'Nathan Burgoine's Blog, page 20

“A Little Village Blend” now available widely!

Hey-o! It’s the second Tuesday of the month, so that means the Bold Strokes Books titles that released this month, available at the BSB webstore since the first of the month in any format, are now available at your favourite e-tailer of choice! So happy other book birthday to “A Little Village Blend,” my wee dash-of-magic Village queer romance novella—here’s the link to all the various places you can nab it, via Books2Read.

According to Ivan’s sister Anya, Ivan’s tea leaves promise his perfect match is out there somewhere, just waiting to be swept off their feet. Ivan knows Anya’s always right—an annoying trait for a sister if ever there was one.

Ivan’s own knack with tea might not deal with the future, but it’s pretty good at helping with the here and now. When Walt, a tall, dark, and grumpy soldier shows up at his store, NiceTeas, in obvious need of a hand—and a dog-sitter—Ivan rises to the challenge and offers blends to make Walt’s life a little easier. There’s just no way he can help falling for the guy. But Anya says Walt’s not the one for Ivan, and the tea leaves don’t lie.

Is it worth steeping a here-and-now while waiting for the one-and-only? Ivan’s not sure, but everything tells him it’s all just a matter of finding the right blend.

Cover Artist: Inkspiral Design

‘Nathan Burgoine, “A Little Village Blend”

If you’d like to learn more about “A Little Village Blend,” I did a walkthrough of the whole Village series recently—though I should stress you can start the Village tales in whatever order you’d like—and you can find that here.

Back to the Village…

Hello! “A Little Village Blend” released on the Bold Strokes Books webstore today! (It’ll go wide everywhere else on the 13th, don’t worry!)

Brilliant Cover from Inkspiral Design, yet again!

According to Ivan’s sister Anya, Ivan’s tea leaves promise his perfect match is out there somewhere, just waiting to be swept off their feet. Ivan knows Anya’s always right—an annoying trait for a sister if ever there was one.

Ivan’s own knack with tea might not deal with the future, but it’s pretty good at helping with the here and now. When Walt, a tall, dark, and grumpy soldier shows up at his store, NiceTeas, in obvious need of a hand—and a dog-sitter—Ivan rises to the challenge and offers blends to make Walt’s life a little easier. There’s just no way he can help falling for the guy. But Anya says Walt’s not the one for Ivan, and the tea leaves don’t lie.

Is it worth steeping a here-and-now while waiting for the one-and-only? Ivan’s not sure, but everything tells him it’s all just a matter of finding the right blend.

A Little Village Blend

Now, if you’re a fan of the Village novellas that were holiday themed, I wanted to make sure I took some time to explain how this novella is absolutely in the same Village as the other stories, but goes back to the contemoprary-with-a-dash-of-magic side of things, rather than the contemporary (no magic) holidays. I mean, there was the magic of friendship and found family and the like in those holiday stories, but you get what I mean. No sparkly blue magic. (Did I mention I love the sparkly blue magic on the cover, because I love the sparkly blue magic on the cover. Inkspiral is amazing.)

Is there an order to this?

Yes, but no. See, I worked hard to make sure you can read the various Village tales in whatever order you’d like, but I also know saying “you can read them out of order” causes actual pain to fire in the nerves of many, many readers (you’re my people), and so, this blog post.

The last time I sat down to think about this, “Village Fool” had just come out and I revisited just how long I’d been dipping into this fictionalized version of the local gay village: since the very first story I had published. But, to put this into some sense of order that might make sense for a reader trying to find their way through the Village, I’ll aim for something chronological from within the narratives themselves.

Now, because I also know posts like this are TL;DRs in text form, I’m going to start at the end. Here’s the current chronological order of the various Village stories and novellas:

“There & Then” (short story) in Of Echoes Born.“Heart” (short story) in Fool for Love, and reprinted in Of Echoes Born.A Little Village Magic (novelette) in Of Echoes Born.A Little Village Blend (novelette).“Vanilla” (short story)* in Threesome: Him, Him, and Me.“Pentimento” (short story) in Of Echoes Born.Handmade Holidays (novella).Saving the Date (novella)*.“Negative Space” (short story) in Of Echoes Born.“Elsewhen” (short story)* in Riding the Rails, and reprinted in Of Echoes Born.“Here & Now” (short story) in Of Echoes Born.Faux Ho Ho (novella).Village Fool (novella).

(* Note, the asterisks up there are for the stories and novellas containing erotic content—the vast majority of the Village tales do not, but those three do. So, y’know, be aware.)

Now, I should probably explain what the Village even is, no?

A Dash of Magic (Sometimes)

My fictionalized Village is a version of Ottawa the way it sort-of is, with our small “Golden Triangle” that sits on Bank Street for a few blocks and is a short piece of queerness and queer history you can quite literally walk through with a few spare minutes. It’s heavily adjusted for some of my own nostalgia of what it was like in the days where the queer businesses thrived, and I should note there’s a wonderful movement, The Village Legacy Project, highlighting this past and making sure it’s there for future generations, especially as those small businesses fade in light of the net and social change—but not necessarily the education of queer history—makes forward motion.

