Brandon Shire

Author of Contemporary Gay Romance

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There’s a bridge I hide under – from LGBT Youth

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lgbt youth nonprofit

A 6-month update from the Executive Director of Lost-n-Found Youth, Rick Westbrook, is below. We have upwards of 7 homeless youth on our wait list. Your support goes a long way, not only to help the 6 youth we are housing, but to help us plan to expand to help even more!

 

Lost-n-Found Youth has just passed the 6 month mark, and things are in full swing.

All of the youth in the house now:

-Have jobs or are just waiting on their schedules

-Start school / college this week, Or

-Go off to Job Corps soon [Read more…] about There’s a bridge I hide under – from LGBT Youth

Author Interview with Nephylim

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Nephylim, LGBT AuthorToday I’m talking with Cheryl Headford who writes under the pen name Nephylim, an author and practicing attorney in South Wales about sex, bias, boxes and books. What couldn’t be great about all that?

B: Let me ask you first for those not familiar with your work what your pen name means and how you came to it?

N: The Nephylim were the children of men (metaphorically speaking of course) and angels. They are mentioned at various times and in various ways in the Bible and other mythologies. The Bible doesn’t like them, describing them as monsters and seeking to wipe them out. Other mythologies, such as Sumerian and Egyptian are kinder. [Read more…] about Author Interview with Nephylim

Afflicted – Excerpt

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Afflicted by love’s madness all are blind – Sextus Propertius

Read the blurb

gay romanceHunter knew this wasn’t one of those childish boy-whores trolling for perverts; this was a man. Young, but still a man. He couldn’t see him, but his voice told Hunter that he was a man that had done things of which he’d never spoken; a man who lent himself to situations where his precociousness could not have extracted him safely, yet he’d gone anyway. For the money, or the drugs, or the thrill, Hunter wasn’t sure which.

He had a hard street smell to him: the coarse weave of slightly greasy jeans; the soft, worn odor of a leather jacket; the musty, unwashed smell of lank hair. What would his feet be like trapped in boots all day? Hunter wondered. Not rank, no; a slight vinegar smell, like chips, only with a more sensual under-tongue taste.

Hunter also questioned himself about the haughtiness of the man’s poise. Did he hold a mild distance, unerringly begging you to pull him in close? Did he burn you with a cool, liquid stare that dried the mouth? Or did he bark a seductive, fuck me trash-boy look that would melt your eyes? [Read more…] about Afflicted – Excerpt

Author Interview with Gregory G Allen

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Gregory G Allen, AuthorI’m talking with Gregory G. Allen today. He’s an author, actor, director, and producer. Let’s just put it this way, the only thing he doesn’t have yet is a Booker Prize or a Pulitzer. He’s got four great books out all of which are doing amazingly well (and in multiple genres) and he still has much more to come.

 

B: We were talking privately before I left to go off on a retreat about gay fiction. I know I get a bit annoyed with the assumption that gay fiction has to include sex in order to be considered in the ‘gay genre,’ and I’ll concede that has started to change from those days when gay fiction was really just gay erotic pulp, but it seems to me that we still have so far to go making everyday gay fiction (verses writing like Hollinghurst) a literary genre that has a bit more depth. Your thoughts? [Read more…] about Author Interview with Gregory G Allen

Interview with Indie filmmakers Cati and Mike Gonzalez

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Filmmakers Cati and Mike GonzalezToday I’m talking with internationally known Indie filmmakers and photographers Cati and Mike Gonzalez, and you know me, if it’s raw and gritty any media can hook me pretty quick. This team of filmmakers had me hooked in about ten seconds. Not only are they well known in NYC and around the world, but it’s pretty rare that I come across someone that has a project that so closely matches my own concerns with LGBTQ youth.

Let me tell you about their film first. Prince & Ekaj hits on so many levels it’s not even funny. This is not some lame Glee view of what it means to be LGBTQ but a hardcore look at what it is to be growing up Latino, gay, and homeless in the hard city. (You can see the trailer below and a longer clip on their website.) [Read more…] about Interview with Indie filmmakers Cati and Mike Gonzalez

The Value of Rain – Year One

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gay fictionWho would have thought we’d be sitting here one year later? Not me that’s for sure.  As most of my regular readers know I was prodded into publishing by some of my few, but very close, friends. J.S., who you met on my social sites while I was away, simply chuckles at this because he was one of those people.  He’s the one that dug through manuscripts saying What about this one?  Or Do you remember that one you wrote about…?

I specifically recall the conversation we had about dipping my toe into this publishing pond. How adamant I was about my own privacy, the lack of time I had to devote to it, and a million other excuses; anything I could think of that would take this ridiculous idea from his head. I know I told him that I had never allowed him to read my writing for this.  And of course his question was Why did you then?  I was stumped, my tongue a rogue little knot that could not find an excuse. Damned thing. [Read more…] about The Value of Rain – Year One

Author Interview with J. Warren

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J. Warren, AuthorI’m talking with J. Warren today, author of Stealing Ganymede which was a 2009 Indie Book Award Finalist. Like my own books, Ganymede is a harsh fictional look at a disturbing subject matter and one I would recommend for your reading list.

B: I love authors that push buttons, and obviously with Ganymede you are one of those authors.  Can you give me a little background as to what brought you to write about child prostitution?

J: Through blogging, prior to Facebook, I met a young man who had been horribly abused his whole life. There was a child prostitution (and worse) ring active the area where he lived, so it didn’t take long for them to get their hands on him. He was able to survive and make it to adulthood and eventual safety, and in the course of our talks, he revealed a lot to me about the world I thought I knew. I was outraged at what I learned, so I started to do some research. The more I learned, the more I knew something had to be done. [Read more…] about Author Interview with J. Warren

To Mom (A letter from a gay son)

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The following is from Gay Family Values. It was a letter attached to the video you will see below. It was so touching that I thought I would re-share it here with you, because sometimes we forget just how hard it is, even for today’s LGBTQ youth, to come out to their parents. 

To Mom,
Mom I have been trying to talk to you for a while now but I just can’t bring the words to say it. So, I am writing you this letter instead. I just want you to know that it isn’t because I don’t feel like I can’t talk to you it’s just that I can’t bring myself to say the words.

So for a while now I have been struggling with myself internally. I have hated myself for a really long time and as scary as it sounds I thought of suicide as the only escape. I then thought of you, my family, my friends, and all of the other things that I would miss out on. What you have to understand is that this was and still is really hard for me. I’ve tried for the longest time to change but I just can’t . I would give anything to be different but this just is not going to change about me. By this point you can probably tell that what I am going to tell you is that I am gay. And I am sure you always knew. [Read more…] about To Mom (A letter from a gay son)