As part of the mission on Stonewall Gazette to highlight independent blogs that may be of interest to the gay community. I've created the #Blog2BlogLuv column. Today's post features gay writers. If you have a blog suggestion please contact me here. Happy reading!

Shane Smith, Editor, Stonewall Gazette


The Characters Who Wouldn’t Shut Up!

I never intended to write a sequel to Nate and the New Yorker but it wasn’t up to me to make that decision. Somehow, Nate and his friends demanded a second outing.

Originally I wrote the first novella because my publisher at the time pointed out that, regardless of the books many of us like to write, it’s romance and erotica that sell.

So I wrote my version of a romance story to make more readers know about my work. It worked, except for the die-hard romance genre fans. It didn’t fit the mould. And boy, they let me know it.

On the flip side I’ve also received some great reviews for that story and somehow, shortly after its release, Nate, Cameron, Lucy and Ben were calling from my subconscious. There was more to their story, and they wanted me to continue putting them in the spotlight. Continue reading at Kevin Klehr, Novelist


Rainbows & Unicorns, or Truth in Fiction

I, like most writers with a modicum of self-control and a soupcon of good sense, don’t comment on reviews. But I do read each and every one. Mostly out of curiosity.

I’m genuinely curious about what readers think of my work, of the stories I chose to tell, of the words I choose to tell them with—and yes, I realize that can be two very different things.

I realize reviewers write not for writers but for other readers to either steer them to books they liked or away from others that somehow disappointed them. I don’t read reviews to learn what readers want—I decided long ago when I started writing seriously that I wasn’t writing to market but rather writing the stories that burned in me and let the market find me. Continue reading at Larry Benjamin, Writer


Uncommon People: The Rise and Fall of the Rock Stars

Lately, I’ve been wondering why I have no interest in the music that’s being made today. Is it because most of today’s music is being made by and for 19-year-old girls (I hesitate to call them women) or is there some other reason?

Fortunately, David Hepworth has explained it all for me (and you) in his cleverly written and endlessly fascinating new book, Uncommon People: The Rise and Fall of the Rock Stars. To put it simply: there are no more rock stars.

I had already gathered as much when I recently went to see a show of rock star photographs by Michael Zagaris at the Milk Gallery in New York City.

It suddenly dawned on me as I looked at pictures of Robert Plant, Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, David Bowie and others: I had lived through the last era of rock stars! Continue reading at Paul Hallasy, The Gay Curmudgeon


MORE #Blog2BlogLuv (World AIDS Day Edition)