We are very pleased to announce that Nick’s Fugue – the sixth book in John Roman Baker’s Nick & Greg series is now available in paperback from Amazon. A Kindle edition is in preparation for release later this month, and the paperback will be available through other retailers in due course.

Nick and Greg are two gay teens who meet in the park one day after school. It’s the start of an intense, passionate friendship.

Growing up gay in England in the 1950s is not easy, but there’s plenty of fun to be had for Nick and Greg. Brighton is their playground and they run through its streets, uncover its secrets and discover their passionate desires for each other.

Gay life thrives in Brighton, but homosexuality is against the law and exists largely behind closed doors, invisible and unspoken. Against this backdrop, Nick expands his self-awareness through books and a widening circle of friends. Greg though is constrained by denial, family ties, and a pattern of increasingly self-destructive behaviour that threatens to unbalance his mind.

In Nick & Greg, John Roman Baker gives a frank, witty and authentic portrait of the lives of two boys growing up in a period when gay liberation was just a fairy tale and Oscar Wilde was a name to be feared more than any monster on a cinemascope screen.

The author explains, “As a child I remember Brighton being a place of adventure and I wanted to capture and explore that through the eyes of two boys. They began life as a short story for my book ‘Brighton Darkness’ but as soon as I had written it I knew it was only the beginning. What started as one short story has become not just a novel, but a series of novels charting their lives and relationships against the changing attitudes and values of the fifties and sixties and who knows, maybe beyond.”

Nick & Greg is the first book in the Nick & Greg series. It is followed by Time of Obsessions and Dangerous Seas which will be published in December 2016 and February 2017 respectively.

Nick & Greg is available to purchase online and from highstreet bookstores worldwide.
The Kindle edition is available exclusively on Amazon and is free to Amazon unlimited subscribers.

Nick & Greg by John Roman Baker

Paperback
ISBN 978-1-899713-51-6
UK £14.99
US $19.99

Harddcover
ISBN 978-1-899713-52-3
UK £24.99
US $29.99

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

John Roman Baker is an author, poet and playwright who has lived and worked mainly in Brighton Amsterdam and Paris. In Brighton he was well known as an activist for gay rights through the 1970s and 80s. He was associated with the setting up of the Sussex Aids Helpline and created a unique cultural response to the Aids crisis through his theatre company Aids Positive Underground Theatre who were regulars at the Brighton and Edinburgh festivals and won awards including the Brighton Festival Award for Best Theatre in 1990. In 1997 he moved to the Netherlands where he continued his theatre work and wrote several novels. In 2014 he returned to his roots in Brighton.
More info: Wikipedia

Dark and light in a city of dreams

Brighton Darkness is a collection of short stories relating to that amorphous place known as the city of Brighton and Hove. The book is by Brighton writer John Roman Baker and is published this month in paperback by Wilkinson House.

The stories span the decades from the 1950s to the present day and explore the many contradictions and quirks that define the city’s unique character. The cover of the book reflects these contradictions. It depicts the façade of the city’s once elegant Astoria cinema which is currently the subject of controversial demolition plans. The derelict state of the building is offset by its glowing neon sign, a cheeky photobombing seagull and a bigger-than-life copy of Banksy’s iconic Kissing Coppers.

John Roman Baker explains, “The Astoria was a place of dreams, a place of beauty, where people of all ages could go and enter multiple different realities and even find love like two young characters in my book. Its impending demolition represents the loss of all those dreams as well as a great loss for this city which time and again seems to undervalue and destroy its architectural heritage. My book though is more about people than buildings.”

The stories in Brighton Darkness are as diverse as the city. From gay first love in the Astoria cinema in the 1950s, to the reminiscences of an elderly woman in Regency Square as she looks back on her turbulent past relationships and faces her current reality.

Gay life in the city runs as a theme through many of the stories, while the author’s experiences of other cities, Amsterdam, Paris and New York add a global context to the book. Another recurrent theme is that of return. The author himself recently returned to the city after 17 years living and working in the Netherlands.

“True Brightonians, can never really leave this place. You always have to come back, and the city with all its idiosyncrasies remains as troubled and as irresistible as ever.” – John Roman Baker

Brighton Darkness is available online and from highstreet bookstores worldwide. Ebook versions will be available from August 2015.

