Writing About Naked Stuff

The first story that started all the naked stuff was the Superchicken novel which in many ways mirrored my own first experiences of nudism. Where Edward-Andrew accidentally ends up camping with the nudist Cobble Sisters and their family, and learns to like it, I accidentally ended up repeatedly visiting the clothing-optional apartment complex on Manor Road in Austin. All of it is about getting used to girls and the whole girlfriend business.

I was initially horrified by what I was caught up in. But it went on to be a thing where I got to know Ysandra and also Crazy Andrea in a way that was not sexual, and really not intimate, but definitely the kind of friendship that loosened the iron chains of traumatic childhood experiences… and helped me heal.

The nudist Cobble Sisters, as you have probably realized by now, are based on the nudist twins from my early years of teaching. I will not give you real names. If you feel the need to call them names in the comments, you can use Rani and Dani. Not even close to their real names.

But I understood twins well. I have twin girl cousins that are the same age as the younger of my two sisters. I have taught at least six pairs of identical twins and at least two pairs of brother-sister twins. one pair of maternal twins that were boys, and one pair of maternal twins that were girls (those are the twins that don’t look exactly alike.) I taught one pair of Vietnamese twins, one pair of African-American twins, and two pairs of Hispanic Twins. I have gotten Facebook wedding pictures and new baby pictures from the last pair of Hispanic Twins in the past seven years.

But the point is that the twins and their nudism have not only taken over my fiction, they have taken a bit of control over my life. Rani and Dani would have a gigglefit if they read this.

The Cobble twins play a key role in my “I-am-not-a-monster” novel, The Baby Werewolf. They play an even more important role in the companion book, Recipes for Gingerbread Children. Sherry Cobble is one of the multiple narrators in the book, The Boy… Forever. So, I have naked people in half of my books. Some of my friends and relatives wonder if that doesn’t spoil the stories. But I would beg to differ. I find it to be a key feature. And the nudists on Twitter and the Clothes-Free Life website, seem to agree. A Field Guide to Fauns is a book a wrote completely set in a residential nudist community. I wrote it for nudists. And I joined the AANR nudist organization to become a nudist myself.

So, this is all the overlong and overcomplicated explanation for why I am writing a book of naturist essays with lots of stuff with naked people in it. I will do my best to make Governor Abbott and Governor DeSantis hate and ban my books. When they jail me, it will be a badge of honor.