In my version of the Village, there’s a dash of magic running through the world, and that all starts with a young man named Gabriel, and from there, the population of the Village began to grow. Some of it magic, some of it less so, but all of it queer.

But first, even before Gabriel, there was Ian (or Christian, as his parents named him, before he dropped the first six letters from his name). We meet sixteen year old Christian Simon in “There & Then,” the opening story of my first collection, Of Echoes Born, but the story takes place before he moves to Ottawa, so it’s almost a prelude to the Village stories. Then Ian shows up for half-a-second in my first-ever published short story, “Heart,” included in Fool for Love, which does take place in Ottawa, and by virtue of the main character, Aiden, having a gift for healing, becomes the first real story with that dash of magic set in Ottawa.

And then we get back to Gabriel, and the real birth of the Village occurs.

The Village Starts with a SymbolCover by… wait for it… the wonderful Inkspiral Design.

Gabriel works part-time at one of the small businesses in the Village, Third Eye, which is run by Bailey Haliburton (more on her later). Third Eye is a new age and occult store, and Gabriel, a student of religion and philosophy working toward a degree, finds it all fascinating, but doesn’t really believe in anything himself, least of all magic. He considers Bailey’s discussions of which crystals can help people with whatever problem a harmless bit of amusement, and mostly he just keeps his head down and his grades up and hopes for the best. Instead, in the novelette “A Little Village Magic” (included in Of Echoes Born), Gabriel discovers it doesn’t matter if you believe in magic when magic believes in you. A side-effect of Gabriel’s realization is a kind of revitalization of a spark in the Village in the form of a memorial mural, and that carries forward through the rest of the stories set there. In “A Little Village Magic,” you also meet the owner of a tea-shoppe, Ivan, and at one point Bailey and Gabriel note that Ivan apparently has some secrets of his own, given the sense of magic Gabriel gets from a cup of tea during the story.

A little while later, Avery comes to the Village after the death of his grandmother, and decides to take a shot at re-opening his grandmother’s chocolate and fine gourmet candy store, Sweet Temptations. Avery has a gift of his own: when he makes art with his bare hands, the pieces tend to get a kind of “boost” that nudges them into magical territory, and it turns out this is no different when he makes chocolates. That short story, “Vanilla,” appears in Threesome: Him, Him, and Me. (This is one of the only Village stories I wrote with erotic content, as for the most part they’re G-rated. This one is absolutely not G-rated.) You also meet Pete Marlin here, the manager of the small chain of fair-trade coffee shops known as Bittersweets.

After that, a fellow named Michel, who owns the gallery in the Village, FunkArt, inherits something beautiful (but sad) when a mentor passes away, and his skill for artistic mimicry that sends change both forward and back throughout the Village in “Pentimento” (which appears in Of Echoes Born).

And then it’s time for tea.

Steeping Up a Happy Ending You guessed it, another wonderful cover from Inkspiral.

As I mentioned, we meet Ivan in passing in “A Little Village Magic” (which appears in Of Echoes Born) and Gabriel and Bailey note there’s just something about the tea he brews. Well, a month or so later, the events of A Little Village Blend start, when Ivan finds himself face-to-face with a beautiful husky with mismatched eyes, as well as a tall, dark, and grumpy soldier who looks like he needs some help.

Now, Ivan’s magical gift is more about the here-and-now than anything else: he can whip you up an Earl Grey that comes with an admixture of extra willpower on a tough day, or something more herbal if you’re in the need of some patience or the like. He tends to use his gift softly, helping people without too much fanfare, really. His sister, on the other hand? Anya is much more flashy, and she has a gift for reading tea leaves and, more importantly—and this is one of the singular most annoying traits ever to be found in a sister, in Ivan’s opinion—she’s never wrong.

So when that tall, dark, and grumpy soldier needs a hand, then a dog-sitter, and Ivan’s heart starts to find itself thumping along with the dog’s tail? His sister does what she always does and checks the future and says that the tall, dark, and grumpy soldier is not the one for Ivan.

Now if only Ivan could get his heart to agree. That’s the newest of these trips to the Village, and the dash of magic is there, but hopefully doesn’t overwhelm for those who aren’t as keen on the speculative. And, like I said, while it’s available right now from Bold Strokes Books’ webstore (in any e-format you’d like), if you’re waiting for your preferred e-tailer, it’ll be out on the 13th.

We Need a Little ChristmasWhat’s that? ANOTHER brilliant cover from Inkspiral Design?

Then we hit my first real deep-dive into the Village in the form of a novella, Handmade Holidays. Handmade Holidays is a contemporary queer chosen-family holiday romance, and it takes place over fifteen years in the Village, and follows Nicholas Wilson as he navigates being disowned for the holidays alongside some wonderful chosen family: “The Misfit Toys.” This is the first of these stories to not contain any specific magic, but there’s magic happening all around Nick and his friends of a different sort.

