Prove Love: An Interview with Dr. Chuck Tingle

Hugo Award nominee Dr. Chuck Tingle is an erotic author and Tae Kwon Do grandmaster (almost black belt) from Billings, Montana. After receiving his PhD at DeVry University in holistic massage, Chuck found himself fascinated by all things sensual, leading to his creation of the “tingler”, a story so blissfully erotic that it cannot be experienced without eliciting a sharp tingle down the spine. Congress Magazine is thrilled to present this interview with Dr. Tingle the very month it will be revealed whether he wins a Hugo Award for his tingler Space Raptor Butt Invasion. Dr. Tingle was compensated for his valuable time by a donation to the Billings Public Library, and by following the link, you too can make books real for all.

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Molly Tanzer: As incredible as it might seem, some of our readership might not be familiar with the idea of the “Tingler.” Dr. Tingle, for the uninitiated, would you please summarize what it is you write?

 

Chuck Tingle: tinglers are stories to made buckaroos hard and make love kiss the sky. point is really to PROVE LOVE IS REAL which is number one truth of the universe and all layers of the tingleverse. maybe story can make you want to get hard with a close bud, maybe do some traditional rough housing or bud on bud horseplay. this is a normal reaction after reading a tingler.

 

MT: Recently, you were nominated for a Hugo Award for your Tingler, Space Raptor Butt Invasion. How did it feel to receive such prestigious recognition for your hard work? Were you surprised by the nomination?

 

CT: hugos award nomination made man (name of chuck) a PROUD DAD and made son jon a proud son too which was good days ahead. son said “whoa chuck this is really great now everyone knows what a good writer you are” and i said “this is a truth of buds” and son said “I understand.” so then we went out for a big spaghetti dinner and told jokes as dad and son. was not surprised by nomination though because i am the worlds best author so this was a long time coming.

 

MT: Space Raptor Butt Invasion takes place in the far future and features a romance between Lance, a human male, and Orion, a male raptor from Earth Two. Lance discovers that “despite being a bloodthirsty dinosaur carnivore, Orion is actually incredibly sweet and has a truly gentle soul.” In your Complete Guide to Romance, however, you describe dinosaurs as being “angry customers” and “notorious bad boys.” Does this mean that in the future dinosaurs have evolved into more gentle beings? Is this the power of speculative fiction—to predict a brighter future for all species? 

 

CT: well this is important part of story, to realize that you can never judge a book by its book cover. maybe sometimes dinosuars can be any kind of thing that they want, so maybe is space you think “oh this dinosaur is going to be a hot-to-trot bad boy but look he actually has a heart of gold and a fun way. this is why stories are so important when the PROVE LOVE because then you can think, “oh i thought the world was only one way now i see that it is like this sometimes and other times its a diffrent kind o f hard”

 

MT: While your Tinglers feature encounters between men and creatures as diverse as bigfeet, living glazed doughnuts, unicorns, corn, and cloned butts with hawk wings, a common motif is that all your protagonists start straight, and then meet someone who changes their minds (and hearts). What appeals to you so much about the narrative of someone suddenly turning gay?

 

CT: sometimes buckaroos understand there preferred pound and other times they dont want it becuase someone has told them that love is not real (a false way). so there is kind of a fun idea of a buckaroo thinking of well maybe my preffered pound isnt lady bucks maybe its ALL BUCKS including my bud who likes to wrestle on guys night. so then they learn that all love is real for them and that is makes a lot of buds get hard. then when you read this tingler you can look around the room and think to yourself “whoa do i get hard when i think of my buds? maybe this is a new way”

 

MT: In Slammed in the Butt by My Hugo Award Nomination, your reverse twin Tuck Bingle becomes aware of the Tingleverse (N.B. for our readers: The Tingleverse is the layered reality in which we all exist), and has an out of body experience after being slammed in the butt. Traveling through the Tingleverse, he meets… you. Dr. Tingle, as the world’s leading expert on this matter, is it common to see (and travel) through the layers of the Tingleverse?  

