In "Postcards from Heartthrob Town: A Gay Man’s Travel Tales" (Southern Tier Editions, 2006), author Gerard Wozek examines the link between geographical locale and the compass of his own heart. A mix of both personal memoir and fiction, the book contains nineteen stories which serve as both a travelogue of various locations as well as a guide to the interior life of a man questing for meaning in the world, redefining travel as both an inner pilgrimage as well as a sensuous trek across the globe. "Postcards from Heartthrob Town" was selected for the Haworth Press "Out in the World" Travel Literature Series by renowned travel writer and Senior Editor at Haworth Press, Michael T. Luongo, who edited the anthology, "Between the Palms: A Collection of Gay Travel Erotica."

Wozek, author of the poetry collection “Dervish” (Gival Press, 2001) has compiled these short stories that reveal themselves as sojourns to the heart of desire as much as they are treks to the spirit of place. Whether meandering the desolate plains of his hometown in the Midwest or trekking through the lurid trappings of underground Paris, Wozek limns that impulse to merge with another, specifically the electric vibe that brings men together in foreign locales. Rather than mere travelogue descriptions of locations and tourist trappings, each story is driven by character and distinctively informed by the tempo of a particular location. With a poet’s eye for detail, Wozek explores the motivations of his characters as they wend through multiple incarnations of themselves. “Postcards from Heartthrob Town” is essentially a compendium of queer tales that span the United States and abroad, each one evoking a sense of displacement and a hunger for journey, both for new landscapes and for the untamed terrain of the sensual body.

This collection of travel tales spans the planet. Not only does it offer nuances of history and background on various places, it grounds fictive and narrative elements within the actual structure of a foreign locale. "Postcards from Heartthrob Town" offers a compelling perspective on travel that is informed both through the lens of relationships at various stages as well as through spurious erotic encounters. In addition, it deals with the nature of solo travel, childhood, spirit, reincarnation, metaphysics, and the mythology of place and how ultimately these elements inform one’s grounding in reality and one’s ultimate purpose for traveling. It attempts to formulate a definition of home as it redefines the nature and purpose of travel as both an inner journey as well as an excursion into new terrain.

“Postcards from Heartthrob Town” uniquely captures the impulse of one’s gay man’s search for meaning in world—how to travel outward to the edges of the planet while making a sojourn to the depths of one’s erotic and essential soul.

Select Reviews for "Postcards from Heartthrob Town" (available now at bookstores onlne including Barnes and Noble.com and Amazon.com)

“One of the most compelling and original voices working in gay literature and travel memoir today”
—Mitzi Szereto, “Editor of the Erotic Travel Tales” series

“Glows with a tenderness and understanding for human relationships that’s made a lifelong fan out of me.”
—Aldo Alvarez, Author, “Interesting Monsters”

“By weaving fictional stories with true ones, Wozek aptly highlights the mythological nature of place itself. Perhaps the path of accepting ourselves as queer is parallel after all to the path of accepting the world as a whole”
-–Matthew Link, Travel Editor and Journalist

“Poignantly captures the ache of wanderlust in a gay man’s heart.”
—Sean Meriwether, Editor, "Velvet Mafia"

“His prose is evocative and his descriptions have the clarity and romance one feels when seeing a fabled, foreign city for the first time."
---Jim Tushinski, Author, "Van Allen’s Ecstasy"

“ . . . offers the seductive opportunity of joining the author on the journey, as universal as it is personal, into a questing queer man’s uncharted emotions and emerging character.”
---Richard Labonte, Editor, "Books to Watch Out For"

"Nineteen stories come to the conclusion that the shortest trek to self discovery lies on the roads taken while traveling. Poet Gerard Wozek illustrates each story with lyrical beauty, while at the same time making sure each essay is dripping with the emotional resonance of stepping outside of oneself while on sojourn."
---Tim Parks, "Gay and Lesbian Times"

"Wozek’s stories of travels to far off lands with such transporting, economic style is reminiscent of Hemingway. And he also crosses borderless sexual and emotional terrains with the balls of Dennis Cooper. Yet his whispering virile voice is erotic without prurience, sensual without cliché and always emotionally true. Tired of eating your heart out on "Brokeback Mountain," Wozek takes us around the world with faerie tales full of volcanic allegory and realism, with a few layovers in some cities of busted up gay dreams."
---Lewis Whittington, "Edge Magazine"