New novella cover and blurb

My new novella will be released by Dreamspinner Press in July (I'll let you know when I have an exact release date). In the meantime, here is the fantastic cover and the blurb:

Travis Miller has a machining job, a cat named Elwood, and a pathetic love life. The one bright spot in his existence is the handsome guitar player he sometimes passes on his way home from work. But when he finally gathers the courage to speak to the man, Travis learns that former novelist Drew Clifton suffers from aphasia: Drew can understand everything Travis says, but he is unable to speak or write.

The two lonely men form a friendship that soon blossoms into romance. But communication is only one of their challenges—there’s also Travis’s inexperience with love and his precarious financial situation. If words are the bridge between two people, what will keep them together?

Nice donation

Thanks to all of you who have bought the books in the Praesidum trilogy, I made another satisfying donation today to Doctors Without Borders. Doubly satisfying, actually, because a donor was matching all donations today. Give yourselves pats on the back.

And then you can do me a favor: Go to my Amazon author page and click on "like." Rumor has it that when an author reaches 40 likes, chocolate cupcakes fall from the sky--or something.

I finished my textbook revisions today too, which means in the not-so-distant future I may have time to write fiction again. But first a family roadtrip is in the offing.

Thanks so much to all of you who visited and/or commented during the blog hop. I'm happy to announce that the random number generator has chosen the winner of a Kim Fielding book of her choice: Savanna T!  The grand prize winner is Amilyn.

I have a novella and a short story coming out this summer, so stay tuned for more giveaways later.

Manga and Romance Blog Hop

Welcome! I'm excited to be participating in the Manga and Romance Blog Hop.

I have four novels and several short stories published, with more on the way. All my work fits more or less in the category of m/m romance. I sort of ended up here accidentally.

I never could stomach het romance novels. The plots seemed too cliched and although I'm a straight woman I couldn't begin to empathize with the female protagonists. I read fantasy instead, and horror, and magical realism, and a whole lot of stuff that gets called "literature."

Then I discovered fanfiction. To be specific, I discovered slash Buffy fanfiction (starring Spike, mostly). That I enjoyed very much. After a while of reading, I began to write. It was fun! I had fans!

And then I wrote my first novel, Stasis. This was in 2009, and I wrote the novel in one month, for NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). As it turned out, my protagonists were two men who fell in love with one another--despite evil wizards, tyrannical leaders, and harsh laws. Stasis was followed by two sequels, and by then I was hooked.

What I like about m/m romance is that I can explore fresh plots and interesting power dynamics. Nobody assumes that the protagonist is me, because I am very clearly not, for instance, a gay male hipster werewolf architect. Most of my stuff isn't strictly romance--it's fantasy or paranormal or something else, in which the main characters happen to be men who fall for other men.

And, well, there are pretty men to think about. Can't forget that part.

If you're new to me, I hope you'll try out some of my stories. And you can follow my blog and see what I'm up to. Thank you for visiting!

Prizes:
1. Comment here with your name and email and be entered in the drawing for the grand prize, which consists of 10 ebooks!
2. In addition, I'll randomly choose one person who comments on my blog, and the winner will receive  the ebook version of one of my novels (winner gets to choose which one).
Comments must appear before the hop ends on June 24, so comment quick!

Once you've commented, go visit the other participating blogs:

Proud of my kid

I'm working on revising one of my textbooks right now. My muse is growing more and more impatient--she'd much rather be writing something more fun. The book includes the text of several hate crime laws, and I needed to proof those texts to make sure they were accurate and up to date. I recruited my older daughter (who's 12) to help, because she's an excellent proofreader.
So we get to the first law--Alabama's--and I'm reading off the list of protected classes: race, color, religion, national origin, ethnicity, and physical or mental disability. DD1 interrupts me to ask, "But where's sexual orientation?"
 I explained that lots of states intentionally exclude that group.
"That's horrible!" she said. "That's really stupid."
Sometimes you have those parental moments where you think, I'm doing something right. This was one of those.

Dreamspinner has all ebooks on sale for 20% off and in-stock paperbacks for 30% through June 24. It's a good time to stock up!

Family

I am really lucky about many things. One of the things I'm especially lucky about is that I have a wonderful dad--the kind of guy who I can still call when I have computer problems or need advice, even though I've been a grownup for a long time (theoretically, anyway). I'm also way lucky to be married to a man who is an excellent father to our two daughters. He's patient and supportive and an internationally-known barbecuer.

My family is a pretty "traditional" one, in the sense that we have a man married to a woman, with two biological offspring. But today I'm reminded that family encompasses many more models than that. Anyone who thinks that they can limit the meaning of the word family, or who thinks that other models of families somehow endanger their own, badly needs to reassess.

Click here to thank JC Penney for understanding what family is.

