Renee Stevens

Well, it's time to see who our mystery author was for this month. Do you think you got it right? Well, let's take a look shall we? This month's mystery author was..... Brayon Did you get it right? Check out these stories from Brayon!

It's time to take a look at another Signature author! This month, we're taking a look at @Parker Owens. I'll share a few of their stories, but would love to hear what your favorite story is from Parker! I'll only be sharing complete stories, so if it's a story that you've read, why not go and leave a review on the stories main page! Parker Owens writes poetry about the natural world mathematics, and heartache. His stories speak of loneliness, longing and love. Follow him on the back roads to places you've never stopped to visit.

Sorry all, I'm running a little behind today, so let's just get right to the review! Josh.mp4 Albert Nothlit Reviewer: Puppilull Status: Complete Word Count: 34,936 I’m sure many of you know and love Albert Nothlit for his science fiction adventure stories, that bring strange worlds and even stranger creatures alive. I’ve read them and have been on the edge of my seat to find out what will happen to the main characters. You see with Albert, you never really know. Stories can take unexpected turns and go down paths you didn’t see coming. A big plus in my book, but if you’re looking for something more predictable and generally all feelgood, perhaps you should wait with Albert’s work to another day. This is most certainly the case with the rather dark story behind this review. It concerns the deeply saddening issue of teen suicide. And why should anyone read a tale of such tragedy? Just because all too many of us come face to face with this issue. If not in our immediate circle of friends, I’m pretty sure you all have someone you know or at least know of who have suffered in this way. The first step to prevent suicide is to be aware of the issue. Not hide from it, but face it head on. Difficult and upsetting, but it can save lives if we dare to get involved, dare to ask the question “Are you really OK?” Josh.mp4 lets us get to know Josh, who is the narrator of the story. As a new arrival in town, he strikes up a sort of friendship with Nathan, who turns out to be the odd one out at school. We get to follow their friendship, which is at times rather reluctant from Josh’s side. It is hard to fully grasp Nathan, maybe because we see him through the eyes of Josh. To me, Albert captures the mind of teen Josh so well. In his mind, there is not even a possibility of someone taking their own life. But as teen go, he is also preoccupied mainly with himself with the usual obsessions of fitting in, finding friends, getting the attention of various love interests and worrying about his performance in sports. Not uncommon as it is a time in life when you try to find yourself. I commented on getting chills reading the parts describing Josh’s interaction with his high school friends and they weren’t good chills. I would never want to go back to being a high schooler again. To fully take in another person’s issues, especially ones as severe as Nathan’s, at that stage in life is asking a lot of a young person. I read this a few years ago and kept thinking of my own daughters and their friends. How can I help them deal with issues of this gravity? Maybe if we can make them aware of the risks and maybe signs, perhaps some can be saved. It’s a story that hits you in the heart. So have tissues and some time to reflect afterwards, when reading. Category: Fiction Genres: Drama Tags: teen, young adult, gay, under 18, north america, friendship Rating: Everyone

Another month and it's time for another Author Guess Who! We're always open to more participants, so if you're interested in answering the guess who questions, you can either PM me, or copy them from here, change the answers, and PM it to @Renee Stevens. The reveal will happen on February 18th! Now, who thinks they can figure out this month's author??? What is one thing that most GA members might not know about you? My first car was a stick-shift, and I had issues with it dying on inclines. What prompted you to write your first story? Lack of reading an excellent gay fiction that was character driven that didn't turn into an all-out orgy, or full of Shifters. Mainly in the genres, I like. What genre of books do you enjoy reading and have you written for that genre? Fantasy, Drama, Romance, SciFi. Is there a genre that you haven’t written for that you would consider trying later on? No. I've written in all the genres that I am comfortable with. The others I feel are outside of what I can currently do. What do like most about publishing on GA? Reader interaction. Do you have any unique writing habits or rituals to help you get into a writing mood? I've started to utilize the snowflake method of writing for my larger projects. How has your writing style evolved over time? I'm starting to get a lot more descriptive in my writing. Do you have a significant other? No Do you have any pets? No. Used to have a cat before she passed away. She loved it when I shared my taco salad with her. Do you post multi-chapter stories as you write? Do you wait until you’ve finished writing the entire story? Or is it something in between? I've done both ways, though I've been leaning towards posting once it's all done. What is your favorite television show? Ask me tomorrow, and you'll get a different answer. But currently, it's Doctor Who. Love the new lady doctor. What is your favorite movie? Same as above, it changes all the time. One that I watch to make me feel good is The Princess Bride. Also, Legend with Tom Cruise. Do you write poetry? Prose? Or both? I suck at poetry, so I stick to what I do well. If you could meet one person, living or dead, who would it be? President George Washington. I want to ask him, how to abolish political parties. What would you say is your greatest accomplishment? Nothing, yet. I still have time to do stuff. Happy Guessing!!!!

