Location: United States
Member Since: Oct. 10, 2013

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Duncan MacLeod

Biography

Duncan MacLeod is a native Californian who was transplanted to the East Coast for boarding school and a failed semester at an Ivy League school. He returned to California to finish his education at San Francisco State University, where he majored in Film and Italian. He directed a feature documentary about Mexican wrestling called "La Lucha/The Struggle," performed lead autoharp in the band "The Acres," and is author of the semi-autobiographical novels "5150" and "Half." Currently, he lives in greater Los Angeles with his husband Rafael and his dog Patsy. He just finished and published the third book in the series, "M3X1(0", which picks up where Half left off. It transports the reader through Mexico during an economic crisis in 1988.

Duncan wrote 5150 to help the friends and loved ones of a mental patient better understand how the world might look through their eyes during an episode. It is his sincere hope that this novel will comfort them and offer them hope.

Smashwords Interview

Describe your desk
My desk is not where I would like it. It is in a bad position, feng shui-wise, and it's in my bedroom, since I don't yet have a backyard office tiny home. It has very few metal parts. The slide-out drawer is a combination of front legs with wooden wheels, and peg-in-groove sliders. I used to have a beautiful white mid-century modern desk, but it was too big to fit in the bedroom, so we donated it to a thrift store.
Where did you grow up, and how did this influence your writing?
I grew up in the Bay Area (San Francisco) California. At the age of 15, I went away to boarding school, where I studied great works of literature. Although boarding school taught me about good content, it was Mrs. King and Mr. Hom, my junior high school English teachers, who gave me the tools I needed to write. They forced us to diagram sentences out of the classic text book "Warriner's English Grammar and Composition." Diagramming sentences taught you all the rules of grammar. It helped identify fragments and run-on sentences. I hope they are still teaching sentence diagrams. These days, they may be teaching emoticons instead.
Read more of this interview.

Where to find Duncan MacLeod online

Website: https://www.facebook.com/Read5150
Twitter: @DuncanMac
Facebook: Facebook profile
Blog: http://www.dunkablog.com

Where to buy in print

https://www.amazon.com/Duncan-MacLeod/e/B00HKLQ8YO/ref=dp_byline_cont_book_1

Videos

MIchael G. Page's Laundry
Michael G. Page is featured heavily in "1/2" the sequel to 5150, coming out later this year.

Books

A Quarter by
Price: $3.99 USD. Words: 61,010. Language: English. Published: January 14, 2019. Categories: Fiction » Gay & lesbian fiction » Gay, Fiction » Young adult or teen » Gay & Lesbian
The only thing worse than being mentally ill is being mentally ill and strung out on dope. This fourth and final installment in the Psychotic Break Series sees Ethan regain his sanity only to lose it to drugs. Drifting from job to job, home to home, he paints a portrait of a San Francisco that vanished many years ago.
M3x1(0 by
Price: $3.99 USD. Words: 68,960. Language: English. Published: March 19, 2018. Categories: Fiction » Young adult or teen » Gay & Lesbian
During the 1988 financial crisis in Mexico, even a mentally ill homeless American kid could live like a king. Ethan escapes the Mental Health system on a journey to Mexico. Along the way, he encounters shaman, witches, martial artists and one dashingly handsome psychic rich kid with a penchant for causing trouble. Follow Ethan as he winds his way deep into the heart of this magical nation.
Half by
Price: $3.99 USD. Words: 45,290. Language: English. Published: October 21, 2017. Categories: Fiction » Gay & lesbian fiction » Gay, Fiction » Coming of age
A halfway house is a lousy place to fall in love. Book 2 in the Psychotic Break Series, Half begins where “5150” left off. Ethan moves to a halfway house where he befriends an eclectic assortment of recovering mental patients. He falls hard for one, and together they plot a romantic escape from the mental health system.
5150: A Transfer by
You set the price! Words: 46,980. Language: American English. Published: October 10, 2013. Categories: Fiction » Gay & lesbian fiction » Gay, Fiction » Literature » Literary
(5.00 from 1 review)
Psychosis is not for the faint of heart. A tale told by a young madman, 5150 is a firsthand account of a descent into madness, institutionalization, escape, recapture, and eventual release. Young Ethan haunts the gay underbelly of the San Francisco Tenderloin in the 1980's. Psychosis and cigarette smoke intertwine in a coffee-ringed world of hairspray, dyed black hair, hobos, and hospital gowns.

Duncan MacLeod's tag cloud

1980s    addiction    bizarro    counterculture    dark comedy    dark fiction    delusions    drug trip    dystonia    gay    gay series    halfway houses    heroin    literary gay    mayan pyramids    memoir    mental health    mental hospital    mental illness    mexico travel    new adult    new wave    peyote    picaresca    picaresque    psychic senses    psychotic break    punk    san francisco    satire    sexual tension    the city    trafficking    train travel   

Duncan MacLeod's favorite authors on Smashwords

Peter Schutes
Latest book: The Slaves of Rome. Published September 30, 2018.
Visit their website
View their blog

Smashwords book reviews by Duncan MacLeod

  • BOL - The Business Of Life on Oct. 26, 2013

    I spent three years in business school learning all the strategies for making a company do well, turn around, increase sales...I never once realized that this same set of principles could be applied to my own life! Instead of acquiring capital, our goal is to increase happiness. Thank you, Maarten for pointing me in the right direction!!
  • The Butt Baby on Nov. 24, 2018

    This book made me laugh out loud and gag in the same sentence. It was a deliciously perverse tale of the unexpected. Men, If you need a cheering up, I say read this book. Ladies, I can’t predict how you will react to the old-fashioned gay male exclusivity, but the humor is universal. The story is like a gay Philip Roth novella, if ever he were to have written one. It reminds me of “The Breast.”