I was tagged by Lambda Award–winner Amber Dawn — who will be releasing her first poetry collection, Where the Words End and My Body Begins, in 2015 — to participate in Blog Hop and answer the four questions below.

I nominate Daniel Zomparelli, author of Davie Street Translations, and Shawn Syms, author of the new short-story collection Nothing Looks Familiar, to hop on their blogs Oct 1.

1. What am I working on?

I’m launching my debut novel, When Everything Feels Like the Movies, from Arsenal Pulp Press, on Oct 1. Inspired by a true event — the 2008 hate-crime murder of Larry Fobes King — it’s about a boy who copes with the oppression of his small-town life by donning armour of glamour and delusion.

2. How does my work differ from others of its genre?

As a gay teen reader, I wasn’t interested in clichéd coming-out stories; I wanted ass fucking and drugs. You know, things I could relate to. So nothing I write in the YA genre is sugar coated. Sprinkled with cocaine, maybe. But not sugar. As a young reader, my taste ranged from Sweet Valley High to 120 Days of Sodom. My work fits on a shelf somewhere between the two.

3. Why do I write what I do?

I’m just a vessel, and I never know what I’m going to be filled with, but it’s usually slit wrists and dick lips, so I go with it.

4. How does my writing process work?

Uhm, I smoke some weed and chant Hare Krishnas and then just, like, start typing.