Renee Stevens

If you read on page 4 of this topic, Riley Jericho answers this himself: https://www.gayauthors.org/forums/topic/36058-english-teen-circumcised-in-the-usa/page-4#entry436340 Edit to add: that link should take you directly to Riley's post

Mark couldn’t believe how well the evening had gone so far. Jackie, true to her promise had actually been cordial to Trey, asking about his family and just getting to know him. The one topic that had not been broached was his military career. He was extremely grateful that Jackie had been focused on learning about Trey and had refrained from sharing some of Mark’s more embarrassing moments. He wouldn’t have even put it past his sister to pull out the photo albums, just to try and embarrass him

Happy Sunday everyone! I hope everyone has had a wonderful weekend! Now it's time to take a look back at the week here at the Gay Authors News Blog. On Monday we took at a look at a free eBook by Stephanie L Danielson called "For The Heart of Phillip". Louis Harris provided us a wonderful review that certainly garnered some new interest in this wonderful story. If you haven't already read his review, check it out and if the story sounds interesting to you, then you can download it in GA's ebook section as a PDF file! To help you get over your midweek hump, we featured an interview with Lisa, a very prolific reviewer here at GA. Many of the authors here have had the pleasure of receiving a review from her and Percy did a wonderful job of helping us to get to know Lisa a little bit better. Want to know how to get Lisa interested in your story? The answer is in the Wednesday feature! So if you haven't already, go read! To help you get through that TGIF moment, our resident Prompt Guru, Comicfan, posted two new Halloween prompts! If your having a halloween party this year, then one of the prompts may be perfect for you, especially if you can imagine what would happen if all your guests costumes were no longer simply costumes. If that thought doesn't get your mind going, there's also a "list of words" prompt. Both of the prompts could be your inspiration for a Halloween tale, and you never know, Comicfan might just feature yours next Friday! Anthology Announcements: Winter Anthology: Recipe for Disaster - Due Dec 8th 2014 Spring Anthology: Nature's Wrath - Due Mar 8th NEW READING In Premium this week: The Cassini Mission by Rob Colton, Book 2 of Galactic Conspiracies Do Over by dkstories, Book 1 of Do Over Series (reposting) By our Hosted Authors this week: Adverse Effects by Cia, Book 2 of Saving Caeorleia Thwarted by Renee Stevens GFD 12: Blood Ties by Comicality Book 12 of Gone From Daylight Take Flight by Cia Arthur in Eblis by David McLeod Flash Fiction - Second Shot - The Senior Year by Andrew_Q_Gordon "Waiting Outside The Lines" by Comicality The Secret Live of Billy Chase 8 by Comicality, Book 8 of The Secret Life of Billy Chase 9.11 by Mark Arbour, Book 13 of Chronicles of An Academic Predator (CAP) Prompt me not, for these are my prompts by comicfan By our Promising Authors this week: The Shunning by JMH Ghosts and Candy by andy021278 So Little Magic Left by Mann Ramblings Prompt Ramblings by Mann Ramblings Wedding Ring by JMH Have a great week everyone! Read, Write, REVIEW!!!

Thank you for the review Smoothy! I'm glad that you enjoyed the story, I had a lot of fun writing it!

