Category Archives: blog posting

I never actually planned to become a representative of Naturism and Nudism on the internet. It just sort of happened. I am now a writer of naturist fiction. Not all of my books feature nudism. But apparently enough of them do to qualify me to get positive attention from nudists on Twitter and nudist readers looking for good books that also include them.

The books I have written and published that include nudist characters and nudist plot points are;

Superchicken

Recipes for Gingerbread Children

The Baby Werewolf

The Boy… Forever

A Field Guide to Fauns

There are also some stories and mentions of my own history of being a sexual assault victim that encountered naturism and nudism by accident and gradually found psychic healing by reading about nudism, talking about naturism with actual nudists, and late in life trying social nudism for myself in my two books of autobiographical essays, Laughing Blue and Mickey’s Rememberries.

That is really the sum total of nudism in my 20 published books. A Field Guide to Fauns is the only book that is completely about nudism. Most of my other books are comic adventures featuring middle school kids from a small town in Iowa.

And being a writer of naturist fiction, books with naked people in them, is something of a mixed blessing. Being a Young Adult novelist, a genre often confused with “children’s books.” you get scrutinized by all sorts of prudes, activists, and judgmental people that assume kids younger than 18 should never read about or think about people not wearing clothes. I have gotten a couple of blistering reviews that suggest that what I write about, especially involving characters with improper motives toward naked people and nudists, makes me suspect as a potential child molester or corrupter of youth. Evil characters with evil intentions and imperfect characters that make questionable choices obviously means there is something wrong with the author. He can’t be simply writing fiction, right?

And that is the very reason I waited to publish some of these stories until after I had left teaching. I always try to write truth from the heart. But that leaves you naked even when you are not being a nudist or writing about naked people. As a child-victim of a sexual assault I have gone through periods of my life where I blamed myself for what happened to me, feared that I was doomed to become a child predator because so many of them, when caught, are revealed to have been victims themselves, and I even considered suicide to be a possible solution at one point. But I dealt with it by becoming a teacher, actively trying to protect adolescents from potential abusers, counseling them and teaching them. Never touching anyone inappropriately. Often not even allowing myself inappropriate thoughts. In fiction you can actually tell your own truth and facilitate healing even when you are basically telling the world lies to make that be truth.

I also know from some of the more enlightened reviewers that many readers do understand what I am trying to tell them in my stories. I am surprised sometimes at how deeply some of them are touched by the sensitive parts of my work and amused by the parts that are intended to be funny.

I have gotten many looks from WordPress viewers and Google users because I draw naked people and use the word “nudes” as a category and tag. They come looking for erotica or porn, and not finding any, move on.

But, in August, I started getting numerous hits on a nudism article called, “Nudist Notions.” (https://catchafallingstarbook.net/2017/11/08/nudist-notions/) which skyrocketed views as high as 388 in a single day. It became my most-viewed post ever and made August 2021 my top month ever on WordPress. That post even has first place so far today, a month later, with 20 views when last I checked. Of course, all of these thousands of views had no corresponding likes. I wondered about that. Then someone suggested that it might’ve been posted and viewed on Reddit. Or possibly Instagram. I am aware of two former students who read my blogs when posted on Facebook. They are a couple (either married or soon-to-be married, I don’t remember which,) who both got a kick out of me becoming a nudist after I retired and stopped being their teacher. They were both at my retirement party in the classroom, and both have Instagram accounts.

And, who knows? Now that my students apparently know my naked truth, the twin girls who used to tell me about going to nude beaches in Mexico and Texas may actually recognize themselves in the Cobble Sisters, the nudist characters in Recipes for Gingerbread Children, and sue me for writing about them, even though there is very little about the fictional characters that resembles them in any way that is actionable.

In a final note, I finished my novella, Horatio T. Dogg : Super Sleuth last night. It is headed for publication soon. And it doesn’t have a single naked person in it who is not a dog, rat, or chicken.