What’s happening? What’s Going on?

Happy Wednesday Scribblers, I hope you all had a great long weekend, celebrating Memorial Day (here in the US), for everyone else, I trust you’ve had a good week and a restful weekend. It’s been a busy couple of weeks and things aren’t slowing down anytime soon. Today I thought I would give you an update on what’s happening and what’s going on with me. As always, I want to take a moment and welcome my new Scribblers. I always appreciate hearing from you and seeing you out at events. Thanks for stopping by.

This last weekend, Eric and I had a little fun and went out to lunch and did a bit of shopping. When we go out, we are like kids in a candy store and we’re not to be trusted, but we had a good time and being out for a couple of hours was great. We even managed to buy a little something fun. We decided to add to our Lego collection and bought the Magic Kingdom’s Cinderella Castle, which was fun to put together. I built the first half, and he built the second half. I think slowly we’re going to build our own Disneyland.

What was nice about this build is that it didn’t take days to complete, but a couple of hours. It’s incredible all the tiny little pieces they give you and you have to make sure you put them together correctly or you have to take things apart and fix what you’ve already completed, or thought you completed. As with all Lego sets, we had a few extra bits, so we found a way to embellish our castle, which is always fun.

Click on the image to learn more.

Coming up this weekend, as some of you may have seen, I will be joining the wonderful group from QSac (find them here) at Davis Pride. The event is Sunday June 4th 10am – 4pm, so I hope if you are in the area you’ll come out and say hello. We had a great time last year, and I’m sure this year will be equally fun.

 

If you want to see all the events I’ll be going to don’t forget to check out my events page (click here).

Happening closer to home on June 17th 1pm – 2pm, several members of the Bay Area Queer Writers Association (BAQWA, learn more here) will be at the San Leandro Main Library (300 Estudillo Ave, San Leandro, CA) for a book reading. This is another free event and your support means a great deal, so if you have time, please come out and say hello.

On the writing front, I have Steve Connor (learn more here), back again working on Conspiracy - A New World, Book 3 (click here to learn more). Steve is back providing his voice and talent to the story and I can’t wait for you all to hear his great work. Have you read my A New World series yet? If not, you can get your sign copies here (US only) or you can find the audiobooks here and the eBooks and paperback books here. Check them out!

Also, I’m happy to report that I’m busy working on my next novel. I’m just over 40,000 words (150 pages or 16 chapters) in and I’m thrilled with how this story is coming along. I’ll be sharing more details about the story and the characters in my newsletter. Are you signed up? If not, join here and don’t miss out. I also provide my newsletter subscribers some exclusive offers.

And one more writing update. I’ve finished my next short story. It’s a Thanksgiving meet cute about two guys who meet at a grocery store on Thanksgiving Day, the story was a blast to write and I can’t wait for you to meet these two charming men.

Well, there you go, a quick check in this week. If you’re going to be in Davis, come and say hello and if you’re going to be in San Leandro, please stop by the San Leandro Main Library for the in person reading by several BAQWA Members. Until next time, have a great week.

The Bay Area Queer Writers Association Presents: Two – Anthology Out Now

Happy Wednesday Scribblers. Can you believe it’s September! Crazy right. This week I’m excited to share that for the second year in a row I’m part of the Bay Area Queer Writers Association’s (BAQWA, find them here) anthology. This year the anthology is titled: Two (click here to get your copy). This anthology features ten authors who share a mix a short stores and poetry all focused around the number two. This is quite the unique collection and I couldn’t be prouder to be part of it. As with last year’s anthology all proceeds from this collection will be donated to the Lavender Library and Archives (click here to learn more) in Sacramento, California. I hope you will pick up a copy and help us support this wonderful organization.

Check out the Cover:

Book Blurb:

Sit down and kick your feet up with your favorite warm beverage this fall. It's time for you to enjoy stories and poetry that reflect the number two.

The Bay Area Queer Writers Association is proud to present this year’s collections of short stories and poetry featuring authors: Michael Alenyikov, Liz Faraim, Wayne Goodman, Kelliane Parker, Richard May, Gar McVey-Russell, Vincent Traughber Meis, R.L. Merrill, M.D. Neu, and K.S. Trenten. Sometimes you need to be able to sit back and let the words from the pages wash over you. See how these amazing authors spotlight the number ‘two’ in each of their works.

All proceeds from this limited-time anthology will be donated to the Lavender Library and Archives in Sacramento, California.

I’m really excited to be part of this anthology and found creating a story for book to be a lot of fun.

The story I contributed to this anthology is called; Nightingale’s Heart, and today I’m pleased to share the blurb with you:

Rahim is the head of security for Aza, a popstar, who had a fan with mental health issues break into their home a few years back. Since being hired Rahim has ensured Aza, and their team’s, safety. However, Rahim, over this time, has grown fond of Aza, hoping for more but never wanting to cross the line of professionalism. Could his feelings be reciprocated? Could Aza, find this lug of a man who protects them more than a ‘Big Guy’ who sees to their safety? Or is this another relationship where Rahim will get hurt.

Also, I created an author’s note for the story, that I think goes to the heart of the tale:

Have you ever had a crush on someone you’ve worked with? I think we all have. As time passed, you finally accepted that a business relationship was all you would ever get, but not today. Not now. This short story is all about crossing lines and taking chances and seeing what happens, for good or for bad. We may not get to explore those choices in real life, but in the safety of these pages, we get to indulge in our fantasies.

