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Book Title: VINNY
Author: Andy Siege
Publisher: UpLit Press
Release Date: July 2, 2024
Pairing: MM, MF, MT
Tense/POV: A mix of tenses: first/third/present/past/single
Genres: Sci-Fi/Futuristic/Dystopian
Tropes: Forbidden love, friends to lovers
Themes: Coming out, bisexual awakening, trans awakening
Heat Rating: 3 flames
Length: 40 000 words/180 pages
It is a standalone book in the DIVERGENCY SERIES
and does not end on a cliffhanger.
Buy Links - Available in Kindle Unlimited
A sci-fi novella about Vincent van Gogh’s queer clone.
Blurb
1888: A young prostitute opens a gift from a painter and discovers van Gogh’s bloody ear.
2042: The inventor of gene-tweaking buys a desiccated ear which he believes holds the key to bottling human genius.
Vinny lives on an isolated island and paints. Scientists watch him, waiting to see if his artistic genius or his latent schizophrenia will manifest first. He’s been cloned to be an artist; he’s surrounded only by things that stimulate his art. Until he discovers rock and roll…
The island is full of secrets. Vinny is hiding a guitar cut out of paper. His surrogate parents are hiding their anger and shame. And in an underground lab lurks a far more dangerous secret, a warped, wrathful angel that longs for freedom.
As these secrets explode into the public eye, Vinny must discover what it means to be true to himself when he’s been born to be someone else.
Excerpt
The painting van Gogh was working on depicted a group of prisoners walking in a circle around an oppressive prison yard. In the center of the painting was a convict that resembled van Gogh himself, and Peyron figured that the artist was expressing his own feelings of claustrophobia inside the asylum. The work was dominated by depressing tones of blue and green with splashes of red on some of the bricks that enclosed the prisoners.
Peyron cleared his throat. “Monsieur van Gogh.”
The artist jumped a little at the noise, but then kept painting. “You almost made me misplace a line, Doc.”
“I apologize. Were you not able to sleep?”
Van Gogh shook his head. “Not before finishing.”
“Does painting help you?”
Van Gogh turned around slowly and smiled. “It does.”
“How does it help?”
The artist scratched his red beard with a paint-speckled hand. “When I don’t paint, I worry about delusional things. But when I paint, I worry about the next drop of color. In this way my mind is occupied with logic when I paint.”
Peyron nodded. “Thank you for putting it so well.”
“Why are you awake, Doc?”
“I dreamed something that upset me.”
Van Gogh took a sip of water from a metal cup, spilling some of it onto his chest. He was wearing an open shirt and the droplets ran down across his belly, dampening the top of his pants. The painter had put on a little weight since coming to the asylum. A sign of increased health. Peyron also noticed himself getting aroused. Not a good sign under these circumstances.
“I, um… I should go back upstairs,” the doc stammered.
“No. Stay.” Van Gogh scratched himself just above his left nipple. “I’m a bit lonely.”
The doc’s eyes lit up. He had been waiting for a sign from the painter and here was a sign. Peyron swallowed hard and then took a step forward. Van Gogh mirrored him and also stepped closer. The doc lifted his right hand and placed it on the painter’s chest. Van Gogh took the hand in his and their fingers entwined. Then the painter pulled Peyron towards him and the men kissed. Peyron could feel van Gogh’s stubble against his own clean-shaven face.
Suddenly the painter pulled away. “No. I… I can’t do this.”
“But… why?”
“I’m not a pervert.”
“Neither am I.”
“Other people, all of them, they don’t understand.”
Peyron remembered the crowd at the dock in Marseille. “I know.” He turned and walked away.
Author Interview
Introduce yourself and your writing
Hi my name is Andy Siege. I’m a queer scifi
author who battles with schizophrenia in his everyday life. I was born in Kenya
and have lived in Ethiopia, Canada, and Germany. I used to be an award winning
filmmaker, with lots of success at major film festivals, but after falling ill,
I focused on my career as a novelist. My books are as diverse as my background.
I write unusual stories about racially diverse,
neurodivergent characters of marginalised orientations and gender alignments.
My work can mostly be described as Queer SciFi.
How long have you been an author?
I published my first short story in the German
children’s magazine “Der Bunte Hund”, when I was 13 years old. The story was
called “The Transformation” and was about a werewolf!
What/who inspired you to start writing?
