Blogtour: The Importance Of Being Kevin by Steven Harper

Please welcome Steven Harper with

The Importance Of Being Kevin 

Blurb:

Kevin Devereaux’s life can't get worse. He’s on probation. He’s stuck with an unemployed ex-convict dad. And he lives in a run-down trailer on the crappy east side of town. To keep his probation officer happy, Kevin joins a theater program for teenagers and falls hard for Peter Finn, the lead actor in the show—and the son of the town's leading family. Despite their differences, Peter returns Kevin’s feelings, and for the first time, Kevin learns what it means to be in love.

But Peter’s family won’t accept a gay son—let alone a boyfriend from the wrong side of the tracks—and in their conservative town, they must keep the romance secret. Still, they have the play, and they have each other, so they’ll get by—

Until a brutal attack shatters Kevin’s life and puts Peter in danger of going to jail for murder.

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STRANGE AND USELESS SKILLS

A while ago, some friends and I were talking about strange and (probably useless) skills they’d picked up over the years, and it got me thinking about my own. I grew up on a farm, my family was poor, and we moved a lot, so my list of esoteric skills includes:

1. Raising, butchering, and cleaning chickens

2. Raising cows for beef

3. Harvesting and baling hay

4. Getting a recalcitrant pig into a truck

5. How to calm a cow at an animal show

6. How to ride a bicycle that has no brakes through snow, sleet, rain, and other bad weather and not get killed (this from when I was a poor student with a POS bike that served as the model for Kevin’s bike in THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING KEVIN).

7. How to pack and move a household efficiently

9. How to make minor repairs on a harp

10. Writing novels, especially YA novels about gay teens

I should probably add that “esoteric” and “strange” are a matter of perspective. Where I grew up, 1-5 were standard skills for everyone, but in suburbia, where I now live, no one knows how to do them. So “esoteric” here shall be declared to mean “something most of the people around me aren’t familiar with.”

What esoteric skills do you have?

About the author:

Steven Harper Piziks was born with a last name no one can reliably spell or pronounce, so he usually writes under the name Steven Harper. He grew up on a farm in Michigan but has also lived in Wisconsin and Germany, and spent extensive time in Ukraine. So far, he’s written more than two dozen novels and over fifty short stories and essays. When not writing, he plays the folk harp, lifts weights, and spends more time on-line than is probably good for him. He teaches high school English in southeast Michigan, where he lives with his husband and youngest son. His students think he’s hysterical, which isn’t the same as thinking he’s funny.

Visit Steven's web page or his author website . You can also find him on Facebook as Steven Harper Piziks and on Twitter as Steven Piziks.

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