Works by
Jeff Black
(Writer)

Extra Credit (1985)
Harper King's life consists of a boring teaching job, stagnant relationships and a tank full of fish named after ex-lovers, dying in the same order their namesakes were seduced. Enter three new characters into his sex life.

Gardy and Erin (1989)
Delightful story of a tiny tot who captures a gay man's heart.

Planting Eli (2006) -- Nominated, 2006 Lambda Literary Award for Male Fiction
"Ed Dell is gay, single, and confidante to goddess Oprah Winfrey—at least in his fertile imagination. He writes for a Chicago newspaper, caretakes his ailing parents, and likes to annoy his snobbish sister. HIV-positive and very private, Ed has seen better days. It is 1996, the year of the protease inhibitor.

Sometimes Ed thought of his life in orchestral terms, of what instrument best represented him. He’d grown up assuming he’d eventually be seated among the upper brass, displaying the zeal and bright assurance of a coronet. Then he’d age into the warmth and wisdom and emotional depth of a French horn. Yet here he was, forty years old, still stagnating after years in the double reeds, emitting the woeful cries of the English horn, the shrill of the oboe, the bassoon’s impending doom.

With the new drugs working—and with Ed’s parental obligations miraculously vanished—he suddenly, surprisingly has the chance to live again. If only he remembers how.

Then three men from Ed’s past reenter his life, and each in his own way instructs Ed in what it means to still be alive:
 

• Enrique—A closeted TV reporter and Ed’s ex-flame

• Wallace—Once Ed’s best friend, now an AIDS activist and AIDS patient

• Eli—A former friend for whom protease inhibitors came too late Planting Eli is genuine, touching, and very, very funny. Jeff Black brings gentle hilarity to the challenges of coming back from the dead.

Planting Eli is the last word in resurrection. -- Ethel Mertz" (from Amazon.com)