Everyone put them as in progress last time, and that's fine, the author just needs to let me know.

Okay, so it's almost bedtime for me, but I wanted to get this out so that everyone knew some of the stuff going on before the upcoming anthology deadline. Author Incentives Participation was down for the last anthology. After some discussion, it has been decided to offer some author incentives. Incentives seemed a good way to possibly encourage authors to participate. After the final set of anthologies has been posted for the spring anthology, I will be doing a drawing. Authors get a single entry for each story that appears in the anthology. We will then draw three names (most likely using the site random.org), and the winners of the drawing will receive the following: 1st name drawn: 6 Month Premium Membership 2nd name drawn: 3 Month Premium Membership 3rd name drawn: 1 Month Premium membership If you are already a subscriber, the membership can extend your current membership or you can donate it to a member of your choice. 10,000 Word + Stories We tried this for the last anthology and it seemed to go over well. It makes a little more work on my part, but I'm willing to do it again if authors are interested. However, I am going to post a few guidelines here to hopefully curb some of the questions that I got the last anthology. First we'll look at word counts. 10,000 - 14,999 Words: Up to 2 chapters and a 2 week release schedule 15,000 - 19,999 Words: Up to 3 chapters and a 3 week release schedule 20,000 - 25,000 Words: Up to 4 chapters and a 4 week release schedule Now, lets look at posting guidelines if you choose this option. Everything for regular anthologies also apply to the delayed posting option, but the following also applies: The entire story has to be proof read at the same time. You cannot send each chapter separately to the proof team. The entire story must be posted in GA Stories at one time. Once I move the story to the anthology category, you are unable to edit it to add chapters. No extensions can be offered if you use the delayed posting option. The story, in it's entirety, must be ready to start posting when the first set of stories are set to release. Stories using the delayed posting option can be set to in progress, but you must let Renee know When you post your link, you MUST include that you wish it to be posted with a delayed posting schedule, the word count, and the number of chapters. This ensures that I know how many weeks it will need to post and that the number of chapters correlate to the word counts set for each option. Supplying Links In the past, I have created two threads. One for discussion and one for links. I have changed that up this time around. The main thread can be used for discussions and questions relating to the anthology. This go around, I have created two other threads, one for each anthology theme. This was done to ensure that I know which theme your story is meant for. Please post your story link in the appropriate thread. Your story WILL appear in whichever theme you posted your link. I've provided the links below. If you have any other questions regarding the anthology or these new guidelines, please don't hesitate to ask below or send me a PM. Happy Writing!!!!!

Well, it's that time again. There were a lot of great guesses as to who was the featured author this month. Curious if you were one of them? Well, let's see... This month's author was: Myr Did you get it right? Check out these stories from Myr!