Now, since Handmade Holidays takes place over fifteen years, a couple of the other Village stories are kind-of/sort-of tucked inside that timeline, but Handmade Holidays starts before them, so it makes more sense to put them after in a chronology. Next comes Saving the Date, which I co-wrote with Angela S. Stone, and introduces Morgan, a young man who has reached a point in his life where the anniversary of a night of violence is something he wants to try and change. He signs up for a date through a matchmaking service, and ends up with more than a one night stand (and you get to visit with some of the Misfit Toys here, too).

The next two visits to the Village happen back in Of Echoes Born again, with “Negative Space” and “Elsewhen” spinning stories around two people in the Village who are new for their own particular stories. “Negative Space” introduces André, an artist who has access to information that could solve murders thanks to a hard-gained gift; and “Elsewhen” (originally printed in Riding the Rails, and the other Village story with erotic content) introduces two men named Julian, one of whom can interact with the past of the other, who has an opportunity to set things to a right that couldn’t be when they first happened.

Ian Arrives, Fake Dating, and April Fools’ Day At this point it’s redudnant to say it, but another fabulous cover from Inkspiral Design.

Then we get back to Ian, who is now living in Ottawa, managing his second-hand bookstore The Second Page in the Village, and who has come mostly to terms with his gift for seeing auras and glimpsing the past or future. The final story in Of Echoes Born, “Here & Now,” belongs to Ian and brings the collection to a whole greater than the sum of its parts in a very Village way.

And after that? After that we get back to a holiday season with Faux Ho Ho, which not only revisits many of the Misfit Toys, but name-drops quite a few people who live in the Village during the course of Silas and Dino’s misadventures with their fake relationship and Silas’s sister’s Christmas Wedding and the nine months that lead up to them deciding they can totally pretend to be boyfriends for a few days.

It doesn’t go as planned, of course, but it does end happily, given that we’re talking a romance. It also has a scene where a certain joke is mentioned. Silas mentions in passing how a very bad April Fools’ Day joke (perpetrated by Felix upon Owen) ended up with Owen and his boyfriend, Toma, getting together.

That joke is the next in the holiday series of Little Village novellas, which was Village Fool.

In Village Fool, exactly that happens: Owen, on April Fools’ Day, doesn’t realize that Felix has nabbed his phone long enough to pull a prank on him: Felix has changed some of his contacts. Owen, who is shy and not at all flirty or forward, then proceeds to spend most of the morning of April Fools’ Day writing flirty and forward texts that he believes he’s sending to Felix, but is in fact sending to Toma.

Who is the subject of those flirty and forward texts.

You’ve heard of meet-cutes, right? This is more of a disaster-cute, but again, the joy of writing romance is you know going in that things will work out happily, and they do. Y’know, post-disaster.

That brings you up to speed on the who, and the when, of the Village stories if you want to be completely completionist about the whole thing. There are stories I’d call Village-adjacent (most centrally all the other tales I’ve not mentioned in Of Echoes Born) which absolutely take place in the same shared present, usually with a dash of magic, but they’re not set in the Village, or they have characters who have yet to make an appearance in the Village (or who do appear in the Village, but are just mentioned in passing in the story without appearing, which brings me back to Bailey Haliburton, who does just that in “The Psychometry of Snow”).

So whether you’d prefer something chocolately from Sweet Temptations, or something caffeinated from Bittersweets, or maybe something a bit healthier from NiceTeas, I hope you enjoy a visit to the Village.

Coffee, Tea, and Me

I’m a tea-drinker, through and through. That’s not a surprise to anyone who’s met me, but once or twice at conventions I’ve had super well-meaning readers ask me if they could get me a coffee, often mentioning how obvious it is I love coffee because of characters like the Bittersweets Club from my Village stories and novellas, who truly need their coffee.

I’m not blaming anyone for getting it wrong. It makes sense. But the coffee love? It’s all second hand experience from my friends and husband.

The truth is I can’t drink coffee. It’s a migraine in a cup. I tried a few times in University during late-night study sessions or to cope with early-morning juggling of the job-and-school issues, but every single time I had even half a cup of coffee—which I never liked the taste of, either—I got whammied with a major headache at least, or a migraine at worst.

Now, I was born in the UK and I grew up there and in Canada, so tea was always around and when it comes to the “I need to wake up” mug? That’s what’s in mine. Though these days I tend to drink caffeine-free teas for the most part during the day because I am a man in my forties and sleeping has started to feel like a battle rather than the soothing end to a day.

But a morning cup of Lady Grey, or a Rooibos? Yes, please. When I worked at bookstores in malls with tea shoppes, I also encountered the London Fog (an Earl Grey Latte) and let me tell you, that was life-changing. December retail with a to-go cup of London Fog in hand felt actually surmountable. I need to re-iterate that: six skids of books arriving and no room in the backroom to handle it and a line-up at the cash and someone just knocked down one of the bargain pyramids and one sip of that London Fog and I could handle it. The angry man who waited until December 23rd to buy a bestselling book who didn’t understand that bestselling meant it sold the best and has now sold out and is therefore accusing me of ruining his Christmas? I could stay calm because I had tea.

