I first met CL Mustafic through an online National Novel Writing Month group, and was happy to learn she’d be releasing her debut novel, Falling for Him, this spring. But when I found out that Falling for Him featured not just one, but two bisexual protagonists, I was overjoyed. …Read more
For this week’s Pen to Pen, author ’Nathan Burgoine offers six tips on approaching your local bookstores to carry your book. Having managed bookstores for twenty years before turning to writing full-time, he knows this topic well from both sides. …Read more
For this week’s Pen to Pen Column, Liv Rancourt has stopped by to talk about the ins and outs of researching historical romances. The process is fresh in her mind, as she’s just released Aqua Follies, a gay romance set in the water ballet scene of 1950s Seattle. You didn’t know there was a Seattle water ballet scene? That’s not all her book covers, and keeping track of the historical trivia was quite the task. She has some great advice for digging up the details that movies and history books might not tell you. …Read more
Today is the last day that proceeds from The Guy With the Suitcase by Chris Ethan are going to the Russian LGBT Network to save lives of gay Chechens and others persecuted for their perceived sexual orientation. I finished the book last night, and it was refreshingly unlike most romances I’ve read recently. …Read more
Author Layla Dorine has had a ton of new and re-releases over the past couple months. She’s here to discuss the latest, … And All Shall Fade to Black. Soon after body piercing artist Jax moves into his new apartment, he has to break up a fight between his cute new neighbor Danny and Danny’s ex. Jax and Danny start hanging out, and they find themselves bonding in a way that feels deeper than friendship. But Jax already has a lot to deal with, like his new job in his sister’s tattoo shop, a mother with a history of unstable relationships, and his own struggles with an eating disorder. The last thing he needs on top of all that is a relationship—right? …Read more
A lot of writers swear by distraction-free writing apps to help them get their work done. I’ve never tried one before, but probably should have, given how often I accidentally click away to Facebook in the middle of writing a story. So I was interested to see today that AppSumo is offering lifetime access to BlankPage for only $25. Access to the app usually cost $10/month. I decided to check it out. …Read more
Welcome to Pen to Pen, a new weekly feature on my writing blog where authors stop by to talk about things they’ve learned along the way. Kicking the series off is K.S. Trenten, a wonderfully creative author of queer fantasy that I met when we both were publishing with the now-defunct Torquere Press. Today, she has some advice for those of us who have experienced rejection. And since that’s pretty much every writer who’s ever tried to get a story published, what she has to say will help a lot of people. …Read more
This FAQ is a revised version of a post I wrote in April about the persecution and killing of gay men in Chechnya and efforts to help them. A message I received today reminded me that there’s still a lot of education to be done. The message was along the lines of “Russia is full of hackers and scammers, so we can’t trust things based in Russia. Therefore Westerners should only support Western charities.” If everyone followed that reasoning, we’d have 40 more dead gay Chechens on our hands right now.
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I interview my fellow Sexy to Go Gay Romance author Jodi Payne about “Handyman,” the sometimes-hilarious, sometimes-poignant story of Danny, who is haunted by memories of his ex who moved out six months ago. He recognizes just how bad off he is when he wakes up to a flood in his condo, a problem his ex would have adeptly handled. His day starts looking up, though, when the workman Ken shows up to handle the drywall. But can Danny handle Ken?
“Simultaneous submissions” and “multiple submissions” are bits of jargon that have distinct meanings in the publishing industry. I break them down in this article.
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