• The Case of the Missing Drag Queen

    Broke, saddled with a mountain of debt, and dependent on his Aunt Callie’s support, aspiring writer Luke Tanner has returned to Kentucky to put his life back together after a failed five-year relationship. On his twenty-fifth birthday, Luke meets diminutive Pixie Wilder, a long-time performer at the Gilded Lily. After headliner Ruby Dubonnet doesn’t show up, Pixie takes her place as the star of the show—a motive that makes her a suspect in Ruby’s disappearance. Luke reluctantly agrees to help his new-found friend clear her name. He and Pixie set out to find the missing drag queen, and in the process, put themselves in danger.

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  • Aucune Bonne Action

    La veille de Noël, en 1966, Philip Potter, un conservateur du Smithsonian au grand cœur, termine ses achats de dernière minute. Au même instant, James, son compagnon depuis plusieurs années, s’ôte la vie chez eux. Inconscient de ce qui l’attend, Philip dépose des cadeaux à un refuge pour sans-abris, un acte généreux qui fera plus tard de lui un suspect dans le meurtre d’un prostitué. Après la mort choquante de James, deux hommes entrent dans la vie de Philip… et tous deux conduisent une Continental jaune. L’un d’eux, toutefois, est un tueur avec le sang de six prostitués sur les mains. Et tous deux cachent quelque chose. Comme Philip est sur le point de le découvrir, aucune bonne action ne …

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  • Equality: What Do You Think about When You Think of Equality?

    In the tradition of Dr. Martin Luther King’s Stride Toward Freedom and Malala Yousafzai’s, I Am Malala, Equality: What Do You Think About When You Think of Equality? presents thought-provoking and compelling personal essays that probe a concept professed to be the very foundation of our democracy—a concept that may even be more vital today than in the past. From international bestselling author, Anne Perry who asserts we must look within ourselves to our emotions, experiences, and beliefs before we attempt an honest and truthful answer, to Dennis Palumbo, psychotherapist and author, who claims diagnostic labels used in treating mental illness often stigmatize and dehumanize the patient causing clinicians to view their patients in terms of their diagnosis rather than …

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  • No Good Deed

    On Christmas Eve in 1966, Philip Potter, a kind-hearted Smithsonian curator,  wraps up his last-minute shopping. Meanwhile, his lover of several years takes his own life back in their home. Unaware of what awaits him, Philip drops off gifts at a homeless shelter, an act of generosity that will later make him a suspect in the murder of a male prostitute. Following James’s shocking death, two men enter Philip’s life—and both drive yellow Continentals. One of them, though, is a killer, with the blood of at least six hustlers on his hands. And both are hiding something. As Philip is about to discover, no good deed goes unpunished. (Originally released by MLR Press in 2013 as After Christmas Eve)

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  • Whippersnapper

    Tellumo Magnamater is a fresh-out-of-college, first-year English teacher at Salt Lick County High School in Kentucky. He rides the bus to and from work, and every day he walks to the gym behind his small efficiency apartment to exercise. Perhaps because of being raised by two lesbians, Tellumo is attracted to older men. He sets his sights on fifty-something available bachelor Oliver Crumbly. But Tellumo isn’t the only resident interested in Oliver. Peggy Tucker, a widow approaching her sixtieth birthday, is determined to marry again, and she thinks Oliver is her perfect match. Despite Tellumo and Peggy striking up a friendship at the gym, neither realizes they are interested in the same man. But the joke might be on both of …

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  • Happy Independence Day

    Terrence Bottom wants to change the world. Little does he know the world is already changing, and his part in it won’t be what he expects. A prelaw student at Columbia University, Terrence’s interests range from opposing the draft and the war in Vietnam, to civil rights for gays, to anything to do with Cameron McKenzie, the rugged blond hanging around the Stonewall Inn. Too bad Cameron bolts whenever Terrence looks his way. College dropout Cameron McKenzie left tiny Paris, Kentucky with dreams of a career on Broadway. Although he claims to be straight, he prostitutes himself to survive. Now the Mafia is using him to entrap men for extortion schemes. He’s in over his head with no way out—at …

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  • The Bear King of Snowbird Mountain

    Recently single Jeremy Jenkins is an average guy working hard as a landscape designer in the mountains of Tennessee. At a conference in DC, he meets gorgeous Donald Matthews, who says the strangest things—like how he thinks Jeremy is hot and wants them to spend the rest of their lives together. This story is part of A Taste of Honey, a Dreamspinner Press Anthology. Other stories in the collection: The Bear Fetish, by John Amory The Bear Next Door, by Jack Byrne The Bear at the Bar, by J. Scott Coatsworth Barefoot, by Lillian Francis Just Breath, by John Genest Bear Chasing, by Renae Kaye Golden Bear, by G. P. Keith Hunting Bear: A Fairy Tale with a Very Hairy …

