Chapter Member
Spotlight Profile
Caro Soles, Author and Steering Committee member
Caro Soles is a busy lady. Not only is she on the steering committee
of the Internet Chapter, which comes with lots of work, but she is also on
the Toronto chapter's steering committee. She's a web maven, creating
web sites of her own as well as for others; a writer (you might be surprised at
what she's had published); and she's a creative writing teacher at a local
college.
Caro, published in another genre, has several mystery works in progress
as well as one manuscript and a proposal with an agent. The excerpt below is
from Caro's Death at the Ballets Russes, one of her works currently
with an agent. The story centers upon a visit by the Russian ballet dancer
Nijinsky to New York for a performance. The scene is
between Nijinsky, his new American friend Morgan and Morgan's sister
Gloria, who has finagled this meeting with Nijinsky. (Interview conducted
June 1, 1998 by Louise Guardino for the Internet Chapter.)
I have enjoyed the enormous freedom of being Kyle Stone and have carved out
quite a reputation as a leading writer of gay male erotica. But I think
it's time to move on. You must
have done much research on the Death at the Ballets Russes novel.
Did you do it before beginning the story or was it an ongoing process? When my third one was turned down because they already had too many land
developer plots lately, I lost it. I decided to write a rip snorter just for
me. I wrote The Initiation of P.B.500, my first Kyle Stone book.
It's structured like a Harlequin with lots of the same sort of thing in
it -- idealized physical stuff etc, but that's where the similarity ends.
I placed it on another planet so I could do anything. And I did! It still
sells very well and is popular with the gay S&M crowd. You also teach Creative Writing. Do you fold
your real life experiences, such as this, into your lectures? Touching Midnight isn't finished.
It's the kind of book that will take a long time to write. I'm taking a bit
of a rest from it, to concentrate on my new one, which I think is more
commercial. I'm always having the problem of not fitting labels. It's so
annoying that this should matter! My agent and I discuss what we think the book is, or what we think we could
get away with calling it. :) That's how the Abulon Dance book moved
from science fiction to gay fantasy. Quite amusing, really. My first novel was accepted in '88. What a wonderful feeling that was! The
novel was A Mutual Understanding, from a small gay press that has
since vanished without a trace, like the book. I joined the Toronto Chapter two years
ago. At the moment, I'm chairing a committee to organize a mystery writing
conference (Bloody Words) next year. I'm on the steering committee of the TO
chapter as their Web Maven, so the SC is the germ of the Bloody
Words committee. So far I've designed web sites for the
TO chapter of SinC, my own extremely popular Kyle Stone's Back Room, a virtual
classroom for a fellow teacher and one for the college where I teach. But the
technical part is always a challenge. I'm not naturally a detail person! Thank you for spending time with us. To visit Caro's home page, click here
July 1998
"You are delightful young
woman," Nijinsky said at last, bowing slightly.
"Oh sir, you make me blush! You must have met many beautiful women,
princesses, and that sort of thing."
"I expect being a princess does not make one automatically beautiful,"
Morgan observed.
Nijinsky nodded. "Is true. Many are ugly and very boring." He pulled
out his gold watch and snapped it open. A faint melody played.
"What a beautiful watch!" Gloria exclaimed, leaning closer.
"Is gift from Czar Nicholas. I dance for him at summer palace. See?
Here is Imperial eagle."
"Oh my," breathed Gloria. "You must have some wonderful things."
"Things are not all." He spread his hands on the table.
"Still..." Gloria was looking at the watch following it with her eyes
as Nijinsky slipped it back in his weskit pocket. "I certainly wouldn't mind
being given a present by a king."
"I not say I mind," Nijinsky said, and smiled.
She smiled back, delighted to have finally coaxed a response from this
strangely fascinating man.
IC
Would you like to tell us more about Death at the Ballets
Russes?
Caro
The story takes place in New York in 1916, when Nijinsky
arrives to dance at the Met with the Ballets Russes. He was the first
international super star, and an exotic blend of glamor and outrageous
behaviour, not to mention having caused a near riot in Paris! The mystery
part comes when a young dancer dies in his arms on stage.
IC
Did you already have an interest in ballet before writing
Death at the Ballets Russes?
Caro
I've written about dance a lot. Another book of mine (as yet
unpublished) concerns pleasure-loving hermaphrodite dancers from another
planet. So when I was thinking about a mystery to write, I wanted to get dance
in there somewhere.
IC
Are you a dancer?
Caro
Hah! Sorry, that noise you hear is me spluttering with
amusement. In other words, no. I envy people who can dance
IC
One of those childhood fascinations, perhaps? You mention your
other manuscript deals with other-world creatures. Do you also write
science fiction? Or is it fantasy? Or a mix?
