Friskbiskit

Man Candy Monday: Stars and Stripes 4Ever

For the upcoming Fourth of July:
except that I think that's a French flag...

well, Bastille Day is coming up...
Vive La France!

  Thank you, Dotty Pinhole!

Hail to the Graduates

So for those of you who may not know, I work as a mentor with graduate students in Seton Hill University's Writing Popular Fiction program.  I've been doing this for over two years now and it is a very rewarding experience.

This past week, I have been in Greensburg, PA, attending the program's bi-annual residency.  It is a busy, fun-filled and sometimes overwhelming five days of workshops, lectures, conversation and dubious cafeteria food.  I always have a wonderful time, and this time is no exception.  Even more than a convention, this is an experience of being surrounded by people who are enthusiastic about writing, and because it is multi-genre, the cross-section of perspectives is particularly energizing.

Three students I have mentored are graduating today, and one student who I did not mentor, but whose manuscript I evaluated, is also graduating.  A big shout out to Nu, Erica, Nicole and Amanda, and to all of the graduates who have worked so hard to achieve their degrees.  You should all be very proud of your accomplishment, as I am to have worked with you.

Alumni from the program also have a retreat here this weekend and one of the agents who attended told me that the pitches she has heard here stand out from what she has experienced at other conferences in their professionalism and sophistication.  This didn't surprise me, but it is nice to have outside confirmation about what a great program we have.

It's always hard to say goodbye to students who are leaving the program.  But I am also looking forward to meeting and working with the new students who are just getting started.  I hope everyone has had a good residency, and again, to those of you graduating today, my warmest congratulations.

Steven's Chocolate Covered Contest

My pal Steven Harper-Piziks is running a cool contest where you can win not only an autographed copy of one of his Silent Empire novels (starring gay lovers Kendi and Ben) and a bar of chocolate.  What's not to love about that?  For full details read his blog entry: http://spiziks.livejournal.com/160712.html.  The deadline to enter is June 30 at 5 pm so don't delay!

And please stay tuned next week because Steven will be joining us on Author Spotlight to talk about his new project with Amazon and Kindle.

Steve and Bill Discuss Their Gay Marriage

Author Spotlight: G.A. Hauser

G.A. Hauser has published nearly 30 books with a variety of publishers and now, she's breaking out on her own and publishing her latest novel, CALLING DR. LOVE, herself.  Please welcome G.A. as she discusses writing, publishing and go-go boys.  And don't miss the excerpt from Calling Dr. Love behind the cut below.

Tell us about your recent publication.

CALLING DR LOVE is about one of the deadly sins. Pride. Though pride could be a good thing, inspiring ambition and success, pride is indeed one of the worst sins to possess. It prevents you from accepting help when you need it, or being truly empathetic to another’s problems.

What gave you the idea for this story?

On a book signing in West Hollywood last year, I noticed every bar on the Sunset Strip had nearly naked Go-go boys dancing in the windows. How could I not write an erotic novel about one of those beauties?

Why do you write?

I love it, love it, love it.

What do you like about m/m?

I suppose it’s a guilty pleasure. I love men. It seems only natural to love imagining them together. Ironically straight men can’t seem to understand the concept, even though two women together is acceptable for them.
Simply put, two gorgeous hunks grinding turns me on.

If you could change one thing about the publishing industry, what would it be?

I would love to remind publishers and editors that the author is the one who is the talent and the reason why everyone is in business. I think there are too many big egos in the publishing world who have switched the notion and believe they are the most important part of the book industry not the novelist. It’s a sad state. Yet when you find a publisher who understands the relationship it’s bliss.

More on G.A. and Calling Dr. Love:

G.A.'s website:

http://www.authorgahauser.com

G.A.'s MySpace page and blog:

http://www.myspace.com/gahauserauthor

Blurb for CALLING DR. LOVE:

Pride and ego make a very unlikely combination for finding true love. Unless you discover another who is your mirror image.

Twenty-five year old Phil Andrews left his family in Eastern Washington to escape the small town attitudes of his siblings and the locals to be free to be himself in the liberal area of West Hollywood. But without an education or work experience to fall back on, Phil uses his good looks and physique to make ends meet, working as a go-go boy at night, and a gay porn star on the weekends.

