Event: Michael Graves's reading

Date: Tuesday, October 25
Time: 19.00 - 22.00
Place: Brookline Booksmith, 279 Harvard Street, Boston

Join Michael Graves and Michael Schiavone as they celebrate the releases of their two debuts novels. Michael Schiavone has had his short work published in magazines such as Glimmer Train and Narrative as well as the Robert Olen Butler Prize Anthology. His debut novel, Call Me When You Land tells the story of a mother divided from her son by the death of his absent father.

Michael Graves' fiction has appeared in numerous journals, including Lodestar Quarterly and Velvet Mafia, and he has been nominated for a Pushcart and the Million Writers Award. In his first collection of short stories, Dirty One, he tells strange tales of adolescence in a dying town.

Dirty One by Michael Graves
Paperback: 152 pages
Publisher: Chelsea Station Editions (September 6, 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0983285101
ISBN-13: 978-0983285106
Amazon: Dirty One

Set in the 1980’s, Dirty One follows a pack of adolescent characters who live in the acid-drenched, suburban town known as Leominster, Massachusetts—the plastics capital of America, as... well as the birthplace of Johnny Appleseed.

In the story, “From Kissing,” a sixth-grader named Butch has his first homosexual tongue kiss during a monster truck show and, after a bout of the flu, he is convinced he has somehow contracted AIDS. With “Curls and Curls,” nine-year-old Lee hates his kinky, brown head of hair and is seemingly possessed with magic, casting spells to unfurl his evil tresses.
In “A Snow Day,” eleven-year-old Cassidy longs to be the next mega-watt, teen pop star, but is forced to deal with her crazy classmates, her gay father, and her dog that continually vomits in the driveway. “Do It” follows a tween named Denise as she seeks her first sexual experience with a boyfriend who can never remain erect. Denise strives for high school greatness while her gay best friend is crowned king of all local paper routes.

These selections join five more, constructing the remarkable world of Dirty One.

The usual yearly question: there is still need for me to be here?

I really enjoyed the retreat in New Orleans, and among the reasons one is that I realized the genre has grown to be independent. And that is a marvellous thing. Yes, it's not I'm searching for compliment, but when I opened this blog 5 years ago or so, I was almost an exception, and more or less, all the authors, and readers, of M/M romance came here (and to the other 2 or 3 blogs reviewing M/M) to search for info. Now there are plenty of blogs, and groups and publishers and authors, and you can find recommendations almost everywhere.

What I noticed at New Orleans was almost an opposite thing: there were readers and authors who have never heard of me (and that is fine, I'm only yet another blog), but there were readers coming to me saying thank you, and I love your blog and what do you do is awesome... and I didn't know them. If I have to be sincere, I receive so few comments that I know almost everyone who has left them. They are friends, or authors, I'm in good relationship; but I didn't know most of the people coming to say hi and sometime I have the feeling to be in an island with a paper journal, i.e. no communication with the outside world.

So I'm applying a suggestion someone gave me at the retreat, ask a direct question. I know you are there, there are many hits, there are the Amazon referrals, always growing months after months, there are even some authors telling me they saw the increase in sellings once I post a review. But that is not why I'm doing this, the only reason is that I love books and I'd like to share this love. So yes, I need, once in a while to know that if I decided tomorrow to close down this journal, someone will miss it (me). Probably in a week or two they would find another blog, but at least they would wonder what happened. Will you miss me?

(PS: I'm not closing the blog tomorrow, there are the Rainbow Awards that will last until December... half-joking, half-not-joking)

The usual yearly question: there is still need for me to be here?

I really enjoyed the retreat in New Orleans, and among the reasons one is that I realized the genre has grown to be independent. And that is a marvellous thing. Yes, it's not I'm searching for compliment, but when I opened this blog 5 years ago or so, I was almost an exception, and more or less, all the authors, and readers, of M/M romance came here (and to the other 2 or 3 blogs reviewing M/M) to search for info. Now there are plenty of blogs, and groups and publishers and authors, and you can find recommendations almost everywhere.

What I noticed at New Orleans was almost an opposite thing: there were readers and authors who have never heard of me (and that is fine, I'm only yet another blog), but there were readers coming to me saying thank you, and I love your blog and what do you do is awesome... and I didn't know them. If I have to be sincere, I receive so few comments that I know almost everyone who has left them. They are friends, or authors, I'm in good relationship; but I didn't know most of the people coming to say hi and sometime I have the feeling to be in an island with a paper journal, i.e. no communication with the outside world.