That’s magic. There’s a reason “A Little Village Blend” is dedicated to all the people who worked in those tea shoppes. Life-savers, every one of them.

“A Little Village Blend” has its first launch tomorrow—Bold Strokes Books releases its titles on the first of the month through their own webstore—and then has its full release on Tuesday July 13th, which is when it releases everywhere else. It’s a wee novella set in my Village series shared universe, only this time it takes place around NiceTeas, the tea place in the Village run by Ivan (who you may remember meeting in Of Echoes Born in the novelette, “A Little Village Magic.”)

There’s some magic. There’s some tea. There’s a tall, dark, and grumpy soldier, a cute husky, and a sister who is never wrong (so annoying). And it’ll all be here tomorrow…

According to Ivan’s sister Anya, Ivan’s tea leaves promise his perfect match is out there somewhere, just waiting to be swept off their feet. Ivan knows Anya’s always right—an annoying trait for a sister if ever there was one.

Ivan’s own knack with tea might not deal with the future, but it’s pretty good at helping with the here and now. When Walt, a tall, dark, and grumpy soldier shows up at his store, NiceTeas, in obvious need of a hand—and a dog-sitter—Ivan rises to the challenge and offers blends to make Walt’s life a little easier. There’s just no way he can help falling for the guy. But Anya says Walt’s not the one for Ivan, and the tea leaves don’t lie.

Is it worth steeping a here-and-now while waiting for the one-and-only? Ivan’s not sure, but everything tells him it’s all just a matter of finding the right blend.

Cover Artist: Inkspiral Design

Anatomy of a Cover

With A Little Village Blend dropping in less than a week now from Bold Strokes Books (eee!), I thought I’d talk covers. The most wonderful thing about having a cover artist like Inkspiral is obviously how gorgeous the end result is, but I feel like cover art is one of those things we don’t talk about a lot as authors, beyond perhaps the “Gah! Cover! Eee!” gushing that generally ends up with me more-or-less nonverbally waving the image around. But there’s a journey to get to these covers, and it begins with me sending a bunch of random words to Inkspiral.

I’m not overstating that. I know my wheelhouse, and while I have opinions on cover art—especially from the point of view I gained working as a bookseller—I’m by no means a designer. So what did I send to Inkspiral? I sent this:

Tone: Light, upbeat romance with a twist of magic.

Ivan Heidt (POV character): Description from the novella: “Anya’s [Ivan’s sister] auburn hair, paired with their naturally fair skin, made her seem dramatic and powerful. On Ivan, the combination made him look like…well, like a guy who owned a tea shop in the Village.” He also has a full sleeve tattoo on his right arm of a cherry-tree in blossom that covers extensive surgery scars from having his arm repaired/pinned after a serious break, but this wouldn’t be visible if he’s at work, where he wears a long-sleeve shirt and an apron.

Walt (Love Interest): Description from the novella: “The man was stocky, burly across the chest and wide enough to stretch the fabric of his green t-shirt tight around his shoulders. His dark hair was short, as was the beard he sported, and he was deeply tanned. [Almost sunburned.]” He appears in uniform a couple of times (Canadian soldier, which I included a link to, but didn’t necessarily want.)

Other important things: Loose-leaf tea in tins, a tea shoppe called NiceTeas, if it’s outdoors, a Husky with one gold eye and one blue eye. Holding to the general illustrated style of Handmade Holidays, Faux Ho Ho and Village Fool to make it clear this is part of the same Village world, but I’d love something of a twinkle/little extra spark to denote this one has the overt magic where the others are contemporary holiday romances. Same world and overall family of stories, but adjacent.

From that Inkspiral gave me a draft that was almost exactly how the final cover of A Little Village Blend turned out, and I cannot tell you how freaking happy I was when I saw it. Especially how he’d shifted things to a soft blue instead of Red, and how the title ended up. His idea to leave the “word covered by a panel of the title” for the contemporary holiday romances and doing something slightly different for this little novella was so perfect, and the the calling it “A Village Magic Novella” where the holiday books were “A Little Village Novella” is just the right little twist. They’re 100% clearly from the same world, but there’s enough to offset the two styles.

Inkspiral delivering all the goods.

So here is the cover, and here are all the little bits and pieces Inkspiral put into the work. Can we talk about those tea-tin labels first, because holy flying crap, the detail there alone. But the sparkles in the tea-pot, the two men staring at each other, and the chalkboard? Also, if you take a peek at the other Village covers, you’ll notice those strings of lights, too. It’s all those little details that make the cover feel like a part of the Village, and I could not be happier.

One Week Until ‘A Little Village Blend!’

It’s coming up soon! There’s only a week remaining until ‘A Little Village Blend,’ my wee gay romance novella, is available via Bold Strokes Books’ webstore! (It launches everywhere else July 12th). Tea. Magic. A tall, dark, and grumpy soldier. A sister who is never wrong. Really, Ivan has a lot on his plate.

