Bestselling Author and Delightful Weirdo Chuck Tingle on Proving Love in a Difficult Era
Ahead of Ann Arbor District Library appearance, the enigmatic, masked horror author talked to Pride Source about the power of creating and how 'Bury Your Gays' predicted AI controversy
Pride Source spoke with Tingle ahead of his June 6 appearance at Ann Arbor District Library.
Chuck Tingle has "love is real" scrawled across the top of his ever-present pink burlap mask, and when he arrives in Ann Arbor for a one-buckaroo show on June 6, he would like you to know he is not there to rob the library. He also wants you to know that right now, in this specific horrible moment, your power to “prove love” is multiplied by 10.
A USA Today bestselling author and recipient of the 2025 Loud Hands Award for Autistic Storytellers, Tingle has carved out a genuinely singular space in horror and romance and refers to himself (and me and you) as “buckaroos.” He is, by most available measures, impossible to categorize — but why would you even want to?
Tingle's Ann Arbor District Library appearance. Video from Facebook/@ChuckTingle
Known for writing under a pseudonym and appearing publicly only in dark sunglasses and a pink mask, Tingle has written roughly 400 books — among them "Pounded In The Butt By My Handsome Sentient Library Card Who Seems Otherworldly But In Reality Is Just A Natural Part Of The Priceless Resources Our Library System Provides" and "My Macaroni And Cheese Is A Lesbian Also She Is My Lawyer.” Tingle's novel "Bury Your Gays," this year's selection for the Ann Arbor District Library's Big Gay Read, follows a gay screenwriter facing Hollywood monsters both literal and figurative when studio executives pressure him to kill off his queer characters "for the algorithm" — a plot Tingle feared no one would believe when he was writing it, just before the entire world caught up.
Tingle performed a one-time revival of the book's tour show, which has never come to Michigan, on June 6 to a packed house at the downtown Ann Arbor District Library branch — a launch event for library’s annual Pride-themed community book club. Now in its sixth year, the Big Gay Read draws the whole city around a single title with a monthlong calendar of programming — including a lecture on AI and datafication in Hollywood that speaks directly to the novel's themes, plus several craft nights designed with neurodivergent attendees in mind.
Tingle spoke with Pride Source ahead of his Ann Arbor debut about autistic masking (both literal and neurotypical), why dark times are actually the best time to prove love and what happens when a horror novel predicts the future. His next book, "Fabulous Bodies," arrives this summer.
Your book tours sound very different from typical author events. What should audiences anticipate on June 6?
What I do is similar to a one-man show. I've heard people call it a cabaret. It is nothing like what you would expect from a normal author visit. Every year when I'm promoting my books during the summer, I theme whatever the show is going to be around the book, and then I retire it at the end of the summer. The next one comes and it's an entirely new show with different acts. I've never once resurrected one, never brought it back. But when they reached out about "Bury Your Gays," I said I have exactly the thing — I'm going to bring back the show I did because I never had a chance to trot up to Michigan for it.
Of all the different art forms, authors are the least likely to be natural performers. We sit, we're very quiet, we create on our own, and when the art is expressed, it's just a very distant, disassociated kind of thing. We put it in the world and then we're kind of done. There's not a lot of performance involved. I like to perform.
Human beings have been, since we crawled out of the primordial swamp, getting together and sharing that energy. I really love being able to go out every summer and travel to all these places and, in person — almost face to face, because I am wearing a mask, but about as close as you could get — have that energy moving back and forth. It's really beautiful. I get very emotional. Every show is a pretty powerful experience, I think.
Your mask has become so central to your identity, but as someone on the autism spectrum who doesn't like uncomfortable things, it seems like it might present its own challenges. How do you square that?
The mask helps me express myself, and as a buckaroo on the autism spectrum, I had chronic pain from neurotypically masking — from the amount of effort that takes. I could mask very well, to the point where a lot of folks would never know I was on the spectrum, but that takes its toll. It's very exhausting. Putting on this pink bag has helped me relieve some of that tension.
But here's the funny thing — as an autistic person, I can't wear jewelry, I don't like having uncomfortable things on my body, and I've chosen probably the most uncomfortable thing [to wear that] you could possibly imagine. So there are these two elements constantly battling. I always use athletics as the metaphor in my head. If you watch football players about to go out and play in a snowstorm, there's that moment right before where they think, “OK, here we go.” There is that moment before I put on the mask. But overall, it has just been a beautiful thing for me. Oscar Wilde said if you want a man to tell the truth, give him a mask. It has just been very powerful for me, artistically and personally.
Talking with you for even a few minutes, I stopped thinking about the fact that you look different from most people I interview. Is that a common experience?
That's the number one thing that surprised me the most when I started doing interviews — how little it actually matters. In person, I always have my tour manager go in ahead of me and let people know there's going to be someone coming in with a mask, because I don't want to alarm anyone. I try not to have people think I'm there to rob the library. But I am also dressed in all pink, covered in sequins and have "love is real" written across my forehead. So no one ever thinks I'm going to rob them.
You've written around 400 books. What drives that level of output?
It is my natural state. It is just like my stasis — a shark constantly swimming, like breathing air. I am just always making things. But to tell the truth, I think that's true of everyone. They just don't know it. We've defined what creation is too narrowly. Creation is a walk in the park. It's the meal you made for lunch. It's a heartbeat. Those are all valid forms of creation.
You are a valid creator, always putting part of yourself into the universe. And that is unfathomably powerful if you actually think about how much every little thing matters. You have the power to create an entire universe with a tiny little choice. And you can prove love and make something even more beautiful than you could ever fathom.
"Bury Your Gays" features an AI subplot that has aged in a pretty striking way. Did you see that coming?
There's a plot point where the Academy Awards have a nominee for their first entirely AI-generated performance. When I was writing it, I thought I was going to have to come up with something new to insert there because no one would understand what I was talking about. I thought that would take everyone out of it — they're going to be like, “I don't even know what AI is.” And within the year of me writing it and it coming out, the entire world changed. I feel like it's dangerous for me to write things now. It's like when people talk about things that “The Simpsons” predicted. I've got to be really careful what I write about because it just enters the universe.
The Big Gay Read's programming calendar leans right into those themes around AI, datafication and queer storytelling. How do you feel about people sitting with this book over a whole month of community events?
It is so interesting to go back and look at a previous year's book, because normally I'm talking about these things before they enter the world. I think of art as not just the product — it's my interaction with the audience, what the audience thinks of it. Art is not static, it is not a science, it is evolving with how people react to it. So it's really neat to be talking about this book after it's already gone through the rock tumbler of the audience and come out the other side. "Bury Your Gays" is the one that really, really resonates. There's something about it that I think is very powerful.
Your appearance comes during Pride Month, in a year when a lot of queer people are navigating a really hard moment. What do you want people to take away?
I imagine a wave. We like to look at progress like a rising graph, but in reality, it's a big wave that is very slowly going up. Right now we are in a massive canyon, a big dip. That's not controversial to recognize.
As far as how that changes my creativity — honestly, it is even more of an honor to be a creator, to have this community, than it ever has been, because in times of darkness, that's when the light shines the brightest. The message of love is so much more powerful in times when it is needed. Proving love on the sunny days is easy. What is really powerful is when you wake up and it's a stormy, horrible day and everything's going wrong and you say, “This is my chance to prove love. Now I have a real opportunity.” Your power in those times is multiplied by 10. You're already so powerful in times like this.
Ann Arbor District Library’s Big Gay Read programming continues through July 31.
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