In Latest Novel, Nelson Aspen Explores Metaphysical Relationship with Titanic Victim

"I love to be busy. Bodies in motion stay in motion and I intend to keep moving!" says Nelson Aspen. And he should know. He has traveled the world in many different roles, first as an award-winning television journalist who has interviewed Tom Cruise and Chris Hemsworth on various red carpets, chatted with Meryl Streep and Cate Blanchett, and partied with Kylie Minogue. He began his entertainment career at the age of eight as an actor, which he parlayed into becoming a skillful television personality for morning television in England and Australia. In 2020, the five-time Publicists Guild of America nominee was recognized as International Media Journalist of the Year. Over the years he discovered aerobics, becoming a top instructor and traveling the world conducting master classes. And is a Marathon runner, having run some 20 races worldwide.

He also is a top cabaret performer, whose latest musical offering is a Tony Bennett Tribute show based on his personal experiences with the musical legend. Reviewers dubbed it "charming" and "suitably elegant," and it has won three Broadway World Cabaret Awards, including Best Show.

Add to this his longtime fascination with the sinking of the Titanic, which led to his launching an acclaimed podcast, "Titanic Talk," which he co-hosts with filmmaker Alexandra Boyd, and to his latest novel "Kindred Spirits: A Titanic Tale," that conjoins the lives of two queer men who are metaphysically connected across time: A repressed Edwardian-era gentleman on the Titanic on the fateful night of its sinking (April 15, 1912) and a present-day Manhattanite. It is the third in a series of semi-autobiographical novels, which began with the steamy "Dancing Between the Raindrops," set in 1980s NYC, and continued with its sequel, "Dancing Between the Raindrops: The Hollywood Years." Prior to that, he has successfully published non-fiction works on a diverse range of subjects, from home entertaining to a series of books about his own life.

In 2023 he married his long-time partner Jonny in a low-key ceremony in New York, which he described as a "court house" quickie – a reference to the HBO hit "Sex in the City," according to the Daily Mail.

Aspen comes to Boston for a visit to the Titanic Artifact Exhibition on May 14, 2025 for a book signing event. For more details, click here.

Aspen speaks to EDGE about his great love of the Titanic, his metaphysical relationship with one its doomed passengers, and how he came to write "Kindred Spirits."

EDGE: Can you start by telling us a little about yourself?

Nelson Aspen: I spent 30 years working as an international entertainment reporter for Morning Television: 10 years for the United Kingdom, and 20 years for Australia. I was the Regis Philbin or Ryan Seacrest of these countries. It was a marvelous and unexpected career, as I had expected to be an actor. My career was remarkable, and I couldn't have planned or studied for it. I just needed to be willing to try it. I had to be willing to say yes to unexpected things, be prepared, be responsible, and be kind, and everything else took care of itself. Since leaving morning television, I am primarily a novelist, although I still contribute frequently to a weekly British show and have a regular New York gig. That's another thing I couldn't have imagined I would do, especially at this point in my life, but I happily write every day.

EDGE: Tell us about your love for the Titanic.

Nelson Aspen: It's been a lifelong recreation. My parents took me on cruises as a kid. I was a well-traveled kid. And then, in December of 1972, I saw "The Poseidon Adventure," and it changed my life because I became like Robin Shelby, portrayed by actor Eric Shea, who went to the bridge and knew every factoid about the ship itself. Also, I fell in love with the actress Carol Lynley, who sang "The Morning After." Well, she lip-synced it. When I was a teenager, my father arranged for me to meet her, and we became lifelong friends. When she started doing the "Poseidon" circuit, where she was appearing at screenings and autograph shows, she told me to pretend I was Eric Shea, the kid from "The Poseidon Adventure." So, I had the distinction of being the last gentleman Roddy McDowell felt up during a screening of "The Poseidon Adventure."

It was fantastic that I got to live in this "Poseidon" world, but the Titanic was another thing because I felt connected with this random passenger. When people say they're reincarnated, it's always Cleopatra, King Tut, or Marilyn Monroe. I'm a very obscure first-class passenger named Milton Long, and it was long before the Titanic interest. It was a lifetime of discovery through dreams, coincidences, and serendipity. When I finally figured out who I was, I was Milton Long, a passenger who died at age 29 in the Edwardian era. He was someone who never had the chance to express himself. In my mind, I wanted to pick up the baton for him. I've always been very extroverted. I grew up in New York City in the Eighties. I've had wild adventures, and I continue to live that adventure, and I'd like to think I'm doing it not just for myself but for Milton, as well. This book was a labor of love, and I wanted to create a backstory for Milton just in case he's watching, which I think he is.

EDGE: Is Milton is the inspiration for "Kindred Spirits?"

Nelson Aspen: He is indeed. When the wreck of Titanic was discovered in the late Eighties, I was so obsessed that I tracked down Dr. Robert Ballard in the phone book, the oceanographer who discovered the Titanic. At that time, he was the most famous man in the world, making it onto the cover of Time magazine. I called him at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute. I told the woman who I was, and I'd like to speak with Dr. Ballard. A few minutes later, he comes on the line, and I say, "This is Nelson Aspen. I'm calling from New York." And he responds, "Hello, Milton." I enunciate very well. I have a television career. I know how to enunciate. Milton and Nelson don't sound alike.

I wanted to tell my story and my connection with Milton. However, having just done two period novels, my publisher said, "I'd like to do it, but I want it set in the present day. I don't want to do another story set in the Eighties or Nineties." So, I fictionalized Milton coming back into another similarly extroverted man. I created a mystery he has to solve – the mystery of his unrequited love from Titanic and these two souls in one body. It's like an odd couple story, but they're in the same body, helping each other navigate this mystery. I think I pulled it off.

