I wonder if I’m alone in having the experience of reading gay romance and, in the process, rethinking my marriage. Before I started reading gay romance, I read het romance for long time and didn’t rethink my marriage. Why was reading gay romance so different? Following that question’s trail of clues continues to take me to places where I feel more at home. […]
Read MoreReal life occurs in the ongoing, sweat-soaked wrestling match between competing expectations. Do you know the feeling of really wanting to do something that someone else really wants you not to do? Or the situation where you say what you think and someone else tells you that’s not right? Or how about when one part of you has always done something this way, but another part of you wants to try doing it that way for a change? […]
Read MoreWhen my new friend Andre told me about his quest for meaningful work, he mentioned ideas like getting a job on an oil rig in the North Sea or working for the post office, but he didn’t seem enthused. I had similar concerns for myself, and since Andre and I shared a love of personal development, we took to meeting in a cafe to listen to each other, ask […]
Read MoreThe enormous romance genre encompasses a wide variety of subgenres, so there’s plenty to choose from, and we readers of romance tend to be voracious. This doesn’t surprise me. One of my definitions of romance is a story focused on main characters who catalyze self-healing for each other and thus reach true intimacy and a mutual happy ending. Romance stories show us how to love and be loved as our real selves. Of course we want stories (and then more stories) about […]
Read MoreLet’s talk about the street corner of the heart where romance novels, daily life, world events, and grief set up shop. This is not the safe part of town. And yet here we can find what we need to renew life... if we dare.
My favorite romance novels break me in tandem with the main characters, show me what’s required to mend, and […]
Read MoreWhere do you feel most at home? Is your instinctive answer a town or a country, a family house, a room in your apartment, your bed? Why?
My lifelong love affair with the concept of home arose from weathering many moves as a child of parents who valued career opportunities (in their modest, service-oriented way) over location stability. As an adult, I extended the trend and continued to […]
Read MoreThe more I write stories about men who are not straight, the more I discover they are about me as well.
In pursuit of creative spark, I throw questions into the air and open to receive. The story that comes will not be one I should write or hope to write. If I try to boss Story to stay inside the lines or hurry up or be marketable, inspiration suffers.
My job is to […]
Read MoreIf you’re like me, your fiction preferences tend toward stories that take you deep and release you with reluctance. When I remember the books I loved most, I feel the joy again. I’ll bet you do too.
Literary gay romance—a niche within a niche within a niche—offers a unique opportunity for the discerning reader. The qualities listed below, when found together in a novel, add up to a reading experience worth […]
Read MoreWhen someone tells me I don’t have the right to do something, I pay attention. For example, the right to write gay male characters in my novels if I’m not gay or a man. At the heart of the objections to women writing gay male romance is that we “can’t know.”
I can only speak for myself. This is true even when I write a story from the perspective of a gay man. To do so with any hope of genuineness, I have to […]
Read MoreWhen I tell someone I’m a romance writer, their reaction is often a pause or a change of subject. The romance genre has a reputation as a distraction for people who can’t be bothered to think. This couldn’t be further from the truth. This genre gives us important information about how to achieve better relationships.
For a story to be included in the romance genre, it must have […]
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