(At the moment my family involves a lot of screaming because the 9-year-old has apparently stolen and hidden the 12-year-old's phone.)

Bonjour and dobar dan

Just a teensy bit excited now, because I've confirmed my plans to visit Paris this fall. I've never been (except the airport), and I have romantic pictures of myself in my head, wandering around--my ancient high school French magically perfected--scribbling novels as I go. Probably just a wee bit unrealistic there, especially since I'll only have 3 full days.

And then I'll get to spend nearly a week in Zagreb, where I lived for 5 months last year. I miss it very much and I can't wait to visit some of my favorite places, to drink espresso and Croatian wine, to eat strukli and blitva and ajvar and burek and squid ink risotto, to ride the rattly trams, to say "dobar dan" and "hvala" and "'denja",  to see some friends.

I think this may be the perfect way to travel, actually: splitting my time between an old favorite and an intriguing new place.

The Battle

I'm not writing any fiction right now, because I have an August 1 deadline on a (non-fiction) textbook revision. I'm not allowing myself to start anything new until the revision is complete. This means there's a fierce battle going on right now between my self-control and my muse. Things could get ugly.

In the meantime, I do have projects in progress, which helps decrease the battle's intensity a little. My novella Speechless will be released next month, and Dreamspinner will also be publishing another of my stories in an anthology (yes, my third this year, in case you were keeping track!). I just submitted a novel manuscript and my lovely editor friend is helping me prepare another novel for submission as well. Just in case someone was afraid of going into Kim Fielding withdrawal. :-)

But now I have all these tempting, enticing new ideas....

Ray Bradbury

A handful of writers have made the deepest impressions on me, as both a reader and a writer. Ray Bradbury was one of those. Here's a lovely letter from him describing his writing process for Fahrenheit 451.

I used to knit. I haven't done it in a while--too busy writing. This artist, however, has found a way to combine those activities. She also made a bicycle-generated popcorn maker, which would be great to have around the house!

Travel Disasters that Aren't

I'm planning right now for an autumn trip to Europe (Paris, where I've never been except the airport, and Zagreb, where I lived for 5 months). I'm also putting the finishing touches on a novel in which the protagonist, Jeff, makes a somewhat reluctant journey to Venice. Unlike Jeff, I love to travel. But like him, I tend to plan pretty thoroughly, and I worry about things going wrong (things do go wrong for Jeff, of course). On the other hand, I'm much more relaxed about mishaps than I used to be, because I've come to realize that sometimes they make for the best memories and the funniest stories--afterwards. At the time, they can be problematic!

My favorite travel mishap was 10 years ago, when I went to Budapest and Prague. When I arrived in Budapest it was very, very hot and although the hotel was lovely, it did not have AC. My attempts to use sign language with the maid to obtain a fan only resulted in the delivery of a hair dryer. Then they sent an English-speaking guy who was very apolgetic--they were out of fans. But he brought me a can of Coke and a big bucket of ice instead--no charge--and was very sweet when all I had to tip him with was a US dollar. I went to the market for dinner that night and due to my inability to properly convert kilos to pounds, ended up with way more raspberries than I'd intended. When I woke up feeling ill the next morning I blamed it on the fruit. But the illness stuck around for several days. In a square in Karlovy Vary, a fellow traveler asked me how I was feeling. "Okay," I answered. "It comes and goes. A lot like morning sick....." Ah. It was at that very moment that I realized the existence of my second child.

What's your favorite travel disaster story?

Neil Gaiman interview Stephen King

I like this interview of Stephen King (who I think is a hell of a good writer) by Neil Gaiman (one of my favorite authors). Here's a part of the interview that especially resonated with me:

“I never think of stories as made things; I think of them as found things. As if you pull them out of the ground, and you just pick them up. Someone once told me that that was me low-balling my own creativity. That might or might not be the case. But still, on the story I am working on now, I do have some unresolved problem. It doesn’t keep me awake at nights. I feel like when it comes down, it will be there...”

King writes every day. If he doesn't write he's not happy. If he writes, the world is a good place. So he writes. It's that simple.

Book Review: Sacre Bleu by Christopher Moore

Sacre Bleu by Christopher Moore

I always enjoy Christopher Moore's books. He's one of the few authors I find laugh-out-loud funny. This book, while still funny, has more substance than most of his others. It contains an art history lesson and musing (hah!) about inspiration. The characters--both real and imagined--are wonderful. I didn't have a strong idea about what exactly was going on plotwise until well into the book, which is a good thing. I was pleasantly surprised. And the places are well described also, especially Paris. One other thing--the look of the book is really nice, with paintings scattered throughout and the text in dark blue ink. I think this is one worth buying in print rather than e-version.

Really a fun--and even educational!--read. Highly recommended.