According to Ivan’s sister Anya, Ivan’s tea leaves promise his perfect match is out there somewhere, just waiting to be swept off their feet. Ivan knows Anya’s always right—an annoying trait for a sister if ever there was one.

Ivan’s own knack with tea might not deal with the future, but it’s pretty good at helping with the here and now. When Walt, a tall, dark, and grumpy soldier shows up at his store, NiceTeas, in obvious need of a hand—and a dog-sitter—Ivan rises to the challenge and offers blends to make Walt’s life a little easier. There’s just no way he can help falling for the guy. But Anya says Walt’s not the one for Ivan, and the tea leaves don’t lie.

Is it worth steeping a here-and-now while waiting for the one-and-only? Ivan’s not sure, but everything tells him it’s all just a matter of finding the right blend.

Cover Artist: Inkspiral Design

‘A Little Village Blend’ — ‘Nathan Burgoine

Where the Hope Comes From

Every time Pride Month rolls around, I find myself thinking about—long-time readers, prepare to be unsurprised—the whole non-inheritability of queer culture thing all over again. The sheer volume of “I don’t even know what I don’t know” that comes to most queerlings when they realize they’re different, but by virtue of the people around them, might have zero access to anything to help even phrase those questions in the first place.

A few days ago, I bumped into someone talking about upcoming Pride author events, and they’re a lot younger than me, and I am absolutely not saying this in a shaming way—please re-read that as often as you need to—but one of the things they said was how a decade ago they could have read all the queer books that had come out in a week, whereas now they can’t even possibly afford them all, and… Well.

The cover of “I’ll Get There. It Better Be Worth The Trip,” by John Donovan.

No. You couldn’t have.

It left me struggling with finding the right words around reminding (especially younger) queer authors how gatekeeping absolutely kept queer books out of your hands—but those books did exist. No one gave them to you, absolutely. Trust me, I remember. But many existed, and that’s important.

Similarly, last night was the Lammies and it really underlined something for me to look at this year’s list of finalists and winners: I love the volume of queer books happening today—so many of them are from big-5 publishers is a thing to celebrate, yes—and it’s one hundred percent a joy to see it grow and cover more queer voices. The Lammies have been happening for thirty-three years. The time I got to be there as a finalist in 2014, those awards had already been happening for twenty-six years.

Decades of queer books absolutely exist. It’s fantastic the Big-5 are picking up titles now, and not just in a Queer Highlander “there-can-be-only-one” fashion. I celebrate that. But big publishing has a short memory at the best of times, and is a business, and let’s be clear: they learned our voices were worth printing and selling because of all the work done by the smaller queer indie presses over the years, and the queer imprints who fought to have titles, and the queer authors who kept on writing.

I remember starting at the bookstore in the mid-90’s and I don’t think I can explain the feeling of joy (and also betrayal) over just how many queer books there were, just counting published by queer presses, and how I’d had no one to tell me they even existed. In the 90’s. I sat there with that microfiche (yes, a microfiche) and those Books-in-Print slides and I ordered, and ordered, and ordered—it was like someone had finally opened the door to a whole wing of the library that had been there the whole damn time.

And as much as that was amazing, it was also infuriating.

Because yes, even back then, there was queer YA. This is one of the reasons I’m always talking about how “books you didn’t see still existed, but gatekeepers suck.” Especially when it comes to YA. Nancy Garden’s “Annie on My Mind” was ‘82. Rosa Guy’s “Ruby” was ‘76. And John Donovan’s “I’ll Get There, It Better Be Worth the Trip” was ‘69. Queer bookstores existed. With a flow of new releases and backlist.

I get it, I do. I’m an author, too, and I write partly to do time-travel, to put books into my younger self’s hands that he never got to read. But I could have read so many books when I was a queer kid. It could have happened, if someone had just let me. But they didn’t. That’s the betrayal feeling I’m talking about: until I went looking, I didn’t find them. Until I was in university in a city lucky enough to have a queer bookstore, until… until… until. Again, this was the 90’s, but that bookstore existed long before I got there.

I have nearly no photos of me as a teen, but here’s me at a friend’s cabin where my backpack was nearly half-full of queer books (which I snuck out to read by flashlight once the friends had gone to bed.)

Those queer bookstores? They had new releases aplenty, promise. So that sentiment? Claiming a decade ago (which is only 2011) all the queer books could be read in a week? It’s not just incorrect, it’s erasing the very people who made it possible for this wonderful flood of queer books you’re now trying to highlight. Hell, my publisher alone released upwards of seventy books in 2011. Ten years ago. One queer publisher.

In fact, their established history was one of the reasons I chose them. But I do understand how whether or not someone told you those books existed doesn’t change that those books were not available to you as an individual. I absolutely, one-hundred percent understand that feeling. Because the impact on you as a queerling is the same: I had no stories about people like me. And that’s where it goes back to my usual thing: we don’t inherit our culture, most of us queers don’t have queer parents or older family passing on queer heritage. That includes books. And that sucks. Never gonna deny that.

