Gifts Video

Merry Christmas! I've created a new video for my poem "Gifts" from the book Catfish and After, which is at least somewhat holiday-appropriate. Enjoy!

New Christmas Anthology Includes My Poem "Gifts"!

Released today and FREE (December 3 - 8, 2018) on Kindle, the Christmas anthology A Few More Winter Tales: Twelve More Christmas Tales, edited by Matthew Bright, in which I have a long poem called "Gifts" among a host of short stories from other excellent authors. Check it out and discover new writers for the holidays!

Excerpt from "Gifts" by Gene Hult:

Wiser men premised hopes on their promise,
followed glimmering wisps into murky woods,
wandered as polestars across dark desert voids,
pursued presumptuous question into a dragon’s lair
to land an intimate princeling hand and foot.

And don't miss last year's anthology, Just Another Winter's Tale: Seven Christmas Tales, still available for Kindle. My story "The Most Beautiful Boy in the World" is included, along with many short stories by terrific writers.

Download both anthologies for Kindle today!

A Few More Winter Tales, Christmas Anthology 2018

Just Another Winter's Tale, Christmas Anthology 2017

My short story "The Most Beautiful Boy in the World" has been included in this Kindle anthology of Christmas stories called Just Another Winter's Tale!

I absolutely love the cover, and I love that this anthology also features such terrific writers such as Matthew Bright (who also put this lovely collection together),‎ my college friend and British astrological twin‎ Paul Magrs,‎ Nicholas M. Campbell,‎ Roy Gill,‎ 'Nathan Burgoine, and Michael Thomas Ford! All their stories are excellent, and I'm very pleased to be in their company.

This story of mine was written for a collection I was calling The Betty Stories, all of which surrounded a woman called Betty, but always written from an outsider's perspective, never from her POV. I didn't finish writing the collection, which I had started in college, and I sort of outgrew the style of many of the stories in it, but I always had a fondness for "The Most Beautiful Boy in the World" and I'm thrilled that it has found a home in this Christmas collection.

Many of the stories in this anthology, including mine, have an LGBTQ bent, which makes them all the more fascinating in relation to traditional holiday tales. Too often the stories of lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, and queer folk get lost in the deep straight Christmas snow, so this is great way of making sure we don't turn blue from being left out in the cold!

If you're feeling festive this holiday season, why not pick up a copy for your Kindle or your free Kindle app at Amazon and join our Christmas kiki? The ebook also makes a great gift that you can send long distances without physically mailing anything.

Merry Christmas to you, and have a wonderful 2018.

Thank you! Happy reading!

Darling Christmas Gifts -- Everything Under $20, Perfect for Secret Santa!

Last week I was searching for inexpensive Christmas gifts on Amazon.com, like I've done every year for the past decade. There are a lot of little gifts I need to get every holiday season, token presents in many cases, or cute, funny gifts for Secret Santa or White Elephant exchanges, but also relatively affordable gifts for cousins and uncles and aunts and friends and coworkers and neighbors. Plus stocking stuffers for my immediate family, my mother, father, brothers, sisters-in-law, niece and nephew . . . and I don't forget my dog and cats!

 I started wishing there was a site that combed Amazon.com for me, pulling out adorable, humorous, clever, cool presents all in my cheapo gift-giving range.

This year, I decided to make that site myself!

So here it is, my Secret Santa site, perfect for little gifts for all your loved ones and not-so-loved ones, everyone you need to get a gift for this Christmas season! Best of all, every gift on the site was under $20 on Amazon.com when I added it!

Good shopping, happy holidays, and Merry Christmas to you all!

What Did You Get for Christmas?

stocking stuffer

Remember when you were little, and after the bloodbath of unwrapping and whatever other traditions Christmas morning demanded, the first thing you did was ask your friends what they got for Christmas, and then you told them exactly what you got? I haven't done that in a while, so let's do it now.

In the materialistic, greedhead spirit of the holiday, let's play . . .

What did YOU get for Christmas?

And fuck this Happy Holidays shit. Your PC hypersensitivity makes Baby Santa Claus cry. Merry Fucking Christmas! Ho! Ho! Ho! Motherfucker. Christmas under siege, my ass.