Intelligent, out of the closet, Dr. Christopher Love was thirty-three years old and a success in everything but his relationships. He knew his life was lacking something, a partner to share it with. Trying to find the kind of man he found attractive sexually and one who was also was willing to bend to his demands was an impossible task. Until he met Phil Andrews.

Two men, two opposite worlds. One educated at the finest schools, an asset to the community, a philanthropist and a surgeon, the other, a high-school drop-out, former drug addict with a criminal record, meet during a stormy night while the lights are blacked out. The physical attraction bonds them instantly, but soon their differences bring to the surface that deadly pride.

Buy Link for Calling Dr. Love:

http://www.allromanceebooks.com/product-callingdrlove-17548-149.html

Click on the link below to read and excerpt:

(Please note, the following excerpt is Not Safe for Work.  By clicking the link below, you are certifying that you are 18 years of age or older.)

Man Candy Monday

From Howard Roffman's book, Texas Twins.

Posted in conjunction with Erotica Cover Watch.  Image ganked from Casual in Istanbul.

Ameranth & Ash 8

This may be the last A&A for a little while, because right now I have to give everything I've got to another project that's on deadline.  But I have had a great time working on A&A and appreciate everyone who has taken the time to comment on it.  Your encouragement is a great motivator for me.  My hope is to continue with this story as soon as time permits.

This is the world-building edition of A&A.  I'm finally at a point in the story where I need to establish some things about the setting and the society at large.  But there's some story in here too. 

Here's an illustration (very badly drawn) of the city where A&A takes place.  More of a graph really, outlining each of the districts where the various castes live.  That line down the middle is supposed to be a river and where it curves out at the very bottom, beyond that is the sea.  The straight line running horizontally across the middle is a mistake.  :P

Anywhoo, without further ado, here is the latest installment of Ameranth & Ash:

Ameranth & Ash 8

Ameranth & Ash Main Page

Photo Essay: Graphing Genderfuck

So I've been doing all this thinking about crossing boundaries, particularly gender boundaries, and how the act of crossing itself is what seems to be the most important part.  There's a dynamic to it, a truth that only becomes evident through movement from one side to the other.  I wanted to graph it out but I have no patience for tracking down my seldom used graphics program and remembering how to use it.  I've been getting all analogue lately anyway, writing longhand and all, so I drew it out on a pad of paper.  (Sorry for the poor quality of the images.  I don't have a lot of time so I used the camera on my laptop.)

1 up/1 down is my shorthand for male/female, entitled/unentitled, etc.  The two halves of every dichotomous power structure.

The arrow on the right would be the direction in which the kick-ass heroine crosses gender boundaries.

The arrow on the left is the direction in which the male characters I write in m/m cross gender boundaries.

In this direction, female identity is invested with 1 up entitlement and prowess.

In this direction, male identity is divested of entitlement:

 

And this is where it gets complicated:

Men are disempowered by being given the traditional roles and values of women.  Because male entitlement is so indelible, however, it remains even after the male characters are cast as romance heroines, thus giving me the 1 up experience within a framework that makes it accessible or, maybe even more accurately, palatable to me.

Yes, I can taste it.

 

Still Yet More Regendering

Or should it be ungendering, degendering, ingendering, engendering?  Then there's genderbend, genderfuck...  Oh the fun you can have!

Anyway, Viola's Bookshelf: A Gender Exchange Library takes creative commons licensed and out of copyright fiction and switches the genders of the characters in order to "help provide an understanding of gender construction in fiction and to an extent in everyday life."

It is interesting to read Cory Doctorow's Scroogled in a gender-switched format:

When she returned home, she discovered that all of her fake pre-Columbian statues had been broken, and her brand-new white cotton Mexican shirt had an ominous boot print in the middle of it. Her clothes no longer smelled of Mexico. They smelled like airport.

She wasn’t going to sleep. No way. She needed to talk about this. There was only one person who would get it. Luckily, he was usually awake around this hour.

Sam had started working at Google two years after Alex had. It was he who’d convinced her to go to Mexico after she cashed out: Anywhere, he’d said, that she could reboot her existence.

Sam had two giant chocolate labs and a very, very patient boyfriend named Laurie who’d put up with anything except being dragged around Dolores Park at 6 a.m. by 350 pounds of drooling canine.

