New Release! Charity Sip Release & Blog Hop!

Our Bloghop Starts Here: Torquere Press

Each year, Torquere Press does a charity drive supporting an LGBT cause. (These stories are out now.) The authors donate their royalties and Torquere matches that amount. Each year the stories are themed reflecting the cause the drive is supporting. I don't participate every year; I don't always have a story that would fit.

But this year's cause is close to my heart -- to the extent that it's difficult to talk about why. Curae leves loquuntur ingentes stupent etc. Growing up, I wanted to join the military -- I had big dreams, and they didn't work out. Perhaps ironically, it wasn't because of my LGBT status, though I've often wondered how things would have turned out. If I had gotten my dreams then, would they have been dashed later? It's impossible to know what might have been.

Anyway. From their about page:

"Outserve-SLDN is the association of actively serving LGBT military personnel and is a non-partisan, non-profit, legal services, watchdog and policy organization dedicated to bringing about full LGBT equality to America's military and ending all forms of discrimination and harassment of military personnel on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity."

If you think the difficulties facing American service people who are LGBT ended with Don't Ask Don't Tell, please educate yourself further. Trans* people are still barred from serving. The fight is far from over.

September Update!

Well, September's been anything but boring, but sadly all the interesting things are happening in my private life instead of the wonderful world of writing. BUT there will be a proper writerly post in about week, as Torquere Press are organizing a blog hop to promote the upcoming Charity Sips.

Tune in for that, as there will be something like 24 stories coming out all once, all in aid of OutServe. The stories themselves are out on Friday the 19th, so if you must have them immediately (and who would want to wait?) make sure to mark your calendars.

To help get you in the mood I created a mood board for my sip, Ad Astra (to the Stars).

A little snippet for those who haven't seen it yet (so very NSFW):

August Update

You may have noticed some new banners up around the blog -- that's because I'm promoting the Rainbow Awards. If you haven't heard of them, you should definitely click. They're the brain child of Elisa Rolle, who works incredibly hard on them, practically year round, while at the same time reviewing QUILTBAG fiction and writing about QUILTBAG history.

The Rainbow Awards reviews QUILTBAG writing across a wide swathe of genres (including nonfiction and biography/memoir), with few restrictions (the books must be 41K+, for example). There really is something for everyone to find here.

I can be sure of that because I'm on the jury again for the fourth year running. It's a strange experience. Inevitably, I end up reading books I'd never have selected for myself. There are books I receive and think "oh, this is going to be a chore" and some of them have turned out to be favorites of mine. (And of course, the reverse is true. I've seen books I thought would be a treat to read, and no. No they were not. But such is life, and they may very well be someone else's favorite book.)

So! Keep an eye out for it, and if you're interested in getting involved, make sure to have a look here. If you have a book that might be eligible, check out the criteria -- books are still being accepted until September 5.