In this memoir of queer poems, the author feels blessed with generous love for himself and his brothers.

I started writing free verse poetry during my last year at Highland High School. Our creative writing teacher was Mr. Ness. I adored him. We all did. He was like a father to us. He told us that those of us, like me, who could write poetry on their own were blessed. God whispered poems in their years. I was hooked. Mr. Ness introduced me to the worlds of Whitman, E. E. Cummings, William Carlos Williams and Carl Sandburg. That semester was heaven. I was excused from class along with three classmates to produce the annual high school literary magazine. The tranquil class of poetry was shattered by the brutal news that our fellow student Todd had taken his life in his garage. I could tell Mr Ness was crushed. I felt terrible When I write poetry it helps if I’m alone and it’s quiet. I always read poetry aloud. That is essential. Otherwise, you lose the soul of your poem. Really good poems always make us cry; they touch our heart. The poems in this small book proudly embrace queerness. They look at the world of poetry through a queer lens. It is often deeply erotic, even exciting, but it is always beautiful, always founded on love between two men.

Miles Cigolle grew up in a classic adobe house near Albuquerque’s historic Old Town with his parents and three siblings. His mother Terry was a ceramicist and a fine arts painter. His father Edward was a local grocer catering equally to the local Native Americans, Hispanics and Anglos with his two brothers. Miles studied architecture at Cornell University and went on to practice architecture for twenty-five years with distinguished New York City firms including Skidmore, Owings and Merrill and Richard Meier & Partners. He met his future husband Abbey on Memorial Day in 1982 in a leather bar in New York’s Meat Packing District. Abbey was a Stonewall baby. The couple returned to quiet Ithaca, New York in 2000. Miles worked on local higher education projects while Abbey joined the Finger Lakes Land Trust. They retired to New Mexico in 2016. Miles’s first memoir, Miles’s World, was published by Secord Books in 2021. Three subsequent memoirs, Reckoning, Upon Arrival, and Places and Faces were published by Sunstone Press.

Softcover:
6 x 9
ISBN: 978-1-63293-684-4
72 pp.,$18.95

eBook:
ISBN: 978-1-61139-755-0
72 pp.,$4.99

In this queer novel on a ten-day deluxe gay cruise on the Jolly Roger, Miles discovers life and death, love and betrayal and finally truth and redemption.

The ultimate Escape. It’s unlike any experience you’ll ever have. Ten days onboard the pristine Art Deco ocean liner, the Jolly Roger, in the middle of the picture-postcard Adriatic Sea. That and two hundred of the hottest gay men on the planet; gym bods on the prowl. Captain Brook is in charge, although his trans wife Mrs. J really calls the shots. Miles will be your knowledgeable on-land guide His sweetheart Abbey is onboard along with several very tall drag queens, the love birds Toby and Troy, a half dozen butch exhibitionists, one wayward Catholic priest and Miles’s cousin the sweet nun Sister Sofia. Of course also more than a few S&M wannabees, plus two sex club go-go boys Ebony and Mohawk. I forgot to mention moody Dylan, but he doesn’t really count. Don’t believe everything you read. The best thing about an escape is leaving your past behind. It’s a chance to cleanse the soul and be reborn. Welcome aboard all you Lost Boys.

Miles Cigolle grew up in a classic adobe house near Albuquerque’s historic Old Town with his parents and three siblings. His mother Terry was a ceramicist and a fine arts painter. His father Edward was a local grocer catering equally to the local Native Americans, Hispanics and Anglos with his two brothers. Miles studied architecture at Cornell University and went on to practice architecture for twenty-five years with distinguished New York City firms including Skidmore, Owings and Merrill and Richard Meier & Partners. He met his future husband Abbey on Memorial Day in 1982 in a leather bar in New York’s Meatpacking District. Abbey was a Stonewall baby. The couple returned to quiet Ithaca, New York in 2000. Miles worked on local higher education projects while Abbey joined the Finger Lakes Land Trust. They retired to New Mexico in 2016. Miles’s first memoir, Miles’s World, was published by Secord Books in 2021. Three subsequent memoirs, Reckoning, Upon Arrival, and Places and Faces were published by Sunstone Press along with a collection of queer poetry titled Distant Echoes.

