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Brandon Shire

Author of Contemporary Gay Romance

  • Author Bio
  • Books
    • The Love of Wicked Men
    • Afflicted – Gay Romance Series
    • Cold – Gay Romance Series
    • Erotic Short Stories
    • Summer Symphony
    • Listening To Dust
    • The Value Of Rain
    • Afflicted – Book 1
    • Afflicted – Book 2
    • Cold – MM Romance
    • Heart of Timber – Gay Romance
  • Blog
  • Contact
  • LGBT Youth Organizations
  • LGBT Authors Giving Back
  • Fundraising for Homeless LGBT
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Interview with Filmmaker Michael Morgenstern

May 7, 2013 By Brandon 1 Comment

Shabbat Dinner - Gay FilmWelcome Michael Morgenstern, Writer and Director of Shabbat Dinner, a short film about gay youth. You can see the film online. It is a pay-what-you-want with 10% of the profits going to the Ali Forney Center which combats LGBT youth homelessness. (See the trailer below.)

Brandon: I really liked your film. Tell us what motivated you to create it.

Michael: Well, I’d been working on a TV pilot for years about growing up gay in Los Angeles at age sixteen. In the nineties, it wasn’t what it’s like now. There wasn’t a world for us–everyone who was out was older. As I worked on it, I was continually re-motivated to work on the script by all the articles in 2011 newspapers about gay teen bullying and suicide. Every time I read one I was powerfully affected to do something to reach these kids.

Brandon: How hard was it to make?

Michael: Every part of making a film, even a short one, is a challenge, and we set out diligently to find actors, locations, and a crew. I looked for theater actors, reasoning it would be easier to find an established and talented actor who was successful on stage and looking to get into film than it would to find an already established film actor. I sat down with my friend Matt, who listened to the character descriptions I gave him and came up with ten actors for each character. Then I looked up all their agents and called them. About sixty to 100 calls later…no joke…we had most of our actors. [Read more…] about Interview with Filmmaker Michael Morgenstern

Filed Under: Queer Film Tagged With: coming out, gay teens, gay youth, interviews, LGBT, lgbt films

Interview with LGBT Author Dick O’Connor

May 3, 2013 By Brandon 3 Comments

Welcome author Dick O’Connnor to the blog. 
Dick-O-Connor
Brandon: Poking around your social sites I noted that you’re gritty and raw, just like real life. I like that. Tell us a little something about yourself that we won’t find online.
Dick: I am a former model (I got too old and the binge drinking was hell on my abs) and a wannabe socialite. I’m originally from a desert cow town in Southern California and got into the gay club scene when I was eighteen once my best friend spotted my innocence in a club and took me under his wing, boozed me up, and taught me how to detach emotion from sex. Overall I’m a neo-Libertine.
B: Where did Stiff come from and what motivated you to write it?
D: STIFF: Memoirs of a Dick is my attempt to recount the stories to the best of my blacked-out memories in college; unfortunately, alcohol can make things a little hazy. If it didn’t happen the way I remember then it damn well should have.
[Read more…] about Interview with LGBT Author Dick O’Connor

Filed Under: Author Interviews, Gay Fiction, Gay Romance Novels Tagged With: author interview, free book, gay authors, interviews, LGBT, mm romance

Author of the Month at QMO Magazine

May 1, 2013 By Brandon Leave a Comment

QMO MagazineAuthor of the Month for May 2013

I’ve been chosen as Author of the Month for May 2013 over at QMO Magazine.  You can visit the LGBT community and read the interview I gave here.

Thanks so much for this honor.

 

 

Filed Under: Author Interviews, Gay Fiction, Gay Romance Novels Tagged With: gay authors, interviews, LGBT

Rejecting Your LGBTQ Child by Sue Brown

April 29, 2013 By Brandon 15 Comments

This is a special guest post by my friend and fellow author, Sue Brown.  She shares my passion, as you can see below. ~B.

Who am I talking to here? Probably not the people who should be reading this. So let me tell you about me. I grew up just outside of London, England. Nice area, nice parents, nice school. Everything just ‘nice’ and ‘normal’. And that’s it. Aside from my mum dying when I was eighteen there was nothing different about my life.

