2013 Rainbow Awards Submission: Kaje Harper - Nor Iron Bars A Cage

Nor Iron Bars a Cage (Love Has No Boundaries) by Kaje Harper
ebook, 244 pages
Published June 1st 2013 by M/M Romance Group @ goodreads

First I was a sorcerer. Then I was a hermit. For so long—for years that seemed to go on forever—I couldn't bear to be touched. I put up not just walls but whole stone bunkers to keep everyone out, emotionally, and physically as well. I was protected from people, from ghosts, from specters real and imagined. Sure, I was alone. But I felt safe. Only, after a while, I wasn't sure any longer whether a totally "safe" empty life was really worth living.
Then Tobin came along. Out of the blue, out of my past, with a summons from the king that he wouldn't let me ignore. I tried to cling to my isolation, but he wouldn't give up on me. Tobin never believed in walls.

This story was written as a part of the M/M Romance Group's "Love Has No Boundaries" event. Group members were asked to write a story prompt inspired by a photo of their choice. Authors of the group selected a photo and prompt that spoke to them and wrote a short story.

2013 Rainbow Awards: Call for judges

Due to the (unexpected) amount of submissions, I need to send out another call for judges. Specifically, I need judges for the second reading period, October/November, from 3 to 5 books to be read in 2 months.

At the moment, I need judges for:
Lesbian Fantasy
Lesbian Historical Romance
Lesbian Mystery/Thriller
LGBT Sci-fi/Futuristic

plus I wouldn't say no to help reading the last minute submissions, that means due date September 30.

If you are interested in joining the Rainbow Awards jury (readers, reviewers, authors, editors, publishers are welcome), please contact me.

Permission to re-post grated.

ETA: thank you for the HUGE help. If you still wish to help, the call is now for
Gay Paranormal Romance, 5 books, in October/November
plus help reading last minute submissions, from now to September 30.

Julia Willis (born August 21, 1949)

Julia Willis was born August 21, 1949, in Charlotte, North Carolina, daughter of William Clem and Carolyn Willis. She earned her bachelor's degree from the University of North Carolina, Charlotte, in 1973. She began her career as an associate editor for Red Clay Books in 1974.

She has written four books including, Reel Time, a comic novel; We Oughta Be in Pictures, for which she was a Lambda Award drama finalist; Who Wears the Tux?, a lesbian quiz book; and Meow-Mories. Her work has also appeared in numerous women’s anthologies.

Julia was a founding member of the women’s comedy troupe, the Ends and Means Committee. She wrote for the lesbian soap opera, Two in Twenty, and her award-winning one-act comedies have been produced by off-off-Broadway and by gay and lesbian theatres around the country. In addition to reviewing for Lambda Book Report and The Lesbian Review of Books, she has written comedy material for the Boston Baked Theater, Terra Infirma on NPR and for Joan Rivers. She has received fellowships and grants from the Arch and Bruce Brown Foundation, Massachusetts Artists Foundation, Edward Albee Foundation and MacDowell Colony.

She worked as a freelance writer, poet, producer, comedy writer/performer and a playwright through the 1990s. She has been married since 2006.

Her papers are held at ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives. This collection documents Julia Willis’ career as a writer of books, plays, poetry, comedic writings, short stories, and newspaper columns. The bulk of the material dates from the 1990s and includes manuscripts, drafts, correspondence, scripts, notes, press material, photocopies of awards and recognitions, reviews, clippings, program and other papers.

Source: http://www.oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/kt3r29r8zk/

( Further Readings )

Mart Crowley (born August 21, 1935)

Mart Crowley (born August 21, 1935) is an American playwright.

Crowley was born in Vicksburg, Mississippi. After graduating from The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. in 1957, Crowley headed west to Hollywood, where he worked for a number of television production companies before meeting Natalie Wood on the set of her film Inside Daisy Clover. Wood hired him as her assistant, primarily to give him ample free time to work on his gay-themed play The Boys in the Band, which opened off-Broadway to ecstatic reviews on April 14, 1968 and enjoyed a run of 1001 performances. Crowley became part of Wood's inner circle of friends that she called "the nucleus", whose main requirement was that they pass a "kindness" test.

