My Dream Came True--I'm a Published Author!

Dreams really do come true. In the winter of 2010, I sat down and began writing a coming-of-age story. I’d been reflecting on my adolescence following the death of Farrah Fawcett in the summer of 2009. Funny what inspires a person to write, but Farrah’s buoyance and beauty spoke to me as a young man wrestling with his sexuality. Maybe it was her unabashed embrace of being both sexy and wholesome, the girl next door. I bought her poster in the summer of 1976, before her iconic tv show Charlie’s Angels debuted that fall and plastered it on the back of my bedroom door. I was 13 years old.

Around the same time, I had begun attending theatre classes at The Beck Center for the Arts (formerly Lakewood Little Theatre) in suburban Cleveland where I grew up. I met the boy who would become my lifelong friend there in the fall of that year. We discovered we both had an obsession for that same pinup girl. We’d rush to the Rexall Drug store every week to buy the next magazine on which she graced the cover. We bought a lot of magazines since Farrah was the “it girl” of the late 1970’s. So many magazines that we decided to create scrapbooks, which we still have to this day. 

Fast forward 35 years and the idea for a book came alive. Her death led to a meditation on friendship and how my Beck Center friend, RJ, changed my life, perhaps even saved my life. When you are young and questioning your identity, feeling misunderstood, alone, it just takes one friend to make a difference. I luckily grew my friendship base as I entered my teen years but it was RJ who liberated me to start dreaming about possibilities and the future. We both came from Catholic families, but he went to public school and then on to New York to study art, fashion and design. I attended an all-boy’s Jesuit high school and remained in Cleveland to attend college before my escape to Seattle once I graduated. I say on the dedication page of my book that my Mom taught me to fly, my Dad grounded me and my best friend gave me my wings. 

This is our story in all its humor, poignancy and raw humanity. I hope you’ll buy a copy and allow yourself to dream about your own passions and obsessions growing up in whatever era you came of age. I was inspired by Deirdre O’Connell who won her first Tony Award for Best Actress in a Broadway Play last weekend. She said in her acceptance speech: “I am the face of a very large beast that made Dana H.” O’Connell said. “I would love this little prize to be a token for every person who is wondering, ‘Should I be trying to make something that could work on Broadway or that could win me a Tony Award? Or should I be making the weird art that is haunting me, that frightens me, that I don’t know how to make, that I don’t know if anyone in the whole world will understand?’ Please let me standing here be a little sign to you from the universe to make the weird art.” 

Weird, gay, whatever. This is a happy day. My weird inspiration resulted in something beautiful that I take great Pride in. 

Here is the link to purchase a copy of RJ, Farrah and Me: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1953610242

Thanks for all your love and support!

Jack