This excerpt is from Directionality, the sequel to Duality. It is currently a work in progress, but you can purchase Duality right now.
Category Archives: Author Posts
Guest post by Ofelia Gränd
Happy 10th Anniversary!
Right now, we’re in worldwide chaos, and therefore I think it’s important for all of us to find moments of peace, a place where we can breathe, half an hour when we can forget. Writing gives me an escape, reading used to, but I have to admit that I haven’t read nearly as much as I normally do since the pandemic hit. I can’t focus for long. But writing, writing allows me to create a world where I’m in control — almost, at least. It’s not always the characters behave as I want them to.
I write both contemporary and paranormal m/m romances, and this year — which I think is a reaction to the current world state — I’ve mostly written contemporary. Not contemporary about the pandemic, but about how it was when we could sit in a crowded café with our friends, when we went on dates, when we found love in the pasta aisle in a grocery store because we accidentally bumped into Prince Charming.
I’m from a small coastal city in Sweden, and when I was sixteen, I was in an emotional turmoil, so I moved away from home. I moved up north. Have you any idea of what northern Sweden is like?
It’s quiet.
I moved to a small town with 3.5k inhabitants, and for the first six months or so, I’d call my mom and tell her that there weren’t so much as a breeze (having grown up by the coast the lack of wind was fascinating) and that it was quiet.
I found peace there, lived there in the dark, and the snow, and the freezing cold for four years, and to this day, nothing is as calming to me as to picture the never-ending woods of the north.
So what have I been writing this year? I’ve written the Up North series. A series of standalone, contemporary, gay romances, taking place, not in the north of Sweden, but in a vague northern area born out of my imagination.
Today, When Skies Are Gray, the third installment of the series is released, and you can get it for 40% off! The discount is for all my books, today only, in the JMS shop *wink wink*
But, I thought I’d share a snippet from Banger Challenge, which is the fourth story in the Up North series and will be published on August 8th. So, buckle up, because we’re taking a ride with Zeppelin Cave who is in a junk car charity race.
Guest post by Laura Bailo
When I started my translation business and I started getting to know people in Spanish speaking Twitter, I often got asked why I write in English when I’m Spanish myself.
The answer is quite easy, really. I got used to reading queer romance in English and one of the publishers I used to buy books from put out a call for stories that took place in countries that weren’t the US and set around events that could only happen in those countries. And I thought, “I could do this!” I gave it a try and that’s how The Sun Still Rises was born (it has since been reedited and republished).
Long story short, I started writing in English and got used to it. That book was the first of the five stories I’ve published.
Whenever someone asks me, I say I write queer romance with a Spanish flavour. Most of my stories are set in Spain and they’re full of Spanish culture.
Why not write in Spanish then? Because I no longer know how. It seems like a strange thing to say, but it’s the truth. The rhythm differs between languages, as do writing techniques. I’m so used to English rhythm I now struggle whenever I try to write in Spanish.
It’s lucky I don’t have that problem when it comes to translating. When I translate, I can easily take the rhythm from the original and adapt it to the translated version. However, I have trouble trying o start something in Spanish from the beginning.
It’s weird, isn’t it? That I can no longer write in my native language. Well, it is what it is, so I’ll focus on my English stories and getting more English queer books to Spanish readers through my translations.
Save 40% off all my ebooks today only!
We’re giving away a free ebook every day this month! Starting tomorrow, one winner will be drawn daily. So enter to win today!
Guest post by Sam Couste
Over the past decade, my partner, and I (and our husky pup) have spent a good deal of time on the move. Thanks to school, jobs, and life in general, we’ve relocated across countries and oceans, then back again.
Living in constant motion has its benefits. Minimalism becomes a way of life; when every belonging must fit inside a suitcase that you will drag through six time zones, you quickly learn how to deduce what you really need. You don’t save the expensive wine for a special occasion; you drink it now, while you’ve still got glasses on hand.
An ever-changing future allows you to revel in the magic of your present. Your daily walk to the grocery store is a curious journey rather than a humdrum routine. Favorite meals at local restaurants are tinged with a dash of nostalgia as you draw closer to your departure. Your fellow passers-through become close friends, bonded by your shared displacement, though you know that once you part, you’ll likely never see each other again.
