My first novel is available for preorder: Gabriel’s City: A Tale of Fables and Fortunes, a story about growing up, a story about losing everything but finding yourself, a story about how much stories matter, a story about faith and love and stabbing. I’m so happy to have brought it this far, and so grateful to Riptide and Rachel Haimowitz for giving me a chance (and a fantastic cover), and I can’t wait to be able to share these guys with you. November 17 can’t come soon enough. :)
Bump in the Night is out this week! And there’s a blog tour on! I’m up today, and you can find me over at Sid Love, posting about the horror of a well-placed “yes.” I knew this would have to be my discussion topic pretty much as soon as we got the heads-up to start making plans for a post. I love it so much when characters enthusiastically embrace things that aren’t good for them. >3
In one of those entertaining cases of authorial blind spot, I’ve seen a few reviews now that compare “Resurrection Man” to Frankenstein — one of them even goes so far as to call it “loosely based” on the novel. And now that they point it out I can see it? But I swear it never even crossed my mind while I was writing. Somehow Frankenstein’s monster has never been one of the classic horrors on my radar. But maybe this is a sign that I should fix that.
Tis the season, after all.
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So today is release day for my short Falling into Her Arms (publisher’s website is NSFW), a science-fantasy angel/demon f/f short story. I wrote it in the spring of 2012, and submitted it that June, and then a whole host of other exciting things happened in my writing life, and by now it almost feels like I’m peering back at someone else’s life.
But the impulses that led me to write it are still there; I want there to be more f/f stories that grab the totally self-indulgent, extravagant tropes m/m gets to play with. I want there to be epic love stories against the backdrop of imperial struggles or galactic warfare. I want tempting devils and hard-bitten mercenaries and mysterious drifters. I want them rough and tender and romantic and kinky and adventurous and beautiful. I want them fearless in their desires and certain of who they are. I want casts of women I can fall for. I want to put my word count where my mouth is.
This story barely makes a dent in all the things I want, but it’s a start.
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Check it out, my Halloween offering this year is available now! Bump in the Night is a collection of six gay erotic horror stories, including my piece “Resurrection Man,” which is a story about what happens when a necromancer is in love with a man who had a terminal illness. (Spoilers, what happens is sexy and also Not Quite Right.) I am delighted to be part of this anthology, and to have the chance to continue to work with Riptide. The antho releases on October 14 — preorder direct from Riptide for 15% off ebook or paperback!
I feel so ridiculously lucky to have found Riptide and found Rachel, my editor there. For an author, having an editor you really *click* with, someone who gets what you’re trying to do and knows how to push you toward it, is an utter godsend. Since “Resurrection Man” I’ve sent Rachel two longer pieces and gotten one acceptance and one revise/resubmit. And you know? I’m at least as grateful for the R&R. The accepted novel was something I’d put a lot of work into over multiple passes and revision and agonizing, and I really wanted to be able to get it an audience. The R&R novelette was fun, but much sloppier, honestly; much more rushed. I sent it out because I wanted to get something in front of people *sooner*, rather than because it was ready. And I think it probably still could have gotten published in some places. But it wasn’t my best work, and getting called on that was good for me. It’ll make me hold myself to a higher standard, and it’ll help me trust my editor’s judgment on future works, too: she knows when I could be doing better than I am, and she won’t let me get away with half-assing it.
I can’t wait to have more concrete news about the novel. I feel so good about writing this year.
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Available now! A short story released as part of Dreamspinner’s 2013 Daily Dose collection, Make a Play: No Losers in the Game of Love. “A Fighting Chance” is about wresting a happy ending out of a dystopian sci fi culture:
Luis Delgado, a boxer, and Davey Taylor, an artist, live in a future when Earth is home to the destitute and the only chance for a better life is found among the colonies that orbit the once-great planet. Davey has the opportunity to make a name for himself with an art sponsorship on the Luna Minor colony, but he needs to get there first. Luis may have the answer, but it means choosing between his career and his future together with Davey.
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Two quickies!
First: there’s going to be a Gay Romance Northwest Meetup on September 14 right here in Seattle! I’m so excited. My finances haven’t allowed me to travel for any of the cons happening elsewhere in the country this year, but at least I’ll be able to get my feet wet at a smaller event in my home town. I’m already nervous about meeting some of the fabulous authors who are planning to attend. It’ll be a good thing, right?
Second:
I wrote this f/f vampire short last winter as part of the Hurricane Sandy charity auction organized by MJ O’Shea and Piper Vaughn. Now I have finally gotten off my butt and added it to Smashwords, where it is free in multiple formats. This was also a good reason to create a “Free Reads” page on my site, which will come in handy once my Love Has No Boundaries story is ready to go public, too.
That’s all the news for now, though, because the weather is goddamn beautiful this weekend and I need to go outside.
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I swear the hardest part of publishing is the waiting period in between finishing up work on a story and having it go on sale. But here we are! At this point it looks likely that my next release will be my contribution to this year’s Daily Dose collection from Dreamspinner (I could be wrong; I have a story in the pipeline with ForbiddenFiction, and they don’t get release dates finalized far in advance, so maybe that’ll hit sooner). My Daily Dose story will be out on June 1, though:
(Someday I’ll write a Daily Dose/Advent story long enough to get an individual cover, too.) The theme for this collection, as you can probably tell, is sports! So I wrote sci fi, since that’s what I do:
Luis Delgado, a boxer, and Davey Taylor, an artist, live in a future when Earth is home to the destitute and the only chance for a better life is found among the colonies that orbit the once-great planet. Davey has the opportunity to make a name for himself with an art sponsorship on the Luna Minor colony, but he needs to get there first. Luis may have the answer, but it means choosing between his career and his future together with Davey.
They’re good kids! And I’m looking forward to sharing them with everyone.
…In other coming-soon news, I’m a few thousand words into my contribution for Love Has No Boundaries, the mid-year free fiction event put on by the Goodreads M/M Romance group. If you’re a member of the group, you’ll be able to read some excerpts and info about what’s in store in my story—I’m doing a little thread hop with some other group members, and my first contribution is scheduled for tomorrow, right here in this thread.
I’d better get back to work on those boys, really—I’ve been sick this week, but porn and tide wait for no man, or something like that. Onward!
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Release day!
Cultural Hospitality is now available direct from Torquere, with third-party options coming soon. This was one of the most straightforwardly fun stories I’ve written in quite a while — the submissions call wanted vampires and masquerade balls, both of which already felt like deeply self-indulgent ideas for me to play with. So I piled on some interspecies romance, a bit of literal intoxication, and the sweetness of “I didn’t think I could have this happy ending, but I was wrong,” and basked in the entire writing process.
If you, too, can’t get enough of sexy vampires in fancy costumes, try the entire Masks Off Too! collection. Mmmmm.
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Three weeks until release day for Torquere’s Masks Off Too! anthology, and the simultaneous release of the individual shorts. I’m looking forward to it.
I had a blast with my story; the call already felt self-indulgent enough — vampires in masquerade! — that I figured I should just go all-out and add more things that I find fun. So “Cultural Hospitality” features handsome aliens, size difference, and intoxication, and a longstanding crush finally being requited. Yum.
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