FOR WRITERS Today’s writer topic comes from QSFer ‘Nathan Smith: “From the angle of what you’ve learned, gotten out of them, best return-on-investment/diversity/voices, etc.” It’s a good question, and I like that Nathan broke it up by what you get out of it, because different cons are good for different things. :) Join the chat
Chalk it up to 2016. For the first known time, a shark has reproduced asexually after having previously produced offspring through mating. A zebra shark in an Australian aquarium has been reported to have made the switch in April of last year. The proud and apparently determined mother, Leonie, delivered three pups, Cleo, CC and Gemini, at the Reef HQ Aquarium in Townsville, Queensland. She had previously had a male partner from 2006 through 2012, birthing 20 pups, until aquarium staff had trouble keeping up with the number of young she was having. But she had apparently not let that separation cramp her … Read more
QSFer Leona Windwalker has a new MM sci fi romance out: Matthias Reynolds loves his life. He’s starting to make it as a graphic artist at last and has a job he really likes at a local café that pays the bills. When a night out clubbing leads to an awkward morning after, he’s embarrassed and more than ready to forget all about it. When Talani Enforcers show up at the café, he doesn’t know what to make of it all as he’s led away in restraints. Standing accused of crimes he struggles to understand, he finds he has an … Read more
January is a big month for trans fans of DC Comics, as one of the iconic brand’s writers has come out as transgender, and the latest issue of Detective Comics pulls back the cape on Batman’s support for a mysterious new character, who just happens to be trans. She is Dr. Victoria October, an unorthodox scientist in charge of a quarantined zone of Gotham City that she calls, “Monster-Town.” Of course, October isn’t the first transgender character in mainstream comic books. That honor fell to Batgirl’s roommate, Alysia Yeoh, who came out as trans to Barbara Gordon, in a tearful exchange in April 2013. But as Screen Rant told its readers, the … Read more
QSFer A.M. Burns has a new contemporary magical YA book out: Lugh’s mother packed up and moved them from sunny Florida to tiny Steamboat Springs, Colorado after his father’s accidental drowning. Resigned to his mom having to work a lot, and only just beginning to deal with his dad’s death, Lugh is disappointed when she is called in to work on his fifteenth birthday. After an unnerving dream, he decides to head to the nearby river where he ends up following a strange, urgent, internal pull. When another boy helps him rescue a young cat from the river, Lugh discovers a … Read more
FOR READERS You like some weird things. Two-headed vampires. The “My Baby is a Tortoise Shifter” trope. When a novel has not two romantic leads, but seventeen. How do you find other readers who share your particular tastes? Where do you look? What are your favorite sites? Writers: This is a reader chat – you are welcome to join it, but please do not reference your own works directly. Thanks! Join the chat
Not so many years ago, it would’ve been hard to name even five openly gay Hollywood actors and actresses. But in 2017, the long list of LGBTI movie stars is getting longer and longer! Here, we count down seven hotly-anticipated films coming up this year, featuring our favourite queer talent… 1. Sir Ian McKellen – and Luke Evans – in Beauty and the Beast He’s the openly gay star who received Oscar nods for Gods and Monsters in 1999 and Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring in 2002. And this year, the iconic Sir Ian returns to … Read more
Title: Fragments Series: Dragonfire Station #2 Author: Zen DiPietro Genre: LGBTQ Science Fiction Publisher: Parallel Worlds Press (Sold by Amazon) Pages: 227 Blurb Fallon and her team need answers. But before they can storm the PAC base on Earth, they need to find supplies and deal with Fallon’s memory loss. Her strange dreams sure aren’t helping matters. If they’re memories that her brain is trying to reconstruct, her brain is just going to have to work harder at making some sense. Either way, once they arrive at Earth, all bets are off. As soon as they steal the information they … Read more
QSFer Johnny Miles has a new MM fantasy romance book out: Someone is kidnapping Magicals. Kris Kringle and his soulmate, Bucket the Elf, are determined to find out why. Only then can they spend the rest of their lives together. But first they must find a suitable candidate to take over the mantle of Santa Claus. They find Griffin Kloss in the backwoods of North Carolina and realize they must get to him quickly. Someone else is after Griffin and it’s not his former boyfriend, Jackson Frost. Whomever is after Griffin doesn’t want him for his good looks. Putting themselves … Read more
