Fabulous few days for gay lit!

It must be spring because there are so many new books out or available for preorder that I'm not sure what to get first!

Charlie Cochet's The Amethyst Cat Caper is released today. It sounds like a super noirish adventure with a tough cop and an Englishman abroad. I've been looking forward to that.

Becky Black's Higher Ground is out today as well.Speculative fiction with a lovely m/m twist.

Dianne Hartsock's Nathaniel will be published on March 2nd! Isn't that a lovely cover. I'm agog to find out how that recurve bow fits into the plot!

Then there are the preorders.

J L Merrow's Camwolf is out in paperback very soon. I've already read this as an ebook and it was terrific.

Erastes's revamped [hee] story A Brush with Darkness is available to preorder from Carina. Lush Italian setting, driven artist and a very dangerous love interest. Yum.

As if that wasn't enough there's a free short story - You're Different - from Clare London!

AND Alex Beecroft Bomber's Moon has had a stunning review from Publisher's Weekly.

So exciting!

Alike As Two Bees

I got the cover art this morning. Isn't it warm and - honeyed? Yes that's the word. Strength, skill, beauty, spiced olives and honeycomb under a forever sky.

I'll do an offical post with the proper blurb and excerpts in a few days. *gulps* It's not long now. March 2nd. I only hope anyone who reads it enjoys it as much as I did writing it.

A challenge

Sue Roebuck, bless her, has challenged me to finish my pirate novel, On a Lee Shore, by the time she comes back from the UK next week. I'm not sure whether this is because she wants to find out what happens or because she's sick of me belly aching about it. It NEEDS to be finished - there's a lot of redrafting to do and I'm beginning to get annoyed with it. Once it's finished I can set it aside for a few months and do something else. then I'll come back to it and give it some ginger on the 2nd draft!

As of this morning I was on about 91k words. Right now I have:



Another 10K should just about do it.

Maybe 15.

Get out, you're barred

This is a phrase heard quite commonly in the rougher bars in the UK. Basically, if customers misbehave, have misbehaved in the past or seem likely to misbehave the owner of a business, usually but not necessarily a pub, is entitled to refuse to serve them. People fighting, arguing, making racist or homphobic comments, causing damage or getting so drunk they puke on the floor can be barred. I think most people would agree that this is a reasonable reaction for a business owner with the best interests of his/her other customers at heart. However, it would not be reasonable for the pub owner to come across to your table and say "This is a sport pub, you were talking about books. Get out." Gr worse still "Get out, you're not wearing football strip and you look like you might talk about poetry".

But isn't that more or less what Paypal is doing with its ban on certain controversial subjects? J S Wayne has explained why this is a very bad thing here but I would like to know what Paypal's criteria are and how they are applied. Who, in other words, makes the decision that a book, or an author, has to be banned? Are Paypal going to employ readers to skim novels electronically looking for certain triggery keywords? Or are they hoping the publishing industry will self regulate by choosing not to publish books with 'questionable' content? Or are they hoping that authors will restrict themselves to the straight and narrow?

Fat chance, Paypal.

Hold these dates!

September 14th – 16th 2012 will see the third annual UK Meet for readers/writers/reviewers/fans of GLBTQ fiction.

There will be a full day of programmed events on Saturday 15th, plus social events on Friday evening and Sunday morning.

Full press release, with details of where, what and how to book, goes live Friday 24th Feb.

Call for submissions for linked anthology “Lashings of Sauce” goes live Friday 2nd March.

UK Meet team (Jo, Jamie, Clare, Alex and Charlie)

Also - brand new spiffy website!!

Three weeks

That is three weeks until my novella, "Alike As Two Bees" [so glad they kept the title], is released by Etopia Press. So far it has been a very interesting process with content edit and copy edits to deal with - mercifully nothing too scary - and a mock-up of the cover to look at. The business side of things is far scarier. I thought I'd have longer to get my ITIN sorted but I'll have to try and fit in a trip to London soon - a horrible prospect for someone who gets uncomfortable at the thought of going shopping in the next town. As for dealing with the US embassy - dear lord, there are people in there with GUNS! But, got to man up and get it done! *feels nauseous*