Recently I put out a call for people to do interviews for the blog. We have featured many interviews throughout the life of the blog, ranging from the staff here at GA, to the authors. Todays interview isn't with one of the many authors here at Gay Authors, she is actually one of the prolific reviewers on site who also carries the title of Editor. Please enjoy this interview with Lisa and thank you Percy for conducting the interview! Interview with Lisa Interviewer: Percy GA was started to connect authors with readers. Readers can often be the silent members of the Gay Authors community, but I figured it was high time we heard from one of them here in the GA News blog. At over 1,960 reviews, Lisa is one of the most interactive readers on GA and happily for the authors, she’s far from silent. She also serves as an editor for several authors. I was thrilled when she agreed to answer my questions about what inspires her to read and review. Have you always been such a prolific reader? I'm pretty sure I was born with a book in my hand. In high school, I used to bring my paperbacks to school and read them in between classes. One day in Geography, the teacher called on me but I didn't hear him because I was reading my book! I had the book in between the Geography book. He gave me detention for a week. I was so friggen HAPPY! For one hour extra per day, for five days, I had to go to detention and, you guessed it, READ to my heart's content!!!!! So yes, I was always a voracious reader. How did you first make your way to GA? I've been at GA for three years now. September was my three-year anniversary. "Desert Dropping" by Dom Luka was the first story I ever read on GA. I was in another site [that] recommended this story and the link was the story link at GA. What prompted you to start editing here? I am a little fuzzy on the details, but I think Sid (Sidlove), was responsible for that. He was writing on another site and he wrote a few Nuke stories. (Luke and Noah from "As the World Turns"). I used to watch that show just for the Nuke storyline so I started reading his stories. When I got to GA, he suggested I write down that I was an editor (I was currently editing a bunch of stories on another site), and that way he could use me as his editor. What’s the hook that gets you to read a story? Is it the description written by the author? The genre? The tags they choose? Other reviews people have left? For some odd reason, I love reading high school or college-aged stories. So if 'teen' or 'college' is in the story tag, I would definitely want to check it out. I'm boring and just like normal stories. Last year when KC posted his "Shepherd's Crook" story, he didn't put 'ghost' in the story tag until at least a couple of weeks into the story. By that time it was too late for me and I had to finish the story anyway. Lol. But if I had seen that first, I would have never read it. And of course I would have missed out, so now maybe I should re-think my prejudices. It's not only teen stories I read. It also depends on the author's description of the story. There are many others I read such as "Dust & Ash" which doesn't revolve around school. What inspires you to leave a comment? I know authors work very hard at their stories and they love hearing what people think of them. I know that when I leave a really good comment, I'm anxious to find out what the author thought of it, so I can imagine how I would feel if I were an author and waiting for readers to comment on my story. I also like commenting if I can relate to what's happening with a character. There was a story on GA about a year ago (maybe a little longer than a year), about a high school boy whose mom had a pretty bad case of OCD. I always loved reading the updates because I could relate to that so much. My ex had OCD for many, many years and drove me absolutely insane. I could relate so much to the kid in the story. The author never finished the story, which was too bad. Do you ever try to influence the direction a story takes with your comments? I would think that would be tempting if you know the author is still writing as the chapters are being posted! It's so funny you ask this. Over on the site where I started, there have been reviews I've left where I said something like, "Wouldn't it be great if so and so happened...?" and then in the next chapter, that very same thing I said was written. But who knows? The author may have planned that all along. I never try purposely to influence an author's direction. Any advice for offering up constructive criticism when leaving feedback or even figuring out if an author is receptive to that sort of comment? If the grammar is poor and there are typos, etc. I will comment on that. Most of the time it's because the author isn't a native English speaker. There have been a few times where I just would stop reading because I couldn't get through a sentence without grimacing. In other cases, the storyline was so good that I just had to grin and bear it. I will point out a problem to the author once, even though I may see continuous errors in later chapters. I don't want to be known as the pain-in-the-ass reviewer who only finds faults with the writing. I do find that there aren't that many readers who will call an author out on poor writing. My feeling is if you are an author and you want people reading and LIKING your story, it better be good. You just can't throw up any old thing online and call it 'writing.’ The way a story is written is a reflection on the author and if it's not as perfect as the author can get it (with other people looking at it if necessary), then don't put it up there!!!!! I do read for enjoyment, but if I'm cringing at every other word, I'm going to give up. Any advice for authors posting here on GA? Just re-read, re-read, re-read your chapters! Don't post anything until it has been re-read to death! Don't take all comments about your story personally; if you rile someone up, that might be a good thing because you got some reaction out of him. Oh, if a reader fails to review a new chapter posting, it is probably because they're really busy and they will get to the story as soon as they can. I keep a running list of stories I need to catch up on and when I have a few minutes, I start reading them. Lots of good advice in here for both readers and writers. Many thanks for agreeing to be interviewed, Lisa! If you would like to do an interview for the blog, please let me know via PM! Thank you and don't forget to follow in Lisa's footsteps and REVIEW!!!!

“Maybe this wasn’t such a great idea.” Mark was all for turning around and just taking Trey back to his apartment. He still wasn’t sure how he’d let Jackie talk him into bringing Trey to her place for dinner. “Would you relax, it’s going to be fine.” Trey must have caught his doubtful look. “Look on the bright side; at least I’m not coming out of your bedroom this time.” Mark grinned and shook his head before knocking once on the door. Usually he’d just go in if she was expecting him, but si

I'm working on one for 271... lets see if I can get it finished Though, mine are never the "traditional" pieces and typically end up being at least a couple of thousand...

