Brandon Shire's Blog, page 24

LGBT Youth Prostituting for Survival

From the Front Line: A weekly post about whatLost-n-Found,a Homeless LGBT Youth organization in Atlanta, deals with on a daily basis. Names are changed or removed to protect the youth.

From the Hotline for Homeless LGBT Youth:

Often when we talk about LGBT kids prostituting themselves for survival, people automatically think of some kid standing on a street-corner waiting for a john to cruise by and pick them up. And while that does happen, too often there’s a more insidious form of prostitutio...

LGBT Music Monday – Ryan Amador

If you haven’t heard Ryan Amador yet, you’re missing out. His new CD was just released on June 28th and is quickly gaining momentum.

The song DEFINE ME, an ode to LGBT equality, was released exclusively on Ryan Amador’s bandcampin conjunction with his live performance at the True Colors LGBT Youth Conference on March 22nd. 100% of its proceeds was donated to organizations working towards LGBT equality.

Have a listen to several of his newest tunes below.

You can find out more about his music, his...

MM Romance Fans for LGBT Youth

It has begun. We have had enough. We are mothers, fathers, aunts, uncles, teachers, bloggers, writers, grandparents, cops, firefighters, marines, plumbers, construction workers, life guards. We are people. We are romance fans. We love the ideal that everyone gets a happy ending, even though we know how unlikely that is in real life. We are on the corner with a Kindle, hiding in the coffee shop with a Nook, waiting at the office so we can get back home and read that HEA.

We have seen LGBT kids...

Teacher Shares Closely Guarded Dirty Secret

Instinctively, I knew it was bad. Yet, until September of 2012, I had no idea how bad. Ignorant. I was ignorant. Plain, simple, and completely inexcusable.

What didn’t I know? 40% of homeless youth identify as LGBT.

Why was it shocking that I did NOT know this stat? This past academic year was my twentieth year teaching mathematics; more than half of my career has been spent teaching at the college level in Boston. Shouldn’t this be something I knew??? Sadly, the depth of my ignorance gets wors...

Blood is Thicker – LGBT Cinema

When a man’s gay brother is murdered, all his beliefs are tested.

A poignant movie about what happens when a family fractures, when a gay child runs because he feels he has no acceptance at home, and how his murder rips his family apart even further. Blood is Thicker is in production now but you can see the trailer below.

From writer Jeff Austin:

Several years ago a very close friend of mine revealed that when he came out to his family, they made his life so miserable that he felt he had no cho...

Locked in a Basement for Being Gay

A weekly post about what Lost-n-Found, a Homeless LGBT Youth organization in Atlanta, deals with on a daily basis. Names are removed to protect the youth.

From the Hotline for Homeless LGBT Youth:

2:37 PM: The Hotline gets a phone call from a gay youth who states that his mother has locked him in a basement because he’s gay. She left him his phone and a pop-tart.

Further investigation reveals that this 17-year-old has already been to the police. His situation at home was so bad that he ran away....

Holding On – Gay Fiction by Michael Joseph

Special Guest Post by gay author Michael Joseph.

It was right around two years ago this month that I first opened a file for what would become Holding On. At the time, I thought I was just jotting down a scene that had been going around in my head for a week or so. I hoped that if I wrote it down I could get it out of my head so I could get back to work on Journey To Rai-Lay, the sequel to Journey To Angkorwhich I had released the year before. I figured it might be part of a short story or som...

LHNB M/M Romance Story – The Touch of Hope

The wait is finally over (which I guess means I can’t tease you any more.)

My story for the Goodreads M/M Romance Group event Love Has No Boundaries is now posted within the MM Romance Group. In order to read The Touch of Hope, you must be 18 and a member of the group. The story, along with many others will soon be available for download at the newMM Romance Groupwebsite.

Enjoy, and don’t forget to leave a review for the story here.

A Voice for LGBT Country Music Fans

Maybe you’ve heard of Drake Jensen. Maybe not. Maybe, like me, you’ve never been a fan of country music and equated it with rednecks and bigotry. But there are new voices in the country music scene, and there are old voices dispelling the idea that all of country music is anti-LGBT.

I can’t quite remember where I bumped into him on the web, but I had a listen and I was convinced that I need to give country another listen. And maybe I need to stop equating the music with the people who listen t...

The First Cut Is the Deepest: My favorite story?

Welcome to the blog my friend and fellow author, Jack A. Urquhart. After a little pleading Jack agreed to come by and talk to us about his favorite book, and I’mgladhe did.

Asking a writer to identify a favorite story from their “literary” portfolio is to my mind akin to asking a parent to name their favorite child—which is why, I expect, so many authors respond by saying: “It’s whatever I’m working on.” I confess that when Brandon Shire suggested I pen a guest post to answer that query, my in...