Scroll forward to today and I live about ten miles away, have two teenagers, and live in a pocket-sized house in a nice area. They go to nice schools and everything is just nice and normal.

What would happen if one day one of my kids told me they were gay or lesbian? What if they were transgender? Would it be nice and normal then? Yes, of course it would be. I don’t give a monkey’s who they are, who they love. It just doesn’t matter. I can’t emphasise that enough. I don’t care, and neither does their dad. [Read more…] about Rejecting Your LGBTQ Child by Sue Brown

Filed Under: Author Interviews, LGBT Youth Organizations Tagged With: charity, gay authors, gay love story, gay teens, gay youth, Homophobia, lgbt fundraising, lgbt homeless, lgbt organizations, nonprofit, parenting gay youth

Interview with LGBT Author Lichen Craig

April 26, 2013 By Brandon Leave a Comment

 I’m talking with friend and fellow author, Lichen Craig today. Often the interviewer, but rarely the interviewee, I thought it was time we switched the chairs around and found out a little more about her. ~B

 Can you tell us a little about your writing background?

I have been writing for many years – nonfiction up until 2012.  Sometimes I had other professions at the same time.  It all amounts to a lot of experience that helps in setting a scene!  I wrote on wildlife, environment, current events, and politics. I was fortunate to have a stellar education for it: I stumbled into the University of Iowa and the renowned Writers Workshop there. I actually double majored, with journalism, and that was great: the journalism school taught me to write tight and edit.

Where did the idea for Gentlemen’s Game come from?

Gentlemen's GameI don’t really know. I was in a place in my life where several things were haunting my mind. Chiefly was bisexuality. I had a few friends who seemed to be so lost . . . torn between two worlds: on the one hand was the straight community questioning and rejecting them, and on the other was the gay community looking down their noses at them. The idea that, because they were attracted to both sexes they were somehow in denial about their sexuality seemed awfully simplistic, judgmental, and condescending to me. I contacted a national expert on the subject, a psychologist, and learned a lot that was absolutely fascinating.  I had also been thinking about bisexual people in the closet – in heterosexual marriages, and perhaps never giving themselves permission to explore their own sexual orientations. So those things fed into it.  As I wrote, some of my own background in working with crime and abuse victims came into it. [Read more…] about Interview with LGBT Author Lichen Craig

Filed Under: Author Interviews, Gay Fiction, Gay Romance Novels Tagged With: author interview, gay authors, interviews, LGBT

Motivations for Gay Romance – Cold

April 19, 2013 By Brandon Leave a Comment

Cold by Brandon Shire2013 LGBT Fiction Blog HopToday I have an exclusive post over at Scorching Reviews for their 2013 LGBT Fiction Blog Hop. I’m talking about my latest gay romance, Cold and my motivations for creating the characters within that book. Click on over there and check out the post, and don’t forget, there’s a new LGBT author posting every single day in April.

Add Cold to your To Be Read list on Goodreads

Publication Date: May 20, 2013

Filed Under: Gay Fiction, Gay Romance Novels Tagged With: blog hop, gay love story, mm romance

My Favorite Book – LGBT Author Alan Chin

April 19, 2013 By Brandon Leave a Comment

Author Alan ChinChoosing one favorite book out of the seven I’ve written is a daunting task. Each novel was inspired by people and events that mean everything to me. If I had to choose one, however, it would have to be Match Maker, for several reasons.

 

Book Blurb:

In the four years since being forced off the professional tour for being gay, Daniel Bottega has taught tennis at a second-rate country club. He found a sanctuary to hide from an unkind world, while his lover, Jared Stoderling, fought a losing battle with alcohol addiction to cope with his disappointment of not playing on the pro circuit.