Caro
I thought the book was science fiction but it's not.
It's really a fantasy, set in another place.
No magic or elves or such. My agent has decided it's a gay fantasy. I'd agree.
IC
Is it by your pseudonym, Kyle Stone, or yet another pseudonym?
Caro
The Abulon Dance is by Caro Soles. It's a quite
respectable book. :) But you might not want to give it to Great Aunt Augusta.
IC
Dare I ask you to clarify the "respectable" comment?
Caro
The books I've written as Kyle Stone are often stopped at the
Canadian border and one was briefly banned. An anthology I edited, called
Bizarre Dreams, was also stopped. I got great press, since the lead
story was by Canada's own Timothy Findley.
IC
My my. I didn't know things like being stopped at the border
happened. Guess the U.S. wants to keep that market all to itself!
Caro
I did a fair amount of research, reading the New York Times
in microfiche, reading Nijinsky's diary, and many biographies and
accounts of the time they spent in the U.S. and Paris. I also found a
collection of original programs of the Paris season at the Toronto reference
Library. Beautiful things! Absolutely gorgeous! I expect to do a lot more
research when the proposal sells. Note the optimism. :)
IC
More research for? A follow-on book? Are you thinking a
Nijinsky series here?
Caro
A series featuring Nijinsky is what I'm hoping for, yes.
Of course it can't go on that long, since he went mad a few years later.
IC
What sparked the initial interest? Chance?
Caro
I wanted to write another mystery, since my first one didn't
seem to fit anywhere, and I wanted to write something else with a dance
background. I can't quite remember how it all came together, but I'm glad it
did!
I have three books outlined and am all keen to get started. Meanwhile, I've
started another mystery, called Drag Queen in the Court of Death.
The research for this one will be loads of fun!
IC
What steered you to writing your first gay male erotica book?
Caro
Well, I tried to write Harlequin Romance. Like a lot of silly
people who don't know any better, I thought it would be easy. A friend read
a lot of them and she egged me on. It's a love story, said she. A piece of
cake. Hah. I tried. I wrote a story about a girl whose roommate is a gay
ballet dancer and a friend of our hero, also with the company.
I got a stiff letter from the editor, telling me this would not do for their
traditional audience. I really must read some of their books before writing
one. She sent over six by courier. I read one and tried again. And one more
time. By this time I was getting really frustrated with the odd way the
romance dynamic works between hero and heroine. I couldn't understand
it and besides, they did not seem to get around to sex.
IC
I'm gulping at the thought of reading six Harlequin Romances,
never mind trying to write one. But it sounds like the experience paid off
by getting you so frustrated you thumbed your nose, so to speak, at them and
did something outrageous.
Caro
Oh yes. I always get more out of lectures from people who tell
me how they did something, what they went through. It's much more interesting.
And teaching creative writing is so much more fun than teaching French and
Spanish, which I used to do. For one thing, everyone gets your jokes!
IC
The first mystery you wrote, mentioned earlier, is it one of the
ones you have on your web site, Against the Grain or
Touching Midnight?
Caro
Against the Grain is the finished one that's
circulating at the moment. My agent fell in love with it, but editors don't
seem to. It doesn't fit anywhere.
IC
Labels: want to talk more about this? Do you try to categorize
your work when you submit it or do you let the agent/editor make that
determination?
Caro
I never used to think about labels. I had the ridiculous idea
that the writer had to write a good story. Period. It's taken a long time to
get over that odd notion. :)
In today's market, I think you do have to
think about labels, even more than before. That's one reason I'm leaving
Touching Midnight for awhile. It doesn't fit any mystery sub genre.
That's why I'm working on the new book, because it does fit. I think.
IC
Both Touching Midnight and Against the Grain
seemed to have a harder edge or darker tone than Death at the Ballets
Russes. Is that the case?
Caro
Yes, I think it is, but Death at the Ballets Russes
has its dark moments, too. Showing life in the upper echelons of New York
society gives a veneer to the story that things are all right, when in
reality, problems are always there, under the surface. I think this accounts
for some of the apparent lightness.
IC
What's the one thing you hope your creative writing students
will retain from your lectures?
Caro
That you have to write the book that is really you. I suppose
that's a dangerous thing for someone like me to say, considering some of the
things I've written, but I believe it. That's why I couldn't write a
Harlequin.
IC
How long have you been writing fiction, Caro, and was the
Harlequin the first book you tried to write?
Caro
My first novel was a Star Trek epic. Yes indeed.
But I made the cardinal error of making the main character my
character. He was the first dancing hermaphrodite, BTW. The ST people
didn't seem to go for this idea. But they wrote me a lovely letter, which I
have framed on my wall. That was fifteen years ago.
