It gives us great pleasure to put SA ‘Baz’ Collins in the guest spot on Episode 244 – Beware Native Authors in Your Midst!
Join us for a Native American (specifically, the Haudenosaunee/Iroquois) culture discussion as our very own, SA ‘Baz’ Collins, presents his latest NineStar Press release, Beware Mohawks Bearing Gifts, Book One of the Cove Chronicles series. We also chat a bit about his other release, Before the Fall, the second book in his re-release of his Angels of Mercy series. And we wrap up with a brief chat about race/culture representation by non-PoC authors.
SA “Baz” Collins hails from the San Francisco Bay Area where he lives with his husband, and a kitten named Taki. A classically trained singer/actor (under a different name), Baz knows a good yarn when he sees it.
Based on years of his work as an actor, Baz specializes in character study pieces. It is more important for him that the reader comes away with a greater understanding of the characters and the reasons they make the decisions they do, rather than the situations they are in. It is this deep dive into their manners, their experiences and how they process the world around them that make up the body of Mr. Collins’ work.
This Podcast episode is available on these channels (in order alphabetical):
Or right here:
April 1, 2016
(Covers link to the author’s preferred store)
It gives us great pleasure to announce SA “Baz” Collins as the guest on episode 051: A Contrarian Life!
Join us as we discuss Baz’s Angels of Mercy evolution as writing performance art, the Violet Quill Gang and Baz’ homage to that prolific era of queer men’s writings, Queer Representation at the literary table – time to step into full equality = Mainstream, and new RFQs with SA Collins in the hot-seat.You can buy SA Collins’ work here:
Author’s Note: Angels of Mercy is first and foremost, a series of character studies. A great deal of it is inner-monologue. Elliot will pause the action, will break momentum as he grapples with his world – all the while flipping a finger to the fourth wall. He knows you’re there. It was far more important to me as its author (and a gay man) that the reader come away with the whys of Elliot’s choices in how he navigates his often tumultuous world. The same can be said of Marco (his jock boyfriend) who will pick up the tale with Volume Two.
I’ve read much queer literature and what I find rather interesting is that for the majority of it, very little is written about the character’s headspace. When you live in a world where you constantly have to be vigilant as you navigate through, it can make for some very powerful storytelling. That is my goal in writing these boys’ lives. I want the reader who may not be queer themselves to come away with what it might be like to be in a gayboy’s shoes – constantly polling and pulse-checking your world because your very survival depends upon it. All of that while you hope, you secretly pray, that you’ll find someone who will see you too and find they can’t live without you in their world. A small slice of happiness to call your own. And though you do everything to keep to yourself, you may still run into those who find your very existence threatens who they are and how they think the world should run. I pull no punches with this work. They are hormonally charged eighteen year old young men who are sexually active. While the sex is present in the work it is not gratuitous in that the main character does evolve from his physical intimacy with his high-profile boyfriend. It is not a genre romance read either, though it has a very strong romance threaded in the work. These elements bring a light to their relationship that attracts all the wrong attention.
In a time where more queer youth are coming out to their teammates and their loved ones, I find that work of this nature is both timely and necessary to tell. I hope you’ll find it as interesting and provocative a read as I believe it is.