This week promises not a dull moment. I’m writing two posts. One is about a “new” genre that everyone is jumping on board without clearly defined criteria (at least I don’t know that there are clear criteria) but I’m sure you’ll set me straight. The other post is about the thorny subject of the quality of books that have been released recently. I know that I’ll be  ripped apart and my limbs set on fire, but someone has to take one for the team. No one ever said running a review site was an easy gig.

So what else is on the menu? GRL 2013 is not too far away. Looks like a fun time in October.    Next year I would like to go to a Sci Fi con. Have you ever been to one? If so, do the attendees dress up like their favourite characters (Spock anyone?) LOL

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Winter is still doing her thing and making us miserable so I won’t pile it on. Think sunny thoughts about a beach in Australia, which is where Sammy is today.

To cheer you up here’s an inspiring vimeo Tj sent me called So God Made a Gay Man. Enjoy!

So God Made A Gay Man (from CrewMagazine.com) from Crew Magazine on Vimeo.

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Hello everyone and happy February.

This week we have two wonderful posts that I know you’re looking forward to reading.

First, Josh Lanyon is back and he’s written an essay called The Mainstreaming of M/M. Watch for it tomorrow, February 11.

Rick R. Reed’s essay is about Why Do We Love Whom or What We Love?  Although this post will be live on Valentine’s day it’s not exactly what you’re thinking.

On another front, Lori James, Chief Operating Officer of All Romance Ebooks wrote a very interesting post about what’s hot in romance on Dear Author. Some of the information about books rated 5 flames may surprise you. Here’s the link

http://dearauthor.com/ebooks/guest-post-whats-hot-in-romance-from-all-romance-ebooks/

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If you’re a sports fan this is the day you have been waiting for, even if you’re not into football. The Big Game or The Superbowl, featuring the Baltimore Ravens and the San Francisco 49ers will take over most of the airwaves today and tonight in North America and even in Europe. If you’re not a sports fan you might want to hide or try to find alternative programming. I’m betting on the Baltimore Ravens not only because it’s Brendon Ayanbadejo’s team, but  some of the 49ers have renounced their It Get’s Better video saying that they thought it was about bullying, not to help gay kids. This caused Dan Savage to take down the video from his website. To make matters worse Chris Culliver of the 49ers has made several bigoted and homophobic statements about gays. I hope the 49ers are soundly trashed even though they have a better record than the Ravens.

http://espn.go.com/espnw/8902198/espnw-brendon-ayanbadejo-speaks-chris-culliver-remarks

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This has been an exciting week on the site. I put out a call for new guest reviewers and we ended up with someone who is making a return engagement – Val Kovalin – whose announcement is on the site today. The boyz in the Hot Tub are looking forward to interviewing Val on their home turf. We’re also in discussions with a couple more people who have expressed an interest in reviewing for the site and there should be an announcement within a week. If no one else quits we should be able to do a reasonable job of reviewing some of the books in the TBR.

Today the challenge of finding the Favourite M/M Author of 2012 is underway. If you haven’t seen the post here’s a link: The voting is fast and furious and if you haven’t voted already you should get yours in for your favourite.

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It’s January which means that in North America and most of Europe we’re in the grip of a deep freeze. Today it was -8 C here in Toronto but with the wind chill it felt like -20 C. There’s no escape from the cold but we’ll try to brighten your days and nights by reviewing a few books and hope you can find one or two to keep you warm

This week I’m interviewing Kris Piet and S.L. Armstrong about their company, Storm Moon Press. The interview will be live on Wednesday.

Nicole Kimberling has written her usual bi monthly column and this time it’s about Too Stupid To Live characters. Check out her post on Thursday – it’s really funny. .

Next week I’ll be interviewing Nathie, an artist who is an incredible talent. This will be a first for the site because Nathie speaks very little English so the interview will be in both English and German. If your native language is German I hope you will drop by to ask Nathie questions and maybe a few volunteers will translate them into English. Should be fun.

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I hope you’re having a great January so far. Typically January is when people are in the doldrums because of the weather and all those credit card bills that insist on coming in for the expensive toys you bought yourself. Yesterday was an awesome day for me — the temperature soared and the skies were blue. I’m sure it was a record for Toronto in January. We’ll probably pay for it with a huge snowstorm later in the month.

Last week I promised you another feel good story and today I found one about 15 year old Noah St. John in The Advocate that will make you stand up and cheer: No hints this time. http://www.advocate.com/node/220449

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Hello everyone and here’s to a great 2013.

