In the Denver ballroom where the 2024 Colorado Book Awards were presented, David R. Slayton took the stage after his most recent book, Dark Moon, Shallow Sea, won the Science Fiction and Fantasy category.

He was visibly surprised.

“I didn’t expect to be here,” he said. “I like to start these things by saying I’m not supposed to be here. Gay high school dropouts who grew up in a trailer in the woods outside of Guthrie, Oklahoma, don’t get to write books. And they don’t get to win awards.”

So how did Slayton make the journey from trailer park to published, award-winning author?

Growing up the third of four children, Slayton said two things saved him. First was being left alone. He was a “spare,” not the first son, not the only daughter, so lack of attention allowed him time alone to “read and make up stories in my head. I had Star Wars action figures, and I made up stories for them.”

Slayton also counts himself lucky for having had lots of access to books. All different kinds of books, with no restrictions at first on what he could read. He had plenty of time alone, to just “grab stuff and read.” After his mother became religious, he wasn’t allowed to read anything with magic.

“All the Star Wars figures that were aliens were gone,” he said. But his mother had a soft spot for Star Trek, and frequently bought “those novels that were churned out once a month.”

The second thing that saved him?

“Being gay saved me when it should have killed me. I had to reject where I came from to survive,” he said. Most people in that time and place “suppressed it, threw themselves into religion or killed themselves. The clear choice was to reconcile Christianity and hide who I am, or reject it and walk away. And that was the thing that saved me. Knowing that I’m never going to fit in and they’re never going to want me here gave me the ability to leave.”

After his parents divorced, Slayton’s mother was more focused on religion than education. Instead of hearing an encouraging word when he left for school in the morning, he was more likely to hear, “Don’t forget, today is the day the Rapture could happen. Don’t do anything bad or you’ll get left behind.”

At age 17, Slayton dropped out of school. He reached out to his father, who came and got him and took him to Texas. There, he earned his GED and started taking classes at the local community college. His experience there made him a big advocate of the community college system, he said.

Then something wonderful happened, and Slayton got a scholarship to the University of Denver for writing poetry. The university promptly cut his scholarship after the first quarter, suggesting that he get money from his parents to continue. Since that wasn’t an option, he spent a couple of years working so he could earn Colorado residency status. He continued working and went back to school at Metropolitan State University where he earned a degree in History and another in English Literature. He eventually went back to University of Denver, with the help of his employer, where he earned his master’s in Computer Information Systems.

How did writing work into his life? Despite his degree in literature, nobody at the college level explained how a writing life could work.

“English departments want to teach you how to teach,” he said. “My 20s were a mess.” (Despite being a self-proclaimed “mess,” Slayton earned three degrees without any debt. He judges himself more harshly than anyone else will.)

“I started at 33. I knew that I wanted to write books, epic fantasy in particular, with a gay main character. I had this idea that writing was very esoteric, drinking coffee and thinking deep thoughts,” he said. “It’s a grind. Butt in chair. Pick up the hammer and go back to the grind.

“Talent is great, but you need persistence. You need to practice because if you don’t, you don’t grow. Keep hammering away at it every day.”

Slayton wrote off and on for years, using his laptop on his one-hour commute to and from work. He wrote his first novel. He says it was crap.

Referencing Virginia Woolf, Slayton asserts that aspiring writers need money to support themselves (for heat and shelter) as well as a room of one’s own.

“Get a practical degree as fast as possible, work from 9 to 5 at a job that pays the bills, then write mornings, evenings and weekends,” he said.

Slayton started going to writing conferences, first Backspace in New York, then Pikes Peak Writers Conference in Colorado Springs. This, he says, is where he met his people.

“Be gracious because these people you’re meeting? You will be seeing them again,” he said.

It wasn’t until his second agent that Slayton got published, when he was on the verge of giving up. He had rewritten his first books. He started to hate writing. That was when he threw out everything he knew and wrote “something weird and gay,” an Urban Fantasy that he says nobody was buying then. He sent White Trash Warlock to his agent asking for feedback. His agent loved it so much she woke her boss to make her read it.

The biggest selling point? “Books about gay characters that are not about being gay. No AIDS. No coming-out trauma,” he said.

White Trash Warlock, Book One in the Adam Binder series, was published in October of 2020 and was a finalist for the 2021 Colorado Book Award. It was followed by Trailer Park Trickster in 2021 and Deadbeat Druid in 2022. The title character’s background mirrors Slayton’s own story, except for the Sight, an ability which allows him to see into other realms.

The Adam Binder series is Urban Fantasy with heart and humor, stories that draw a reader immediately in with the visceral scent of magic in the air, good old boys playing pool and an urban legend about lizard people living beneath the Denver airport.

Adam Binder’s stories will continue with Red Neck Revenant in 2025, and Backwoods Banshee in 2026. A spin-off book, Rogue Community College, debuts this fall, set in the mythical plane of existence that Adam can access with his Sight. Slayton calls it “Dr. Who meets the Umbrella Academy,” going a little lighter and more whimsical.

His most recent book, the award-winning epic fantasy Dark Moon, Shallow Sea, is classic fantasy. Adventure, alliances and magic combine under the Gods of Night and Day to forge new paths out of old pains. Since the publisher put Book 1 on the back cover, we can hope for more adventures with characters Raef and Seth in Book 2.

Asked where he first saw himself represented in fiction, Slayton said he never did, so he wrote the books he wanted to read. Because of his superb storytelling, they’re books the rest of us want to read as well.