EDGE: Do you share any similarities with Milton Long?

Nelson Aspen: We were both kids of privilege. Like Milton, I'm the only child of my parents' marriage. I have half-siblings from their previous marriages. Milton was an only child and adored by his parents. I, for lack of a better description, was an only child and adored by my parents. I was very close to them. Again, like Milton, I was very well-traveled, even to the point that, as a child, they would send me on holidays by myself to discover the world. It was blessed with unbelievable parents, and I think Milton was, too. He also experienced unrequited love, but at a time in society [when] they [could be] just gentlemen friends. I'd like to imagine what it might have been had they lived [in] another time. There's an extraordinary correspondence between the surviving man and Milton's family, and if you read between the lines, you know that there was love there. Milton's body was recovered after the sinking and is interred in Massachusetts with his parents. I live right down the street from Columbia University. Milton attended both Harvard and Columbia, but never graduated, and his death certificate listed him as "a gentleman of leisure."

There are a lot of remarkable similarities, and I'm excited to be coming to Boston in May. I will be doing a book signing at the Titanic exhibition there.

EDGE: Are there any members of the Long family alive?

Nelson Aspen: To the best of my knowledge, no. The other prominent family profiled in the book is the Thayer family from Philadelphia. There are quite a few of them around. I'm from the Philadelphia area, so I researched them a lot.

My parents were such an important part of my life until their recent passing. I had them for a long time, so I got to represent them in the book, which was special. I have visited Philadelphia, New York, Worcester, and Ireland, where the Titanic was built. I've spent significant time wandering around the Titanic trails of Ireland.

EDGE: Why did you include some iconic historical figures from the Titanic in your novel, including the "Unsinkable" Molly Brown and John Jacob Astor?

Nelson Aspen: I have to include Molly Brown because everybody knows the "Unsinkable" Molly Brown. Thanks to James Cameron's movie, subsequent films, and documentaries, even the casual Titanic fan has a working knowledge of all the major characters. There was an older gentleman and a couple in first class, and I wanted Milton to look at them with some sense of longing, or some sense that there was a place for him in this world. Also, in the time juxtapositions between yesteryear and modern-day Manhattan, I wanted to take characters from the ship and have their spirits walking amongst us today. It is fun. I was lucky to have my editor, because I had not written a historical fantasy before, and he was very helpful in helping me understand the rules of creating another world. Whatever the rules, you decide, but you must stick with them. He's also half my age, and writing about a contemporary 30-year-old gay man, I think I knew the lingo, but there'd be times when he'd say, "Nobody talks like that anymore." He helped me navigate the generation gap.

EDGE: Do you believe in reincarnation?

Nelson Aspen: I met my new publisher thanks to a reincarnation story, but I don't even really believe in reincarnation, even though I know I have been [reincarnated]. It does seem a little woo-woo to me. It was my birthday in 2020; I received a random phone call from somebody I hadn't heard from in 25 years telling me that our mutual friend, with whom I was very close, a soap opera actress, had passed away unexpectedly. She believed in reincarnation and knew she was Anne Askew from Henry VIII's Court. It all started because the mutual friend asked what I was doing these days, and then told me he was an editor at a publishing house. So, it was my friend who passed away that led me to write again, and she believed in it so strongly that I had to feel that there was something there. I can't be dismissive of something so clearly apparent to me, and I've decided that if it is real, I'm keeping my eye out for my mother. I need my mother back.

EDGE: If your mom has been reincarnated, who is she?

Nelson Aspen: Well, she'd be one tough broad. I always said she was a cross between Morticia Addams and Krystle Carrington, because she had a very dark sense of humor. You wanted her to be like Auntie Mame, but she was actually much more loving and tender than Mame. She also had a dark sense of humor, but she was funny, tolerant, and a heck of a lot of fun. I'm keeping my eye out for Joyce Ann. I know she's around somewhere.

EDGE: This is your ninth book and unexpected new career. How are you feeling about this next chapter?

Nelson Aspen: Because of my TV work I had been asked to do different literary projects over the years, and was thrilled to oblige. These are the kinds of things that, if I were still a struggling actor, nobody would ask me to write a book or sing at the Sydney Opera House or London's West End. The privilege of morning television has given me these amazing opportunities.

EDGE: 113 years later, why are we still fascinated with the Titanic?

Nelson Aspen: Well, God bless James Cameron for concocting that rather run-of-the-mill "Romeo and Juliet" story but sticking it on the Titanic. There's something about Titanic that everyone loves.

I also find it amazing about the cross-section of demographics regarding the class system. The class division is one of the significant parts of its tragic story. The steerage passengers paid for the luxury that the first-class passengers enjoyed. It was the steerage passengers that financed the success of the White Star line. The tragedy of the class division, I think, is what keeps it interesting. And for me, I gravitated towards Milton. I thought about this bachelor, this young, good-looking bachelor who traveled alone and, except for the friend that he met on board – which I'd like to think was maybe a little bit more special than a friend – but otherwise, he would've died completely alone. You can always find somebody who will want to talk about the Titanic no matter where you go. I will add that James Cameron did a marvelous job, especially with the special effects. It enabled us to imagine what the sinking really looked like. We can all identify with the fear of imminent and unexpected death. It's everybody's nightmare.

For more on Nelson Aspen, visit his website