Cole Matthews

Best of luck! You deserve much better treatment. Sorry to hear this.

What a beautiful story! I love "family" tales and this one is special. Thanks Dark for writing and Renee for directing us to it. Awesome!

Hahaha! LadyDe, I planted some little seeds in Thirteen Mile Camp! If you recall, Brent, Andy and Button were on the team together. That makes me smile. Thanks so much for the review!

Very interesting characters with such a rich promise of a back story! Great job! I'm looking forward to it!

Thanks Valkyrie! It's racier than I usually get but that's the joy of prompts. You get to be a little adventurous.

Thanks Kitt!!! That is true. If they want more they will come. Glad it intrigued you.

Thanks Suvitar! Im glad you enjoyed it. I loved writing the musical part and im glad it seemed to work. Its hard to describe and i was worried. Button and Mirabelle are pretty tight. We'll see how close the other two are next week. Thanks so much!

Prompt 332 – Benny and Clive “Try it again, and I will kill you!” Benny watched the officer eying him angrily. Sweat beaded the man’s forehead. He’d only barely managed to keep his gun after Benny had tried slipping it from his holster. “Who are you? I don’t think you’re from this precinct,” the angry cop shouted at him. Benny shifted and tugged at the ill-fitting police blues he’d stolen. The shirt was too big, trousers too short, but it had worked thus far. Their plan was falling to

Why thank you so much Mickey! I'm glad you're liking it. The tween years were hard to encapsulate. I struggled with how to do those. The teen years are a little easier but then I can only do so much with one chapter for a whole year. Your comments are very heartening to me. Thanks!

Thanks Bob! I wanted it to be a little zany and madcap. I think teens tend to make things over the top. I appreciate the review and I'm glad you're enjoying it.

I am so glad Adam's got a firm grasp on things. Mikeal is spinning out of control, though a strong willed mother like Marigold can make a boy act so stubborn. Excellent chapter as usual. Loved it!

Thanks! I cried while writing the musical part! I could hear the oboe and piano in my head. I'm glad it came across well. Mirabelle had to take the Button by the horns. We'll find out more about those two relationships next chapter. Thanks so much Valkyrie for the comments!

Thank Rebel! Yeah, there is definitely some sexism going on as well. Sarah is her own person though. If she wants to play around I'm sure no one will be able to stop her. Andy and Brent are quite the couple. We'll see next chapter how their relationship goes. Mirabelle had to make the first move. Button just couldn't get past his friend's 'perfection.' I had a friend like that once until I knocked him on the head!!!Appreciate your review.

Seventeen Year Old Virgin The crowd settled in, and Craig looked at Graham nervously. Tessa smiled at him from the other side of his husband. His mother, Sandy put a hand on his arm. “They’re gonna do great,” she whispered to him. “You’ll see.” Craig just nodded, he wasn’t sure his voice would stay steady. He looked around at the crowd. There was a significant number of people given it was a school competition. Craig had been expecting a couple dozen people in the audience but not this m

Congrats Andy! Well earned.

Thanks Valkyrie! I'm glad you enjoyed it and it worked. Ran said this is my best story so far. It's such a compliment, I moved you to tears. I cried too. Brody will be in my next novel this fall called The Barbed Wire Heart.

Voice of the Garden Louis pulled the last tiny maple sprout from the raised bed. He wiped the sweat from his brow with his forearm and smiled. “There, that’s done,” he said to the bachelor buttons. He slowly stood up, his knees protesting and his back refusing to straighten. Louis’ arthritis was horrible for him but when he was out in his garden, it hurt less. He looked over at the bed of tulips, blossoms long gone as the limp leaves had begun to lose their luster. They’d be ready to chop

Nice build up. The tension is palpable. Your mastery of sympathetic characters we love is amazing. I'm worried about how the dynamic between the trio is playing out. But, I worry. That's what I do. Thank you Sasha. Cole

I also use time as a trick for finding errors and inconsistent flow or character traits. Letting it sit and working on something else for a few days freshens the eye. My writing goes through a rough draft stage, revision stage, then Randy reads a printed copy and I go through and make changes again. It's only then I send to an editor and or beta reader. I make their suggested changes and before posting I make one final close read. It's surprising how much work it is but you can watch it grow better, clearer before your very eyes! Of course, I'm still learning as I go and the awesome support here at GA teaches me something new every time. If you write, you need their help. Accept it!

Dyno, building a community that isn't geographically or interrelated connected isn't easy but this event seems to provide the first building blocks. Sites like GA came about as more people became invested in the idea we are a virtual community with a shared set of interests. I think it did help GA become possible and even necessary. Boy am I glad it did.

