My Lost and Found Life by Melodie Bowsher Woman of Ill Fame by Erika Mailman Sperm Are From Men, Eggs Are from Women by Joe Quirk West of Kabul, East of New York by Tamim Ansary Rebuilt: How Becoming Part Computer Made Me More Human by Michael Chorost Chicken: Portrait of a Young Man for Rent by David Henry Sterry The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things by JT LeRoy
New Short Story Published
For all you fashion conscious types, it's called "Project Runaway." Featured in the August 2008 edition of the ezine SoMa Literary Review.
News! SoMa is honored as a finalist for the national Lambda Literary Award for debut fiction.
March 14, 2008
Kemble has a new short story called Clothes Horse on SoMa Literary Review.
Based on a real personal ad found on Craigslist.
Kemble spoke at the world headquarters of Google in Silicon Valley. The appearance was televised and is now online as part of the Authors@Google reading series.
New Article!
A Real Ass Ringer
So you want to be published? Best selling author Kemble Scott explains how he had to stop writing to become published. --Slouch Magazine
Kemble Scott is now on the radio too!
Click here to listen to his conversation with Tony DuShane, host of "Drinks with Tony" on Pirate Cat Radio, broadcast in San Francisco and Los Angeles.
News! SoMa is now a San Francisco Chronicle Bestseller!
Kemble Scott is the author of the novel SoMa, the interwoven stories of twentysomethings on the prowl for thrills in San Francisco's South of Market (SoMa) neighborhood. Although fiction, the places seen in SoMa actually exist, and the bizarre events are based on the true tales of the city.
SoMa is also on video. Take a look at the real world places that inspired scenes in the novel.
Episode 1 - Bringing the novel to video
Episode 2 - The tunnel of love
Episode 3 - The secret of the Argent Hotel
Episode 4 - The Folsom Street Fair
Episode 5 - The Power Exchange
The Word on the Street
"The founder and editor of SoMa Literary Review, Kemble Scott channeled his fascination with San Francisco's South of Market district - an industrial dead land populated by sexual fetish havens - into an extended, cohesive piece of fiction. Scott doesn't deliver a conventional novel so much as a study in kink, foregoing highly nuanced psychology to pack plot in the tradition of noir or comic book writers. Three 20-somethings become entangled in bondage clubs, dangerous sex games, anonymous drug-addled orgies and even the occasional stab at commitment, without much thought as to why. Those who like the depravity of Dennis Cooper's work or the disillusion of Bret Easton Ellis' will enjoy this dark celebration of a city notorious for sexual liberation. The whole problem with freedom, though, is that people rarely know what to do with it." --Curve magazine, June 2007
“A neighborhood on the edge, even by San Francisco standards.” --Edge Newspapers, Boston & Miami Full Review
“San Francisco’s dirty little secrets.” --7x7 Magazine puts SoMa on The Hot List – What People Are Taking About
"The bacchanalia of a certain San Francisco neighborhood is exposed in this novel of sexual and spiritual seeking." --San Francisco Chronicle puts SoMa on its Best-sellers list.
SoMa "explores a clandestine quarter of the city haunted by the dot-com bust and full of extremes: tony restaurants, private sex clubs, grit, drugs, kept boys, and - naturally - kink." --OUT Magazine
"Scott finds a kind of edgy resplendence in the city's gradually gentrifying South of Market district." --Easy Bay Express - Read the full article here.
Small Spiral Notebook interviews Kemble Scott
--Read the full interview here.
