Renee Stevens

Sorry, been out camping, and will be heading back to camp in the morning. Is this the one you already submitted to the proof team or another one? You have through Thursday to submit to the proof team.

Struggling to write an anthology? Need just a few more days? You're in luck!!!! Unfortunately, Valkyrie, the head of our proof team, is currently having computer issues, which she hopes will be resolved very soon. Due to this, I have made the decision to extend the deadline for the anthology until May 28, 2020. Stories will still start to release as planned, but this means you still have a chance to submit for the anthology, even if you couldn't finish in time for the original deadline (Friday!) If you haven't yet done so, but plan to submit a story (or 2), please visit the Roll Call thread to let me know so that I know how many stories to plan for. Also, continue to submit your story to the proof team as normal, but just be forewarned that it might take a little longer to get a reply. A huge thank you to the entire proof team for everything that they do to help get the anthologies ready for posting.

We've been doing them for a while. We have one for Ask the Author too, just need to update any that need it.

Hey All! I hope everyone is staying healthy in the middle of the craziness! This is just a quick reminder that you only have a couple of weeks to finish up your anthology entries and get them submitted to the proof team! The due date for all anthologies is May 15th! I look forward to seeing what you all come up with. One huge thing to remember before sending your anthologies to the proof team, PLEASE make sure they have been properly edited. The team will only be doing a simple proof. I've posted the guidelines below: 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. ******* 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!

It was my son is my greatest accomplishment that gave me away, wasnt it? Lol

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..... Renee Stevens Did you get it right? Check out these stories from Renee!

Well, usually it would be a single story review for our feature today. But, we thought it might be nice to turn the focus onto our fearless leader. With that in mind, we visited Myr's stories and picked some of the various comments from readers to highlight the many stories that Myr has on site. Myr specializes in short stories in the fantasy and sci-fi genres. He generally leaves his readers begging for more, probably because most of his spare time is spent on improving GA and dealing with technical issues. But it’s still worth checking out those well-written and enticing snippets, as you can see from the comments. You could also try out his Harry Potter fanfic (not featured here). A Ranger’s Duty @Bill WA well crafted and imaginative world you have created for your readers. I found it captivating and your characters very believable and endearing. Category: Nature’s Wrath Anthology Genres: Adventure, Fantasy Tags: magic, adult, no sex, interracial Rating: Teen Psionic Corp – No Return @Carlos Hazday: Mike is a powerful young man who appears headed for greatness. His psionic powers, training, and family wealth seem to give him an unlimited future. Category: No Going Back Anthology Genres: Thriller/Suspense, Sci-Fi Tags: teen, psionics, no sex, violent, coming of age Rating: Teen Terran Confederation – Jeremiah @Brayon: this story is an excellent SciFi short, that gives the reader a glimpse into the life of a young child soldier in a futuristic world. Questions remain, to entice the reader to want more from this short story. Category: Out of This World Anthology Genres: Thriller/Suspense, Sci-Fi Tags: teen, aliens, psionics, off-planet, no sex, future Rating: Teen A Bad Day to be WET @Valkyrie: Wow! That was very action-packed. I loved the mixture of tension and levity. Category: Crossing the Line Anthology Genres: Adventure, Sci-Fi Tags: young adult, psionics, space, military, future Rating: Teen A Bad Way to Wake Up WET 1 @drpaladin: Talk about bad days. This placed them in a real, but manageable mess. Category: Good Intentions Anthology Genres: Adventure, Sci-Fi Tags: young adult, aliens, psionics, space, military, future Rating: Mature A Bad Way to Wake Up WET 2 @Puppilull: The start of a true adventure! What a journey they will have to undertake to get back. The possibilities for unexpected encounters are endless. Quite the set up! Category: Fight Back Anthology Genres: Adventure, Sci-Fi Tags: aliens, psionics, space Rating: Teen A Tempest in a Teapot @Cole Matthews: I love it! Refreshing and excellent take on pioneering and the kinds of people it takes to fulfill roles in society. Category: Good Intentions Anthology Genres: Sci-Fi Tags: young adult, college, no sex, military, future Rating: Teen The Forest @Headstall: That was intriguing, Myr. The ending has me wanting more. Who are these guys... what are they, and what have they done? Category: Fiction Genres: Adventure, Fantasy Tags: magic, mind control, wizards, medieval Rating: Teen Nick Cringle @comicfan: Well they say say anything can happen with a little magic. Face it, if Santa can't do it, no one can. Great little story and definitely something different. Category: Christmas Anthology Genres: Fantasy Tags: teen, magic, no sex, coming of age, light-hearted, modern Rating: Teen