Taking Off Your Shirt in Public

By Barbara Ann Wright

My dining companion was topless. She hadn’t been before I glanced around the restaurant, but when I looked back, she was feeding her baby. She’d put on a privacy blanket, but I could see in from the side. She shrugged when I told her. “Second kid,” she said. “I don’t care anymore what people think.”

The Pyramid Waltz, http://www.boldstrokesbooks.com/products.php?product=Pyramid-Waltz%2C-The-%252d-by–Barbara-Ann-Wright my first book, felt like that. New baby: worry, pamper, buy all the latest gizmos to help raise it up right. Obsess over it, hardly leaving the house.

With the second, yeah, not so much. The excitement lives on; it’s the worry that gets left at the door. With my first book, I was excited, sure, but I was a wreck inside. There was a frantic quality to my feelings, the urge to cry resting right under the surface, a fear so great it kept me up with cramps at night.

I had gotten published, my ultimate goal, but now what? Expectations. How’s it selling? What are you doing next? How far do you intend to go? Questions coming from others but also from inside. I’d been dealing with rejection for a long time. I was used to the brain weasels telling me I’d never succeed. I’d more or less put them to bed. These were new weasels, bigger and more ferocious yet more insidious. Now that I was published, they said, it would prove that I was a failure. I’d written a book, I’d tricked someone into publishing me, and now someone would read it and see what a fraud I was. No one would buy it, my rating online would be negative stars, and the only people following my twitter feed would be trolls. I’d probably end up hooked on meth, living under a bridge, and holding “conferences” for bags of leaves that I called friends.

Enter book two, For Want of a Fiend. http://www.boldstrokesbooks.com/products.php?product=For-Want-of-a-Fiend-%252d-by-Barbara-Ann-Wright  Suck it, brain weasels.

I’m phenomenally happy with my success so far. I’m being invited to speak at various functions, and I’m pretty sure that those inviting me aren’t leaf bags. The excitement is still there, but that franticness, the oh-shit-what-if-I-screw-this-whole-thing-up feeling is gone. What happens after the book is polished is out of my hands, just like no amount of gadgetry is going to determine what kind of adult a baby will be. Sometimes, you just have to sit back and let it happen, and the guy at the next booth at Chili’s might see your goods. I never knew that could be so freeing.

“Life, Amplified”

By Karis Walsh

I’ve suffered for my art. I had to test drive a Mercedes on the steep and winding McMurray Road in Tacoma, Washington. What a drag! I’ve had to sample a variety of drinks, from scotch to beer to bourbon—including an (admittedly) enjoyable experiment with tequila, limes, and salt. Ouch! And I’ve had to endure a series of short trips to some of the most beautiful places in the Pacific Northwest, like the Olympic Peninsula and Cannon Beach and Spokane. Yes, some truly painful experiences. All in the name of research.

But since the time I started writing Improvisation—a spin-off from my first book, Harmony—my neighbors have been forced to suffer for my art as well because I bought a version of my character’s electric violin for myself. Tina Nelson is a violinist in Andy Taylor’s string quartet and an avid fiddle player who spends evenings in pubs playing her flame-red electric violin. Like Tina and Andy, I play the violin and viola. Unlike Tina and Andy, I don’t play very well, but I adore both instruments. I started with the violin when I was in the third grade, and it quickly became a family joke that everyone would evacuate the house when I started to practice. Luckily for my parents and sister, I rarely chose to do so. I stopped playing after a few years and started again as an adult, adding the viola to my caterwauling repertoire of instruments. The few people who are unfortunate enough to hear me play—including my music teacher and my wine-drinking adult chamber music group—would probably tell you that the last thing I need is to be hooked up to an amplifier when I play. But, using research for Improvisation as an excuse, I gave in to my long-repressed desire and bought a gorgeous maroon Yamaha electric violin.

Each book I write transports me to a new universe, and I bridge the two worlds by collecting objects I find in real life that remind me of the fictional one I’m creating. By the time I type “The End,” my desk will be cluttered with these things. This morning, I did a quick inventory of the stuff I’ve gathered since 2010, when I started writing Harmony. I have stacks of research books on a variety of subjects from raptors (for my upcoming novel Wingspan, February 2014) to polo rules and regulations (for Mounting Danger, October 2013). I have piles of sheet music, a tray covered with a collage of sea glass photos, maps from all over the Pacific Northwest, cigar bands, and geometry texts. Even better than these souvenirs from my imaginary voyages are the people I’ve collected along the way. New friends I’ve had the privilege of meeting on the internet and in person. More than royalty checks, more than the print books with my name on the cover, the readers and other authors I’ve met have been the true reward for the time I’ve spent writing and editing my books.

