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ATTENTION: All COVID 19-related restrictions have been lifted. The pandemic is over! Ooops, April Fools’ Day here in the old U S of A. Welcome back! And welcome to the best month of the year. We celebrate fools—we all know a few of those—this month. Mother Earth has her day this month. My niece—didn’t I just hold her as a newborn?—will turn twenty-four this month. And a foolish, tree hugging, white-haired, old biker has his birthday this month. Happy April, y’all. The member who sent in last month’s question also asked something of poets. Due to the total number of individuals involved, I decided to feature them in separate months. And even though not all poets I contacted replied, the responses we do have are outstanding. ◊ ◊ ◊ Do you have a favorite metaphor? An image or analogy you come back to again and again? If so, what is it about that metaphor that draws you back? ◊ ◊ ◊ @AC Benus When I first got this question, I thought, "No. I don't go back to well-worn ideas over and over...." And then, lol, I thought of a couple of things that I have gone back to a few times. One seems to be the "Alice in Wonderland" theme. It has appeared several times as allusions in my poetry, and then, last year, it somehow wound up being the central theme in my havin-a-baby novella Finding Joy. Another area I come back to is more nebulous. This especially shows up in my poetry as opposed to my fiction, but I use concepts and theories from Physics as metaphors. String Theory, the Butterfly Effect, Quantum Mechanics, and many more wind up as ways to express the sort of mystical connections some of us feel for others. One area I have plans to write a prose piece deals with discoveries made by a doctor of Anesthesiology concerning the human body and reactions people have far, far, far below the conscious level. So, thank you for your question. It really made me think ◊ ◊ ◊ @Mikiesboy Hmmm , interesting question. I write a lot about depression, i have lived with it for many years. To me it is a soul and spirit sucking vampire. I often use words such as fog, darkness, viscous, heaviness and chains, to describe it. I included some samples in my answer: In the early morning I can hear its song though its wee small voice is fleeting my soul yearning for something more and sadness I can feel comes creeping And the tears sit waiting but are not wept for what earthly good will it do? I can cry for an age but it would not be enough There is no cure for what ails, not even you You speak of hope but I have none at least I don’t today But I cannot do what must be done To take this pain away On days like this I am tired of life of the pain I carry like a canker It’s a Dickensian chain heavy and thick and its weight wants to drag me under I like words with texture. To describe clouds for example: felted or woolen skies. Here is an other example of clouds: Whales of gray clouds drift past my windows blown by on fierce seas of gusty wind While the sun teases and taunts us with golden rays The first cold of winter is triggered and as the first flakes fall i think spring And i write a lot about life and what it means, i write what i see and feel about it and people: I walk in the world, a pretender, a lonely visitor I don't know the path and there is no map There is no place to stop to ask for directions I watch the world around me and despair People don't see outside, their universe is inward It easier to ignore the downtrodden, to close our eyes Our houses are crammed with baubles Shiny toys that blind us to what is right in front of us And we scamper on whirling wheels Like hamsters ignorant of life's meaning I am one - and there's no reason or rhyme Ours is to race to the end; to the finality of death Desperately I search my cage for a map Seeking the reasons for my incarceration But i am terrified to take that step Afraid of what i think life really means. I hope that answers your question and the examples helped a bit. Thanks for the question. ◊ ◊ ◊ @Wayne Gray Yes. I love the power of storms and the ocean. They're these tremendous forces of nature - awesome, impossible to stand against. Instead we're battered about, forced to simply endure. If we're lucky, we're looking at them from some safe place, marveling at their power. You can see my take on them both here. Thunder Just Breathe Thanks for the great question. ◊ ◊ ◊ Hope you enjoyed those as much as I did. We’ll be back next month with another edition. In the meantime, send me additional questions for any of our authors, and I’ll do my best to have them answered.