So I'm applying a suggestion someone gave me at the retreat, ask a direct question. I know you are there, there are many hits, there are the Amazon referrals, always growing months after months, there are even some authors telling me they saw the increase in sellings once I post a review. But that is not why I'm doing this, the only reason is that I love books and I'd like to share this love. So yes, I need, once in a while to know that if I decided tomorrow to close down this journal, someone will miss it (me). Probably in a week or two they would find another blog, but at least they would wonder what happened. Will you miss me?

(PS: I'm not closing the blog tomorrow, there are the Rainbow Awards that will last until December... half-joking, half-not-joking)

Colin and Martin’s London Christmas by Drew Hunt

This is the second chapter in the very common life of Colin and Martin, two ordinary gay men living in northern UK. I remember their story was very, very romantic, about a blind gay man, Martin, who was setting out to spend yet one another Christmas alone with his guide dog and that fell in love just days before Christmas with the delivery guy, Colin.

Nor Colin or Martin are “special” men, and aside for Martin having a disability, they are pretty much not “hero” material… what is heroic in being a delivery guy? But nevertheless the story was romantic, the love between Colin and Martin sweet, and Colin, despite his boring job, was a wonderful romance hero, sweeping Martin away in a brisky December night and giving him the most perfect date of his life.

Now 5 year later Colin and Martin are living together, but they reached almost a breaking point: Colin inadvertently caused the death of Martin’s dog, and Martin is not able to forgive him. That is what made so special to me this novella; sorry if I’m rude, but when there is a character with disability in a romance novel, they are almost always saints… they are never wrong, they are always so polite that sometime I’d like to knock them off to see if I would have a reaction. I loved that Martin was not perfect, I loved that he was angry, and bitter towards Colin, even if, truth be told, Colin didn’t deserve it. Why I loved it? Since they were realistic. Can you imagine Martin’s feeling of loss when he is deprived of his guide dog? True, Colin is there, loving him, but to Martin is like someone was emasculating him.

Don’t worry though, this is a seasonal romance, a Christmas tale, and as such, our common heroes will find a way towards happiness.

http://www.jms-books.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=29&products_id=177

Buy Here

Amazon Kindle: Colin and Martin's London Christmas
Publisher: JMS Books LLC (December 16, 2010)

Series:
1) Colin and Martin's First Christmas: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/1224722.html
2) Colin and Martin's London Christmas

Reading List: http://www.librarything.com/catalog_bottom.php?tag=reading list&view=elisa.rolle

Colin and Martin’s London Christmas by Drew Hunt

This is the second chapter in the very common life of Colin and Martin, two ordinary gay men living in northern UK. I remember their story was very, very romantic, about a blind gay man, Martin, who was setting out to spend yet one another Christmas alone with his guide dog and that fell in love just days before Christmas with the delivery guy, Colin.

Nor Colin or Martin are “special” men, and aside for Martin having a disability, they are pretty much not “hero” material… what is heroic in being a delivery guy? But nevertheless the story was romantic, the love between Colin and Martin sweet, and Colin, despite his boring job, was a wonderful romance hero, sweeping Martin away in a brisky December night and giving him the most perfect date of his life.

Now 5 year later Colin and Martin are living together, but they reached almost a breaking point: Colin inadvertently caused the death of Martin’s dog, and Martin is not able to forgive him. That is what made so special to me this novella; sorry if I’m rude, but when there is a character with disability in a romance novel, they are almost always saints… they are never wrong, they are always so polite that sometime I’d like to knock them off to see if I would have a reaction. I loved that Martin was not perfect, I loved that he was angry, and bitter towards Colin, even if, truth be told, Colin didn’t deserve it. Why I loved it? Since they were realistic. Can you imagine Martin’s feeling of loss when he is deprived of his guide dog? True, Colin is there, loving him, but to Martin is like someone was emasculating him.

Don’t worry though, this is a seasonal romance, a Christmas tale, and as such, our common heroes will find a way towards happiness.

http://www.jms-books.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=29&products_id=177

Buy Here

Amazon Kindle: Colin and Martin's London Christmas
Publisher: JMS Books LLC (December 16, 2010)

Series:
1) Colin and Martin's First Christmas: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/1224722.html
2) Colin and Martin's London Christmas

Reading List: http://www.librarything.com/catalog_bottom.php?tag=reading list&view=elisa.rolle