Brandon Shire

Author of Contemporary Gay Romance

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LGBT Youth Organizations

How Writers Can Help Nonprofits

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donate buttonHow can I help?

I get asked this quest a lot. At least two to three times per week day. What can I do? How can I help?  Unfortunately, impulse usually stops at asking instead of acting. I’m not quite sure why that is, from my perspective it seems to be fear.

Most people don’t ask the question when the need is immediate, they just jump right in without worries about religious bent, political affiliation, sexuality, or any of the other ‘norms’ we discard people for. In an emergency we are all just human.

So, since other authors tend to ask me this question most, I have taken all my accumulated ‘wisdom’ and blogged about it over at Suzanne van Rooyen’s Off the Page.

Getting involved is actually quite simple.

Making a Difference is even easier.

 

Learn a Little, Win a Free Book

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What does it take to get a gay kid off the street?

sue brown, authorToday we’re talking about the parallels of homeless lgbt youth  over on Sue Brown’s blog. She is an outstanding author, and advocate for homeless LGBT youth in the UK, helping to raise funds and awareness for the Albert Kennedy Trust.

 

 

 

Win a FREE copy of COLD

sinfully sex BRI’m also over at Sinfully Sexy Book Reviews talking with Monique. We’re offering a FREE copy of Cold, simply enter within the next two days to win a copy.

National Give OUT Day

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Today is National Give OUT day.

Give Out Day

This is a national campaign designed to raise awareness and funds for local and national LGBT Organizations. As you know, here around the Shire we raise funds by donating 10% of the proceeds from our books to two organizations that work tirelessly to get homeless LGBT youth off the streets.

Both of these organizations are taking part in today’s event and you can donate to them at the links below. I would like to particularly emphasize that you take note of the Lost-n-Found page. On the right they have a donation list and it tells you exactly what just a few dollars can do and how much it can mean to a homeless kid.

Both organizations work toward the same goal, if you can, please give equally.

lgbt nonprofit GLBT Advocacy & Youth  and  Lost-n-Foundlgbt youth nonprofit

Rejecting Your LGBTQ Child by Sue Brown

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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

Spotlight on an LGBT volunteer and why $12 is important

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~ 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

Special Guest Post from Author Charlie Cochran

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canal_street_gothicI’ve always had a soft spot for the Albert Kennedy Trust, although my association with them started off for the daftest of reasons. I mean, as a huge fan of Archie Kennedy (from the Hornblower TV series) that name was always going to catch my eye. When I read about Albert, a runaway from a children’s home who fell to his death from the top of a car park in Manchester, having suffered rejection and abuse from society, I decided I had to support the cause of getting GLBT youngsters off the streets and into supportive families.

You can imagine my delight when I was putting together my Christmas present wish list (which is always book heavy) and found Canal Street Gothic, by David Thame, in support of AKT. It was described as a collection of ten stories set in and around Manchester’s gay village revealing the gothic truths beneath the shiny surfaces of the twenty-first century city. I had high hopes, but I’ve had them dashed before, on the harsh reality of blurbs overselling their books. So I was delighted to find this book lived up to expectations. [Read more…] about Special Guest Post from Author Charlie Cochran