Leona Carver (born April 29, 1985)

Leona Carver lurks in a Canadian basement with a cat and an aerospace engineer, one of whom helps with the science while the other scratches at the window to get out. She writes novels and short stories with a penchant for genre mash-ups—because fairy tales need space stations, historical romance needs steam powered cyborgs, merpeople should wear mecha, and all of the aforementioned need a little love. Or a lot of love.

When Leona isn’t banging her head against her keyboard, she prepares for the post-apocalypse by running, kickboxing, reviving ancient dances and recipes, and training her hand-eye coordination with joysticks and a D-pad.

Piper won a 2014 Rainbow Award as Best Gay Sci-Fi / Futuristic.

Further Readings:

Piper by Leona Carver
Paperback: 540 pages
Publisher: Less Than Three Press (September 10, 2013)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1620042428
ISBN-13: 978-1620042427
Amazon: Piper
Amazon Kindle: Piper

To combat the voracious rats that have adapted to space age living, powerful resonance technology was developed and implemented by a League of pipers, who lure the rats out of hiding and send them into open space. Master Piper Atmosphere is the most talented piper in the League, but when he meets a young scientist in the course of his latest assignment, he finds himself caught in an entirely different kind of lure. His new relationship leads him to secrets of the resonance technology the League has carefully hidden-secrets worth killing for, and which drive him to dark, drastic measures of his own.

More Rainbow Awards at my website: elisarolle.com, Rainbow Awards/2014

Leslie Jordan (born April 29, 1955)

Leslie Jordan hails from Chattanooga, Tennessee. Standing at just four feet eleven inches, he has become an instantly recognizable face in film and television. He is best known for his role as Beverley Leslie in the hit series Will & Grace, for which he won an Emmy in 2006. He lives in Los Angeles.

Further Readings:

My Trip Down the Pink Carpet by Leslie Jordan
Paperback: 272 pages
Publisher: Gallery Books; Reprint edition (June 2, 2009)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1439153485
ISBN-13: 978-1439153482
Amazon: My Trip Down the Pink Carpet
Amazon Kindle: My Trip Down the Pink Carpet

A hilarious romp from small-town USA to the pink carpet of Hollywood with the beloved Emmy-winning actor, playwright, and gay icon.

Leslie Jordan is a small man with a giant propensity for scene stealing. Best known for his bravura recurring role as Karen's nemesis, Beverley Leslie, on Will & Grace (for which he won a Best Guest Actor in a Comedy Series Emmy in 2006), he has also made memorable appearances on Ally McBeal, Boston Public, Monk, and Murphy Brown.

Raised in a conservative family in Chattanooga, Tennessee, Leslie -- who describes himself as "the gayest man I know" -- boarded a Greyhound bus bound for LA with $1,200 sewn into his underpants and never looked back. His pocket-sized physique and inescapable talent for high camp paved the way to a lucrative and varied career in commercials and on television. Along the way he immersed himself in writing for the stage, and his one-man testimonials have become cult off-Broadway hits. But with success came dangerous temptations: a self-proclaimed former substance abuser and sexaholic, Leslie has spent time in jail and struggled to overcome his addictions and self-loathing.

My Trip Down the Pink Carpet is a rollicking, fast-paced collection of stories, served up with wit, panache, and plenty of biting asides. Filled with comically overwrought childhood agonies, offbeat observations, and revealing celebrity encounters -- from Boy George to George Clooney -- it delivers a fresh, laugh-out-loud take on Hollywood, fame, addiction, gay culture, and learning to love oneself.

More Spotlights at my website: elisarolle.com, My Lists/Gay Novels

Joanna Russ (February 22, 1937 – April 29, 2011)

Joanna Russ (February 22, 1937 – April 29, 2011) was an American writer, academic and feminist. She is the author of a number of works of science fiction, fantasy and feminist literary criticism such as How to Suppress Women's Writing, as well as a contemporary novel, On Strike Against God, and one children's book, Kittatinny. She is best known for The Female Man, a novel combining utopian fiction and satire.

Joanna Russ was born in The Bronx, New York City to Evarett I. and Bertha (née Zinner) Russ, both teachers. She began creating works of fiction at a very early age. Over the following years she filled countless notebooks with stories, poems, comics and illustrations, often hand-binding the material with thread.

Russ graduated from Cornell University, where she studied with Vladimir Nabokov in 1957, and received her MFA from the Yale Drama School in 1960. After teaching at several universities, including Cornell, she became a full professor at the University of Washington.

Russ came to be noticed in the science fiction world in the late 1960s, in particular for her award-nominated novel Picnic on Paradise. At the time, SF was a field dominated by male authors, writing for a predominantly male audience, but women were starting to enter the field in larger numbers. Russ, an out lesbian, was one of the most outspoken authors to challenge male dominance of the field, and is generally regarded as one of the leading feminist science fiction scholars and writers. She was also one of the first major science fiction writers to take slash fiction and its cultural and literary implications seriously. Over the course of her life, she published over fifty short stories.

( Read more... )

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

( Joanna Russ, 1998, by Robert Giard )

( Further Readings )

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

Blog Tour: Lock and Key by T. Strange

Lock and Key by T. Strange
Publisher: Torquere Press LLC (April 29, 2015)
Amazon Kindle: Lock and Key

After meeting Terry at a motorcycle show, Gavin is sure he’s found the man of his dreams. While he’s fantasized about BDSM for years, Gavin has never had a play partner and Terry is happy to teach him. After playing together for a few months, Terry has to leave on a business trip. Terry gives Gavin the key to his apartment so Gavin can sleep in, but Gavin isn’t sure he’s ready for that level of commitment. While he likes and trusts Terry—and loves the kinky sex they have together—Gavin has to decide which he can’t give up: Terry, or his freedom. Part one was originally published as Boots and Leather by Torquere Press.

( Excerpt )

About the author: T. Strange has been interested in BDSM for as long as she can remember. She and her wife were active participants in their local community for a number of years, but lately they’ve been focusing more on their own relationship. When not writing or being spanked, T. enjoys gardening, playing with her cats and other animals, and playing video games. She writes vanilla fiction under the same pen name.

Where to find the author:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tq.strange
Facebook Author Page: https://www.facebook.com/AuthorTStrange
Twitter: https://twitter.com/TqStrange
Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/tqstrange/
Other: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/3334999.T_Strange
Other: http://tqstrange.blogspot.ca/
Other: http://www.torquerebooks.com/index.php?main_page=index&manufacturers_id=464



Tour Dates & Stops: April 29, 2015
Parker Williams, Chris McHart, Fangirl Moments and My Two Cents, MM Good Book Reviews, My Fiction Nook, Inked Rainbow Reads, Carly’s Book Reviews, BFD Book Blog, Full Moon Dreaming, Kimi-Chan, Bayou Book Junkie, Molly Lolly, Velvet Panic, Up All Night, Read All Day, Cate Ashwood, Dawn’s Reading Nook, Bike Book Reviews, Rainbow Gold Reviews, Wake Up Your Wild Side, Elisa - My Reviews and Ramblings, The Hat Party, Vampires, Werewolves, and Fairies, Oh My, 3 Chicks After Dark

Rafflecopter Prize: E-copy of ‘Lock and Key’ by T. Strange
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