Crowley's sequel to The Boys in the Band was entitled The Men From The Boys.

Crowley's second work, Remote Asylum, was mounted with great expectations at the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles in 1970, but it failed to garner the raves his debut had. In that same year, he enjoyed greater success with the motion picture adaptation of The Boys in the Band. With his next play, the autobiographical A Breeze from the Gulf, he regained cachet with the critics and earned a Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award nomination for Best Play. The Men From the Boys, his sequel to The Boys in the Band was produced by the New Conservatory Theatre Center in San Francisco in 2002, and by the Fountain Theatre in Los Angeles in 2003.

In 1979 and 1980, Crowley served first as the executive script editor and then producer of the ABC series Hart to Hart, starring Wood's husband Robert Wagner and Stefanie Powers. Other credits include the teleplays for There Must Be a Pony (1986), Bluegrass (1988), People Like Us (1990), and a Hart to Hart reunion special in 1996.

Crowley has appeared in at least two documentaries: The Celluloid Closet (1995), about homosexuality and its depiction on screen throughout the years, and Dominick Dunne: After the Party (2007), a biography of Crowley's friend and producer, Dominick Dunne.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mart_Crowley  

( Mart Crowley, 1986, by Robert Giard )

( Further Readings )

More Particular Voices at my website: http://www.elisarolle.com/, My Ramblings/Particular Voices

Mitchell Anderson & Richie Arpino

Mitchell Ogren Anderson (born August 21, 1961) is an American character actor. (Picture: Mitchell Anderson And Chad Darnell)

Anderson was born in Jamestown, New York, to a retail store owner mother and a father who worked in business. Openly gay, he currently lives in Atlanta, Georgia, with his partner since 1997, Richie Arpino, and owns a restaurant called MetroFresh, a healthy fast-food restaurant. ''When I realized that keeping an acting career on a national level was difficult [here], I looked around for a new career. I had always been a good cook and enjoyed bringing people together with food,” he says.

Anderson quips that ''hair stylist to the stars'' Arpino is the family’s true celebrity. ''He’s practically an Atlanta institution, much more famous here than I ever was,'' says Anderson. ''It’s funny, though—I do occasionally get people who come to my restaurant looking for the guy from Party of Five.''

Back in 1996 Anderson made a statement by coming out at a Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation media event. Looking back, he has no regrets about his decision to be public with his sexual orientation.

“For me, coming out was a natural progression of the political work I was doing,” Anderson says. “I feel like my life changed that day. Pride is a sin, but of all the things I have done in my life, coming out and being able to speak for justice, equality, and acceptance is the thing for which I am most proud. I spent several years traveling the country, telling my story. Back then, it was a new story. I was happy and free for the first time in my adult life.”


Mitchell Anderson is an American character actor best known for his role in Party of Five. He currently lives in Atlanta with his partner since 1997, Richie Arpino, and owns a restaurant called MetroFresh. ''When I realized that keeping an acting career on a national level was difficult, I looked around for a new career. I had always been a good cook and enjoyed bringing people together with food,” he says. Anderson quips that ''hair stylist to the stars'' Arpino is the family’s true celebrity.

( Read more... )

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitchell_Anderson

More LGBT Couples at my website: http://www.elisarolle.com/, My Ramblings/Real Life Romance

GayRomLit Ebook Giveaway: Cherie Noel - Changeless

I asked to all the authors joining the GayRomLit convention in Atlanta in October (http://gayromlit.com/grl-authors) a personal favor, a special Ebook Giveaway: everyday I will post 1 book from each author, and among those who will leave a comment, I will draw a winner. Very easy and very fast ;-) I will send a PM to the winner, so remember to not leave anonymous comments!