Brighton Darkness by John Roman Baker
ISBN: 978-1-899713-41-7

UK
£12.99 (paperback)
£4.99 (ebook)

US
$14.99 (paperback)
$5.99 (ebook)

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

John Roman Baker is an author, poet and playwright who has lived and worked mainly in Brighton Amsterdam and Paris. In Brighton he was well known as an activist for gay rights through the 1970s and 80s. He was associated with the setting up of the Sussex Aids Helpline and created a unique cultural response to the Aids crisis through his theatre company Aids Positive Underground Theatre who were regulars at the Brighton and Edinburgh festivals and won awards including the Brighton Festival Award for Best Theatre in 1990. In 1997 he moved to the Netherlands where he continued his theatre work and wrote several novels. In 2014 he returned to live in his hometown Brighton.
More info: Wikipedia

The Vicious Age

Sexuality, Transgression & Redemption

John Roman Baker’s new novel explores life, age and risk in Amsterdam.

Age remains a taboo subject in gay male culture. Youth and idealised images of beauty rule supreme in gay media while, in defiance of reality, the experiences of older gay men are side-lined and largely ignored. Now however, a new novel The Vicious Age dares to explore this paradox. The book’s author, John Roman Baker, whose work, whether in the theatre or in print, has never followed the gay mainstream, casts a perceptive, at times brutal, light on this contradiction.

Synopsis
In the alien environment of a foreign city, Amsterdam, Tim is adrift to the point of giving up. The city, which in recent years has adopted an obsessive path of rebuilding and renewal, presents a stark contrast to Tim’s own physical and mental stagnation and deterioration.

In the midst of his despair, Tim finds himself pursued by two very different men. Both come from the criminal and hard-edged margins of Amsterdam that he has for so many years frequented. Radek is Polish, 19 years old, selling his innocence but holding out for love. Klaus is a German who sells death to those willing to pay for it.

Can either of these men have anything genuine to offer Tim? Drugs and an ever-deepening cycle of sexual dependency provide him with temporary relief, but as his encounters leave him increasingly exposed to danger and violence, he knows he must break free and face the future without illusions, possibly but not necessarily alone.

About the Author
John Roman Baker is a British poet, playwright and novelist who has lived and worked mainly in Brighton, Paris and Amsterdam. His work is characterized by transgressive themes presented from a homosexual point of view. In 1975, his first play ‘Limitations’ launched Gay Sweatshop theatre company. Later, in response to Section 28 and the AIDS crisis, Roman Baker founded his own theatre company ‘Aids Positive Underground’ and in 1990 won the award for best theatre at the Brighton Festival for his play ‘The Ice Pick’. He continued working as a dramatist after moving to Amsterdam in 1997, but has recently returned to writing poetry and novels, four of which have now been published by gay publisher Wilkinson House.

Book data
The Vicious Age
by John Roman Baker
ISBN: 978-1-899713-34-9

UK £11.99 (paperback) £4.99 (ebook)
US $13.99 (paperback) $5.99 (ebook)

In stock at:
Gay’s the Word, UK
Les Mots à la Bouche, FR
Borkhandel Vrolijk, NL
Prinz Eisenherz, DE
Bookshop Darlinghurst, AU
BGSQD, USA
Amazon.com

Or order direct from Wilkinson House

The newest addition to the Wilkinson House catalogue of new gay fiction is now available – THE PEBBLE CHAMPION by A.D. Pritchard.

THE PEBBLE CHAMPION is a coming of age novel that captures the social, emotional and sexual insecurities of a gay teenager with a fresh voice that avoids sensationalism and stereotypes.

Haunted by the death of his mother and the loss of a childhood friendship, 15-year-old Chris moves to the Isle of Wight to begin a new life with his estranged father. There, alone on the beach, he deals with his grief and guilt by entering an imagined world where he competes to become the Pebble Champion, skimming stones farther than anyone else across the surface of the sea. With each pebble thrown, and with each new encounter, Chris gradually learns how to let go of the burdens of the past, how to hold on to what really matters, and how to embrace his own bewildering desires.

THE PEBBLE CHAMPION is available both as a paperback and in digital formats for kindle, e-readers tablets, phones and other devices.

Title: The Pebble Champion
Author: A. D. Pritchard
Publisher: Wilkinson House
List price: £11.99 (paperback) £4.99 (digital formats)
ISBN: 978-1-899-713-264

Kindle edition available from Amazon.

Paperback available online and at local bookstores including Foyles & Gays the Word (London), Les Mots a la Bouche (Paris), Prinz Eisenherz (Berlin) and Vrolijk (Amsterdam), BSGQD (New York) and The Bookshop Darlinghurst (Sydney).