But, look, especially throughout Pride Month, it’s so important we remember who came before us, and that includes the queer authors who wrote those books, too—many of whom are gone, like so many of our queer elders. And like I said, I’m not saying you’re wrong about what it was like to be a queerling. It’s true: you had no access to stories about people like you. But there were stories about people like you, written by people like you, and that’s a huge part of—hell, I’d go further and say it’s the only reason—why it’s even possible you’re seeing so many of them now. That hope for the queer future? It came from the queer past and the queer present.

So much of being queer feels like constant work, and it is. We have to teach ourselves so much, because no one else damn well will. And that can really suck, and it’s endless, and it’s exhausting, but it’s worth it. And we have to remember the people who came before us, and we have to make sure queerlings find out who they were. We have to.

No one else is going to do it for us.

In these three YA novellas from Jeffrey Ricker, J. Marshall Freeman, and ’Nathan Burgoine, the small town of Hopewell, Ontario has a way of bringing together the people who need each other, even if they resist every step of the way.

I mentioned a little while ago about how I was working on a YA novella, ‘Hope Echoes,’ which is slated for next year from Bold Strokes Books as part of Three Left Turns to Nowhere, alongside two other linked-setting YA novellas by Jeffrey Ricker and J. Marshall Freeman, and the theme of this novella is almost entirely what I’m talking about above: connecting queer generations. Here’s the blurb:

Fielding has a knack for seeing the past, and a life put on hold helping his family weather a terrible year. A trip to Toronto to reunite with friends who went to university last year hits an unexpected stop in Hopewell, but a run-in with two local boys gives him an opportunity to do more than watch the past. This time, in this town? Fielding might just be able to fix the present.

Fielding’s “knack” is a gift for seeing events from the past replaying themselves, and near the beginning of the story he finds a long-lost love letter a young woman wrote to another woman, and he gets it in his head to deliver the letter. For all he knows, it’s been decades, but it just feels wrong to him to let that declaration of love never get to where it belonged.

Happy Pride Month

Before anything else: Happy Pride! To all my fellow queer folk: you matter and the world is better for queer people being in it. Lesbian, Gay, Genderqueer, Bisexual, Bisexual+, Transgender, Queer, Questioning, Intersex, Asexual, Aromantic, Agender, Two Spirit, Pansexual, Nonbinary… I say “Queer” most of the time because of how large an umbrella I want to open, but sometimes it’s important to have said individual words—knowing how amazing it is to find a word that connects with who you are.

This year—like last year—being very much a “stay at home” Pride (again) is going to suck for many reasons, not the least of which in how it means a gathered queer space won’t really happen. Those are so rare, and so treasured, I cannot even tell you. Especially for queer people who don’t get to be openly themselves where they life and/or work, queer events and spaces are a lifeline. And while digital spaces are amazing—and often far, far more accessible than physical events and spaces are, which we need to improve yesterday—they’re not always the same, and as any queer person can tell you, going online often means exposing yourself to more hate.

There’s that lovely metaphor about a chorus: when a chorus holds a long note, they don’t all sing all the time, instead they take pauses to breathe in turn so the note doesn’t lose all the voices throughout, and is maintained. I feel that way a lot about Pride Month—it’s a month-long run through a gauntlet of “just asking questions,” “how come?” and Queer 101 stuff that can honestly exhaust more than it empowers. So, don’t forget to take the deep breaths you need, fellow queer folk, and pace yourself against the pushback. Be a chorus. Let each other breathe, and hold the notes for each other.

I’ll probably have more tomorrow, and start talking queer stuff ™ throughout the month, but I wanted to start with just this. A reminder you matter. A reminder you can’t help others if you burn yourself out. A reminder that you don’t have to be the person explaining everything all the time—especially digitally, where so many of the conversations are easier to link to than to hash out for yet another “just asking questions” guy who you know is doing nothing of the sort.

So, I guess my thoughts on Pride Month this year are to be gentle with yourself. Pride is a protest. It’s a protest that started against police violence, which hasn’t stopped, mostly organized by BIPOC trans people and we need to remind ourselves about who came before, because wow does our heteronormative, cisnormative society really suck at passing on queer history. (And yes, this is where I add my usual most queers don’t inherit their narrative from their biological families, so the onus is on us to create a continuance of our history spiel. Consider it spieled.)

Seriously, though, that cover. So pretty.

Side-note: As of yesterday, all the proofs were handed in for A Little Village Blend, which means it’s locked and loaded for the release next month. I’m chuffed to bring y’all back to the Village again—this time with magic a bit more front-and-centre—and I hope you enjoy it. You can currently pre-order at the link there, which will take you to the Bold Strokes Books webstore.

According to Ivan’s sister Anya, Ivan’s tea leaves promise his perfect match is out there somewhere, just waiting to be swept off their feet. Ivan knows Anya’s always right—an annoying trait for a sister if ever there was one.