Here’s a link to an article that will make you feel a bit better. Maybe the world is not such a bad place after all. This is the true story of a gay couple who were harassed while waiting for a pizza in Columbus, Ohio, USA and the reaction of the str8 crowd and the employees of the pizza restaurant:

http://huff.to/YTxEnR

This comment, tweeted by author David Hallman, reminds me why books are so precious “To me, the greatest pleasure of writing is not what it’s about, but the inner music the words make.” ~Truman Capote, McCall’s, November 1967

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Happy New Year!

Aunt Lynn posted the Guest Reviewers’ Top Ten lists for 2012 and what a haul. If you haven’t seen it you should check out some of the recommendations. Looks like I’ll be buying a few books.

My Top Ten List will be posted tomorrow. As of now I have no idea which one will be my no. 1 so you have to come by on December 31 to see what I think of this year’s crop.

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What a week this is already and we’re only at day one. I’m seriously sleep deprived so don’t cross me today Santa.

The big party is over i.e. the Author Santa Giveaway that happens every year. This makes the 5th year in a row, and for something that started out from such humble beginnings it been a real rush to see how it has grown. We had a quite few server crashes yesterday and with over 10,000 page loads in one day I suppose that’s understandable. This morning the craziness continued after I went to bed at midnight EST (9.00 P.M. on the West Coast) and I’m not kidding when I say I’m sleep deprived because I was awake at 3.00 A.M. yesterday working on the site while the rest of you were asleep. Poor Christian was the recipient of many emails from me at that hour of the morning and I’m sure he wished that I would just go away. Sorry baby, you know I love you to bits.

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G’day everyone. I hope you’re having a wonderful time so far shopping for the holidays.

Today is the 8th day of Hanukkah and Stuart has written a beautiful essay in which he shares his memories of what the holidays mean to him.

Also today, author Edmond Manning is the third author to be profiled on the site in our short new author flash portrait series. Please check out Edmond’s portrait and feel free to ask him any questions you would like answered.

Coming up on Friday is the long awaited post from Ethan Day. I believe he is preparing his list to Santa even though I told him that some of the items he wants under the tree aren’t really the sort of thing that the Big Man carries around in his sack. We’ll see if he listened to me.

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Happy Hanukkah to our Jewish friends and colleagues. The Festival of Lights started at sundown on December 8 and ends on the evening of Sunday December 16. Jews will light the Menorah and exchange gifts with family and friends for 7 more days (the first day was yesterday). I’m not Jewish but I still want a few gifts.

In two weeks Christmas will be here and there will be many more gifts exchanged, after which we’ll all be broke until next year as those credit cards cry “help.”

Today our very good friend, author Rick Reed is getting married to his long time love of nine years, Bruce. Rick and Bruce were the 279th couple to be granted a marriage licence in Seattle, Washington and I expect that the celebrations will be going on late into the night. Rick and Bruce I salute you and wish you many more happy years together.

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December is the month we all love because of the presents, and if you live in Canada, the snow for all the skiers.

Speaking of presents, Aunt Lynn and I have a huge surprise for you guys, but you will have to bribe Randy big time with chocolates and wine if you want to win it. Check out Aunt Lynn’s post this week.

We have other great gifts for you this month. Loose id is giving away one copy of each M/M book released in December as a holiday present to readers. Isn’t that wonderful?

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Hello Guys and Gals

I hope you’re having a good Sunday. Now that all the Black Friday craziness is over in North America, gird your loins for Cyber Monday. We’ll all be broke WAY before the holidays.

Now we’re finding out about some of the nefarious plots to stop marriage equality from passing in the 4 states where it was on the ballot in the recent US elections. In one such case, according to Buzzfeed and HuffPost, NBC News for which Chelsea Clinton works on a part-time basis, wielded its big stick and “stopped backers of a key marriage equality measure in Washington State from using a video featuring Chelsea urging voters to support a state-wide referendum on gay marriage.” Here’s a link to the article:  (If you’re not interested just jump to the next article about chickens which is all fun)

http://tinyurl.com/ane8lkt

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This post will be short because we’re all exhausted. The site is back up, and starting tomorrow we’ll post reviews as soon as Lynn and Christian finish their testing. Thank you for sticking with us through our recent access troubles which I hope are behind us. For what we’re now paying in hosting fees, if anything goes wrong I’ll slit my wrists.

A huge thank you to my partners Lynn and Christian, without whom the site would still be inaccessible. They both worked to the point of exhaustion, especially Lynn who was still working when I went to bed at 1.00 A.M. (There’s a time zone difference of 9 hours between Lynn and Christian and I’m in the middle)

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