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Adventures in Queer-Welcoming Editing
The recent brouhaha about an anthology (in which a number of authors withdrew their stories after one author was told to change her M/M to heterosexual) highlights for me how much power an editor has...
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Writing Nowadays–What DC and Marvel Did
The media went BLIP! when Marvel Comics announced that Northstar, one of the X-Men, would marry his boyfriend in an upcoming issue. The media went BLIP! again when DC announced that Alan Scott, a Green...
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Sexuality in Fantasy, A Few Thoughts
When I talk about sexuality or eroticism or sensuality or gender issues in fantasy, I do not mean pornography. That this essay must begin with such a disclaimer says a great deal in itself. It seems...
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Proofreading The Catch Trap
Book View Café is a publishing cooperative, both in the business and the friendly sense of the word. We offer one another all the services a traditional publisher would normally provide, everything...
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BVC author, YA and Diversity in the GUARDIAN
Book View Cafe author Sherwood Smith co-wrote with PTSD and trauma therapist Rachel Manija Brown Stranger, book one of The Change series, a diversity-friendly dystopian adventure. Today, the...
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Writing: Where history, fantasy, and science fiction intersect
I was pretty excited when I found out that Judith Tarr’s Arrows of the Sun was going to be included in the Indie Fantasy Bundle along with one of my own works, Lhind the Thief. The two couldn’t be...
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Arthurian Cycle with a New Twist
The story of Arthur and the knights of the Round Table is one of the longest shared world stories in Western history. From what I can tell, there were various mentions of Arthur in poems, especially...
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LGBT Characters and Bone War
A reader reviewer for my novel IRON AXE wrote that he liked the book until he hit the “social commentary” about gay people, and then he didn’t like it anymore. He wanted interesting characters in his...
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Gay Tragedy
This is 2017. Marriage equality is legal. And yet we still have a media filled with Gay Tragedy, Gay Tease, and Gay Promise. The Gay Tragedy is when a same-sex couple, usually two men, fall in love...
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Gay Tease
Last week I wrote about Gay Tragedy. There’s also the Gay Tease. This is when a TV show or movie claims that a character is gay, but doesn’t actually DO anything with it. There are two versions of...
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Gay Promise
So far I’ve written about the Gay Tragedy and the Gay Tease. Finally, we also have the Gay Promise. This is when the producers announce loudly and firmly that they’re going to have a gay character on...
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Tremontaine: When Collaboration Really Works
I find all kinds of collaborations interesting, from the centuries-long shared-world collaboration of Arthuriana among Europeans to the amazing Mahabharata of India. I think the greatest...
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All the sluts: the hinky side of women’s fiction
I’m so excited about this series launch, I’m squeaking like a mouse. Also bouncing. Coed Demon Sluts was conceived at the point when I realized that my last series, Slacker Demons, was leaving the...
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All the sluts at once
Sounds like some guy’s dream come true, doesn’t it? Well, it’s also mine. I’ve spent three years working on this series, and today the omnibus edition launches at Book View Café: All the Coed Demon...
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BVC Announces Makeover Queen by Jennifer Stevenson
Makeover Queen a Liars in Love romantic comedy by Jennifer Stevenson When lovers hide from themselves, how can they find each other? Debby is a happy-go-lucky slob hiding her inner hottie under a...
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Makeover Queen: When hairdressers go bad
I actually had a hairdresser once who really was pretending to be gay to avoid his ex-wife. While I didn’t find his act particularly convincing, I did wonder what he had going on that his ex couldn’t...
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Autumn Reading: Short Book Reviews
Witchmark, by C. L. Polk (Tor) is one of the most unusual and compelling love stories I’ve read this year. The setting, very much like England in the throes of national PTSD following the First World...
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BVC author, YA and Diversity in the GUARDIAN
Book View Cafe author Sherwood Smith co-wrote with PTSD and trauma therapist Rachel Manija Brown Stranger, book one of The Change series, a diversity-friendly dystopian adventure. Today, the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Arthurian Cycle with a New Twist
The story of Arthur and the knights of the Round Table is one of the longest shared world stories in Western history. From what I can tell, there were various mentions of Arthur in poems, especially...
View ArticleClik here to view.
BVC announces Only A Paper Moon by Jennifer Stevenson
Only a Paper Moon by Jennifer Stevenson Seven corny short stories with happy endings Spy Beanie – Okay, fifty-one years is a looong foreplay. I Remember You – Memory makes our relationships meaningful...
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