men Play." If you're in Washington D.C., I'd love to see you at The Reeves Center 11 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. The event is free to attend. For more, click on to http://thedccenter.org/outwritedc/exhibitors.html.
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The FINA World Aquatics Championships and Phelpte revisited
The FINA World Aquatics Championships – a qualifier for the Olympics – will be held July 24 through Aug. 9 in Kazan, Russia for the first time.
The championships consist of diving (July 24-Aug. 2), open water and synchronized swimming (both July 25 through Aug. 1), water polo (July 26 through Aug. 8) and, my favorite, swimming (Aug. 2 through 9).
I’ve always had a special place in my heart for Worlds. The opening scene in my debut novel “Water Music” takes place there, and it’s often an indicator of what the swimmers will do at the Olympics, though not always. I can’t help but think that Ryan Lochte – who eclipsed Michael Phelps at Worlds in Shanghai in 2011 – peaked too soon. ...
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More adventures in publishing
On Aug. 1, I'll be at The DCCenter for the LGBT Community's OutWrite Book Festival with my novel "Water Music" - about the loves and rivalries among four gay athletes. I'll sign some books, do a reading (at 3:25 p.m.) and share news about "The Penalty for Holding," the second book in my series "The Games Men Play." If you're in Washington D.C., I'd love to see you at The Reeves Center 11 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. The event is free to attend. For more, click on to http://thedccenter.org/outwritedc/exhibitors.html.
Read MoreThe Greek debt crisis: WWATGD? (What would Alexander the Great do?)
In my debut novel “Water Music” – the story of the rivalries and loves among four gay athletes – Spyros Vyranos is a successful shipping executive in a country whose glory days seem momentarily long behind it.
“The money’s all in Russia and China these days,” Spyros complains bitterly to his son, Alexandros. That the continuing Greek fiscal crisis may be in large part of the Greeks own making is not lost on Alex, who has a strong sense of history and irony ...
Read MoreSail away, sail away, sail away – ‘The Stylish Life: Yachting”
In my debut novel “Water Music,” the four gay athletes at its core explore their relationships during a vacation on Mykonos, the home of tennis player Alex Vyranos.
Alex is the son of a man who has made a fortune working for an Onassis-style shipping tycoon. At one point, Spyros Vyranos lends his son a company yacht, the Semiramide, to pilot his three friends to the neighboring isle of Delos, birthplace of Apollo. Spyros has warned Alex that the Semiramide is not a toy. He doesn’t want him drinking and sailing He doesn’t want the four winding up on TMZ.
Of course not, papa, Alex remembers telling him as he takes a swig of Dom Perignon at the wheel of the Semiramide, feeling all the power, freedom and escape that a yacht has to offer. ...
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When danger lurks across the net
Disturbing story on the front page of The New York Times’ July 1 edition about the stalkers whom female tennis players face, among them a guy after No. 3-ranked Simona Halep – I see no reason to give him publicity here by naming him – who became increasingly hostile after seeing a rumor that she was to marry.
It was interesting to read the accompanying comments, which as usual were all over the place, with some pointing out that male players also have crazy fans, that these women are better protected than the average woman, etc. ...
Read MoreTennis, everyone
Just in time for Wimbledon (June 29 through July 12), teNeues offers “The Stylish Life: Tennis,” a new coffee table book that ranges over the art, fashion and personalities of the modern game that began in the late 19th century. It’s a book that had me at the back cover.
The photograph (also reproduced opposite the Table of Contents) depicts the green tennis courts of Italy’s Il San Pietro di Positano resort spilling onto the jagged, pristine blue Amalfi Coast. That photograph and the reproduction of a Roger Broders poster circa 1930, with its clay courts tumbling onto a periwinkle Mediterranean Sea in Monte Carlo, are precisely what I imagined in “Water Music,” my debut novel, when my athlete-heroes vacation on the island of Mykonos. ...
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