The flamboyant fashion guru from Bravo's Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, Carson Kressley is a top stylist, an accomplished equestrian and someone who knows how super it is to be different. So it's all too apt that he's adding children's-book author to his résumé with a new tome called, yep, You're Different and That's Super. The book, illustrated by Jared Lee, tells the tale of a horse named Trumpet who's ridiculed for being unusual, though it turns out he's actually a unicorn—and a hero to boot. Village Voice columnist Michael Musto talked to the renaissance man for TONY Kids in Kressley's dramatically appointed Park Avenue apartment.

Hi, Carson. So, you've followed up Off the Cuff: The Guy's Guide to Looking Good with a children's book, and you're even more of an author now. Congrats—but please don't start taking jobs away from me!
Carson Kressley: I always thought it'd be fun to write a kids' book. I was not so good with the math, okay? But I always loved reading and I had certain favorite kids' books. As Queer Eye progressed, there have been so many opportunities—like, once I got to interview Cher for a magazine. I was like, I get to interview Cher? Are you kidding? I can die tomorrow.

And now I get to interview you! Your text is bouncily readable, though, as with a lot of the best kids' books, it doesn't have an overabundance of words. How long did it take you to write?
Not that long. I can't write very clearly unless there's some magic in the keyboard. I just clickity-clacked away, and it probably took a couple of hours.

Wow. You're better than me. Where did you get the idea?
Originally, I had the idea about this pony who didn't fit in. I was like, Oh my god, how is he going to be different? I don't want him to be missing an eyeball or something. Then I saw a bumper sticker that said, i brake for unicorns, and I thought, That's it, Trumpet can be a unicorn. And it's kind of like the gay icon. You know, rainbows and triangles and unicorns…oh my!

So, having a horn is partly a metaphor for being gay?
Yeah. When you grow up, the worst thing about being different is that you think you're the only one. I can remember being a little kid, thinking there must be some wires crossed in my brain and I'll just watch enough PBS and figure out how to untangle them. And as you get older, you realize there are lots of gay people, there are lots of people with freckles, there are lots of people who are Japanese, and you realize that diversity makes things stronger. Like that jumbo corn on the cob we have now. They took one strain of corn on the cob and mixed it with another strain, and now we have supercorn!

And it's superexpensive. Is Trumpet the kind of creature who doesn't require a makeover but needs other people to make themselves over—mentally, anyway?
Well, people don't understand how great Trumpet is, and then halfway through the book something miraculous happens, and the farmer in the story is like, Wow you're a unicorn, I should have known that all along and we would have just embraced you for who you are—kind of like that classic coming-out story. It's based on what happened to me: I had this big melodramatic moment where I made my parents get in the car during a thunderstorm because I figured they'd be so preoccupied that they wouldn't be able to kill me without running the car off the road, and I told them, Mom, Dad, I'm gay, and they were like, Um, yeah. News flash. We've known since the second grade.

By the way, did you know that a few years ago, Harvey Fierstein wrote a children's book about a very special creature called The Sissy Duckling? Will he sue?
[Laughs] I hope not. Don't tell him about this book. And there's "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer."

I always thought Rudolph was gay!
Well, he did have a red nose. He's maybe gay, or had some sort of circulatory problem. But the animal thing was a natural for me, because I grew up in the country, and we had horses and ponies, so I'd just go out to the barn after dinner and hang out with them. Looking back on it, it was a pretty pathetic after-school special, but actually it's a great thing, because kids are so structured now: You have to have your piano lessons and your Suzuki method and you go to the Montessori school, and this and that. There's something about being turned loose in your backyard with no toys—you have a couple of rocks and some sticks and you're set for the rest of the day.

You said in your bio that you're a nationally ranked equestrian.
I am. Wait! I have photos to prove it. [Pointing to pictures on his wall] This is my horse, Scotty. Isn't he cute? I was really lucky that my grandmother always wanted a pony when she was growing up, and when my dad was just a kid, she decided to buy my dad a pony. He had no interest whatsoever, but she loved it, and pretty soon they had one boy pony and one girl pony, and pretty soon they had three ponies, and three led to six, and six led to 14 and by the time I was a little kid in the '70s, they had, like, 100 ponies. So I could just go in the backyard and jump on anything. And then I got a horse, so I started competing locally.

Was this atypical, in that it veers from the stereotype of the unathletic gay?
There's something very gay about it. You know, horses are beautiful and really romantic, and you get to wear great clothes.

Should Madonna just get back on the high horse she recently fell off?
Yeah. You get right back on that horse, Madonna.

Now that you're writing stories, do you feel it's an extension of your makeovers? Can style tell a story?
Well, yeah. One morning you might dress like an Argentine polo player and the next morning you might be a little more Cherokee people, with a lot of fringe, and the next thing you might be all preppy, and that's really great. I think clothes tell a really powerful story about the person and [phone rings]… That must be Madonna calling from the emergency room.