Ivan’s own knack with tea might not deal with the future, but it’s pretty good at helping with the here and now. When Walt, a tall, dark, and grumpy soldier shows up at his store, NiceTeas, in obvious need of a hand—and a dog-sitter—Ivan rises to the challenge and offers blends to make Walt’s life a little easier. There’s just no way he can help falling for the guy. But Anya says Walt’s not the one for Ivan, and the tea leaves don’t lie.

Is it worth steeping a here-and-now while waiting for the one-and-only? Ivan’s not sure, but everything tells him it’s all just a matter of finding the right blend.

Cover Artist: Inkspiral Design

And, given a recent online conversation that will likely rear up as a post of its own, did you know Bold Strokes Books has been publishing queer books since 2004?

Cover Reveal: Three Left Turns to Nowhere

Brilliant cover art is, as always, from Inkspiral Design.

Apparently, sometime last night or yesterday a switch got flipped and so today I have more news of the unexpected variety: A new book! Pre-order links are starting to populate, even. I found out about those links, by the way, because I woke up to awesome excited messages from reader friends and that, I have to say, is a great way to wake up. Y’all rock.

So, what is this book? Well, you’ll see three names on the cover there, and that’s because this is a trio of YA novellas that all take place in the same fictional Northern Ontario town, Hopewell, and here’s the blurb:

Three strangers heading to a convention in Toronto are stranded in rural Ontario, where a small town with a subtle kind of magic leads each to discover what he’s been searching for.

Ed Sinclair and his friends get stuck in Hopewell after their car breaks down. It’s snark at first sight when he meets local mechanic Lyn, but while they’re getting under each other’s skin, the town might show them a way into one another’s hearts.

Rome Epstein is out and proud and clueless about love. He’s hosting a giant scavenger hunt at the convention, but ends up in Hopewell. When the town starts leaving him clues for its own scavenger hunt, he discovers a boy who could be the prize he’s been searching for.

Fielding Roy has a gift for seeing the past. His trip to reunite with friends hits an unexpected stop in Hopewell, but a long-lost love letter and two local boys give him a chance to do more than watch the past. This time, Fielding might be able to fix the present.

THREE LEFT TURNS TO NOWHERE—Jeffrey Ricker, J. Marshall Freeman, and ‘Nathan Burgoine

As is likely clear, I’ve written the Fielding story, “Hope Echoes,” and the gift in question is a quirk that lets him sometimes see events from the past replay themselves, which leads him to finding a long-lost love letter between two women, and he gets it in his head that while he’s stuck in Hopewell, maybe he could deliver it. It’s not a romance—it’s more like a mystery, if anything, as he tries to figure out who wrote the letter, who it was for, and how to get it where it should have been all along.

I’m stoked to be back in the world of YA, and even more stoked to be doing a shared-world story. I’ve always wanted to take part in a shared world anything, and though our stories are definitely being written as capable of being read on their own, there’s some crossover, and—of course—there’s the slightly magical town of Hopewell itself.

More news as I get it (or, y’know, people tell me about).

The Most Annoying Trait in the World

Hey all! Sorry for the silence around here (Pandemic, injury, etcetera), but I do have a fun thing to share today: I’m back on the wonderful WROTE Podcast, talking all things Village Fool and teasing a bit about A Little Village Blend. So, if you’ve got three quarters of an hour to spare, click the link, choose your platform of choice, and say hello to Vance Bastian, S.A. Collins, and myself as we chat huskies, books, writing, lessons from the last year, and more.

You can check out WROTE Podcase here, with links to all their podcast episodes, and all the platforms upon which you can enjoy said podcast episodes.

April Flash Fiction Draw — “Dropped Stitches”

Ta-da! Today is the second Monday of April, which means today is the deadline for the Flash Fiction Draw challenge that Jeffrey Ricker drew a week ago. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, you can catch up here, but the short version is he uses a deck of cards to randomly select three variables (in this case, action/adventure as the genre, a restaurant kitchen as the setting, and… a stray sock?) and anyone who wants to take part has a week to come up with a thousand-word flash fiction piece. I’m a smidge over the word-count this time (only 80 words or so), but I wanted to post this sooner rather than later. Action/Adventure is so not my bag, but the husband and I have been watching lots of bad action movies lately (what can I say, lockdown?) and though it took a while to figure out a reason for a sock, I got there.

Dropped Stitches

“Son of a bitch,” Travis said. “If he’s in there I’ll kill the bastard.”

“Just to be clear,” Randhawa said. “You plotting murder because he took your brother, or because he got in your pants?”

Travis didn’t reply. The answer should be ‘both,’ but mostly was he was furious with himself. His brother Wendall’s anxiety would be through the roof, and although that asshole Gray had taken time to grab Wendall’s meds, if half the things Agent Randhawa had said Gray was involved in were true, that son of a bitch was using his brother to hack his way to billions.

Also, the word “murder” made him flinch, which he hoped Randhawa didn’t notice.

Except, of course she did. “You’re not a murderer, Travis.”

Travis took a breath. “That why you came with me?”

“Oh, no, I just like the places you take me,” Randhawa said. Given they were crouched amongst garbage bags and broken-down cardboard behind a closed fast food restaurant, Travis snorted.