When asked as a small child what I want to be
when I grow up, I always said, Film Director, Cowboy, and Author. So this has
been on my agenda ever since I could talk. By now I’ve already been a Director,
and am currently an Author. The only thing missing is Cowboy, but I have plans
to make that a reality someday too!
Tell us about your new release. What inspired you to write it?
I wrote Vinny during a very difficult time in my
life. I was having a relapse into my psychosis. Every loud noise I heard scared
me, and I wasn’t able to be around lots of people. Writing Vinny during that
time was extremely therapeutic. I stayed at home and focused my mind on telling
this story as best I can. Because the original Vincent Van Gogh was also
mentally ill, I was even able to write about my own problems through Van Gogh
as an avatar.
How did
you decide on the title?
Vinny is probably what I would call Vincent Van Gogh
if I ever met him. Saying his whole name out loud every time you talk to him,
would get tiring after a while.
What
are you working on at present?
I
am currently working on a queer scifi trilogy called “The Biopunk Trilogy”. I’m
about halfway through writing the second book and it is going really well. I
don’t want to spoiler, but the stories are about gender and Mars.
What
is the hardest part of writing any book?
Believing
in yourself. I learned that even though sometimes it feels like what I’m
writing isn’t good, people end up loving it. And sometimes I think that
something I’m writing is great, but it then turns out that people don’t connect
with it. The most important thing is to just keep writing. Believe in yourself,
and keep going.
Did you learn anything from writing your recent book? What was it?
From writing Vinny, I learned that I can use my
illness (schizophrenia) in a positive and productive way. Schizophrenics have
great imaginations, and I am one of the lucky ones who knows how to package
that imagination in a literary way.
Do you have any advice for other writers?
My main advice for anyone who wants to write a
book, is to just write. Forget everything and just write. Writing is practice
and routine, plus you can’t edit a blank page. So just write.
Are there any genres you prefer to write, and if so, why?
I love queer scifi, because I find queer
relationships way more romantic than hetero relationships. I feel like there
are so many obstacles, even nowadays when it comes to queer love, that every
story benefits from this aspect. Besides being queer myself of course. I enjoy
writing scifi because anything is possible in that specific genre.
Is there a book you wish you had written?
A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara
Why an LGBTQ story?
Because I am queer myself, and because I find
queer stories to be the most romantic.
Do you write any other genres?
I have also written non queer, non scifi stories.
I wrote one novel about Rastafarians in Ethiopia called “Rastaman”. That’s
because I spent a lot of time with the Rastas down there and I wanted to
utilize my experiences and research. I am also planning to write a book about
my experiences with film festivals.
Do you have genres you prefer reading, and if so what are they?
I quite enjoy reading literary novellas. I like
compact, short books that really hit hard.
What book/s are you reading at the moment?
A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara
Which other writers do you follow?
I follow Blake Crouch and Nnedi Okorafor
Are any of your characters based on you or people you know?
In a way, every single one of my characters is me
or someone I know. I don’t believe that we, as writers are able to write about
things that we have witnessed in some way before.
Do
you have a favourite character and/or book you've written? Who, what and why?
I
love the character of Vinny. I guess that’s because of how much I identify with
his struggles, his strengths, his weaknesses.
Do
characters and stories just pop into your head, or do you take your time
thinking about and planning them?
George
RR Martin once said that there are two types of authors. The first is an
architect, who plans, and the second is a gardener, who prunes. I think I’m
somewhere right in between the two. I do plan, but sometimes my books take me
in different directions, so my plans change.
How often do you write? Do you have a schedule?
I write an average of 500 words a day, every day.
What
are your writing and personal goals for 2025 and beyond?
I
hope to write a bestseller someday, but to be honest that isn’t my main
motivation. I just love writing and as long as I feel that I’m making progress,
I’m happy. The beauty about this job is that I take one step at a time and in
the end I have something massive and meaningful to show other people. That’s
enough for me.
Are there big events in your life that affect your writing?
My writing is influenced by my international,
queer, and neurodivergent background.
If
you had access to a time machine just once, is there anything you'd go back and
change? Either on a personal level or an historical event?
I
guess I would go back and convince Vincent Van Gogh not to kill himself…
About the Author
Andy Siege born as Andreas Madjid Siege in Kenya in 1985 is an award-winning film director and writer. His debut feature film “Beti and Amare” which he wrote and directed was nominated for multiple high-profile international film awards. He has a BA in Creative Writing and an MA in Political Science. Andy Siege is also neurologically divergent and a member of the LGBTQ community.
Author Link
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