Thanks Suvitar! No Carmel is bad news. Im glad you are enjoying it. Lots of big things coming yet.

In “The Bachelor Farmer” I portray the dissemination of a term, ‘homosexelles’ to describe men loving other men and women loving other women. Prior to Kertbeny’s new word in the late nineteenth century, only terms that described sex acts were used to define gays, lesbians, and bisexuals. Over time that word, “homosexual,” came into common usage and a new identity group was born. However, being a homosexual wasn’t necessarily embraced by the general public including governments around the world. In the 1950’s, a few men and women in the United States created a couple of groups to advocate for homosexuals. The Mattachine Society was generally the gay group while the Daughters of Bilitis was for lesbians. The Mattachine Society in Los Angeles decided the send out a magazine, a newsletter really, that published ideas relating to people with sexual identities that weren’t the norm. However, they ran head first into a problem. Publishing their little magazine called “ONE” outside the immediate area meant using the United State Postal Service (USPS). Oops! The Comstock Act gave the USPS broad censorship powers allowing it to decide if the content it was conveying was obscene and therefore subject to seizure. The postmaster in LA, Otto K. Olesen, refused to send through the mail an issue in 1954. Deb Price and Joyce Murdoch describe what happened next in their book, ‘Courting Justice’. “After an 11-month delay that Julber [ONE’s pro bono general counsel] attributed to the magazine’s financial woes, ONE filed suit in federal court against Los Angeles postmaster Olesen, challenging the decision that the October 1954 issue was unmailable. Ironically, the cover of the disputed issue declared, ‘You Can’t Print It!’ In the anonymous cover article ‘by ONE’s legal counsel,’ Julber explained the censorship guidelines he’d cautiously instituted in trying to ensure that ONE did not run afoul of the federal law against mailing obscene material.” Page 31, 2001. First the district federal court and then the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of the Post Office. The appeals court confirmed the findings of the district court which said the following: “1. The story "Sappho Remembered" appearing on pages 12 through 15, is obscene because lustfully stimulating to the homosexual reader. 2. The poem "Lord Samuel and Lord Montagu", appearing on pages 18 and 19, is obscene because of the filthy language used in it. 3. The advertisement for the Swiss publication "The Circle" appearing at the top of page 29, is non-mailable matter because it gives information for the obtaining of obscene matter.” http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=7911273081513480843&hl=en&as_sdt=6&as_vis=1&oi=scholarr ONE, INCORPORATED v. OLESEN, 241 F.2d 772 (9th Cir. 1957) What’s fascinating about this decision is the federal district court decided it wasn’t just ONE’s content that was obscene but it found that merely by publishing the contact information for another periodical, “The Circle,” it was sending out illegal material. Simply talking about being a homosexual was considered lewd and lascivious. Shortly thereafter something quite amazing occurred. We tend to think the “Stonewall Riots” were the beginning of the GLBT community’s efforts to be recognized. But, could “Stonewall” have happened without the idea of the ‘homosexual’ and the fact we were becoming a community by communicating with one another? Since I don’t like counterfactuals, I can’t say. In 1958 the United States Supreme Court decided the lower courts were wrong. They found the Postal Service couldn’t deny ONE access to the mail. Strangely enough, there isn’t any written decision. The Supreme Court merely struck down the Ninth Circuit and federal district court’s findings as a matter of law. They referred to another of their court decisions as their basis for striking down the USPS’s actions. http://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/355/371 In what could be described as a ‘silent nod,’ the Supreme Court said we could publish our poems, our stories, our ideas to others. We would no longer be forced to harmonize in the chorus. The GLBT community could step up and sing their ‘unchained melody’ if we’d like. This decision isn’t highly celebrated. However, it opened up a floodgate of our ideas. When people are allowed to write, publish, and debate their ideas, things happen. I chose this decision, this event as my first post for a good reason. Take advantage of your voice and tell us your stories. Sing your unchained melody.

I knew you'd like this chapter! Now you know about what happened to Mirabelle! Kevin's mom is too much. Sarah is just an open book and an open mouth. She loves.Her bro though. Thanks Jo Ann! Now youre up to speed.

Thanks Jo Ann! Yeah, Kevin's a mess and he is just so upset he had to talk to someone. I think youll like the surprise Button gets. Its a saved by the bell moment for him.

Thanks Dughlas for the terrific review. That's exactly it, they are glimpses which give the reader their own space to know Button. I'm glad Button and Andy's little gameplan was amusing. I was chuckling as I wrote it. Andy's an important part of his life. I'm glad you like Mirabelle and Button's calling IT off. Sure, we boys can be overly eager and clumsy about sex but that doesn't mean it isn't real and special, especially the first time. Thank you so much for reading and enjoying the story!