IC
Got a thing for dancing hermaphodites, don't you? (^.^). So you
migrated from science fiction to gay romance to mystery. Is the last what
brought you to Sisters in Crime?
Caro
Yes, that and the fact I read a lot of mysteries. There's
always some sort of mystery in my writing, though until lately, no murders.
I'm getting more ferocious with age.
IC
And speaking of steering committee: you're following a trend, it
seems. Tell us about your SinC-IC steering committee experiences.
Caro
I've enjoyed my IC experience, though at times I get a bit
bogged down, when computer woes happen, for instance. But I find being on the
committee makes me more aware of the need to participate. For example, when
the workshop was starting, I posted the first excerpt, to get things going,
and for a while, critiqued away happily, so others could get feedback. Things
are rolling along nicely, now. It's a great way of finding out what's really
happening and how the organization works.
IC
In your writing, you have switched from a male point of view to
female and probably back again, over time. Has there been any difficulty in
doing that?
Caro
People are always curious about that, especially since the Kyle
Stone stuff particularly is often raw and very strong. I find the male point
of view actually easier to write in. I think it may be for the same reason
that I write so much about the gay experience -- it gives me distance, and a
way to approach the outsider pov more graphically. The pov I have most
trouble with is mothers. I hate writing about mothers! They are a pain.
IC
Are you a mother?
Caro
Yes, and that's the problem. :)
IC
If you were transported to the seediest part of town at 3 A.M.
would you: (1) Find the fastest way out? (2) Check out the night life? (3)
Call a friend to come join you?
Caro
Call a friend, I expect, and then check out the night life!
IC
What book have you found the most influential? And is it the same
as the one you've found most enjoyable?
Caro
I don't think I can single out any one book. When I was young,
my eyes were bad and I was not allowed to read. My mother used to read to me
a great deal, hour after hour. She loved Dickens and Scott and read most of
their work to me. She even read The Iliad. And she read the
King James Bible, too.
She loved language and the cadences of language and I drank it all in as she
read. I think this is what influenced me more than any one book ... her voice
reading beautiful English.
IC
Wow. What's your favorite movie?
Caro
Movies have always been something special for me, because I was
not allowed to see one till I was 10 years old. More silly ideas about my
eyes. The first movie I ever saw was The Secret Garden. Wow.
What an impression that made. Than I saw Fantasia. But I've never
liked Disney. I dislike him a lot, for homogenizing everything. But that's
another subject. And of course I love the Wizard of Oz. Of course,
my mother had read me all the Oz books!
IC
You've mentioned you are a web maven and I see your own web site
continues to grow and change. Is there a relationship between the creative
process of writing and that of web design?
Caro
I write a column on the Web for the TO chapter newsletter,
Scene of the Crime. At first I had trouble with the visual design
part, but that has improved, as I study it. I do find it very creative, though
there's a tendency, because of the medium, for the look to assume more
importance than the actual content.
IC
What's your favorite earthly creature other than homo sapiens?
And why?
Caro
Dogs. No question. I cannot live without a dog. Tried it
after Romulus and Remus died. I was miserable. Now that Baskerville lives
with us, I feel much better! Of course they've all been dachshunds. Naturally
:)
IC
Is the Kyle Stone Back Room accessible from your own Caro Soles'
site?
Caro
I think it's accessible from the page on articles -- Why I write
Porn. But not the links page. I don't want anyone to arrive there by accident. As it is, there's a front door, as it were, which explains what the site is all about.
IC
What didn't I ask that I should have?
Caro
You've ranged far and wide. :) And this has been a delightfully
relaxed interview. I'm used to doing interviews in smoky bars and getting
hoarse. :) (And frankly, they all want to know where I get my ideas and how I
do my Kyle Stone research!)
IC
No doubt our visitors might want to know the same thing: how do
you do the Kyle Stone research? (reading, of course! and frequenting the
"right" bars. (^.^) )
Caro
Actually, that's how I started, talking with a few friends,
hanging out with them in the right bars. But a lot of it was done on-line, on
two local gay BBSs. One of them has given me an honorary membership and free
internet access, since I mention them in the acknowledgements in all my books. And a lot is psychology. That's always fascinating to explore.
IC
Any particular thought you'd like our visitors to leave with?
Caro
I find a lot of people are cautious in what they read. Or maybe
too comfortable, is a better term. When you choose your next mystery, take
a chance. Choose something in an area you've never tried before, by
someone you've never heard of. You may be delighted by what you find.
IC
Good advice, Caro.
Questions about the web site? Write to WebSister@sinc-ic.org .