And the ebook giveaway goes to Susan

Today author is Cherie Noel: Butcher, baker, candlestick maker…ummm, eww, every chance I get, and I surely would if these damn characters would ever shut up. Born in West Palm Beach, Florida and raised…er, is all over the damn place a sufficiently descriptive term? No? Then how about this? Tinker, tailor, Indian chief…Ooooh, especially when smexy men are involved (!), only under duress, and did the cheek-bones give it away? Seriously? I’ve lived in Washington D.C., Virginia, Upper Michigan, Texas, New York, California, and Alabama in the United States; Hessen in Germany, London in England, Masirah Island in Oman and…sometimes it was in a house, sometimes in a tent, and sometimes anyplace I could find to lay my head. I’ve been in love with words since before I drew breath, and I don’t see that ever changing. I write stories. Sometimes I write music with them, sometimes they’re poems, and lately, to my great delight, M/M erotic romance. Yum. Smexy man to the second…or third power…now that’s the kinda math I can get behind!! The hair curls or frizzes as it will, the eyes are green and tend to look in two different directions—no, really—and the rest is subject to change. You know the guy who didn’t know if he was a butterfly dreaming he was a man or a man dreaming he was a butterfly? Yeah, that’s me, but substitute drag queen for butterfly and wacky, wild ex-Army chick for man.
Website: http://talesfromthewritingcave.blogspot.com/
Most recent title : Angel, Baby
Publishers: MLR Press, Silver Publishing

Changeless by Cherie Noel
Publisher: MLR Press (Jun 28, 2013)
Amazon Kindle: Changeless

Sometimes, a thing is so beautiful, so precious you can't resist returning to it over and over again... sometimes it's so wondrous you are willing to do anything to be worthy enough finally to stay in the place where it is. Until then you return, time after time to the one heart, the one pure soul that holds your heart forever, Changeless.... My name is Sean Taliaferro Allen, and for me, that one precious and perfect thing will always be Calvin Abelin.

This story is also available in Mixed Tape Series Volume #4.

2013 Rainbow Awards Submission: Wade Kelly - The Cost of Loving

The Cost of Loving (Unconditional Love) by Wade Kelly
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press; 1 edition (August 15, 2013)
Amazon Kindle: The Cost of Loving (Unconditional Love)

Unconditional Love: Book Two

Matt Dixon, a young firefighter, is the golden child of his family, and he never dreamed that coming out would challenge more than the way his church sees him.

For years, Matt has led a double life hoping to avoid ridicule. When a self-righteous pastor’s statements provoke him to defend his recently deceased best friend’s honor and subsequently out himself, he suffers the brutal aftermath of his revelation. Everyone in his life, including his family and his new lover, Darian, must deal with the ramifications as Matt struggles to come to terms with guilt, shame, and his very belief in God.

Darian Weston lost his fiancé when Jamie took his life, and his feelings for Matt added guilt to his burden of grief. Confused and lonely, Darian clings to Matt despite his inner strife. But small-town realities keep intruding, and if Matt and Darian hope to make a life together, they must first take a stand for what they believe in, even if they fear the cost.

2013 Rainbow Awards Submission: Michael J. Bowler - Children of the Knight

Children of the Knight by Michael J. Bowler
Paperback: 344 pages
Publisher: Harmony Ink Press (June 20, 2013)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1623806550
ISBN-13: 978-1623806552
Amazon: Children of the Knight
Amazon Kindle: Children of the Knight

According to legend, King Arthur is supposed to return when Britain needs him most. So why does a man claiming to be the once and future king suddenly appear in Los Angeles?

This charismatic young Arthur creates a new Camelot within the City of Angels to lead a crusade of unwanted kids against an adult society that discards and ignores them. Under his banner of equality, every needy child is welcome, regardless of race, creed, sexual orientation, or gang affiliation.

With the help of his amazing First Knight, homeless fourteen-year-old Lance, Arthur transforms this ragtag band of rejected children and teens into a well-trained army-the Children of the Knight. Through his intervention, they win the hearts and minds of the populace at large, and gain a truer understanding of themselves and their worth to society. But seeking more rights for kids pits Arthur and the children squarely against the rich, the influential, and the self-satisfied politicians who want nothing more than to maintain the status quo.

Can right truly overcome might? Arthur's hopeful young knights are about to find out, and the City of Angels will never be the same.