Thank you for the review Cole! I'm so glad that you are enjoying the story and that it is keeping your interest! I always worry about being able to hook the reader and I'm glad that I've succeeded for you with this story.

Thank you Lisa!!! Chocolate... yummy... I can agree he should be ecstatic, but can also understand him being nervous. It will be interesting to see how it goes. As far as their time together before Trey leaves, no, it's not a lot of time together, but it all depends on how they spend that time. Personally, I think they will be making the most of every second they have together, but we'll have to wait and see.

Thanks for the review! Carrot cake is one of my favorites, though I have to say I don't think I'd say no to chocolate either, especially German Chocolate.... yummy. As for the story, I definitely agree that the next year is not going to be easy for either one of them, they'll definitely have to make the best out of the weeks that they do have together.

Hi Clochette, I'm glad you found the story and thank you for reviewing! I know the chapters are short, but that's due to the fact that I am writing them as part of a group called the Wednesday Briefers. We write a "flash" piece every week and it has to stay between 500 and 1000 words. I'm glad that you are enjoying the story and I look forward to reading your thoughts on the future chapters. There is still a lot more of this story to come!

Thank you Stephen! Meeting the parents is a big thing and even I am anxious to see how it goes. As far as Carrot Cake, I love Carrot Cake, and German Chocolate cake. I honestly couldn't say for sure what my comfort food would be as I tend to bake, lol. Cookies, cakes, etc. I hope you continue to enjoy the story!

Thank you for the review Lisa! My best friend in High School joined the Army Reserves right out of high school and did a tour of duty in Iraq. It was scary for everyone as we waited for her to come home safely and while it was always great to hear from her, some of the stuff that she wrote to us in her letters was terrifying. We were lucky that she came home safely.

Thanks for the review!! It is getting sad and the three weeks are bound to be tough to get through but we can only wait to see what happens between the two guys. I look forward to hearing your thoughts on future chapters!

Thanks for the review! Had to make his evening somewhat better after making him sit through that awful date. I'd love to do longer chapters with this story, but I have to keep to the guidelines of the group that I belong to which is between 500 and 1000 words for each prompt. At least I'm sticking closer to the 1000 mark

Thanks for the review Suvitar! I agree that he was extremely rude and arrogant. I couldn't stand the guy, if you couldn't tell!

Agreed Daithi that something happened, the question is, what. I really wanted to highlight that even though they haven't known each other that long there is definitely a connection between them.

Thanks for the review Lisa! I agree that it would have taken something major to make Trey be acting like he was during this chapter. Thank you again.

Thanks for the review Cole! Glad that you enjoyed the first chapter and look forward to seeing what you think of the future chapters!

Thanks for the review Daithi! And yes, Jackie is nosey. As far as Ted, that's a great question, but damn I'm glad it wasn't him coming out of the bedroom. I couldn't stand the guy, if ya couldn't tell, lol.

Not sure how you missed the update, but evil cliffie? Me? Would I do a thing like that? *grins* Glad you are enjoying it!

“So, what do we do now?” “What do you mean?” Mark knew what Trey was talking about, but he didn’t really want to think about it. “About us. We agreed to see where this connection took us, but we didn’t expect this to happen so soon. I thought we still had a couple of months together.” Trey sat on one end of Mark’s couch and watched as he paced the room. Mark froze. “Carrot cake.” “Excuse me?” Trey looked at him like he’d lost his mind. Mark couldn’t blame him. With everything going o

Thank you Lisa. I think sometimes we question things too much and that's one of the things I have enjoyed with this chapter, and actually this story in general. Glad that you are still enjoying it!

Sometimes thinking is overrated, lol. And yes, too short seems to be a repeated complaint on this story; however, that isn't going to change anytime soon considering the limit of the wednesday briefs, lol. Thanks for the review!

Thanks for the review Lisa. You're right that it could have gone a lot differently than it did. I definitely considered different ways that the chapter could have gone, but in the end this was the way that I thought worked best and I'm glad that it worked well. I think a lot of people are looking forward to the interrogation. Thanks again!