"A guilty-pleasure read not only for those who know the score... but also for those who desperately want to know (and, ooh, don't you want to know?)." --SF Weekly
"You'll find yourself saying, 'I can't believe I'm reading this,' but you won't be able to put SoMa down." --ON Magazine
"A no-holds-barred sexposé of San Francisco." --The Bay Area Reporter
"Revenge is sweet - and so, perversely, is this kinky story." --Richard Labonte, nationally syndicated columnist, Book Marks Full Review
“A fun, frisky novel of shock horror.” Kemble Scott “has his ear to the underground of the sexual revolution.” --Publishers Weekly
“Wonderful.” --JT LeRoy, bestselling author of The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things and Sarah
“SoMa tells a story about what's really happening in San Francisco's South of Market neighborhood, in the aftermath of the dot-com bust. It's one man's story, of a twisted journey and compromised redemption. San Francisco can be a city of extremes, and we see one here.” --Craig Newmark, cyberspace guru and creator of Craigslist.org
"Scott's book is like a train. Once you get on you can't get off, till the ride is over: And a ride it is: like David Lynch's Blue Velvet, it tells you that the ordinary, sunlit world you walk through every day is actually throbbing with secrets, full of mystery, riven with dark threads of human possibility--all this in a voice and sensibility that wastes no words and yet is somehow...innocent. A voice that says, there is no darkness here, just play." --Tamim Ansary, bestselling author of The Other Side of the Sky and West of Kabul, East of New York
"Wow! This book is a wicked delight. As we all know, nothing is more fun or irresistible than secrets -- especially erotic ones about people and places you thought you knew. In this exciting new novel author Kemble Scott exposes all the dirty and dangerous little secrets simmering beneath San Francisco's South-of-Market neighborhood. I'll never drive down these streets again without thinking about all the crazy and kinky stuff that's going on here. At last I know the answer to the question: Where's the party?" --Melodie Bowsher, author of My Lost and Found Life
“SoMa is just like SoMa: spewingly kewl, fall-of-Rome splendidly filthy, glittery guttery, twisted sick and slick. I highly recommend taking a vacation there.” --David Henry Sterry, author of the best-selling memoir Chicken: Self-Portrait of a Young Man for Rent
“Kemble Scott twists the plots in both a uniquely and curiously twisted fashion in his novel SoMa. Scott provides us with an insider's look at a little known and gritty underground world more common to big cities than most Americans would really believe exists today. Shockingly, his raw and gritty account of this dark world is all true, which makes for an even more fun ride.” --Andy Behrman, best-selling author of Electroboy: A Memoir of Mania
“I read the first page of SoMa and never put it down until I read the last page. Then my housemate took it from me and read it in a day. It flows through your hands like water, yet it shocks, awes, repulses, exposes trade secrets, and illuminates the deep motives for extreme behavior. I know people who are less real than these characters. I laughed out loud. Kemble Scott is one sick bastard.” --Joe Quirk, best-selling author of The Ultimate Rush and Sperm are from Men, Eggs are from Women
“A fascinating tour de force of the darkest parts of San Francisco's underworld in search of one man's sexual core. The images created by Kemble Scott will stay with you for a very long time. Riveting entertainment.” --Isadora Alman, renowned syndicated sex and relationship columnist of Ask Isadora
Who I'd like to meet: You can contact me here to discuss the book. I'm also available to meet with book groups, either in person or by speakerphone. To do that, drop me a note at kemblescott@gmail.com
Just wanted to drop in on a rainy day and say hi. I hope everything is great with you. We are excited, D.B. Pacini's youth/YA fantasy novel, THE LOOSE END OF THE RAINBOW, is being published in one week. Actually, she’s so excited that she is driving me a little nuts. She is donating some books and 10% of the proceeds to a charitable organization that helps Native American youth.
I also wanted to tell you about our free Starry Night Creative Artists Community. We started it last summer and it is growing like a weed, becoming international. It is open to creative artists of all mediums and we showcase organizations and individuals that help others. It is a cool community. I hope you’ll check it out. Just click on this link and then scroll down to: Starry Night Creative Artists Community: www. astarrynightproductions. com
Just finished your novel! I really dug your writing style and characters. You mention an upcoming novel in the back of the book, how far along has that come?
As I said, I'm a new Harper Perennial author, reaching out to some of Harper Perennial’s book-loving friends.
BEING WRITTEN is my first novel, and it will be released on September 9. It’s the story of a man who knows he’s a minor character in a book and the lengths to which he’ll go to win a bigger part.
You can find out more about the novel in this one-minute video, on my MySpace profile, and at www. williamconescu. com.
Congrats on your success with SoMa. I'm watching one of your videos, and I'm intrigued!
Hello Kemble! Just getting my orientation for new friends and wanted to say thanks. I look forward to finding out more about you and your work. Click here to check out Orientation, my new novel about reincarnation and love and what happens when a gay man and a lesbian find themselves mysteriously attracted to one another. Click here to watch the haunting trailer for Orientation. Or visit me at www. rickrreed. com
Thanks so much for the add, Kemble--and for making this giddy satyr's day. You so rock! Hooves high, Felix Rumpus! (and bless you for all the work you do on that amazing newsletter)
Happy New Year from “Legends of the Chelsea Hotel” (Thunder's Mouth Press), a chronicle of living in New York’s fabled rebel mecca. Renowned New York City Blogger Ed Hamilton chronicles the past and present artistic, eccentric, and insane inhabitants of the most famous bohemian building in the world. Watch for a review in the Jan 6 issue of the LA Times.
Thanks for adding a new phrase to our lexicon. Slouch magazine's comment "A Real Ass Ringer" has now become our new favorite catch phrase. It's funny how it fits almost any situation! Try it and see. Your ass ringing buddies in New England, Doug & Jenna
I actually lived in a youth hostel in the SoMa area for a month and a half in the mid 90's, so your book was a fun read! (I've been there! I've been there, but haven't done that! haha)