But the favorite inanimate object in my collection is definitely this five-string violin (in case you’re curious, the 5^th string is a modified C-string, so I can play either the viola or violin parts). While it doesn’t seem logical to amplify the sounds created by a semi tone-deaf and rhythm-impaired musician, I actually play better when at a higher volume than I do on my acoustic instruments. The tentative, trying-not-to-make-a-mistake player fades away when I’m plugged into my amp. Maybe it’s the forgiving quality of a more rock-and-roll sound, or maybe it’s simply the joy of making music with gusto. Whatever the cause, enthusiasm and delight more than make up for the occasional missed note or awkward phrasing. And, funny as it sounds, the small mistakes and slides and sharp or flat tones don’t make the music sound wrong. They make it sound unique and interesting. This violin has taught me a lesson I plan to apply to my life—no matter whether I’m writing or loving, playing music or pursuing hobbies. What have I learned? To crank up the volume, push past the mistakes, and express myself with passion. To live life amplified.

It’s called Imagination…

BY SHERI LEWIS WOHL

I love books. I love writing them. I love reading them. I love holding them. I love talking about them. There pretty much isn’t anything I dislike about books. For as long as I can remember, I wanted to be a writer and the day I sold my first manuscript was huge. Did I get a big contract? A giant advance? A whirlwind release tour? Nope. Did it matter? Not in the least. My dream of becoming a writer came true and that single reward was the only thing that counted.

I still get just as much satisfaction out of writing books. I get better at it with each one. I become a little more successful with each one. The work is hard, long, and sometimes tedious. The satisfaction of having put in the work immense. But the biggest joy is talking with people who read my books. I love their enthusiasm, their comments, their willingness to talk with the shy writer who usually hangs out in the back of the room.

That said, there’s one question I get asked routinely that always has me scratching my head. Oh, I get the typical—where do you get your ideas? Why do you write about vampires? Who is your favorite character? All standard questions for a novelist and all easily answered. But there’s another question that pops up again and again:  Have you done all the sex you write about?

That one makes me smile. Why, you ask? Well, as I typically answer that particular question with a question: “At least one person dies in every single book I’ve written and no one ever asks me if I’ve killed someone so why do you think I’ve tried every sexual encounter I write about?” It boils down to one single thing regardless of what I’m writing about: imagination. It’s the guiding force in every book and every scene. It’s what makes writing and reading so very much fun.

Today, I’ll let you in on a little secret. It’s true I haven’t tried everything I write about when it comes to sex in my books but it’s possible, just possible, I write from a combination of experience and imagination. I’ll let you decide which is which. Let your imagination soar.

Sheri Lewis Wohl’s latest release, Scarlet Revenge, is available now at www.BoldStrokesBooks.com

Learn more about Sheri at www.sherilewiswohl.com, www.sherilewiswohl.wordpress.com, www.sheri26.blogspot.com, and on Facebook and Twitter

Cruisin’

Julie Cannon is a romance writing marvel. She has ten novels to her name and more on the way. Listen in for a sneak peek at her latest, I Remember.

Paying it Forward

BY RACHEL SPANGLER

My wife, Susie, gave me my first lesbian fiction novel when I was nineteen years old.  It was Rita Mae Brown’s Venus Envy.  I thought it was pretty interesting, and I wished there were a lot more people taking a crack at lesbian love stories, but our local bookstore had no section for such novels.  I never saw them in grocery stores or on course syllabi in any of the English classes. None of my college friends had ever read any of them either. As a child of the Internet age, it probably seems odd to say I never looked there, but I didn’t think to search for something I didn’t know existed.

Then, my junior year in college I got involved in the PRIDE group at Illinois State University. Part of my job was to make sure our office was staffed five hours a week, which involved me sitting on a folding chair in a tiny cubicle in the basement of the Student Services Building. No one stopped by because virtually no one knew the space existed, and aside from some old posters and out-of-date textbooks, we didn’t have anything to offer them. We didn’t even have room for them to sit down. Most of the time I did homework or stared at the walls. Then one day I arrived to find a box of books on the floor. The student in the cubicle next to ours said, “Two women dropped those off. They don’t have room for them anymore.”

I dragged the book into the office thinking that we didn’t really have room for them either. They looked old and musty, probably more textbooks from days when we were called “sexual inverts.” I picked one up and scanned the back cover to realize I couldn’t have been more wrong.  They were novels, novels by women I’d never heard of, women with names like Vin Packer and Ann Bannon. Some of them had comic-book style covers and comical titles labeling their subjects as “stranger” or “of the shadows.”  I had been an English minor and a Women’s Studies minor for years, but I had no idea what I was looking at.  I had no idea lesbian pulp fiction had ever existed. I sat on the floor and dug deeper into the box until I came across some mellower titles.  I read the backs of each of them until I found one about a cabby who fell for an Ivy-league college student. The book apparently told their story across the backdrop of the budding women’s movement.

I began reading Lee Lynch’s Toothpick House right there on the floor, and that’s how I finished it.  I felt like she’d written it for me, right now, instead of the year I was born. I couldn’t believe stories like that had been around my whole life and no one had told me about them. I went through the entire box.  Week by week I taught myself the classics, or at least the ones I had access to.  I also began to write about them. I wrote reflections on them in my English classes; I wrote analyses of them for my Women’s Studies classes; I even wrote a term paper for a political science course on their role in raising public awareness. As I did my research, I found more books, newer ones, ones being published right then. I read everything I could get my hands on. I bought as many as I could afford until I was literally paying for them with dimes and nickels. Then when I ran out of books to read, I started to write my own. I wrote during my free time; I wrote during my office hours; I during my classes. I haven’t stopped writing since.

