ebook interviews

Interviewed by: SX newspaper July 2010

Interviewed by: 1RomanceEbooks.com 22nd June 2010

Barry Lowe in the Author Spotlight

Barry Lowe is in our spotlight this week. Let's find out about this fascinating Australian guy.

Barry Lowe is a playwright & fiction writer who also dabbles in film scripts and film actress biographies.

Over the years he has dabbled in a number of professions from trainee primary school teacher, mail sorter, copywriter for ad agencies, psychiatric nurse, packer in a quilt warehouse, call centre team leader, sex shop salesperson, and the editor of the Australian gay magazine, Campaign, for more years than he cares to remember (1981-87).

He continues to churn out the work and has recently turned his hand to film biography, the first of his published works being Atomic Blonde: The Films of Mamie Van Doren, released through McFarland Publishing in the U.S. in 2007.

How did you start your writing career?
I used to write stories in primary school, year 6, that the teacher would allow me to read out to the class each day as a treat. They concerned a teenage detective called The Count. I was heavily influenced by Enid Blyton's Secret Seven series. In high school a friend and I produced a whole series of short story magazines, mainly horror and science fiction, that we hand copied or ran off on an old Gestetner.

Does travel play in the writing of your books?
Definitely. Australia is at the ass end of the world which can be an advantage sometimes but makes getting anywhere a tiresome experience. It's a 24-hour flight to Europe or New York, for example. I love travel, hate flying. So far I've set stories in exotic places I've visited such as Cuba, Iceland and Tibet. And I have a Cook Book series coming shortly from loveyoudivine, The Gravy Train, set on a train travelling through Europe.

Who are your books published with?
Up until a few months ago I was mainly a playwright with the occasional story in a print anthology. Then I saw a few submission requests for eBooks and submitted to Dreamspinner who accepted my second story, The Min Min Lights. That's how I discovered the wonderful world of M/M Romance although I was slightly familiar with it through reading authors such as Josh Lanyon whose works I adore. Claudia from loveyoudivine Alterotica took me on and she and my amazing editor/cover designer Dawne Dominique guided my baby crawls along the eBook trail so that currently they're releasing a new story of mine every week.

How do you describe your writing style?
Smut, I suppose. My publisher describes it as SceneLit, a gay man writing gay male romance erotica. I write gay erotica/romance which sometimes nudges the boundaries a little: cuckold, gangbangs, forced sex. I'm waiting for the day when w/s goes mainstream. I should live so long.

Plotter or Pantser? Why?
A bit of both. Some stories jump into my head fully formed. Otherwise, I start with a title and a fuzzy idea of where it's going. I just allow my fingers to do the thinking for me. Sometimes the stories work, sometimes not. The one thing I definitely can't do is write if the title isn't right. If the title or the character names are wrong' the story simply will not flow.

Tell us about your family.
My partner, Wally, and I have been together 37 years, but we used to augment that with other men when we were younger, not so much now although volunteers are gladly accepted. We have a small collection of close friends. And the menagerie is rounded out with a baby dinosaur named Tofu, a mascot with a mouth for wisecracks and a passion for travel. My friends often complain Tofu gets to go more places than they do.

From: loveyoudivine.com blog 15th May 2010

Introducing Barry Lowe

May 15th, 2010

Australian author Barry Lowe is a red hot new addition to loveyoudivine. I thought it would be good to find out more about him, so I pounced on him for a blog interview.

Bryn: How would you describe your writing style?

Barry: Horny humorous smut.

Bryn: That’s some attention grabber! Have you always written that combination, or did you slide into it?

Barry: I started out as a journalist and got into sex writing in the early 1980s when a local free gay paper, The Sydney Star, asked me to write a column which became Lowe-Life, about the wonderfully diverse sex/love life of me and my lover, Wally. From there I went on to write sex comedies for theatre, an independent romantic film called Violet’s Visit, and later short erotica for print anthologies. I’m back to writing about my sex life again for another gay bar rag in Sydney. So I’ve come full circle.

Bryn: Which form of writing do you enjoy most out of those?

Barry: It’s a real cliché but I love the immediacy of theatre. Sitting in an audience listening to people laugh out loud at what I’ve written or else groaning at the filth they didn’t think anyone would have the guts to put up on a stage. Not that all my plays are like that, any more than all my writing is. I also write film star biographies and McFarland published Atomic Blonde, my book on 1950s blonde bombshell Mamie Van Doren two years ago and I have one coming out later this year on Deanna Durbin.

Bryn: Who’s influenced you most?

Barry: I’d love to say Shakespeare, Moliere, Jean-Paul Sartre, Doris Day and all that pretentious bullshit but basically I’m a sponge and soak up an impression here, a feeling there, an emotion somewhere else. I can’t say I’m an original but what I was writing when I started was different to anything else that I knew of. Later I discovered people like William Burroughs and Jean Genet, and then the wonderful world of gay porn. So, I guess the easiest answer to that is everyone and no one, and anyone I’m reading or watching at the moment.

Bryn: I have to ask, what are you reading and watching at the moment?

Barry: Anything and everything Josh Lanyon writes, the crime novels of Arnaldur Indriđason, habu’s Death in Key West, Sarah Masters’ Grave Findings, and a travel guide to Iceland. Watching: a delightful English series called Ladies of Letters, the second season of Glee, the new Doctor Who, and the new season of Foyle’s War. And rewatching the films of Doris Day.

Bryn: You’re clearly very ecclectic in your tastes. Does that show through in the fiction writing as well?

Barry: Oh, I have my obsessions but it’s probably true, although it probably is for a lot of writers. My subject matter ranges from steampunk, science fiction, Victoriana, exotic but real locations (I love travel being stuck here at the arse end of the world in Australia), mystery and detective fiction, and comic fiction while my style ranges from comedy through that icky feeling in the stomach romance through to sleaze. I’m a bower bird writer, I peck at whatever entertains me.

Bryn: What have you got coming out at lyd?

Barry: Already in the schedule are the short M/M eroticas Carbon Dating [a young guy in lust with his best mate’s dad] followed by Marine Biology [a U.S. Marine gangbang], Let the Games Begin [What goes on at the Glory Hole Games after the main Olympic competition is over], and Stocks and Shared [bondage and revenge in the Wall Street financial sector]. Then there’s a few more in the queue that we haven’t started editing yet. Plus I’m working on, The Major and The Miners, a five-part series set in Sydney during the 1930s involving a doctor and two coal miners, and a cook book series that involves M/M erotica and recipes.

Bryn: Wow! And, where can people find you online?

Barry: Problem is that I’m Downunder and our online hours only coincide early morning when I’m not awake and late night when I’m tapping away at my computer trying to turn out the first eBook short story that earns $10 million. I’m on Facebook. And people can contact me via my website www.barrylowe.net I’m happy to chat, I can procrastinate with the best of them.