The themes of the 2020 Spring Anthology are: The Storm and/or Full Moon Feel free to interpret these themes in any way you want. The anthologies are not exclusive, but inclusive, so don't worry if you think your entry has only a tangential link to the theme. If you are inspired, then write a short story, poem or play, and submit it. Please read these submission guidelines carefully. You may address these themes in any style or genre you choose. Be as creative as you want to be with the themes. However, please note that this anthology is an anthology of short stories. By definition, a short story must stand alone and not require reading a prior story. It therefore cannot be a chapter in a serial. Who may participate Everyone is welcome and encouraged to participate. However, submission to GA Stories requires that you be a member here at GA so you can be assigned as the author. If you have author status (which is free and you can get after five posts in the GA forums), you can submit stories. Submission Guidelines Submission Date: May 15th, 2020 Please Note: Submission date is for submission to the Anthology Proof Team. Proofreads should take no more than 72 hours once you have been paired with a proofreader, if you have not received your story back within 72 hours, please contact Renee Stevens via PM. If you send your stories in within the last 48 hours of the deadline, you have 48 hours after receiving it back to upload it in order for it to be included in the Anthology. Non-Poetry No Story Limit: Each story submitted must meet quality and editing guidelines and only one story can be under 1,000 words. Each story posted as its own submission Minimum Word Count Per Story: 1,000 Maximum Word Count Per Story: 25,000 Poetry Up to five poems Posted as a single submission (a collection) Each poem posted as its own chapter Submission Procedure *Please read carefully* Once your story is complete and has gone through your beta and editing team, please complete the following steps: Contact @Valkyrie via PM. Include in the PM the following information: Title, original editor, genre, synopsis, word count, and excerpt in the body of the PM. Attach your story file. You will be paired with an editor from the Anthology Proof Team who will perform a final proof for the anthology and return the file to you. *Please Note: The Anthology Proof Team is not meant to take the place of an author’s normal editing team so all entries MUST be edited prior to contacting Valkyrie* Once you receive your proofed file, complete your edits and submit your story into GA Stories, for help, please read How do I upload my anthology entry into GA Stories? Make sure the story is unpublished by clicking BOTH the publish sliders, one for the chapter and one for the story itself Select “Fiction” as the category. It will be moved to the correct category by the anthology team. Mark your story as COMPLETE. Only completed stories are allowed in the anthologies Please note that once you submit a story it will NOT show up in your list of stories until the anthology has gone live. Copy the URL for your story and provide Renee Stevens with the URL via the announcement thread so that your submission may be checked to ensure it has been submitted correctly and meets submission guidelines. This also ensures that it will get moved to the anthology category. Please give the URL to the STORY page, not the chapter page. *NEW* Each theme will have it's own category. When providing the URL for your story in the announcement thread, please state which theme your story best represents. [*]Please do a visual check of your story once it has been uploaded to ensure that it uploaded correctly. If it did not, contact Renee Stevens. IMPORTANT: Please DO NOT do ANYTHING with your story once it has been submitted to the anthology. We lock edits to anthologies, but we can only lock so much and trying to make ANY changes can cause issues with the system. If there is something with your story that absolutely needs fixed, added, etc, PLEASE contact Renee Stevens or another Admin prior to attempting anything. Thank you! Extensions Occasionally things happen that prevent an author from meeting the deadline. If you should find yourself in such a predicament, PM Renee Stevens, before the deadline (not the day of or after), and something may be able to be worked out. Please contact Renee only if you need an extension; requests will only be considered when requested by the author personally. However, if the same author is consistently asking for extra time, extensions may no longer be granted for that particular author. Deadlines exist for a reason. The Anthology Team needs time to prep the anthology to go live and extensions, while occasionally warranted due to unforeseeable circumstances, add to the already hectic workload. If you have NOT made arrangements with Renee prior to the deadline, your Anthology will not be included. Please do not send a message the day an anthology is due requesting an extension, these will not be granted. You are welcome to post your story on your own and include a story note stating that it was originally meant to be part of the anthology. Story Titles Please do not use the anthology themes or your GA Username as a title. Be as original as you can. In case of duplicate titles within the anthology, we will request that titles be changed. Unacceptable entries & Content Warnings Entries that are obviously unedited (containing many errors), are overly graphic, or which are deemed to have unacceptable content will be either declined outright, or changes may be requested as a condition of entry. For information on what is considered to be unacceptable, please see the Story Content Rules FAQ. If you still have questions, ask. Please include a Content Warning in the story notes if your story contains sensitive content. Examples of sensitive content: abuse, especially graphic/extreme abuse or child abuse, in-scene graphic violence, suicide attempts/themes, allowable incest, etc... if you're unsure that your story falls within this type of content please alert Valkyrie when you send the PM requesting the final proof. Previously posted stories (whether at GA or elsewhere) are not eligible for inclusion into the GA anthologies. Editing All entries MUST be edited prior to being sent to the Anthology Proof Team. If you need an editor, please visit the Writing Support Requests forum to request one. There are editors who prefer to edit only one shots, such as anthologies. Please make sure to state that your story is for the upcoming anthology. Also, please make sure to follow the guidelines when requesting an editor. Copyright As with all content in GA Stories, the rights remain with the individual authors. Your story will post with a simple 2020 copyright notice, using your GA user display name. If you have another preference (for example, a different name, or a Creative Commons license, or specific copyright wording you'd like to use), please include that with your submission. However, with this anthology, by submitting your story, you are giving GayAuthors.org first worldwide rights with 14 days exclusivity. What that means is you are giving GayAuthors.org permission to archive your story on its website, distribute it via RSS, kindle, iphone, ipad, eyeball…. And you agree not to publish it anywhere else for 2 weeks. If you later decide to post your story at another site, please mention at the beginning or end of the story that it was first published as part of the 2020 Gay Authors Spring Anthology: The Storm and/or Full Moon, and include a link back to GA if possible. If you have any questions, please contact Renee Stevens via PM or via the Anthology Blog or Forum.

So, with the new year, I like to see what features I can add. This year, I decided it would be great to try and feature our Signature authors once a month (when possible). So, to get this feature started, let's take a look at some stories by @Cole Matthews! I'll be picking three stories to share from each of our signature authors, and it would be great if the members would weigh in with what their favorite story is from that month's author! I'll only be sharing complete stories, so if it's a story that you've read, why not go and leave a review on the stories main page! A former bartender and restaurant cook, Cole is now a paralegal for a nationwide law firm. He loves writing mysteries, love stories, and tales about gay men and their view of the world. Currently, he's working on a novel/mystery which is called So Weeps the Willow, a story in three parts. He's also going to Florida to do research for his next novel, set in the Sunshine State. He collects antique cookbooks, gardens and loves travel and biking.