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  • Until Thanksgiving

    Josh Freeman knows his best days are behind him. After his partner of seventeen years has an affair with a younger man, Josh buries himself in takeout boxes, half-smoked joints, and self-pity until his best friend gently kicks him in the ass and encourages him to try out a new job in Washington DC—at least until Thanksgiving. Though DC has its share of troubles, specifically in the form of a murderer targeting gay men, Josh soon discovers its charms as well. Unlike his old home, DC is crawling with men who want to date him—apparently he’s not as overweight, out of shape, or over the hill as the man he once loved made him believe. In particular, Josh would love …

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The Crotchety Old Man

Mar 31, 2014
By Michael Rupured
In An Author's Life, Becoming a Writer, Friends, Travel
2 Comments

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 scholarly gatherings I’m accustomed to attending. To date, those conferences have not included an abundance of male strippers and gay porn stars. Yet another reason to love being an author. Word of the April 2014 RainbowCon in Tampa reached me a few days after GayRomLit. Several of the writer pals I ran into in Atlanta had registered to attend, along with other guests on my blog I’ve …
Mar 30, 2014
By Michael Rupured
In Advice, Call Me Stupid, Dieting, Gripes, Just My Luck
2 Comments

Poisoned!

A whopping case of food poisoning has made for a rough week. I should have known better, but misplaced trust and my inner cheapness conspired against me. I have nobody to blame but myself. The nasty little beasts hitched a ride into my gut last Friday. I’d paid a pretty penny for a thick ribeye steak the previous Sunday. No oven-broiling or pan-frying for me. A steak that nice has to be grilled, but the weather didn’t cooperate until Friday. With few exceptions, I hate putting proteins in the freezer. Not for taste reasons, but because I have to think about what I want to eat far enough ahead of time to thaw something out. And if I change my mind, …
Mar 27, 2014
By Elizabeth Noble
4 Comments

Electric Candle

Thank you so much, Michael for having me today! I originally planned to write a little article on edits and how I feel about them. Then I spent the day with my daughter at a museum and saw a very interesting exhibit that set me to thinking. The display was named Progress and it featured a look at life in Ohio and how it’s changed since the late 1800s. It was interesting and cool to see what things people once considered the most modern and technologically advanced items available at the time. As we walked through I began pointing things out to my daughter that my grandparents owned. My grandparents raised me and now, many years after their deaths, I’ve come …
Mar 24, 2014
By Michael Rupured
In Changing Times, Habits
2 Comments

My Clean House

Jennifer Senior, author of All Joy and No Fun: The Paradox of Modern Parenthood, points out in an interview I heard on NPR that the housewives and homemakers of the sixties have morphed into today’s stay-at-home moms. The emphasis has changed from keeping house to parenting. Staying home with the kids has become a luxury. Whether they work or not, moms are too busy to clean house to the standards of earlier generations. My mother kept house like nobody’s business. Most of my sixteen aunts did too. The few who didn’t worked outside the home and/or had lots of kids. Rather than judging a sister or sister-in-law for falling down as a homemaker, the non-working aunts felt sorry for her. Bless …
Mar 20, 2014
By JP Barnaby
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Online

Award winning romance novelist, J. P. Barnaby has penned over a dozen books including the Working Boys series, the Little Boy Lost series, In the Absence of Monsters, and Aaron. As a bisexual woman, J.P. is a proud member of the GLBT community both online and in her small town on the outskirts of Chicago. A member of Mensa, she is described as brilliant but troubled, sweet but introverted, and talented but deviant. She spends her days writing software and her nights writing erotica, which is, of course, far more i...

Mar 17, 2014
By Michael Rupured
In Advice, Becoming a Writer, Gripes, My Rules, Pet Peeves
4 Comments

Pet Writing Peeves: Pop Culture References

A good writer makes the reader feel like he or she is a witness to events in the story as they unfold. Keeping the reader’s attention focused on the action and dialogue is the goal. Errors and mistakes, when noticed, take the reader out of the story. Ignorance is bliss. Before getting published, as long as the story kept me interested, I could enjoy the most poorly written of novels. Not anymore. Now all kinds of things I never noticed — my personal pet peeves — take me out of the story. If this happens often enough, I quit reading and never finish the book.  I’m in the middle of a book by a favorite author who has had a …
Mar 13, 2014
By Jay Vaughn
1 Comment

The Rough Boys

Michael, thanks so much for hosting me. It’s very much appreciated. I’m here to talk about my Rough Boys trilogy. The final novel, Rough Boys: Revenge, came out in mid-February, and to celebrate I’ve made the first novel, Rough Boys: Runaway, available for free. I touch on a lot of themes in this novel, but at it’s heart, it’s a love story. Three different love stories, actually, and as with most true love stories, there are some bumps along the way. Let me introduce you to the couples: Ty, a runaway, is rescued from freezing to death by Abe, who stumbles across him on the way home from his work as a trauma nurse. The connection is strong from start, …
Mar 10, 2014
By Michael Rupured
In An Author's Life, Habits
1 Comment

