Religion is a problem for me. It always has been. I won’t lie about that. I’ve personally witnessed the very worst it has to offer the lgbt community and no matter how devout, compassionate and understanding a person of faith is, I always take a step back from them. They can be straight or gay. It doesn’t matter. It’s not something I admire about myself, but it is a part of me. I don’t dislike people who hold to their faith, not at all. But my gut reaction is something I struggle with relentlessly. (And as a side note: I do consider faith and religion to be two very separate things.) So, having come clean on that, I asked author Tim Bairstow to stop by. He is a gay man of faith who writes in the mm genre about these same struggles. I’m sure you’ll find (t)his post and his books intriguing. ~B
The interaction between faith and sexuality in the context of the Christian Church is a subject of enduring fascination for me. Indeed, I think it’s a pretty important ‘front line’ in the on-going battle for equality. Hence, I was delighted when Brandon asked me to explain how faith interacts with sexuality in my fiction – apparently, it’s an unusual take on things.
In the two of my novels dealing with this theme, The Shadow of Your Wings and Cloven Tongues, I thought it was important to take the faith part seriously. It would be too facile just to say that someone’s faith is deluded and set out to expose it as such. Better to accept the fact that faith in God is a deep, genuine and compelling part of someone’s life. That way, it’s possible to explore the internal and external conflicts that happen when this compelling instinct collides with the deepest need of any human: to love and be loved as they are. [Read more…] about When Gay Meets God: Faith in M/M Fiction
The adage is absence makes the heart grow fonder.
Some authors prepare meticulously when they begin to write a new book, knowing in detail from the outset precisely what will happen to whom and in what order. Personally, I find this approach dampens creativity, and I prefer to take the journey alongside the characters; I will usually know something about the people and their story arc before I start a book, but the way it develops can often surprise me. It’s also usually the case that I have to wait until I’ve finished a book before I can look back on it objectively and say with any hope of certainty exactly what the story is about! 
We humans evolve from broken relationships, we grow into the people we are, and are to become, from how, and how often, our heart is broken. The irony with this post is that not only is there an entire museum dedicated to broken relationships, but that it sits in Zagreb, Croatia the setting for my next novel, Summer Symphony. The new novel deals with… (drum roll please) a broken relationship, a broken man, a broken woman, a broken marriage and all the outside forces that conspire to shape how those inside the relationship should view themselves.