For more information visit www.wilkinsonhouse.com

Service with a smile: Ben, one of the friendly staff at the Bookshop Darlinghurst, Sydney, Australia

Earlier this month, the Bookshop Darlinghurst. Sydney’s foremost store for LGBT book lovers joined the growing network of independent booksellers stocking books from gay publisher Wilkinson House.

Wilkinson House is a relative newcomer to the gay publishing scene. Founded in 2011, it aims to add diversity to queer bookshelves and e-readers with quality titles that don’t necessarily fit the formulaic genres pumped out by larger publishers.

While many new publishers tend to focus exclusively on ebooks, Wilkinson House gives readers the choice of digital and printed versions and has successfully forged relationships with independent LGBT community bookstores around the world.

Rod Evan, the editor at Wilkinson House explains, “It’s 2013, so naturally our books are available everywhere online and can be ordered in any bookstore. But there’s nothing like browsing in your local store and finding the unexpected. No waiting, no shipping – and of course, service with a smile, and maybe a wink.”

Bookshop Darlinghurst
207 Oxford St, Sydney, NSW 2010, Australia
Ph – 02 9331 4140

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Come and meet the authors of our two new books: Niv & The Paris Syndrome
& see the stunning male photography of Carl Vanassche in his first Amsterdam exhibition.

When: 17:00 Saturday December 1st, 2012
Where: Boekhandel Vrolijk, Paleisstraat 135, Amsterdam

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“Niv” is the inspiring debut novel of young Israeli author, Itamar S.N. He’s travelling from Tel Aviv to Amsterdam for his book’s official launch at gay and lesbian bookstore, Vrolijk, where he and John Roman Baker, the Amsterdam-based author of The Paris Syndrome, will present and sign copies of their books. We hope they may even be persuaded to read extracts!

In addition, for the first time in Amsterdam, we are proud to present an exhibition of the male photography of Carl Vanassche. His work features on the cover of “Niv” and this exhibition, part of Amsterdam’s Pink Christmas program, is an opportunity to discover more of the varied and unique work of this up and coming Barcelona-based photographer.

We look forward to seeing you there.

For more information call Rod Evan on +31(0)640811434

The Paris Syndrome
by John Roman Baker

In his third book for Wilkinson House, John Roman Baker explores one of society’s strongest taboos — the obsessional desire of a father for his son — before turning it on its head to confound the moral judgements of the reader.

Francis has two sons. When one of them disappears in Paris, he returns to the city of his youth to search for him, and once more, the city becomes a place of passion, illusion, frustration and deceit. Francis is desperately in love with his son, but what secret desires are at play in the minds of his two grown-up boys? And how will he cope when he returns with his obsessions to his drab English home town? A dark exploration of illicit desire, madness and paternal responsibility.

“… there in Saint-Séverin I realised how I felt. I wanted to hold him to me, kiss his hands and then his mouth. I wanted to undo all the learning this woman had supposedly taught him and impose upon him a learning of my own. I wanted above all to be his master, both in body and in mind.”

Buy it direct from WilkinsonHouse.com

Title: The Paris Syndrome
Author: John Roman Baker
Publication date: 1st November 2012
Publisher: Wilkinson House
List price: £11.99 (paperback)
ISBN: 978-1-899713-30-1

Kindle edition available from Amazon.com / Amazon.co.uk

Also in stock at Foyles & Gays the Word (London), Les Mots a la Bouche (Paris), Prinz Eisenherz (Berlin) and Vrolijk (Amsterdam).

Itamar S.N. (left) & Alan David Pritchard (right)

We’re proud to announce the arrival of two new authors at Wilkinson House – Itamar S.N. & A.D. Pritchard. Both writers were selected as a result of our successful call for submissions in 2011. Their two novels will be published by us soon.

Itamar S.N. is a young Israeli writer whose first novel Niv spans time, religious, and sexual divisions. Parallel stories are interwoven to reveal tragic secrets and hidden truths, in Armenia and Azerbaijan at the time of the First World War and in the bustling, cosmopolitan atmosphere of contemporary Tel Aviv.

A.D. Pritchard is a British writer living in China. His book The Pebble Champion is a powerfully authentic coming of age novel that explores a teenager’s grief over the loss of his mother, his emerging self-awareness and wakening sexuality. A moving and inspirational read for young and adult readers alike.

Niv is scheduled for publication in December 2012. The Pebble Champion will follow in the spring 2013. More details will appear soon.

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