Years later I ended up back at Illinois State University with Lee Lynch. I sat in one of my old classrooms listening to one of my heroes talk to a group of women at the National Women’s Music Festival, and I realized I’d come full circle. I’d signed a contract with Bold Strokes Books to publish that book I’d written in these classrooms.  I was sitting alongside the author who’d introduced me to a genre I’d come to consider my own.  As I listened while she graciously answered questions and offered advice to budding writers, I wondered how I could ever repay her or those women who’d shared her books with me.

Since then I’ve written five more books, and I’ve come to consider Lee a very dear friend and mentor, but I still don’t know the names of those women who left the books outside that basement office in the Student Services Building.  I’ve come to realize I’ll never be able to repay those debts I incurred at Illinois State University.  There’s no way to pay someone back for showing you your life’s work, but for the first time in my career I feel like I’m in a position to pay it forward.

Last year, the administration of Illinois State allowed for the creation of an LGBT Center.  It’s a real office, a space where students can gather, filled with bookcases, tables, and plenty of chairs. It’s a place where students and faculty can plan events like the one I attended last fall to share my work with Redbirds old and new.  I choked up when I saw all the books lining the shelves and thought of all the students to come who would finally get to know them for the treasures they are. The only problem is that the center is not currently funded, meaning it has no assigned staff, no programing budget, and very little opportunity for students to access the space. What the point of having an LGBT student center if no one gets to use it? So I’ve stepped into leading a fundraising campaign for the center.

This is my chance to give back, not to Lee Lynch or to the women who shared their books with me, but to every student who’s never had a chance to experience the treasures they shared with me. I would be deeply honored if those of you who love gay and lesbian literature would join me in helping to make sure the books we love are accessible for the next generation of readers by making a donation for any amount here http://lgbtq.illinoisstate.edu/giving.  And if you’ve got suggestions for other ways to reach out to the readers of the future, I’d love to hear about them in the comment sections of this blog.

BUSTED

Bold Strokes Books author Lisa Girolami doesn’t let anything get in the way when she’s marketing her latest novel, Cut to the Chase.

It’s all in the Accent

Bold Strokes Books author Cari Hunter has a lot to say about her novels, Snowbound and Desolation Point. If only I could understand her

New to the Chase

New Bold Strokes Books author Jesse Thoma discusses her recent release, The Chase:

Fiends Among Us

Bold Strokes Books author Barbara Ann Wright dishes about her fantasy romance series.

It’s okay to fall in love with your best friend…

BY ERIN DUTTON

Or at least that’s what Evelyn Fisher tells herself in my new book, More Than Friends. Sure, things get complicated when said friend also happens to be fresh out of a relationship with her other closest friend.

 

I myself have fallen for, and subsequently ended up dating a good friend. But I’ll save that story for another time. Since the mid-February release date makes this practically a Valentine’s Day book, I’ll tell you an even more personal tale about how I met the love of my life…the love that makes all others pale in comparison…the woman who inspires the romance in me…she completes me. Did I go too far?

 

Our love story begins four years ago. At the time, my best guy friend had a habit of trying to fix me up with every available lesbian he met, with no regard for personality or actual compatibility with me. So, when he came to me and said he had someone in mind for me, I listened half-heartedly as he told me about the party he’d met her at, and how outgoing and boisterous she was. Which of course, matched up perfectly with my introverted, home-body personality. (insert sarcasm here) I was even more intrigued when he told me about how she’d ended a fifteen year relationship only a month before. Obviously, she was ready for the type of serious, long term relationship I hoped to eventually find.

 

But he badgered. I was about to go out of town for two weeks, so I agreed to meet her, in a group setting, when I returned. Who knows how things might have gone had that plan actually happened. He pestered further. He texted me one Sunday night and gave me her phone number. He suggested I call or text her so that we might begin talking while I was out of town and get to know each other a little. Now, cold calls are not remotely my thing. But for some reason, that night I sent an exploratory text—an eloquently worded introduction that she mocks to this day.

 

For the next two weeks, we communicated via text, then on the phone. This arrangement saved me some of the nervousness of early face-to-face meetings, and gave me the chance to woo her with my carefully selected words. I found her funny, easy to talk to, and a little flirty. And as she’ll readily tell you, by the time I got back in town I was half in love with her before we’d even met.

 

Our first dinner together—well, I’ll just say it—I was charming and effervescent and not at all my usual shy self. Okay, her version might be slightly different and involve what she would describe as an awkward hug at the end. But something made this amazing woman give me another chance. Which allowed me to discover that we were compatible after all. While she can often be the life of the party, she’s just as happy spending a quiet evening in. She challenges me and comforts me. She makes me laugh. Her smile still makes me warm all over and every kiss still makes me tingle. I guess that friend knew what he was doing after all…because as it turns out, I found not only a great love, but a new best friend.