A bunch of writers and illustrators got me chocolate and popcorn and stuff at work.

My grandmother in Florida sent the first gift to arrive at my apartment -- two weeks ago! -- with a card and a check for $50. Rock on, Nana!

On Christmas Eve, one aunt gave me a $50 bill and a big, paper bookmark that has a porcelain bead of a cat hanging from its tassel. On the bookmark is a picture of a tan tabby with a semi-alarmed, quizzical expression on her face, with one ear cocked slightly. It's cute. Underneath that is the phrase:

Cats are a mysterious kind of folk.
- Sir Walter Scott

Centered on the back of the bookmark is this phrase in big letters:

CAUTION: This product is not recommended for very young children as beads can present a choking hazard.

I really do think stupid children should die of ingesting cat-shaped beads on bookmarks. It's Darwinism at its finest.

tourist at home

Another aunt gave me a 2002 DK Eyewitness Top 10 Travel Guide to New York. YOUR GUIDE TO THE 10 BEST OF EVERYTHING!

#1 under "Gay and Lesbian New York" is Stonewall Pub. Here's an interesting Observer article from 8/28/06 about this bar.

I like guidebooks, and I feel fond of out-of-date ones.

At my aunt's Christmas Eve party, I drank too many gin and collins and I had to sneak away during dinner and nap for a few minutes on my aunt's guest bed in-between giant stuffed dolls of Santa and Mrs. Claus.

In the morning on Christmas Day, I opened the boxes from my brother and my parents which had been cluttering the middle of my living room all week. My cats had taken to using one big box as a perch, and so they freaked out and zoomed about as I cut open the boxes with a razor.

Everything from my middle brother and parents came directly from an Amazon Wish List that I set up.

My middle brother either got me this shirt:

this one?

Or this one (the top blue one):

or maybe . . . ?

I'm not sure, since my parents also got me a dress shirt and neither one came with a card or any indication who it was from. Later my brother told me that he'd gotten me one of the shirts, but I forgot to ask which one.

I like them both a lot anyway. It's too bad that they have to be dry cleaned before I can wear them.

so soft

My parents also got me these blue flannel pajamas. I love them. They're so incredibly soft and comfortable. I'm wearing them right now. I love Nautica.

nice pants

Check out how cute their model is in these pants!

I will be a chef!

Then, my big present this year from my parents was this cookware set. I've been using my grandmother's old pots and pans that I inherited when she died. While there is magic in the old tomato sauce stains encrusted onto the bottom of the pots, the handles are broken, and they're generally in terrible shape. Really, they're wrecked.

This is the first set of new cookware I've ever gotten. Very exciting! Now I just need someone to cook for on a regular basis. Someone who will be forgiving of a culinary learning curve.

Also, a decent kitchen would be helpful.

Meg and Jack

Later on Christmas Day, I went up to my middle brother's new house in Darien. It's a great old country house in a lovely old neighborhood. I took the tour of it twice and had a whisky sour with my sister-in-law and then my niece (Maddy, almost 3) and nephew (George, almost 5) woke up from their nap and showed me, my youngest brother, and my aunt (the guidebook-gifting aunt) the rundown of all their Christmas morning gifts. Which were various and sundry and pretty fun. My favorite thing was the drum set my niece got and the ukulele my nephew got. It was so cool to see them pretending to play together. Like the White Stripes!

back in black backpack

Anyway, my aunt also gave me my birthday present (a funny framed photo of my nephew and me laughing).

My youngest brother gave me a new JanSport black "Right Pack" backpack, which I totally needed and wanted and asked for. My aunt also gave us some chocolate truffles.

Lu lulu lu lu lu

My gifts to myself were the CD of A Charlie Brown Christmas original soundtrack by Vince Guaraldi. It's excellent -- read the review at Pitchfork that reminded me to get it for myself.


Oh, and also I gave myself the gift of a huge, life-altering decision about my future.
That was the end of my gifts for the year.

I did pretty okay, I think.

What presents did YOU get?