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Priorities
My father taught me anything worth doing is worth doing well. Of course, he never actually used those words. Instead, he’d berate me for being half-assed. Thanks to this early training (or an undiagnosed personality disorder), I don’t do things by halves. Nope. Not me. I’m whole ass or not at all. Insecurity nourishes my obsessive tendencies. To compensate for…
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Five Steps to Becoming a Successful Author
On this date just two short years ago, with a lot of encouragement from my friends in the Athens Writers Workshop, I submitted a query for my first novel. I waited for the “not what we’re looking for at this time” message to file with the rejections I’d already received for Glass Houses — my still unpublished memoir.…
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RainbowCon 2014
My first gig as a featured author at a conference took place last month in Tampa. Back in October I dropped by a similar event — the Gay Romance Literature retreat (GRL) in Atlanta — to scope things out. Meeting and hanging out with publishers, reviewers, readers, and other writers was great fun! I heard about RainbowCon and, rather…
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The Swag’s the Thing
I’ve attended numerous academic conferences over the last three decades in connection with my day job. But before last year, I’d never attended any kind of Con. When I heard the 2013 Gay Romance Literature Retreat would be in nearby Atlanta, I had to go. One glance and I knew GayRomLit would be nothing like the…
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Tethered to the Coffeemaker
I drank my first coffee — heavily laced with cream and sugar — a very long time ago. We’d spent the night with Uncle Don and Aunt Mary. Uncle Don got up hours before everyone else to make breakfast before he went to work. He kept his radio tuned to a country music station, and…
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GayRomLit: A Virgin’s Tale (Part 2: Thursday)
Last Monday, I wrote about my preparations for GayRomLit in Atlanta. Today’s post picks up with Thursday morning — the first full day of the retreat — before I really knew what I’d gotten myself into. What an experience! First thing Thursday morning, the organizers offered an orientation session for newcomers. All the newbies got cherries…
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GayRomLit: A Virgin’s Tale (Part 1: Getting There)
Readers and writers of gay romance novels from around the world come together for the annual Gay Romance Literature Retreat. The first GayRomLit was in New Orleans in 2011, moving to Albuquerque for 2012, and this year — from October 17-20 — the biggest event in the gay romance genre was in Atlanta. Being so…