Sam reached for his Mace as Alex jogged toward him, then did a double take and threw his arms open, dropping the leashes and trapping them under his sneaker. “Where’s the rest of you? Dude, you look hot!”

She hugged him back, suddenly conscious of the way she smelled after a night of invasive Googling. “Sam,” she said, “what do you know about Google and the DHS?"

Here's a post from Hoyden About Town on the project that includes some interesting comments from the "translator" of Scroogled, Sajbrfem.  Viola's Bookshelf originated as part of Fifty Two Acts, a cyberfeminist project.  Here's a longer post from Sajbrfem about the translation of Scroogled.

In the Viola's Bookshelf about page, it is mentioned that originally a schedule of one novel a month was planned.  They also requested that readers send genderswitched books in order to help out.  I noticed just now that Viola's Bookshelf has not been updated in 2009.  This kind of project is a lot of work.  Maybe you could help.

Fully Clothed Man Candy Monday

This guy is so beautiful, though.  He looks like a yaoi manga come to life.

Posted in conjunction with Erotica Cover Watch.  Image ganked from Casual in Istanbul.

More Regendering

Here is the satire upon which the racial pronoun scheme in Regender is based.  This is a powerful, unsettling piece designed to shake us out of our comfort zone in order to get us to see something that we regard as quite commonplace in an entirely new light.  It works.

A Person Paper on Purity in Language by William Satire (alias Douglas Hofstadter)

Author Spotlight: Addison Albright

Please welcome Addison Albright, who's here to answer some nosy questions and share with us an excerpt from her new novella,  Cultivating Love, just out from Loose Id.

Tell us about your new publication.

"Cultivating Love" is a contemporary m/m novella that recently came out at Loose ID. The two men in the story, Ed and Joe, move together from a medium sized metropolitan area to a farm in rural Nebraska. The transition forces them to talk about their previously casually defined relationship, as they face a combination of acceptance and resistance in small-town America.
 

 

What gave you the idea for this story?
I love the idea of two macho guys falling for each other but feeling awkward about talking about their feelings or admitting what they like, so I set out to write a story around that concept. I figured a couple of blue-collar guys in the Midwest would be most believable in that capacity, as opposed to a couple of guys from, say, LA or Boston. The setting also helped to naturally develop the external conflict for this story.
 

What else do you want us to know about your recent publication?

It's got a lot more in the way of external drama than my stories generally have. Ed and Joe face some very real danger. Of course, most of my stories are short stories, so high drama isn't necessary, but still, I'm usually pretty low-angst.

Why do you write?

I've always loved to read, and would tend to imagine my own stories expanding on stories I'd read. I'd been wanting to try to put a story down in writing for some time and I finally decided to just do it. I write because it's a wonderful creative outlet, and as a bonus I even get paid for it!

What do you like to read?

Wow, pretty much anything and everything. I read romances, sci-fi, biographies, horror, true-crime, fantasy, historical, contemporary, paranormal, miscellaneous non-fiction, drama, etc. I've got way too many books. My favorite genre for pleasure reading is probably contemporary romance (including m/m). This is the area in which I'm most comfortable writing.

What is your most embarrassing experience as an author?

Goodness, there's always something new superseding the last snafu. Let's see, most recently I was mortified to discover that I'd accidentally overwritten a how-to information page on the new GLBT Bookshelf Wiki with the author page I was setting up for myself. Wiki's are scary like that--you can change and/or screw up pretty much anything. Anyway, I sent off a quick 'sorry-please help' email to the admin there but figured out how to restore the original page in the meantime. I hope not too many people consulted that help page and wondered what the heck I was up to before I got it fixed.

Who has inspired you?

Hmm, it's hard to say. Ideas just develop, but I can't usually think back to a particular trigger for them. Occasionally simply wandering through everyday life, something will strike me as a good setting for a story, or something someone says will trigger a character sketch.

 

Oops. Your question was 'who,' not 'what.' Hmm, I don't think I could name a single person. Pretty much every author I've ever read has inspired me to some degree.