This month's feature is a popular one, Silverwolf by Wayne Gray! Did you read it? Well, you have the chance to share your love for the story below, or ask extra questions, or beg for a sequel... whatever quirks your fancy. But first, you get to enjoy my interview with Wayne. Have you ever gone out in public, realized your shirt is on backwards, and just didn’t care? Backwards, no. Inside out? Yes, and I didn't care. If you had 30 minutes of free time, what would you do? Hrm. A half hour. Sit in an old, deep, wooden hot tub with my husband. We have them here at a place called Cafe Mokka, and they're amazing. A half-hour spent there with a glass of iced hibiscus tea is great. What brought you to the Gay Authors? It was when I was in the process of writing Fleeting Eternity. That story included Dom and sub dynamics, and one of my readers, Fae Briona suggested I contact Mikiesboy on GA. I wanted to get it right, so I did. And I'm glad I found this place though him. I love all of the ways authors can get feedback on their work, so I decided to begin posting here. Here we are. Is there anything you find particularly challenging in your writing? Commas. What’s the first thing you do when you start to write a story? Most of the time it begins with a single scene. Something pops into my skull while I'm driving, or during a conversation with someone. I vividly see character interactions, and all of the wild complexity in relationships people build with one another. Though, sometimes a story is prompted from a reader. A reader's email prompted Fleeting Eternity, and another's got me going on Camp Refuge. Silverwolf is set in a small town. Do you prefer a small town or big city? I do prefer small town/rural settings. I grew up that way, so I know how those places work, and how people deal and relate to one another. I also love the option of escaping to nature whenever I want, both in the real world and in my writing. What inspired your take on were-creatures? Mikiesboy and cider. I jokingly said to him over messenger that I should do a story starring a "werewolf with a silver problem." he said "do it." When I started, I wanted Jed to be very different from anything else I had ever seen. The dynamic between him and Wolfgang really makes it unique, I think. I really like how it turned out. Most of your stories don’t have the “paranormal” tag. Was this story inspired by something special to push you to the genre? See above. Heh. I just wanted to do something different with the genre. Most were-creature stories run along a similar theme (Alpha, beta, Omega), and I really wanted to turn that on its head. There's nothing wrong with something that has been done, I just didn't want to do it. Do you have a favorite scene in Silverwolf? When Evan McAllister, under the influence of his cadre of spirits reached with a single hand and stopped the blow of what was a tremendously strong opponent. I loved that bit. I could very much see it in my mind, and I hope the readers could too. Can you share a little of your current work or future story plans with readers? Just a little. This one is my "mainstream" idea for a novel. I have started very preliminary steps on it (outlining, and the basic research needed). I've had it in mind for a long time, and I've sharpened my teeth on erotica until I felt I could write something that's more of a challenge. We'll see if I can really pull it off or not. All I can really say about it is it will be a novel-length, near-future genre, with a little apocalyptic flavor too.

Welcome to 2020! Well, no one wanted to revolutionize the CSR posts, and the author interviews still seem to be popular with blog readers enough to get at least a few comments each month, so I'll keep this going on to Year 8 of monthly suggested reads by yours truly! One of the best parts of this blog is I get to feature new and experienced authors and stories of all different types and styles; the only criteria for the CSR is that the story is 1) complete and 2) between 10,000 to 75,000 ish words preferably (though we do make short story exceptions from time to time). This lets people have a different variety of lengths to read, but we want to make sure they can finish the story. I occasionally get story recommendations to feature, but I ALWAYS am happy to get more! And yes, YOU can recommend YOUR story to me via a PM. Now, for this month's feature... I'm going with one of my favorite genres to kick off the new decade and the new year! Paranormal stories really make me wonder what might be lurking just out of sight of 'normals' or creeping about in the dark waiting to pounce. So let's see how Wayne Gray treats the genre in... Silverwolf by @Wayne Gray Length: 43,705 Description: Jed is a man of interesting talents used to life on the northern coast of California. Things are fairly sedate until a spate of murders begins to occur, bringing an interesting stranger to town. There will be sex between consenting adults in this story. This story is dedicated to @Mikiesboy, who encouraged a cider-drunk Wayne to take on such an erotic take on the werewolf genre. A Reader said: That was a great wrap-up to an amazing and thoroughly engaging story! I can't imagine a better vehicle for my first read into the paranormal genre. I kept waiting for the new Conduit, but Shane's reveal caught me totally off guard. Looking forward to lots more. Tom Don't forget to come back to read my interview with Wayne Gray and share your thoughts on the story on Monday, January 27th, 2020!