A New Voyage for the Skinners

It’s decided – there will be a second volume in the Skinners saga. I’ve already started writing it, and I’m having a lot of fun revisiting the characters and dreaming up new adventures. Hopefully it’s a project I can finish within a year or so, because what I’ve found is that a follow-up seems a little easier going than inventing an entire new world with new characters.

Unlike my fellow site sponsors here, Paul and Robert, I have not yet written a sequel – and yet, like them, I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t feel there was another great story to tell. I think Paul has a post or two somewhere – for example, here – about the craft of writing a trilogy or a longer series such as Naked Crow – it certainly is a challenge as far as advanced plotting.

My only experience with continuation stories has involved the characters in a serial I published on my site in 2016, “Bugs and Bares.” I revisited these characters – the indefatigable entomologist Dr. A and her young friends Nate and Beverly – for all three of my contributions to the “In the Nudist Colony” series. I also linked these characters to some of my other works. In the story for Murder in the Nudist Colony I forged a connection to the world of Skinners, while in the story for Holiday in the Nudist Colony I did a cross-over with two characters from the world of Co-ed Naked Philosophy.

Is there anything I can reveal yet about the Skinners sequel? Hmmm… I’m still deliberating quite a few matters, including the exact amount of time that has passed since the events of the first book. But I can reveal the working title – Song of the Sea Witch. And I can also reveal a central plot element: cacao.

Fascinating reading, the accounts of how the Europeans fell in love with the chocolate beverage and began to crave it. But they also associated its New World origin, its dark color, and its murky consistency with the potential for unspeakable magic… cue the Sea Witch!

What will happen to Yewande, Eddie and Bronwen? What fate awaits Captain Barlo and his crew? And what does all this have to do with naturism or social nudism? Stay tuned, curious readers!