What do you like about m/m?
When I first discovered and started reading m/m I loved a couple of things about it. First, that the stories were fresh and different. I was getting tired of the same-old same-old that I was starting to find in traditional romances. Second, the relationship dynamic between two men is completely different than what you'll find with a straight couple. I guess that really just ties into my first point. It's a big part of what made these stories new and exciting.

 

What is your favorite guilty pleasure?

It's food related. I love popcorn. That's fairly healthy and not much of a 'guilty pleasure' until you doctor it like I do, with a touch of molasses mixed into melted butter (real butter, not margarine) poured over the top. Yum!

To what/whom do you credit your success?

I was *this* close to quitting after getting rejections from pretty much everywhere on my first story writing attempt. I'd reworked the story to death and thought it was as good as I was capable of getting it. Finally I got a rejection letter that actually gave constructive criticism and told me what the story needed. That letter was from Judith David at MLR Press. I have to admit that I totally used them. My story had been rejected everywhere, and although I'd reworked it, yet again, I didn't really feel like I had much hope of it being accepted there. But their submission guidelines said something about how, even if they reject your story, they will give you a critique. So I sent it in. And sure enough, I got the nicest rejection you ever did see. It helped that she started out with a compliment, but most importantly she told me exactly what needed to be done to make the story good.

 

Had that rejection been like the others, a simple 'sorry, this story doesn't fit what we're looking for,' I would have quit right then. I'd already decided that I was obviously not good enough. But her words, "We were very taken with your writing skills; they are excellent. Your submission package was also well thought out and professionally presented," gave me hope. Heck, even though those words were the intro of a rejection letter they actually sent my spirits soaring. I took every bit of critical advice in that letter to heart and totally rewrote the story, once again. It was accepted on my very next submittal attempt, so I will forever be thankful for that thoughtful rejection and give full credit to Judith David for the fact that I have anything published, anywhere, because that truly was going to be my final attempt. I don't even know where to start regarding how much I've learned over the past year and a half since then.

How did you start writing?

I just started writing in January of 2008. Basically I just decided to finally do something I'd been thinking about doing for quite some time. Why m/m? I wish I could give a noble answer like I wanted to get behind a genre that was doing something to promote a worthy cause, such as LGBT rights, because I do believe in those things. But the most honest answer is that, like many readers, m/m is one of many genres I read and enjoy, and choosing a growing genre that was not overrun with contributing authors seemed like my best bet to break into the industry. Although I do hope to expand--I'm currently working on an m/f story--I would never want to abandon m/m. I love the stories. If anything, I think--or at least hope--that authors (and even book series) crossing genres will draw more new readers over to m/m.

If there were one misconception about m/m that you could clear up forever, what would it be?

M/M is absolutely not porn, and for the most part it's not even just straight up erotica. It's erotic romance, emphasis on the romance. At least that what the stories I like are, that's what most of the m/m stories available are, and that's what the publishers call for.

What was one of your favorite books as a kid?

I read all the "Little House" books by Laura Ingalls Wilder, over and over.
 

If you could change one thing about the publishing industry, what would it be?
Get rid of DRM's. The pirates all know how to crack them anyway, so it's not stopping that problem, but it *is* screwing the average reader who switches computers and all of a sudden can't access books they legitimately paid for (Grrr--I've got a *bunch* of them). And (sorry I guess this is two things, but they're both ebook related) wouldn't it be nice if there was just one standard ebook format that all of them agreed on, that could be used by all ebook readers?

 

What do you think is behind the popularity of m/m?
Oh goodness, I'm not particularly political--I just know how I feel and what I like. My guess would be that the answer is probably a combination of things? Part of it is readers like me, who stumbled on it looking for something different and discovered it was great reading. LGBT issues are becoming quite popular, or at least prominent in the news. Perhaps that's getting some new readers to take a first look at it. What keeps them coming back for more? A wide variety of wonderful stories!

 

Who is your favorite character, and why?

My favorite character that I've written? I'd have to say "Larry" in my upcoming (July 8) Torquere novel, "Another Dream." Probably because I drew more out of myself--my own personality--for him than any other character. He's terribly shy and insecure, but he has bold ideas in his head trying to come out.

Do you now write, or have you ever written, fanfic?  If so, what fandoms, pairings, etc?