Now Daniel has another chance at the tour by coaching tennis prodigy Connor Lin to a Grand Slam championship win. He shares his chance with Jared by convincing him to return to the pro circuit as Connor’s doubles partner. [Read more…] about My Favorite Book – LGBT Author Alan Chin

Filed Under: Author Interviews, Gay Fiction Tagged With: gay authors, interviews

Spotlight on an LGBT volunteer and why $12 is important

April 16, 2013 By Brandon 1 Comment

~ From James Robinson, Executive Director of GLBT Advocacy & Youth Services (reposted from Facebook.)

lgbt nonprofitToday’s spotlight is on one of our volunteers … Ashley Ross is completing her Master’s in Social Work degree from the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa.  Ashley first met with me about 9 months ago to discuss the possibility of an internship placement with the agency.  I knew there was something special about Ashley when she showed up in December, a month early for her internship placement, and began volunteering.  Since then I have learned some amazing things about Ashley and her dedication to social work and her support of equality and social justice.  Ashley is our first intern from UA and I later found out she had worked for 2 years within her department to secure a placement with our agency.  Last week as Ashley received the Margaret S. Odom Social Work Award from the Alabama Gerontological Society I learned that Ashley had based her submission for the award on an encounter she had with a gay man in a Senior Center program where she was working.  This gay man shared his life story with Ashley and his story touched her heart. His decades of [Read more…] about Spotlight on an LGBT volunteer and why $12 is important

Filed Under: LGBT Nonprofit News, LGBT Youth Organizations Tagged With: charity, gay youth, giving, LGBT, lgbt fundraising, lgbt organizations, lgbt youth, nonprofit

Cold by Brandon Shire coming in May

April 15, 2013 By Brandon 1 Comment

Cold - Gay RomanceThe beta readers are sending back their comments about Cold.

“Another five star read!”

“Love these characters!”

“You had me crying, again!”

The exact release date is still to be determined, but it will be in May. You can join in the conversation on Goodreads, or get notified via email by signing up for my newsletter.

 

Read the book blurb

Prison is a brutal, heartless, and demeaning environment. No one knows this better than a man sentenced to life in prison for murder. Lem Porter is a high-profile prisoner who had a solid career ahead of him in a field he loved until he killed his brother. He has spent almost eighteen years behind bars and doesn’t have much hope left.

Anderson Passero had it all.  He built a career, a name, and a relationship with a man he thought he loved. Only after he very publicly landed in prison did he realize how ignorant he’d been. He has eight months left on his sentence and he is eager to go home and put prison life behind him. He doesn’t know it yet, but he will always carry these eight months with him, and they may just help him to understand what love really means.


NOTE to Current Email Subscribers: 

The frequency of emails will increase as we have integrated the blog with our email subscriber list at the request of fans. As followers of this blog know, we offer a broad range of voices from other LGBT authors, musicians and filmmakers, as well as info about LGBT Youth related news. It is my sincere hope that you’ll stick with us and help spread the word. Exclusive information about new releases and upcoming books will still be available via email first, before appearing on the blog or social media sites. 

~Brandon

Filed Under: Gay Fiction, Gay Romance Novels Tagged With: LGBT, mm romance, reader questions

Guest Post by LGBT Author Majorie F. Baldwin

April 12, 2013 By Brandon 4 Comments

Man Made Man by Majorie F. BaldwinThanks for inviting me to your blog, Brandon. I love to talk about my science fiction and the Phoenician Series, in particular. I’ve lived with some of these characters in my head for nearly my entire life. Joshua Andrew Caine, for instance, came to me (fully-formed) at about age 5. No kidding, preschool and this adult man was running around in my head. Creepy, no?

This was a strange synchronicity. After I drafted this blog post, I added you to my circles on GooglePlus and ran across that Australian video panel on what it means to write “gay fiction.” As you’ll read in a bit, labels are a really sticky point with me—as in they don’t stick. Clearly, we are of like minds here.

But let me back up a sec. My introduction to the gay community was when my older brother came out to me. I was 12 and didn’t really understand the whole socio-cultural implication of “being gay” because one, I was 12, and two, it was the 1970s so this was pre-AIDS. Being gay was not commonly mentioned on television or in pop culture so I wasn’t exposed to it in my sheltered suburban childhood. It was shocking news that Uhura and Kirk had kissed on Star Trek (I was appalled; isn’t that sexual harassment? He was her boss!) [Read more…] about Guest Post by LGBT Author Majorie F. Baldwin

Filed Under: Author Interviews, Gay Fiction, Science Fiction and Fantasy Tagged With: author interview, gay authors, interviews

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