Luca E

I don't think you realise how depressing it is to see the threads RIP .... someone else has died. If you could change the title to CELEBRATING .... I would not fall into a depression and want to avoid coming here. A small change, with a big impact, which would be a brighter, more uplifting way to honour their memory. What do you think? Would that be possible?

I have been thinking about the overall design of Gay Authors. Meaning, take the home page as an example, it designs the site around finding the kind of story a reader might be looking for, which is great. I'm wondering if there couldn't be a parallel route into finding a story you might want to read based on authors. An equivalent home page which would group authors. So where you have genres for stories, you would have labelled groups for authors, such as: Currently Publishing, First Time New Author, Foreign Authors (English is not first language), AI co-assisted Authors, Past Authors (those who published 10 years ago and no longer publish). Well, you get the idea, the ability to search stories by types of author. Meaningful categories would need to be established, but first time is a good one, allowing a search for new authors, currently publishing is another giving access to find stories readers like to be part of through comments. AI co-assisted is a category more for avoidance as several readers don't wish to read those stories. Past Authors is a category where comments don't apply because you won't get an answer. All in all I think it would be nice to be able to discover authors rather than simply stories. I think also it could be developed to reviews for authors as exist for stories. After all it is Gay Authors, not Gay Stories!

At the risk of being called a sycophant @Myr's SA contribution marked him out as a great author for me. I guess that is the huge success of the competition, you discover new authors and it's often surprising!

No. I had to make a difficult choice between two stories I found equally good. You can only vote for one. The deciding factor was one was inspired by a real event and used this as the theme the other was entirely imagined by the author. I thought that better reasoning than simply tossing a coin. I also thought the one had potential to be a book, the other did not. But then again they could all have been created by fairies and magic glitter!

For me it was a choice between two stories Emptying the Library and No Official Reason, I voted for No Official Reason because we have one vote and the story was entirely created by the imagination of the author and with the potential for a book (I hope!).

Definitely the top story so far, well constructed, engaging, emotional, and dramatic. This story exactly fitted the theme and is strongly recommended. Two lives separated by seventy years, two different relationships, an interconnection which is set in a believable historic context. Dramatic and well worth reading.

Totally agree with @Cane23. The interconnection of the two storylines seventy years apart was very well done. The historical perspective well researched. Engaging and dramatic. Well done!

A story for carnivores which mixes the esoteric with culinary invention. It's kind of weird and maybe not to everyone's taste, but I think there's romance in there somewhere!

A story for carnivores, well written and entertaining, but I couldn't stop myself from picturing hundreds of wingless chickens, kind of like frogs legs and all those hundreds of frogs who can't jump. I guess I preferred discovering Kai's saga of hollow souls and an explanation of the afterlife. Where will this lead? A relationship? But there's hardly a hint. Maybe a foodtruck, then restaurant, selling chicken wings. Honestly, I prefer a baraque a frite, pizza truck, or 'Spud-u-like.' Still, a nice story (if I could just get the chicken wings out of my imagination).

A very engaging story. The author carries forward the plot through dialogue, there is little description of places, but it's a choice that works, because it focuses on the two central characters, develops their growing relationship and highlights the obstacles in their path. An excellent story, the best so far of those I've read (more than half), I have no idea who the author is, except they're American and older (as pointed out by someone's comment on the map thing) which I'd never heard of and didn't find on Google. Well done!

The first real story so far. Lots of nice little short tales, lots with twists, but this was engaging. I sincerely hope it has more chapters to come. Well done!

A (light)house visit to solve a mystery with a metal detector that was almost instantly achieved. You can read it, it will only take a few minutes, it's not very substantial, you might conclude there's almost nothing in it, except the discovery of a tobacco tin which 125 years later still carries a faint odour, a bit like the tale that's been told!

for me a very short story which didn't say much. A bit of a who done it, Colonel Mustard in the library with the...

A nice children's story that would make any kid want to play at detective or try to teach their pet!

Seems like dogs and cats are the stars in more than one story!