Finding Tulsa | Jim Provenzano Books

Finding Tulsa - Jim Provenzano ebook pap

Watch my Nov. 12 chat with Felice Picano, hosted by Bureau of General Services–Queer Division

Watch my Sept. 22 book release Zoom event with Baruch Porras-Hernandez on YouTube

Sept. 30 Perfectly Queer reading with me, Richard May, Wayne Goodman and Rob Rosen

Interview on PromoHomoTV -- Interview with David Eugene Perry

Read the first four chapters free. -- I'm on Broadway! ...World, that is.

The Story: Stan Grozniak, director of a ’90s cult action trilogy and gay art films, almost self-sabotages a prestigious directing gig with his writer-producer ex-boyfriend, after casting his rediscovered teenage summer stock crush. His tale of cinematic success and failure captures the passion and heartache of making love, making movies, and the occasional riot.

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Published Reviews:

“It’s not easy writing a novel in the first person and relying on the sole perspective of your narrator, but Jim Provenzano pulls it off beautifully in Finding Tulsa. He brings us the remarkable voice and life experience of Stan Grozniak, a struggling Hollywood director and a nuanced gay man in a town where so many live on the surface of things...Finding Tulsa is both a unique and satisfying read that gives much perspective on the AIDS pandemic and living through it as a modern gay man.”

– Art & Understanding

“Written as an autobiography, this entertaining work of fiction tells the story of Stan, a gay film director making a film about his past. Cast in the movie is Lance, a boyhood crush who Stan reconnects with in Hollywood. Finding Tulsa is an intense story, yet it’s an easy read due to the author’s vivid writing.” – Echo Magazine

“Finding Tulsa is more than just the pseudo-memoir of a Hollywood hotshot and his sexual escapades (however exciting they are to read about — and in lurid, delicious detail), but also an unexpected, endearing love story. ... Whether it’s a small town production of Gypsy or a porno movie set in the desert, Stan's limitless passion for creativity and the artistic process remains intact, and guides him throughout.” – Edge Media Network

“Finding Tulsa is a smashing exploration of what it would be like to be a gay film director of some renown living his best life. Mostly, I loved how recognizably messy Stan is, yet still makes his life work—which, for Stan, includes finding love with his unrequited high school crush and making a living through film; an excellent read for anyone who is interested in complex, first-person narratives.” – Joyfully Jay

Advance praise for Finding Tulsa

“Everything’s coming up roses in Finding Tulsa, Jim Provenzano’s intoxicating portrait of an artist as young to middle-aged man, from a high school musical techie in torn shorts to a semi jaded independent gay filmmaker. It’s a well-told yarn, full of humor and panache about a Hollywood player torn between his boyhood crush and a porn star. Spin the bottle, ride the Rolodex, and fasten your seat belt for Provenzano’s sweet roller coaster ride.”

– Marc Huestis, film director (Sex Is …) and author of Impresario of Castro Street:

an Intimate Showbiz Memoir

“Finding Tulsa reminds you what a good friend a novel can be. It’s about friendship, about “losing men and then finding them,” about brotherly love and conflict, and the possibility of resolution. It’s sexy, funny, astute, panoramic – it knows about suburban Ohio basement rec rooms and glam parties in the Hollywood hills. I felt like I had met a charming guy at a cocktail party who seemed to get me, understood my past, confided his own, and then disappeared to another better party before I was ready for him to leave. And it’s wrapped around a fearless, wrenching narrative about facing your childhood demons, raising the question of whether or not one of the demons might have been you. There’s so much to savor, to argue with, reflect upon, learn from, enjoy.”

– John Weir, Lambda Literary Award-winning author of The Irreversible Decline of Eddie Socket

“Jim Provenzano must have been spying on me from my adolescence (making short films with my brother) to my adulthood (making gay movies and TV series). I identified with every twist, turn, and blow by blow of this sexy show biz saga!” – Sam Irvin, Director of Dante’s Cove; Co-Producer of Gods And Monsters, The Broken Hearts Club

“Finding Tulsa is sexy, romantic, witty, engaging, both cleverly current yet sweetly retrospective. It's Jim Provenzano's most complex and accomplished novel. He gets so much right and so evocatively about show business, from those school plays we all remember to Hollywood made-for-television movies, with delicious stops at boyhood Super-8 movies and out of town gay porn shoots.”
– Felice Picano, author of Justify My Sins: A Hollywood Novel in Three Acts,
and the New York Times best-seller Like People in History

“Jim Provenzano's sexy, funny and soulful new novel Finding Tulsa is a beautiful deep-end dive into the memory of desire, the thumping bass note that drives life and art. The novel gorgeously explores how our hearts and cocks are woven with our theatre and films as we figure out how to be the star of our own queer story.”
– Tim Miller, Performer and author of A Body in the O

“Lights! Camera! Action! Finding Tulsa is a show-biz comedy told by a witty industry insider divulging how plays and movies and characters like 'Tulsa' help gay boys survive adolescence, create identity, and worship beauty. What better icons could Provenzano have picked than Sondheim and Gypsy on which to fly his vivid characters, backstage intrigues, and dialogue sure to thrill the theater and movie queen in all of us. Writing at the top of his powers, with his striped tie and hopes high, he’s got rhythm. All he needs is you to go with ’im. A splendid romp! Let him entertain you!”

– Jack Fritscher, author of Mapplethorpe: Assault with a Deadly Camera and the Lammy

Finalist Some Dance to Remember: A Memoir-Novel of San Francisco 1970-1982

“Jim Provenzano always keeps in mind what the original ‘Tulsa’ said in Gypsy: ‘This step is good for the costume.’ Provenzano never misses a step as he suavely combines aesthetics and homoerotics in a work that is throughout deeply touching.” – David Ehrenstein, author of Open Secret: Gay Hollywood–1928-2000