Eventually, we found our way back to where we started. We’ve spent the last year learning how to build a home, something permanent. But we’ve not forgotten the lessons that transitional life taught us. I stock up on blank notebooks, but they don’t languish on my shelf. I use them up, recklessly and joyfully. We eat leftover pizza off the good dishes and burn the fancy candles. We don’t have a lot of knickknacks, but our walls are filled with framed photographs and art from friends and family.
Prior to this, every place we’ve lived has had an expiration date. Every move-in date doubled as the start of a count-down to the next repacking. Here, however, the clock moves forward. We’ve got all the time in the world to settle in and make connections. We chose our desks based on what we wanted, rather than what was easiest to shuffle from one apartment to the next. We find adventure in running errands with friends, or dropping by to surprise a sibling with doughnuts on a Saturday morning.
In my latest release, Off Script, childhood sweethearts Christina and Anna make a similar transition. “Now that we’ve sprouted our branches,” Anna tells Chris, “we can tend to our roots.” Learning who you are as a person, how you work internally as well as how you interact with the world around you, allows you to take stock of your present and figure out what matters.
As it turns out, writing is one of the things that matters to me. I love crafting diverse stories where queer people like myself get to enjoy happy endings. I’ve always doodled and daydreamed, but I didn’t get serious about writing until we settled down. Now that I feel at home in my own story, I can share parts of it in the stories of my characters. Working with JMS Books to share my work, and uplift other queer authors, has been a pleasure.
You don’t need to travel to find what grounds you — and you don’t need to settle to find contentment, either. Everyone’s journey is different! And I hope that you enjoy yours, wherever it may take you.
Save 40% off all my ebooks today only!
We’re giving away a free ebook every day this month! Starting tomorrow, one winner will be drawn daily. So enter to win today!
Guest post by Pat Henshaw
Readers have asked me why I write gay romance. There are a lot of reasons, some more personal than others. I don’t usually tell people that my first husband was a closeted gay or that I didn’t know he was gay until after I married him. Instead, this is the answer I usually give.
This question for me can be broken into two sub-questions: Why do you write romance? Why do you write gay romance?
As far as I’m concerned, romance is what makes the world go round without us all killing each other outright.
Some might think that love is the peaceful motivational emotion. But think about all the grief and strife that’s given out daily in the name of love.
Romance, on the other hand, is something deliberate and thoughtful. We intend to romance someone else — make the other person happy, euphoric even. We work to take someone out of the everyday, mundane rat race, and transport them into a realm of delight and love.
Yes, it’s make believe. Yes, it’s not real. But for a few moments, we aren’t struggling to pay for housing, food, and the other necessities of life. We aren’t trying to keep our families safe in a world of prejudice, illness, and all the other tribulations we wade through every day.
For one moment in our lives, the good guys win and the bad guys lose. True, it may make us happy for only a few minutes, but at its best, romance gives us a more permanent sense of balance and hope.
So why do I write romance instead of crime, adventure, nonfiction, or any other type of book? I write it for myself, but more importantly, I write it for my readers. I want to lift their burdens for a moment or two and make them feel a little bit happier and lighter after they read the last sentence of my stories.
But why gay romance?
Before I retired, I taught English composition at a community college. Many of my students were people who couldn’t get into the state college or university for one reason or another. Two mandatory compositions convinced me to write gay romance.
The first essay that the first-year college students had to write was about themselves, who they were and their background. Some of my students — both men and women — I found out had been kicked out of their homes by parents who hated them because they were gay.
Time after time I read this and wept for the students who usually wrote about it with bitterness. As a mother myself, I wished there was something I could do for these students other than grade their essays.
The second essay they had to write was about an emotion. I usually selected two emotions that they could choose. Whenever I gave them the choice of love, I would have gay students who said they didn’t believe in love and that they’d never seen gay people who were truly in love. This too broke my heart.
So after I retired and started writing, is it any wonder that I chose to write gay romance? I wish I could go back and tell the students who seemed so drained of hope about all the gay men I know who have found romance and love. I can’t go back, of course, but I can go forward and give a lift and hope to readers who might need it.
That’s one reason why I write gay romance.
Join Pat and members of the Queer Sacramento Authors Collective (QSac) as they read excerpts from their books on Friday, August 7, at 7 P.M. See a link on my Facebook page to the event.
Also, look for the rest of the Foothills Pride series releasing from JMS books throughout this fall!
Save 40% off all my ebooks today only!
Also, save 40% off books by Mel Bossa today, too!
We’re giving away a free ebook every day this month! Starting tomorrow, one winner will be drawn daily. So enter to win today!