“How did you know?” Randhawa said.

“Wendall likes the burgers. And that Mazda out front? Gray picked me up on our first date in it.” Travis glanced at her. “He brought Wendall wool and a puzzle book. I thought it was thoughtful.”

“Grayson’s a professional. Manipulating people is what he does.” She paused. “You’re sure about the car?”

“Handsome 4-2-1.”

“Pardon?”

“License plate game. Wendall can’t knit in the car or do puzzles or codes. Gets sick when he looks down.” He swallowed. “I make words out of the letters, and he makes sevens. When Gray pulled up, I remember Wendall saying ‘four times two minus one’ and I said ‘Handsome.’ ADSM 421.” Travis turned to her. “Same grey Mazda. My brother might be in there right now, Randhawa.”

“We need back-up,” Randhawa said. “I’m good, but if he has more professionals with him, I’d rather not have to be.” She pulled out her phone, dialing and speaking quietly.

“They’re moving.” He tapped her shoulder. She muttered one more thing, then hung up. The shadows on the ceiling—barely visible through two high narrow windows on the back wall of the restaurant—slipped from view.

“If they’re leaving…” He shifted forward.

“We follow the car.”

Travis blew out a breath. “Okay. I just… hate this.” Was Gray even looking after his brother? This was Wendall’s favourite chain, which was something, but even if Gray knew his brother would be the most useful calm, would the people Gray was working with care?

God, why had he ever agreed to a first date?

“Listen.” Randhawa frowned. “Hear that?”

Across the distance between them and the rear of the restaurant, Travis heard voices. He couldn’t make out words, but the tone was clear. Anger.

What was happening in there?

A single gunshot and flash of light through the two small windows, and the cry that followed, had Travis up and dashing from the garbage before he could think. That scream was Wendall’s.

“Travis.” Randhawa was after him. “Stop it.” She grabbed his arm, just as he reached for the back door to the restaurant. She was strong. And quick.

“He’s in there!” Travis forced himself to match her whisper.

She tilted her head, glaring, her demand crystal clear.

He slid behind her. That he could fit was even more frustrating, and it wasn’t because Agent Randhawa was a large woman.

His traitorous memory repeated one of Gray’s many charming lines: You’re not short, you’re little-spoon perfect.

Randhawa tried the door, and when it gave the tiniest fraction, she gave him a second meaningful look. She was going in first, and he was to stay the hell out of the way. Or at least, that’s what he assumed she meant, pointing at him and then the spot to the left of the door.

He nodded, moving there, but having no intention of staying put.

She frowned at him.

He really needed a poker face.

Randhawa pulled the door open, ducking, gun out, and doing what looked to him to be a super-cool sweep thing just like the movies.

“Back door!” The voice wasn’t Gray or Wendall. Two bullets struck the door above Randhawa’s crouched head; she returned fire.

Someone different—again not Gray or Wendall—swore, loudly. “Goddamn it! Grab the kid!”

“No!” Wendall’s voice shook with fear.

“Wendall!” Travis yelled. He lunched forward, but Agent Randhawa dove at him. Travis tried to get past her, but she grabbed him bodily and threw him down as more shots fired out the back door. They both crouched, and she kept her gun trained on the door, which had swung most of the way closed despite the broken handle and unscrewed hinge at the top.

“Wendall!” he yelled again.

Nothing.

“Stay. The fuck. Here.” Agent Randhawa glared at him.

He nodded. No poker face required.

She went inside, crouching low.

He heard a car starting. “No!” He scrambled through the door, then skidded to a stop.

Gray’s crumpled body lay by the restaurant’s industrial sinks. The pool of blood around him wasn’t very big, but around hole in his chest, blood soaked his tight grey t-shirt.

“Fuck.” They’d killed Gray. What did that mean? What were these people going to do with his brother?

Randhawa came through the door to the kitchen, only pausing slightly when she saw him. “They didn’t take the Mazda. They must have had another car. Maybe they were meeting Gray here.”

Travis stared at the handsome face of the dead man who’d lied to him, manipulated his way into his home—and his bed—and kidnapped his brother. He couldn’t figure out how to feel.

“What’s that?” Agent Randhawa crossed the room and crouched.

Travis turned.

She was pointing at a sock. Why was there a sock? Travis joined her.

“I know that wool.” Travis reached out, but she stopped him. “Don’t touch it.”

He stared. Definitely not Wendall’s best work, and Wendall could knit socks in his sleep. Slipped stitches left little gaps and… “Oh my God.”

“What?”

“The stitches.” He turned to Agent Randhawa, tears in his eyes.

She shook her head. “What am I seeing?”

“Morse code,” Travis said. “He knitted us a message.”

Agent Randhawa pulled out her phone again, and nodded at him.

He picked up the sock, rotating it. It didn’t take long. He turned to Agent, who waited, eyebrows raised.

“It says 398 Warehouse East,” Travis said.

“Agent Randhawa,” Randhawa said, checking in. “We’ve got a location.”