Coyote's Condoms (The Real Story Safe Sex Project) by Ty Nolan

One of the fastest growing groups in terms of HIV infection remains young gay and bisexual men, who most likely became HIV positive in their teens. We’re involved in the Real Story Safe Sex Project (RSSSP), where we take gay characters from our already published works and create new standalone stories with the characters to encourage safe sex among gay and bisexual youth. We’ve both worked in the field of HIV Prevention and Education for many years. A friend of mine (Brent Hartinger) is a successful YA author, and his book “The Geography Club” was made into a major motion picture last year. “Coyote Condoms: Tales of the Reluctant Shaman.” This is one done for a specific purpose. What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it? Do I count a non-performing story twice? Looking on my Amazon page, I’m told I currently am credited with 79 ebooks under my pen name and three under my “real name” of Ty Nolan. But it means I don’t really keep an exact count, since that would get confusing. In those cases, I don’t want to “abandon” them, so I’ll include them in an anthology so I know they’ll eventually get read by someone. Sadly, there have been a few I really like that didn’t sell a single copy. If a book of mine doesn’t seem to be getting any notice I’ll tend to futz around with it–changing the cover or sometimes the title. To be frank, I have no idea of the exact number of books I’ve written. It was the first time I had seen something of mine translated into German. One of my fond memories was changing planes in the Frankfurt airport (I was lecturing in Europe) where I found one of the anthologies I was in at the bookstore. She was a hoot to meet in person (the last time I saw her she had rainbow dyed hair) and she chose some of my stories to publish in her anthologies. While I have a ton of boring academic stuff published (I am a former College Professor) my formal creative writing career started with Marion Zimmer Bradley. And he encouraged me to become an author. He sent back a post card explaining he didn’t know that much but he worked hard to give the appearance he did. I wrote him a letter asking how he knew so much (this was pre-Google) and that when I grew up I wanted to be also be an author. I would look forward to reading a monthly column he wrote. When I was ten years old I was in awe of the science fiction writer, Issac Asimov. It wasn’t until much later I realized this was her way of forcing me to use the Storytelling I had been taught in order to survive the kids. When I would visit her classroom on the reservation she would always go: “Here–you take ’em.” Then she would walk out. My mom was one of the very first Head Start teachers when the program began over forty years ago. I’m Native American and was trained as a traditional American Indian Storyteller.

Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.

Coyote's Condoms (The Real Story Safe Sex Project) by Ty Nolan