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One of Maupin's current projects is adapting Babycakes, the fourth book in the Tales series, for film. “The screenplay is finished and I am very happy with it,” he says. “It is written as a stand-alone film. We are still looking for an outlet.”

As a novelist who has repeatedly had to edit down his books for film, Maupin expresses a special wish for a possible future project. “I would love to write an original screenplay,” he explains, “and not have the agony of having to reduce — as John Le Carré put it — ‘an ox into a bouillon cube.' It's very difficult adapting a novel for the screen. It's two different creatures entirely. Whole subplots have to be lost along the way. It would be fun to have the film as my starting point.”

Works like Tales of the City and Night Listener, which are so infused with Maupin's own life experiences, have a natural appeal for gays of his baby-boomer age group. His popular literary voice helped reveal this entire generation's gay life to the world.

“All of my work has been done in real time,” he says. “I always try to capture my emotions of the moment. If the clock says I've aged, well, so has my material. I'm not deliberately speaking to my generation; I'm speaking to my own experience . That, in turn, reaches people like me who were the first generation of openly gay men and women who chose to live their lives openly.”

Maupin is now at work on a new novel, Michael Tolliver Lives, that will no doubt reflect his own current stage in life; it is due to be published next summer. “It involves the central character, Michael 'Mouse' of Tales of the City, today,” explains Maupin. “He is now a 55-year-old gardener. Like a lot of gay men he thought he was going to be dead 20 years ago. And now he's lived to face the issues of AIDS.”

He continues: “Much like me, he has a partner who is considerably younger than he is. I've been partnered with a guy named Chris Turner for the past two years. So I'm able to draw off it — from the joy and the comedy of that experience.”

As a gay man entering his senior years, the subject of aging now takes center stage for Maupin. “I think it's the central issue of our generation,” he says. “There are a lot of people out there who are trying to figure out how to be good old gay people — how to do it well, how to be the best you can for your age. In my case that has to do with trying to be the best version of 62 I can imagine. Not to try and recreate something I felt I had 30 years ago.”

Maupin says, “Interestingly enough, my partner, Christopher, runs a personals website for men over 40.” Maupin laughs. “I actually met him on the site. I saw this handsome 34-year-old there that made my heart beat faster. I bumped into him in the street a few months later and asked him for a date.”

Maupin has no problem openly sharing his thoughts and feelings on his love relationship. “It's something we both talk about,” he says of he and his partner. “I'm interested in it from the perspective of someone who's actually ‘old.' He's interested in it from the position of someone who likes ‘older guys.'”

He concludes: “I don't feel either one of us has anything to be ashamed of. I'm happy to share because I'm so damned happy. If someone had told me life would be this great at 62, I'd be a lot more cheerful along the way. I'm having the love affair of my life, and it feels wonderful.”

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