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 as he was more than a little hard of hearing, cranked up the volume loud enough to wake the dead. Hank Williams, Conway Twitty, and Loretta Lynn made going back to sleep impossible, so I’d join him in the kitchen for a morning cup of joe. I have no idea of my age at the time — somewhere between nine- and twelve-years old. Nor do …
Mar 06, 2014
By L.J. Labarthe
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The Wind-Up Forest

I’ve always loved Arthurian legends, from an early age, and that love stayed with me well into adulthood. I’ve been wanting to write a novel involving those legends in some way. I had loved Douglas Clegg’s novel, the terrific “Mordred: Bastard Son.” And I had also loved the Mary Stewart novels focusing on Merlin as the main character. The ’80s shiny armored movie, “Excalibur” is still a firm favorite, despite the cheesiness, and a lot of the music I listen to focuses on Arthurian myth and legend—the Matter of Britain—bands like local group Spiral Dance and UK artist, Damh the Bard. So I wanted to do something a little different. I wanted to use the mythos without focusing on the …
Mar 03, 2014
By Michael Rupured
In Changing Times, Habits, Profound Observations, Technology and Me
6 Comments

Ten Things I Never Do Anymore

Change is a fact of life. No, I don’t mean nickels, dimes, and quarters. I’m talking about things being different than they were before, largely as a result of progress. Thinking about changes in my own life, I came up with ten things I don’t do anymore — some thanks to progress, others due to advancing age. Print Photographs. The days of having rolls of film laying around waiting to be developed are over. Now I’ve got hundreds of pictures I never would have taken before that, unless I post them on Facebook, nobody will ever see. Damn smartphones. Fry Chicken. To tell you the truth, I’m not much intro frying anything these days. Health has less to do with my …
Feb 27, 2014
By Lane Hayes
1 Comment

Better Than Chance

Thank you for having me here today, Michael!  I’m very excited to talk about the release of my second book, Better Than Chance.  Those who’ve read my first novel, Better Than Good will recognize Jay and Peter as Aaron’s best friend and his long-time partner.   Aaron makes a point of describing the couple as having a relationship he admires.  “In the land of gay, they are what I would wish for one day…. they just seem to get each other.” I’m eternally fascinated by the mystery of attraction.  What is it that makes someone stand out?  Looks?  Sure, first impressions matter, but looks only take you so far.  Most of us learn along the way that what’s on the outside …
Feb 26, 2014
By Sid Love
2 Comments

Sid Love

Sid Love grew up in one of busiest cities in the world, Mumbai, listening to the excerpts of Indian epics from his father every night. While it served as an inspiration back in time, he has always had an ambitious mind. In 2007, when he had just turned sixteen, he decided that he would make his lifelong dream come true—to become a well-known, respected author some day.

Ask him and he would refuse to accept that he is obsessed with books. Or movies. Or TV shows. Addicted may even be the right word. He is a die-hard fan of Jane Austen...

Feb 24, 2014
By Michael Rupured
In Habits, My Life, Pet Peeves
Comments Off on My New Fireplace

My New Fireplace

Fireplaces have never impressed me much. I can’t even recall my first indoor encounter with burning logs. Until I was older, none of my relatives had working fireplaces. My first childhood home didn’t have a fireplace. The second — the house my father died in — didn’t have a fireplace when we moved in. A few years later, Dad knocked out a wall in the dead of winter to add one to the basement he’d just finished. The fireplace Dad built is constructed of street bricks, manufactured in the 19th century and salvaged by Dad over many years as roads in downtown Lexington KY were repaved. The massive bricks, about ten or twelve inches wide, five or six inches deep …
Feb 20, 2014
By G. A. Hauser
Snapped Blog Tour
5 Comments

Snapped

Goldilocks and the Three Books Making it just right… Any writer who enjoys their craft tries to mix enough mystery, action, emotion, suspense, and of course, depending on the genre, sex, into their novels. There are some readers who like it hot- like porn- ‘gimme more sex! No! I said more sex!! MORE!’ Others, quite the opposite. ‘…sheesh, there was nothing but sex in this book- no plot…just sex, sex, sex- BORING!’ Some readers prefer high drama. ‘Kill him!! Kidnap him! Beat the heck out of him! Oh come on! No one got hurt? THIS SUCKS!’ Of course the savvy writer, who writes for their readers alone- will carve a niche and stick there. Boldly they will announce, “I am …
Feb 17, 2014
By Michael Rupured
In Giveaway
2 Comments

Power of Love Contest Winners

Thanks to everyone who commented on my post for the Power of Love blog tour. A total of 13 commenters means I’m giving away an autographed copy of either of my books to three lucky winners. The winners are: Erik, Marsh10, and bn100. Thanks again to everyone who commented and to Julie Lynne Hayes and M.A. Church for organizing the Power of Love Blog Hop.