Phil Valentine

I started writing The God Players back in the '90s. It was the first book I'd ever finished. I think I completed it sometime in 1996 or '97. I was really excited about the concept and had several people read it to give me feedback. I took that feedback to heart and re-wrote portions of the book based on what I heard. We were living in Philadelphia at the time, and I sent the manuscript out to various literary agents and publishing houses. I have a stack of rejection letters t

There have been truckloads of books written about the proper way to structure your novel. Some novelists are seat-of-your-pants writers. Ideas just flow and they throw it all on the pages and sort it out like some huge jigsaw puzzle. I have two other novels I'm readying for market and that's exactly what I did with those. The ideas came and I just started writing. On one of them, I hit a wall and set it aside for six months before going back to it. With The God Players, it wa

This is probably the most-often asked question I get. Could this really happen? I probably did more research for this book than any book I've written. And that's saying something, given my first three books were non-fiction with copious endnotes and references. The search for the gay gene is not new. What's interesting is there hasn't been a lot of effort put into finding it. Sure, there have been studies, but nothing like one would think given the contentious nature of the s

I actually started this book about 20 years ago. The storyline of The God Players always fascinated me. From the time I envisioned the alliance between the gay rights group and the fundamentalist Christians I longed to make the book a reality. I'm one of those people who works feverishly on something then moves on to the next project. Probably my ADD at work. I don't quite know why I put this particular book on the back burner. It wasn't the rejection letters. Every author ge