Well, that’s all for this week. Please pick up your copy of BAQWA Presents: Two (find it here) and see all the creative ways these authors have spotlighted the number two. Until next time, have a great week.

Wayne Goodman-All the Right Places

Happy Wednesday Scribblers. I hope you are all staying safe with all the craziness that is going on. I can’t believe another week has flashed by. Today, I’m honored to have Author, Pianist, Actor, Singer, Composer, Director, and Podcast Host Wayne Goodman with us. I’ve had the pleasure of getting to know Wayne over the last several months and I finally got him here to share his newest work All the Right Places and to share more of his personal story with us. Sit back and enjoy.

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How many times have you submitted a short story to a submission call only to have the editor tell you the work isn’t a good fit? Most of us have received many rejection notices, some kinder than others, some even laudatory. Still, we’ve all been rejected at some point during our writing careers.

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My name is Wayne Goodman. I live in the San Francisco Bay Area with my partner Rick May (and too many cats). My writing has tended to be historical fiction with a focus on LGBTQ+ characters. When not writing, I like to play piano music from the Gilded Age with an emphasis on Women, Black, and Gay composers.

From time-to-time I submitted short stories to anthologies or collections. Some got accepted and printed, many received polite rejections. After a few years my compilation of shorter works grew to a point where I wanted to publish them together. “All the Right Places” contains eleven pieces that take place starting in the near future and chronologically progressing to the near past.

Two of the stories (“Rumpspringa” and “Looking for Love in All the Right Places”) had been submitted to a journal looking for stories where a sense of “Place” drove the action. The journal never moved forward on that project, but I ended up with two good pieces.

One piece of public art that has fascinated me sits at London’s Piccadilly Circus. Atop a circular pedestal, the statue of Anteros (usually mislabeled Eros) has acquired a mystique for bringing potential lovers together. I find it so compelling that two of the stories begin and end there (the title story and “Nice Day for a Picnic”).

“Population Maintenance,” my first accepted work, went to Off the Rocks. Their call for submission asked to redefine “Gay,” and that’s what I gave them. “Noah’s Raft” got printed in the subsequent edition focusing on historical romances. The story involved quite a bit of local history for the area where I live and started out as a submission to the Best Gay Erotica series. The editor thought it too tame, but it ended up finding a home anyway.

And speaking of Best Gay Erotica, my partner frequently had his stories printed there. My piece, “Out of Yoshiwara,” made it into the final edition of the collection, along with one of Rick’s. We were the first couple to have stories in the same edition.

Ideas for stories sometimes come from unusual places. I am a member of KQED in San Francisco, and they produce a program called “Bay Curious” that responds to listeners’ questions about local points of interest. One such show dealt with Mile Rock Lighthouse, which sits one mile off the rocky coast. That led to “Stag Station,” the designation given to a lighthouse where women are not permitted.

“Sunday/Sinday” came from a quick glimpse at a television commercial for some event happening on a Sunday. However, either I saw it wrong or the text on the screen actually read, “SNDY,” and my mind filled in two sets of vowels.

Queering history has always fascinated me. I like to take little-known or nearly-forgotten times and reintroduce them with queer characters. A few years back I retold three historically-significant books: the first Russian-language book featuring a gay character (Mikhail Kuzmin’s “Wings”), the first American gay novel (Bayard Taylor’s “Joseph and his Friend: A Pennsylvania Story”), and the first English-language gay novel (Francis Lathom’s “Live and Learn”). The challenge for me was to revive these important works but for 21st Century readers. Much of the original language regarding same-sex couples relied on subtext, ambiguities, or inferences to get their meaning across. My works put the queerness right up front where you cannot miss it.

Since October 2018, I have hosted Queer Words Podcast, conversations with queer-identified authors about their works and lives (www.queerwords.org). Each week I release at least one 20-30 minute episode featuring writers from the barely-known to the well-known. We talk about their queer experiences as well as their literary works. If you are a published, queer-identified author and would like to be featured in a future episode, you can email here.

According to David Pratt of Hosta Press in his Goodreads review: “Wayne Goodman writes with a welcome frankness and gives us some wonderfully sexy set-ups … Goodman reminds us that men had desires and knew what they wanted even in the old west of the U.S. or nineteenth century London. A very frank and refreshing change-up from the warm and delightful host of the Queer Words podcast.”

I hope you enjoy the stories in “All the Right Places” as much as I enjoyed writing them. Bon Voyage!

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Want to meet some other amazing authors who I think you need to check out? Here are some that I think you’ll really love:

Interview with R.L. (Ro) Merrill Check it out here.

Interview with Barbara Russell Check it out here.

Interview with Author Mike Lopez Check it out here.

Book Announcement and Interview for J.S. Strange Check it out here.

That’s all for this week Scribblers, please remember to drop me a heart/like letting me know you stopped by. If you want to help support artist like Wayne Goodman and myself please consider sharing this post on your social media platforms to help keep the conversation going. It really does help. Until next time I hope you stay safe and have a great week.

Where to Find Wayne Goodman and his Works:

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Find his website here.

Find his books here:

Find him on Twitter here.

Find him on Instagram here.

Find him on Facebook here.