Works by
Jay Quinn
(Writer)

Jay Quinn was the Founding and Executive Editor of Southern Tier Editions, an imprint of the now defunct The Haworth Press, Inc., Quinn lives in The Triangle Area of North Carolina with his partner of 23 years and a 60-pound Weimaraner.

• In Progress
   

• Anthologies

• Fiction

• See also

In Progress

• The Museum of My Happiness
  Jay is currently busy at work on this creative non-fiction book exploring our acquisition of things and their significance to one's personal history.
   

Anthologies

• Rebel Yell 2: More Stories of Contemporary Southern Gay Men (2002) -- Finalist, 2002 Lambda Literary Award for Fiction Anthologies

• Rebel Yell: Stories by Contemporary Southern Gay Authors (2001) -- Finalist, 2001 Lambda Literary Award for Fiction Anthologies
  Rebel Yell continues the tradition of Southern literature with the work of contemporary gay men. Here you'll find works by contemporary Southern gay authors such as: Robin Lippincott, Jameson Currier, Walter Holland, John Trumbo, Andrew Beierle, George Singer, Jeff Mann, and editor Jay Quinn, whose own story, 465 Acres, examines one man's rebellion against the long-held expectations of farm and family. The rotting plantations of Faulkner and Williams have long been bulldozed to accommodate the spread of tract housing and shopping malls, but the tales of the South, now told by a current generation, still spring from the hearts, groins, and minds of its sons. Rebel Yell is a singular collection of those stories, told in the soft accents of the gay men who know both the horror and tenderness that is their heritage.

Fiction

• The Boomerang Kid (2008) -- Finalist, 2008 Lambda Literary Award for Best Gay Men's Fiction
  In The Boomerang Kid, Maura Ostryder is coming into her own, professionally and privately, as she begins her fifty-first year. Maura has always been the master of her own life and has reared her son, Kai (named for the Hawaiian word for sea) to be the same way. But now a grown Kai has come home, having fled emotional attachments to both a young man and a young woman, bringing with him his addiction to painkillers. Suddenly Maura’s maternal streak is reawakened as she battles to bring Kai back from the brink of self-destruction. Vivid and lyrical, this is an emotional tale of the unbreakable bond between mother and son.

• The Beloved Son (2007)
  It's called the "sandwich" generation, grown children who are simultaneously caring for both aging parents and nearly adult children. Karl Preston, at fifty-two, certainly fits this image, as he lives an emotionally comfortable life with his wife and daughter in an affluent North Carolina suburb. But preparing for a weekend visit to his elderly parents' Florida home, Karl becomes increasingly aware of the pressing concerns of their faltering lives-realizing too it will be the first time in years he has seen his gay brother, Sven.
  
  Frank, Karl's father, is bellicose and bewildered, and Annike, his still beautiful mother, is increasingly isolated, despite her fluency in three languages. Then there is Sven: Harried, loving, and hopeful, he is a forty-year-old gay man who finds his life bound by the confines of his parents' needs, a situation that has taken over his life.
  
  In rich, lyrical prose, Jay Quinn charts what happens when responsibility outweighs love, when obligation turns to guilt, and when the walls come down and the truth unfolds. The Beloved Son marks a new chapter in Jay Quinn's remarkable career, as he paints both a loving and tortured portrait of the modern-day family.

• The Good Neighbor (2006) -- Nominated, 2006 Lambda Literary Award for Male Fiction
  Jay Quinn directs his ever-sharpening eye over the enormous cultural shifts playing across the hedges in American society on two families in a manicured upscale suburban south-Florida neighborhood.
  
  Austin Harden is downsized when the dot.com bubble bursts, earning less than his wife Meg, who recently made partner in her law firm. He is spending much of his time shuttling his two sons between school and soccer practice. Rory Fallon, whose partner Will has his career on the fast-track, feels increasingly stranded and isolated in their elegant and echoing home. Living next-door to each other, the two couples form a close friendship, particularly Austin and Rory, who share a growing sense of dislocation and the sense that their lives have gone off track and they aren't sure how or why.
  The Good Neighbor explores concepts of success, masculinity, ambition, and sexuality in a way that shines a new light on how we define ourselves by them, while allowing them to define us. As the relationships among the four adults evolve, and take on surprisingly complex emotional and sexual overtones, the placid suburban facade cracks open to reveal something more primal and urgent.

