My Boyfriend’s Back, the latest collection released by www.gay-ebooks.com.au, promises to deliver more high quality Aussie Gay literature to readers online. Ten new short stories from new and established writers examine racism, homophobia, desire and ageism, using a range of writing styles and approaches.

Former BlackWattle Press gurus Gary Dunne and Laurin McKinnon, the creators of the website, have high hopes for this new collection. “Overall this second anthology is darker than our last, The 2006 Boys’ Summer Collection,’ Dunne explains. “It features a number of stories set against a backdrop of violence and revenge. It’s a fascinating snapshot of where we’re at in 2007.”

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“Gay-ebooks is fairly non-academic in its approach to ‘gay writing.’ We define it in the loosest possible terms, post post modern, if you like,” laughs Dunne. “I’d say it is simply writing that in some way comes from or addresses homosexual experience.”

In the collection, Phil Scot, author of novels One Dead Diva and Gay Resort Murder Shock, offers us a funny and poignant account of how a seemingly trivial encounter can effect a life-changing experience in ‘My Date With Danny’. Brendan Lindsay’s ‘The Feeling is Good’ maps the doubts and insecurities of a gay teen in a hostile and homophobic environment (high school). Lindsay captures the subtle nuances at play when we try to make the best of things, even in the most impossible situations. Anyone who was ever teased in school for being queer will relate. Ian McNeill’s contribution ‘The Correspondent’ takes us to a film set, witnessing the rapid deterioration of the male lead, in his final battle with Aids during filming. McNeill manages to convey the bitchy chaos of the set with wit and candour, while still capturing a vivid realism for the reader.

“The anthology overall demonstrates the ability of fiction to convey emotional complexities and confusion, as well as some of the harsher realities of life,” says McKinnon. “Above all we hope the readers enjoy this collection. The large number of downloads for Boys’ Summer made this collection our logical next project.”

“It’s not about making money,” Dunne explains. “Gay-ebooks is about Australian Gay Lit, telling our own stories and getting them out to readers using the Internet as a gateway. This would have been an impossible venture a few years ago. The Internet has not only given us flexibility, but also a potentially huge audience. The download figures suggest people want to read new, previously unpublished material with an Aussie focus and that’s what we’re out to deliver.”

“It’s fascinating to analyse the stats on who is reading our work and where. If you have an image of a guy reading a story about casual sex with surfies as he sits in a yurt in the wastelands of outer Mongolia, you wouldn’t be far wrong God knows what he made of it,” laughs Dunne.

Another project of the site sees gay-ebooks joining up with Pinkboard to launch a new graffiti wall, Mardi Gras Memories. This affords members of the community a unique opportunity to share personal tales and photos of their favourite Mardi Gras memories of the past three decades. Pinkboard can be accessed at www.pinkboard.com.au/graffiti/mgm.

“To commemorate the big 30th anniversary of the event next year, we will be collating the best of these stories in another downloadable free pdf,” says McKinnon. “It will be a great way of showing who we are and where we have been in a universal, but also uniquely personal way.”

All collections are available free from the website at www.gay-ebooks.com.au.