Like many writers, I do lots of other creative things. I’m a gluten-free cook always looking for the best and most affordable ingredients (there will be posts on that later, I promise). I’m a costume and props maker. As a fiber artist, I’m under contract to provide award ribbons for a major twice-yearly regional art…
Read More My art for sale onlineAnother AbsoluteWrite member has a M/M erotic romance novella being released today: Roughing It, by Holden Wells. To be honest, I’ve only read part of this 35,000-word book – but that part was seriously edgy and hot, with lots of emotional content as well as a convincing M/M perspective. It’s on my order list. From…
Read More Roughing It, by Holden Wells (adult content advisory)Today, Evernight Publishing releases Anais Morgan’s new contemporary M/M erotic romance Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now. I read a beta version a few months back, and loved the story. Not just for the main characters, but the gritty reality of the Big-Box home-improvement store setting, and the triumphant resolution (and it’s not quite what you think,…
Read More Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now, by Anais Morgan (adult content advisory)To celebrate Labor Day weekend and the end of summer (here in the States), I’m featuring a couple of new releases from fellow erotic romance authors. First up is C.P. Foster, with the sizzling second book in her Arcaneology series. I’m picky about vampire erotica stories, simply because there are so many of them in…
Read More Secret Studies, by C.P. Foster (adult content advisory)It’s an old love, going back to my discovery of silversmithing back in 1979. I first had to learn on copper scrap and wire. (Thank you, Hunt Brothers, for jacking up the price of silver back then. You taught me frugality when I started using the good stuff.) One of my earliest jewelry obsessions was…
Read More I love silverApplicable quote heard yesterday: “YouTube and Spandex are a responsibility, not a right.” Applicable parable (paraphrased from a kid’s book I can barely remember and can’t track down): There once was a vain and clever gaucho who won admiration at every festival he attended, for the intricate ponchos he wove and flaunted. But weaving was…
Read More Cosplay, Manufactured Drama, and the Lazy GauchoThe first title for this post comes from Berke Breathed’s amazing comic Bloom County, and this particular strip, seen here at Robots From The Future’s comic feed. The second title for this post comes from this quote by author Samantha Geimer, via a Publishers Weekly interview in which she talks about the fallout of her 1977 rape by…
Read More Offensensitivity and the Pressure to Be Damaged (adult themes advisory)I had meant to add this information to my earlier ‘Banned in Russia?’ post, but there was just too much going on. It needs its own post. The Russian state and the Russian Orthodox Church are working together to hold power in a stalled if not decaying country – and they’re blaming homosexuals, ‘atheist scientists’,…
Read More Banning Russia, or why we shouldn’t look the other waySci Fi Con PSA! Phoenix area! Affordable and fun! Got your attention? For those of you in the east to southeast Metro Phoenix area this upcoming weekend, I’d like to point you toward CopperCon Revolution, a local science fiction and media convention with a long history – both with me and the SSF community. My…
Read More CopperCon RevolutionI’m not, yet. Not that I know of. But it’s only a matter of time. In June, apparently driven by pressure from the resurgent Russian Orthodox Church, Russia passed sweeping anti-homosexual legislation essentially making it a crime to even talk publicly about LGBTQ topics. It’s another ‘think of the children’ outcry, spuriously ignoring the many…
Read More Banned in Russia?One of the busiest groups I’m on in Yahoo is the Love Romances Cafe group, which seems to have a million members. (I won’t link directly because it is an adults-only group. Check out their blog instead.) There is always a party going on. It’s probably one of the best free marketing tools this lazy…
Read More Love Romances Cafe swag! (adult content advisory)What if you killed someone, then fell in love with them? Vera Nazarian’s amazing fantasy Cobweb Bride has just been released in print and Kindle, and already has broken the Amazon 4-digit sales barrier. Not only that, it has garnered some sweet reviews. Here’s what Black Gate has to say: “…her just-released novel, Cobweb Bride,…
Read More Cobweb Bride release newsDepending on which online outlet got there first, today and tomorrow (July 23 & 24) mark the one-year anniversary of my debut novel Moro’s Price, from Loose Id LLC. I still can’t look at the cover without getting a small jolt of startled unfamiliarity: “Wait – that’s mine!” I can’t look at the buy links…
Read More A year of being Really PublishedI write about things that cannot possibly exist in this universe, as passionately as if they did. I make art that directly references myths, folktales, and alternative beliefs that I do not believe in. And then I sell that art to people who, presumably, do. They and I have one certain link: our appreciation for…
Read More Little rituals and mind-mapsI was going to name this one ‘Male Objectification’, but that’s wrong. For one thing, it follows the standard practice of somehow ignoring bi and trans* issues, in favor of a strict dichotomy of ‘straight’ vs. ‘homosexual’. The truth of human experience, and thus the grist for writers’ extrapolations thereof, is rarely that simple. I’ve…
Read More Objects of Desire, or Girl Cooties, Part 3 (adult content advisory)A little signal boost for some fellow AbsoluteWrite.com authors. Kate Lowell is interviewed today on Top2Bottom Reviews, where she dishes about life as a Canadian pony wrangler…and some great new books in her future. SA Meade has a free M/M sweet romance story up on Goodreads today: ‘That Good Earth’, a historical set around WWI.…
Read More An interview, a free story, and new releasesI’ve talked about this before, but not in so much detail. By now we’ve all seen the ‘girl cooties’ issue from the POV of the old guard of male Science Fiction and Fantasy authors. The old guard was about ‘business as usual’. Their opponents argued that female characters were marginalized for decades. That female authors…
Read More Love By Any Name, or Girl Cooties, Part 2 (adult content advisory)I don’t know how many readers are familiar with the art phenomenon that was Bob Ross. Love him or hate him, the guy made painting accessible for millions of hobbyists around the world, with formulas that relied on brushwork tricks, simple colorways, and solid composition. Cheesy as they were at best, Ross paintings of trees,…
Read More In praise of happy treesThe more new releases the better, from my friends at AbsoluteWrite.com. This installment is the M/M novella by Charley Descoteaux, now available from Dreamspinner Press. Blurb: Neil Sedwick expects to spend his vacation in a sleepy tourist trap mourning his late partner’s death. Instead, he puts his recently acquired CPR certificate to use and saves…
Read More Directing Traffic, by Charley Descoteaux (adult content advisory)Words fail, but I’ll try, anyway. Paramount and Annapurna Pictures (the latter brought us the Cheney Apology-Fest that was Zero Dark Thirty) want to update the Terminator trilogy. Here’s the link: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-207_162-57591478/terminator-to-get-a-trilogy-reboot/ Now, CG has advanced to breathtaking levels. There’s a new crop of action heroes and heroines waiting for a shot at career-defining roles. Or…
Read More Terminate This