Q&A with Josh Lanyon discussion
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What else are you reading? (June 2010 - May 2013) *closed*
Darkm wrote: "Anne wrote: "I just read How to Raise an Honest Rabbit by Amy lane, which is about some of the side carachters in The Winter Courtship Rituals of Fur Bearing Critters. A sweet story, not quite as a..."I agree. I love angst, and I loved all the characters and stories in the Promises books. But there was SO much angst that I simply haven't been able to bear reading any of her other series. But The Winter Courtship Rituals of Fur-Bearing Critters looked fun and I bought it. It WAS fun and now I've bought How to Raise an Honest Rabbit and am looking foward to a nice, cozy read in the near future.
Anne wrote: Makes me want to start knitting again though ;) "And another one is lured back in! Bwahahaha!
I love Amy's holiday stories. If I Must and Christmas with Danny Fit are darling, too. Definitely comfort reads for me. I just have to be a little careful with her non-holiday stories. Some are just fine, but some leave me in a funk for days. (Like The Locker Room. Oy.)
Marge wrote: "Darkm wrote: "Anne wrote: "I just read How to Raise an Honest Rabbit by Amy lane, which is about some of the side carachters in The Winter Courtship Rituals of Fur Bearing Critters. A sweet story, ..."There is a new book coming mid-november about yet two other guys in the same setting, I really look forward to that :)
Becky wrote: "Anne wrote: Makes me want to start knitting again though ;) "And another one is lured back in! Bwahahaha!
I love Amy's holiday stories. If I Must and Christmas with Danny Fit are darling, too...."
I used to knit a lot when I was younger, making my own designs and such. My kids had the most wonderful sweaters and little hats. But I haven't done it in years. I remember it was fun, though.
Anne wrote: "I used to knit a lot when I was younger, making my own designs and such. My kids had the most wonderful sweaters and little hats. But I haven't done it in years. I remember it was fun, though."If you enjoyed knitting, have you ever looked at the Ravelry website? You can spend hours looking at patterns and how differently they turn out depending one who knits them. You might be lured back by it!
Becky wrote: "I love Amy's holiday stories. If I Must and Christmas with Danny Fit are darling, too. Definitely comfort reads for me. I just have to be a little careful with her non-holiday stories. Some are just fine, but some leave me in a funk for days. (Like The Locker Room. Oy.."I haven't read any Amy Lane yet, but I've heard a lot of good things about The Locker Room and I was thinking of checking it out. Just curious--why did it leave a funk?
ttg wrote: "Becky wrote: "I love Amy's holiday stories. If I Must and Christmas with Danny Fit are darling, too. Definitely comfort reads for me. I just have to be a little careful with her non-holiday stories..."Mmmm, Locker Room is a book of personal growth through large hills of angst. It is probably not the best Amy Lane starter book.
Where to start? See if any of these appeal to you. They are more balanced angst:warm fuzzies. ;-p
Keeping Promise Rock
Bewitched by Bella's Brother
Sidecar
Clear Water
ttg wrote: "I haven't read any Amy Lane yet, but I've heard a lot of good things about The Locker Room and I was thinking of checking it out. Just curious--why did it leave a funk? "I'm a big time Amy Lane fangirl. IMHO The Winter Courtship Rituals of Fur-Bearing Critters is a sweet and stress-free intro. Follow that with its sequel, How to Raise an Honest Rabbit, and then you'll probably be well-warmed up for something like Clear Water. My personal favorite of all Amy Lane books is Chase in Shadow, but as others have mentioned that's a very high angst/high stress book -- easily more angst than either The Locker Room or Keeping Promise Rock, both of which have plenty of angst themselves.
Whatever you choose, enjoy!
ttg wrote: "Becky wrote: "I love Amy's holiday stories. If I Must and Christmas with Danny Fit are darling, too. Definitely comfort reads for me. I just have to be a little careful with her non-holiday stories..."The guys in The Locker Room have a darling, high school sweetheart relationship to start, but the stuff that happens to them is pretty intense. Stuff that often destroys relationships and lives in real life. It was hard to read about these things happening to people that I'd come to love through the course of the book.
Hj wrote: "Anne wrote: "I used to knit a lot when I was younger, making my own designs and such. My kids had the most wonderful sweaters and little hats. But I haven't done it in years. I remember it was fun,..."I love Ravelry! It's SO MUCH more functional than GR. Someday, someone is going to create a book website that can do all the excellent things that Rav can do, as far as tagging and searching and sorting and an amazing lack glitches, and I'll die a happy woman. I just heard that Emma Bull is a member of Rav, although I don't know that for a fact. I know that Jenny Crusie and Josephine Myles are over there, and I think I remember seeing Lois McMaster Bujold too, although I wouldn't swear to that one.
Becky wrote: "Anne wrote: Makes me want to start knitting again though ;) "And another one is lured back in! Bwahahaha!
I love Amy's holiday stories. If I Must and Christmas with Danny Fit are darling, too...."
I think the Locker Room was one of the few that really didn't do it for me. I was so angry the whole book.
ttg, I guess books are a personal thing: I'm not sure which one of them you could prefer.
But from Amy Lane Sidecar is a very beautiful one, Truth in the dark too (but quite angsty).
