Brent's Brain

Another wonderful industry review of The Elephant of Surprise, the latest book in the Russel Middlebrook Series, from Children’s Literature (an influential kid lit magazine). Russel is a junior in high school, facing the realization that his relationship with boyfriend Otto has downshifted from “great, odds-overcoming love” to the dreaded, chat-room based “friend zone.” With [...]

A reader just asked me if minded telling how many publishers rejected Geography Club before it was finally published. I don’t mind answering at all, but it’s a bit complicated, so when I give presentations, I usually just say, “38 publishers!” Here’s the full story, which I’ve never before told in public, precisely because it [...]

So it’s worth asking: why are so many gay teen stories about a geek-ish guy (usually the main character) in love with a popular jock (who happens to be very closeted)? From Beautiful Thing to Get Real to Dreamboy to The Perks of Being a Wallflower to many other books, movies, and TV shows, this has [...]

THE ELEPHANT OF SURPRISE reviewed in Publishers Weekly Select, 4/22/13: Brent Hartinger, Buddha Kitty Books, $12.99 paper (226p) ISBN: 978-0-9846794-5-4 Funny, openly gay high school junior Russel Middlebrook — the star of Hartinger’s Geography Club and two sequels — finds the adventure he is looking for when he falls for an anti-consumerist freegan who pops [...]

They’ve turned my 2003 gay teen novel Geography Club into a movie. It’ll be released later this year, and people have already started asking me how it all happened and what I’ve learned from the whole experience. What did I learn? The story starts when I graduated from college and decided to try to make a career writing novels [...]

For me, writing is all agony, start to finish. I love having written, but I absolutely hate writing. It destroys me, just completely slays me. But my process goes something like this. And, interestingly, while it’s never “easy,” it goes from most to least difficult the closer I am to finishing. First, whether it’s a [...]

So I was just rereading an interview I did back in 2007, and I learned something about myself that I had totally forgotten! Russel (the fictional character from my Russel Middlebrook Series) was every close to being seriously injured in a fire. Here’s the story: Interviewer: Is the obvious correlation with your books that you [...]

I was especially pleased to read the review of my latest book The Elephant of Surprise over at AfterElton.com, because it’s been the first piece to touch on the issue of race and diversity in the book. One of the main characters in the book — the love interest — is African American. Here’s what [...]

From Kirkus Reviews: In Hartinger’s (The Order of the Poison Oak, 2005, etc.) newest YA installment in the Russel Middlebrook series, Russel finds his wishes for adventure unexpected granted in the form of a counterculture-loving, dumpster-diving new guy. While instant messaging his boyfriend—Otto, who’s 800 miles away but a great friend—Russel suddenly realizes they’ve become [...]

I hope you’ll download or pick up a copy of my latest book (and book #4 in the Russel Middlebrook Series), The Elephant of Surprise. I’m very pleased with it, and I hope you will be too. (This and The Order of the Poison Oak are my two personal favorites in the series.) Incidentally, if [...]