Nope. I know, that's unusual. I'm pretty sure that all of the authors I network with either have written, or do write, fanfic. I, on the other hand, am so ignorant that I'd never even heard of it until I had my first stories accepted and was starting to get into promo and networking. I had to google it to find out what they were talking about. Sad, eh?

What is your proudest moment as an author?
Probably the proudest moments are when I receive a positive comment from a reader who loved a story. That never fails to completely make my day. Also, the first time getting a story accepted, ever, and then the first times getting accepted/invited by a new publisher rank right up there too.

 

What kind of impact do you hope your work will have on your readers?
I don't typically aspire to anything too inspirational. I just want to make them smile and finish the story with a warm feeling. My charity m/m wedding sip would be an exception, since the theme of the blitz was GLBT weddings. My story ("Now and Forever") was about a gay couple getting married during that window that was open for a short time in California. The goal there, of course, was to promote that theme.

 

Kirk, or Spock?
Spock. Although I have to admit I'm not the biggest of Star Trek fans. I love Star Wars, if that helps (For that I pick Han Solo over Luke Skywalker). ;)

 

What have you always wished someone would ask you?  Now answer!

Are you kidding? Ha! The shy, insecure Larry character in my upcoming "Another Dream" draws from my own personality. I've spent most of my life as a wall-flower dreading that someone would ask me a question and I'd say something stupid. You're talking to someone who came *this* close to failing Kindergarten because she didn't utter a single word. Apparently, I finally slipped up and answered a direct question with a 'yes' or 'no' (heck if I remember the details) sometime in March, thereby shocking the classroom full of students, who thought I truly *couldn't* talk. I do remember being mortified when they applauded. I'm told I peeped a few more words during the remainder of the school year, and it was enough to go ahead and pass me onto first grade. So :-P

Addison's website:

http://addison-albright.tripod.com/

CULTIVATING LOVE by Addison Albright

Published on 6/9/2009 at Loose ID 

Buy Link:  

http://www.loose-id.com/prod-Cultivating_Love-972.aspx 

Blurb: 

A man of few words, Joe is a hard-working farmhand who likes his simple, uncomplicated life. Ed is satisfied with his existence as an auto mechanic, but thrilled when an unexpected development in his life allows him to help Joe realize a dream. 
 
It forces them, however, to reevaluate the casual, undefined nature of their relationship. They're too macho to speak of love, and neither would ever dream of acknowledging he doesn't really mind when it's his turn to bottom. When life throws them a curve ball, and the rules of their game get old, Ed makes an effort to take every aspect of their relationship up a notch. Will Joe be able to adapt to the open sentimentality Ed's injecting into their relationship, let alone the new spice in their bedroom activities? 

Excerpt Behind Cut:

Regender Your World

Have you ever wondered what it would be like if men and women switched places?  What if we used gender neutral pronouns, or if we identified races the same way we do gender?  As Regender creator Ka-Ping Yee notes, language has power, and to show us how our language impacts our world in ways we forget to see, he's created a nifty little webtool that will translate anything on the web for you.

The basic setting swaps male pronouns, nouns and proper names for female ones, and vice versa.  And once you're browsing with it (or you can check out the gender-swapped bible, if you want), you'll find a little bar in the upper right corner where you can switch whatever you're looking at to no less than three different genderless pronoun strategies, plus two other settings that do things with race and gender that I haven't even been able to get my head around yet.  Go and play with this.  It's fascinating.

Creator Ka-Ping Yee says he wants to save the world and have fun doing it.  Way to go, Ka-Ping!

Man Candy Monday: Varsity Edition

Where's Loughborough University, you ask?  I have no idea.  But check out the little Hoff head on his undies.  These guys know how to party, obviously. 

Posted in conjunction with Erotica Cover Watch.  Image ganked from Casual in Istanbul.

The Other Side of the Fence...

...may not be all that different from where I'm standing right now.  Here's a blog I found because Figleaf, the fellow who writes it, linked to one of my ManCandy Monday posts.  Figleaf is a man, apparently heterosexual, who is wonderfully, refreshingly aware of just how much bullshit we all get fed about sex.  And he's blogging about myths of men's sexuality, women's sexuality, and a whole host of other relevant topics.  Go read him.

Oh, and every Thursday he has Half-Nekkid Thursday, where he posts pics of himself, you know, half-nekkid: