Karlyle Tomms is a pen name, a derivative of my birth name. I chose it because my birth name is more common than ticks on a hound’s back. That metaphor fits because I grew up in a four-room house in the sticks of Arkansas. My mother was from the sticks, and my father was from Las Angeles. So, I’m a hillbilly half-breed. I grew up in a fundamentalist church, and I was fourteen years old when Stonewall occurred.