Secure Movie & TV Rights

Softcover:
6 x 9
ISBN: 978-1-63293-743-8
64 pp.,$18.95

eBook:
ISBN: 978-1-61139-763-5
64 pp.,$4.99

It was the 1970s, the decade before AIDS hit, when gay men in New York City lost their inhibitions and discovered community on the dance floor and queer sex in the backrooms. Gay liberation was celebrated everywhere, especially after dark from the West Village streetcorners to the underground sex clubs, from the 24/7 bathhouses to the kinky leather bars near the Hudson River. These newly liberated men found queer sex outdoors in the moonlight, in the Ramble in Central Park or the Meat Rack on Fire Island, in the empty delivery trucks in the Meatpacking District or the subterranean vaults underneath the Brooklyn Bridge. Each night the homosexual sissies donned their black leather and faded denim as they transformed themselves into nighthawks in pursuit of their next queer hookup. While the heteros slept peacefully in their safe comfortable beds in the suburbs, we homos discovered the thrills of queer lust and love in Manhattan’s disco palaces, abandoned piers and subway tearooms. Join Miles on his nightly adventures exploring the City’s shadows as he discovers a welcoming community and the promise of forbidden love.

Miles Cigolle grew up in a classic adobe house near Albuquerque’s historic Old Town with his parents and three siblings. His mother Terry was a ceramicist and a fine arts painter. His father Edward was a local grocer catering equally to the local Native Americans, Hispanics and Anglos with his two brothers. Miles studied architecture at Cornell University and went on to practice architecture for twenty-five years in New York City. He met his future husband Abbey on Memorial Day in 1982 in a leather bar in New York’s Meatpacking District. Abbey was a Stonewall baby. The couple returned to quiet Ithaca, New York in 2000. Miles worked on local higher education projects while Abbey joined the Finger Lakes Land Trust. They retired to New Mexico in 2016. Miles’s first memoir, Miles’s World, was published by Secord Books in 2021. Three subsequent memoirs, Reckoning, Upon Arrival, and Places and Faces were published by Sunstone Press.

Softcover:
6 x 9
ISBN: 978-1-63293-763-6
68 pp.,$19.95

eBook:
ISBN: 978-1-61139-778-9
68 pp.,$3.99

The gay party scene on Fire Island Pines continued, even during the AIDS crisis.

It has to be the most exclusive gay resort on the planet—Fire Island Pines. Abbey and I were just a couple of your regular New York City gay guys looking for an escape from Manhattan’s oppressive summer heat. But once we sampled the Pines and her butch men, we were hooked. We needed a full share in a comfortable beach house with a pool. Cute considerate housemates would be nice. That first season we did well. After late dinners, we’d all go disco dancing together, shirtless with our brothers in the Pines Pavilion, followed by some midnight action in the Meat Rack. In the full moonlight it was most beautiful. The houses we rented covered the whole spectrum, from a Japanese villa to an overgrown beach bungalow famous for its S&M leather parties. Eventually, Abbey and I bought our dream two-bedroom duplex unit in the Pines Co-ops. Halloween always marked the end of the season. They drained the pipes and we headed back to stingy Manhattan, reminiscing over summer’s gorgeous lovers that got away. Winter was reserved for a final reckoning, and AIDS would soon have its say.

Miles Cigolle grew up in a classic adobe house near Albuquerque’s historic Old Town with his parents and three siblings. His mother Terry was a ceramicist and a fine arts painter. His father Edward was a local grocer catering equally to the local Native Americans, Hispanics and Anglos with his two brothers. Miles studied architecture at Cornell University and went on to practice architecture for twenty-five years with distinguished New York City firms including Skidmore, Owings and Merrill and Richard Meier & Partners. He met his future husband Abbey on Memorial Day in 1982 in a leather bar in New York’s Meat Packing District. Abbey was a Stonewall baby. The couple returned to quiet Ithaca, New York in 2000. Miles worked on local higher education projects while Abbey joined the Finger Lakes Land Trust. They retired to New Mexico in 2016. Miles’s first memoir, Miles’s World, was published by Secord Books in 2021. Three subsequent memoirs, Reckoning, Upon Arrival, and Places and Faces were published by Sunstone Press.

Secure Movie & TV Rights

Softcover:
6 x 9
ISBN: 978-1-63293-673-8
188 pp.,$22.95

eBook:
ISBN: 978-1-61139-748-2
188 pp.,$4.99