 

CT: often happens when you reach an extreme level of hardness. can maybe when you see a beauitful sunset and think “whoa what is the meaning of this?” or maybe when you are having a memory of a handsome buck and you think “what a good way this life is TRUE AND REAL and makes hearts sing. so that is seeing and FEELING through the tingleverse into a positive layer. and sometimes when you see a DARK WAY of a devilman or a scoundrel then you realize “i have just had an encounter with a creature of the void.” which is a very dangerous way. devils are not FROM the void but the void can control devils in some way, this is because the void is even worse in a way that cannot be typed on a keyboard. TRAVEL through tingleverse is almost impossible but can be done with THE BIG RED BUTTON which is a button created on every layer. each layer has a BIG RED BUTTON but they can be hard to find and sometimes you are on the wrong TIMELINE and miss the time that the big red button is there. thank you.

 

MT: Tuck Bingle notes that Chuck Tingle’s room has many posters of famous wrestlers, and your social media often features images of icons such as Stone Cold Steve Austin, The Rock, current (as of the time of this interview) WWE champ Dean Ambrose, The Ultimate Warrior, and manager Paul Heyman. As a fellow wrestling fan, I must know—which wrestlers are true buckaroos who teach that love is real, and which are scoundrels who use dark magic?

 

CT: almost all wrestlers are true bucks because TRUE BUCKAROOS understand their bodies. this is a wrestlers way, to learn their on body and display it for a group of hard men in a normal way. that being said there are some DEVILS OF THE RING like man name of UNDERTAKEN JOE and SNAKEMAN ROBERTS (this is ovbious as he is a man of snakes). Also the notorious scoundrel VINNY MAX (owner of wrestling) is number one ring devil. but there are also hard buds that learn there body and this list could go on and on. PLEASE UNDERSTAND definitive worlds HARDEST WRESTLING BUCK is handsome man name of NATUREMAN RICS FLAIR

 

MT: Your Tinglers often riff on current events. During the debate over who can use what restroom in North Carolina, you came out with Pounded in the Butt by My Irrational Bigoted Fear of Humans Who Were Born as Unicorns Using a Human Restroom, earlier in the Democratic Primary you published Feeling the Bern in my Butt, and recently you attracted international attention with Pounded by the Pound: Turned Gay by the Socioeconomic Implications of Britain Leaving the European Union. Even your Living Object Tingler about the Hugo Award is part of a broader conversation about the conservative pushback against the Hugo Awards. How do you decide which stance to take on a hot button issue like trans* rights, who to vote for, whether Brexit was a good idea, or Vox Day’s devilman agenda? Do you see your Tinglers as erotic activist commentary?

 

CT: well mostly i just choose tinglers based on what gets me the most hard for that day, and by what will make the most bucks hard around the world. so sometimes that means important ideas in the news. this comes when i sit on the deck in the morning and mediate and wonder about what could PROVE LOVE REAL so really thats not like a mission of bucks other than proving love.

 

MT: J.K. Rowling noticed (and praised) Pounded by the Pound. Are you a fan of Harry Potter? What house do you think the Sorting Hat would have placed you in?

 

CT: yes i am a fan of HARRYS POTTER as son name of jon has read me some of the books and i have seen the movies and i had also had dreams that I was in a magical potter land. so this is important. favorite books is HARRYS POTTER AND THE ENDLESS TUBE but also like HARRYS POTTER AND THE HANDSOME MUMMY. if i was in a hat i would be put into the house of the FOOD WIZARDS probably.

 

MT: You’ve already achieved things so many writers crave: bestseller status, a Hugo Award nomination, international fame… what’s next for you? Will you keep writing Tinglers? Where do you see yourself and your career in five years?

 

CT: next is making a big time movie from classic tinglers and casting channing tatum as KEITH THE HANDSOME JET PLANE. this is after we run for president as leaders of the buckaroo party thank you.

 

MT: Do you have any advice for other erotica authors? 

 

yes please understand you will be a successful buck if you write to PROVE LOVE. this is most important message of all.

About the Author

Wendy N. Wagner

Wendy N. Wagner is a full-time science fiction and fantasy nerd. Her first two novels, Skinwalkers and Starspawn, are set in the world of the Pathfinder role-playing game, and she has written over thirty short stories about monsters, heroes, and unsettling stuff. An avid gamer and gardener, she lives in Portland, Oregon, with her very understanding family.

