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Rise: Judges’ Choices & Director’s Choices

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Rise Judge's Choice

It’s finally time to announce the five Judges’ Choice stories for 2023, and the two Director’s Choices too. While these stories did not snag one of the top prizes, the judges and the director loved them so much and thought they were worthy of extra recognition. So without further ado… Dinner for Two – Olivia KemperJudge: Angel MartinezNothing catches my reader eye faster than a story that surprises me – and this one certainly did. (No spoilers!) Add in a bit of food love and it becomes a story that stays with me. It Came From Atom City – Dean … Read more

Jeff Baker, Boogieman in Lavender: A Visit to XY Bar, Or My Glimpse of 2023

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A Visit to XY Bar or My Glimpse Of 2023 by Jeff Baker A month ago I did something I haven’t done in a couple of decades. I went to a gay bar at night when the joint was jumping. Let me explain. The last few months I’ve gone out to a few times to places where I can casually socialize. (I’ve missed having somebody around to talk too.) A nice little coffeehouse, the Public Library in the afternoon (which are also good places to write!) and a couple of Gay bars. Also in the afternoon when there aren’t a … Read more

New Release / Giveaway: Try the Tofu – Karenna Colcroft

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Try the Tofu - Karenna Colcroft

Karenna Colcroft has a new MM paranormal romance out, Real Werewolves Don’t Eat Meat book 4: Try the Tofu. And there’s a giveaway. As Alpha Tobias Rogan and his mate Kyle Slidell prepare to travel to the regional Alpha gathering, Tobias receives a threatening phone call. If he brings his mate to the gathering, Kyle will not return to Boston. But stubborn Kyle, believing the threat is actually against Tobias, refuses to stay home. Tobias’s foreboding is proven correct when a visiting stranger challenges Zane Wolfskin, Arkhon of the Northeast Region, to a fight for rank–and wins. Tobias and his … Read more

New Release: The Vitruvian Mask – B.J. Sikes

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The Vitruvian Mask

QSFer BJ Sikes has a new queer steampunk/alt history book out: The Vitruvian Mask. 1881: The electric lights of Paris have been extinguished. The Naturalist revolution is over. Adelaide was on the losing side. Once the Royal Scientist Doctor for the now-dead cyborg monarchs of France, she’s now a fugitive, hiding from the new king’s Police Sécrète. Pregnant and alone, she seeks refuge in a Parisian hospital but things have changed there too. What was once a cathedral of Science is now a bastion of ignorance and superstition. The battlefield veterans whose Augmented prosthetics she once created are shunned by … Read more

New Release / Giveaway: A Priest, a Plague, and a Prophecy – M.D. Grimm

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A Priest, a Plague, and a Prophecy - M.D. Grimm

M.D. Grimm has a new MM fantasy romance out (ace, bi, demi): A Priest, a Plague, and a Prophecy. And there’s a giveaway. “Orcs are the answer but what is the question?” Elias is a priest at the Temple of the Divine Sibyl. When he becomes lost in the woods after his brother’s hunting party abandons him, it’s just his luck that he’d stumble upon an angry orc caught in a trap. Unable to stomach the suffering of others, Elias throws self-preservation to the wind and frees the orc. Then Gurrkk—that’s a name?—ends up leading him to safety. Gurrkk finds … Read more

New Release: Last Generation – E. Robert Dunn

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Last Generation - E. Robert Dunn

E. Robert Dunn has a new queer sci-fi book out, Echelon’s End book one: Last Generation. The year is 6752, A.T. and Earth is but a memory to its space faring descendents. The urbane beings of The System embark on a test-colonization mission to a far off solar group called Mira. The AST [Aidennia-System Transport] Saarien’s flight path is ended abruptly and the colonizing supership explodes under a hail from Tauron Starhounds; a century of peace with the Tauron Empire is fractured. Six Aidennian survivors jettison in a terra-forming conestoga Pioneer Pod. Now, a young male echelon couple and their fellow … Read more

Sources of Inspiration: A Special Writer

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Ultimately what made me want to write were stories. Other people’s stories. They enthralled me so much, transporting me to other times and places. I fell in love, again and again with books. Certain characters haunted me, coming to when I was listening to music. I found myself playing out my favorite scenes in my imagination, sometimes going beyond what was on the printed page.  I wanted to create such compelling characters, make them part of plots which would enthrall them. I wanted to sweep people off their feet with story. Too often my own weren’t worthy of even causing … Read more

New Release / Giveaway: Thorns of Chaos – Jeremiah Cain

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Thorns of Chaos - Jeremiah Cain

Jeremiah Cain has a new MM fantasy romance out: Thorns of Chaos. And there’s a giveaway. “Cain crafts a vivid world … rich with detail and myth-lore that traipses brightly through the darker themes of oppression and suffering.” –BookLife Reviews Queer Grimdark Fantasy: Finn is no hero, chosen born, or noble. Despite escalating tensions from the Dayigan soldier’s occupation of Feah lands, the happy-go-lucky twenty-five-year-old is content to spend his days fishing and flirting with the other men in his Celtic-like village. But everything changes at their midyear’s eve festival when an angry Dayigan commander catches Finn in the arms … Read more