• Back Where He Started (2005)
  They say true freedom arrives when all the kids are gone and the dog dies. With his family grown and his husband Zack having decided to become a middle-aged cliche and marry his secretary, Chris Thayer is about to discover that starting life over at 48 is just as complicated, frustrating and thrilling as the first time around. After relocating to the North Carolina beach community of Emerald Isle, Chris finds a new appreciation of his role as the heart of the home to his grown children and becomes involved in the patchwork lives of his neighbors. To his unending surprise, he also finds himself the object of a new man's affections, a rowdy jack-of-all-trades with an unnervingly direct stare. In the same quiet, understated manner that he demonstrated in his critically acclaimed first novel, Metes and Bounds, Jay Quinn gives the traditional Southern novel a decidedly untraditional twist.

• Metes and Bounds (2001)
  In this unusual coming-of-age novel, author Jay Quinn surveys the expanding emotional and sexual boundaries of Matt, an eighteen-year-old surfer in coastal North Carolina. Set against the broad skies and beaches of North Carolina's Outer Banks, Matt's story of claiming his place as a surfer and as a gay man in the small and large worlds of construction sites, fishing piers, and surf breaks, is a triumph of storytelling. As Matt's dedication to surfing and learning the nuances of the technical aspects of his job join seamlessly, he also learns of his own capacity for erotic adventure and need for emotional connection. Matt's many layers of learning to be a man are the stuff of hard-earned experience and a textured reading experience that is rare in the coming-of-age genre.

Memoirs

• The Mentor: A Memoir of Friendship and Gay Identity (2000) with Nicholas Weinstock
  Students, teachers, and anyone interested in gay studies and experiences will find that The Mentor: A Memoir of Friendship and Gay Identity delivers a captivating and honest look into the challenges of growing up gay through the context of firsthand experiences, revelations, and realizations. This unique book is an intelligent and personal narrative that considers the social, religious, and emotional aspects of what it is like to grow up as a gay male in the south and examines the enormous social changes regarding homosexuality that have taken place in America during the last half of the century.
  
  Written to reveal the importance of the author's mentor in helping him form his self-identity and educating him about being gay, this book challenges the stereotypical idea that, unlike heterosexuals, gay men are not able to form nurturing, fulfilling bonds between themselves. The Mentor delivers an inspiring story about accepting and understanding your sexuality with the help and guidance of other men who have traveled the road to a successful gay identity.
  
  This unique book offers the courage, strength, and support of a mentor to help guide you through the trials that many young gay men experience, such as: recognizing the possibilities of exploitation by older gay men due to a lack of emotional and social experience creating a loyal relationship with a man that does not include sex but which satisfies emotional needs that many gay men need and long for discovering the importance of a mentor to gay youths, since there are few homosexual role models to learn from
  
  Sincere and well-written, The Mentor provides insight into everything from the author's experience with intolerance of homosexuality by certain religions to struggles with fidelity and infidelity, illustrating the difficult yet universal challenges of life relationships. The Mentor contains suggestions that will help you recognize that your feelings of desire and love and your quest for human connection as a gay man are not the distorted reflections of a heterosexual image, but a healthy gay identity. With this unique book, you will discover how to make the shift from confusion to full acceptance of your gay identity, you will understand that you are not alone, and perhaps you will be encouraged to pass on the legacy of a mentor to other young gay men.

See also:

• Paws and Reflect: Exploring the Bond Between Gay Men and Their Dogs (2000) by Neil Plakcy and Sharon Sakson
  The truth is, our dogs are our children. We don’t have to straighten their teeth or send them to college, but we love them, feed them, groom them, sometimes even dress them up, just like we'd do with little boys and girls. Most dog owners, straight or gay, would probably feel the same way.
  
  Even though advances in society and social norms have made it more common for gay men to have human children, for many gay men, our dogs play an even more important role in our lives. They love us unconditionally; they comfort us when we are in pain; and because it's most likely that we will outlive them, they teach us to cope with loss.
  
  We decided to parlay our backgrounds-- Neil as a gay writer and dog owner, Sharon as a journalist, dog show judge and award-winning breeder of Whippets and Brussels Griffons-- to explore this connection. We asked talented writers to contribute their thoughts, and Sharon interviewed celebrities and ordinary men about their relationships with their dogs.
  
  With contributions by Alistair McCartney, Andy Zeffer, Brian McCormick, Charles Busch, David Mizejewski, Donald Hardy, Edward Albee, G. Russell Overton, Hal Campbell, J.R.G. DeMarco, Jack Morton, Jay Quinn, Jeffrey Ricker, Jonathan Caouette, Justin Rudd, Kevin Anderson, Lev Raphael, Matthew Phillips, Michael Wallerstein, Neil Plakcy, Randall McCormick, Randy Allgaier, Ron Nyswaner, Sharon Sakson, Stephen Kwielchek, Steve Berman, and Victor Banis