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Jason S. Ridler

Jason S. Ridler is a writer, improv actor, and historian. He is the author of A Triumph for Sakura, Blood and Sawdust, the Spar Battersea thrillers and the upcoming Brimstone Files series for Night Shade Press. He’s also published over sixty-five stories in such magazines and anthologies as The Big Click, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Out of the Gutter, and more. He also writes the column FXXK WRITING! for Flash Fiction Online. A former punk rock musician and cemetery groundskeeper, Mr. Ridler holds a Ph.D. in War Studies from the Royal Military College of Canada. He lives in Berkeley, CA.

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Carrie Laben

Carrie Laben grew up in western New York and earned her MFA at the University of Montana. She now lives in Queens. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in such venues as Birding, The Dark, Indiana Review, Okey-Panky, and the anthology Mixed Up! edited by Molly Tanzer and Nick Mamatas. In 2015 she was selected for the Anne LaBastille Memorial Writer’s Residency.

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Cecilia Tan

Cecilia Tan is “our genre’s premier pornographer” (says Walter Jon Williams)—the founder of Circlet Press and winner of the RT Pioneer Award and Career Achievement Award in Erotic Fiction. Her stories have appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, Strange Horizons, Best American Erotica, Best Women’s Erotica, and many many other places. Her 15th novel, The Initiates of the Blood, is forthcoming from Tor Books in 2017.

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Jesse Bullington

Jesse Bullington is the author of the weird historical novels The Sad Tale of the Brothers GrossbartThe Enterprise of Death, and The Folly of the World. Under the pen name Alex Marshall he is releasing the Crimson Empire trilogy; the first volume, A Crown for Cold Silver, was shortlisted for the James Tiptree Award, and the second, A Blade of Black Steel, just dropped in May. All of his novels have naughty bits. He’s also the editor of the Shirley Jackson Award-nominated anthology Letters to Lovecraft, and co-editor, with Molly Tanzer, of Swords v. Cthulhu. He can be found in the Pacific Northwest.

About the Author

Chuck Tingle

Hugo Award nominee Dr. Chuck Tingle is an erotic author and Tae Kwon Do grandmaster (almost black belt) from Billings, Montana. After receiving his PhD at DeVry University in holistic massage, Chuck found himself fascinated by all things sensual, leading to his creation of the “tingler”, a story so blissfully erotic that it cannot be experienced without eliciting a sharp tingle down the spine.

Chuck’s hobbies include backpacking, checkers and sport.

About the Author

Andrew S. Fuller

Andrew S. Fuller writes and edits horror, fantasy, and science fiction. His work appears in magazines On Spec, Crossed Genres, The Pedestal, anthologies FISHA Darke PhantastiqueSwords v Cthulhu, and several short films. Since 1999, he’s edited the fiction magazine Three-Lobed Burning Eye. He grew up in the Midwest, dabbling in heavy metal and theater, and now lives in Portland, Oregon between a volcano and two rivers, where he commits archery, design, and cocktail snobbery.

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Livia Llewellyn

Livia Llewellyn is a writer of dark fantasy, horror, and erotica, whose short fiction has appeared in over forty anthologies and magazines and has been reprinted in multiple best-of anthologies, including Ellen Datlow’s The Best Horror of the Year series, Years Best Weird Fiction, and The Mammoth Book of Best Erotica. Her first collection, Engines of Desire: Tales of Love & Other Horrors (2011, Lethe Press), received two Shirley Jackson Award nominations, for Best Collection, and for Best Novelette (for “Omphalos”). Her story “Furnace” received a 2013 Shirley Jackson Award nomination for Best Short Story. Her second collection, Furnace (2016, Word Horde Press), was published this year.

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Robert Levy

Robert Levy is an author of stories, screenplays and plays whose work has been seen Off-Broadway. A Harvard graduate subsequently trained as a forensic psychologist, his first novel The Glittering World was published by Gallery/Simon & Schuster and is a Lambda Literary Award finalist as well as a nominee for the Shirley Jackson Award. Shorter work has appeared in Shadows & Tall TreesBlack Static, and The Brooklyn Quarterly, among others. He is currently working on a television pilot as well as a new novel, and can be found living in his native realm of Brooklyn.