The knitting ones are more "light" but very nice all the same. :)
Anne, I'm a bit envious :) I was never able to knit. I could never concentrate enough to get it right.
Becky wrote: "Hj wrote: "Anne wrote: "I used to knit a lot when I was younger, making my own designs and such. My kids had the most wonderful sweaters and little hats. But I haven't done it in years. I remember ..."Wow, with some of my all favourite female authors as well as patterns ( I love looking at patterns)- I have to go there. Thank you, guys.
My debut with Amy Lane was with Talker and I was hooked immediately :) some angst, though.
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Becky wrote: "I love Ravelry! It's SO MUCH more functional than GR. Someday, someone is going to create a book website that can do all the excellent things that Rav can do, as far as tagging and searching and sorting and an amazing lack glitches ..."Its functionality is amazing, isn't it? And such an amazing resource of information. The data from some of the excellent lists and bookshelves in different groups on GR would be easier to access if it was arranged and searchable in the same way as on Ravelry.
I am on the last book of Nicole Kimberling's Bellingham Mystery series, One Man's Treasure. I've enjoyed these four books very much. I wish she wrote more and faster, one short novella a year, it seems.
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Wait! I seem to have missed this. What story is this? When did it come out?
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What I love about this series is that Nikki is writing real mysteries. And this is such a rarity in our genre. Generally what we see here is (at best) romantic suspense. But Nikki understands and respects the genre requirements as well as the tropes of classic mystery.
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I'm hoping to include roundtable "discussions" on those three topics with writers who represent the best in each genre (although obviously that's going to be seriously subjective).
I already have a number of authors in mind, but I'd be interested in hearing ideas from all of you on who you consider to be the leading authors in those particular genres.
Josh wrote: "Karen wrote: "I've read both of JC Price's recent shorts, Jackpot (a Channeling Morpheus 10.1) and In the Dark (PsyCop 6.1 ). They are more like addenda or sidetracks from the main stories, not sta..."The PsyCop short came out a few days ago, and you can find it on Amazon. Always a pleasure to see more of Vic and Jacob :)
Josh wrote: "What I love about this series is that Nikki is writing real mysteries. And this is such a rarity in our genre. Generally what we see here is (at best) romantic suspense. But Nikki understands and respects the genre requirements as well as the tropes of classic mystery. "In that vein, I enjoyed the first three of Stevenson's Donald Strachey books (haven't read the rest yet, but I plan to), and I'm very fond of Cochrane's Cambridge Fellows series. The Cambridge books are the closest I've seen to "cozy" mysteries within this genre.
I haven't tried the Bellingham books yet. I hope to get around to them before too long!
Apropos of nothing, I am currently helping my daughter with her sociology dissertation (beta reading in a way). She writes about sub-cultures, especially the surfer culture in South-England - Cornwall. That reminded me of shining like the sun, Alex Beechroft's only contemporary novel, I believe she mainly writes historical novels. Except for one small twist at the end of the book that was a little strange, but didn't ruin the rest for me, I enjoyed it very much, so I recommend it. And then you can learn about the surfer culture in Cornwall as well :)
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Ginn Hale is great with fantasy/spec, though you probably already knew that.
JCP is great with paranormal. duh.
Ruth Sims and Alex Beecroft are awesome when it comes to historical.
Contemporary crime, I would say P.A. Brown and Neil Plakcy are really good. Plus, Plakcy is fantastic at really bringing you into the location of the book, which I always admire in his work.
At the moment, off the top of my head, those are the top authors I can come up with. If we're talking about mystery, I'd have to go with you, Josh. No doubt. I know mystery and crime are a fine line apart from each other. I don't know if you want to make that distinction or not, but I really do enjoy their work, so yeah.
Josh wrote: "I already have a number of authors in mind, but I'd be interested in hearing ideas from all of you on who you consider to be the leading authors in those particular genres. "Within mm? For spec fiction, IMHO you shouldn't leave out Carole Cummings. So many mm "fantasy" authors don't really understand how to write fantasy, but I think she does a pretty good job of it. IMHO Ginn Hale has some fine moments (for instance, some aspects of Wicked Gentlemen are really nice), but I haven't read her Rifter series yet. And my favorite mm UF/PNR writer is probably Andrea Speed, despite problems with her prose and fact-checking errors. I really appreciate the way she handles emotion. Oh, and based on one book only I think you'd have to consider Belleau and Vane with The Druid Stone -- which some readers seem to think is TOO fantastical and too little mm. Hmmmm...then of course there's always Flewelling, whom I personally think is a pretty darned poor writer -- but very popular, of course!
As for sf -- As I mentioned earlier I'm also a big fan of Amy Lane. For her sff work, though, I think she screwed the pooch on at least one of the Green's Hill books (I've only read one, and it was pretty bad) -- but in contrast I thought that A Solid Core of Alpha was pretty darned great. So I might consider her for the sf side of the sff equation. Another sf mm story that I liked pretty well was Gravitational Attraction by Angel Martinez. She seemed to understand the sf genre better than most mm "sf" writers do.
It'll be interesting to see who you come up with!
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I would suggest Aleks for fantasy. He is able to create a new world with the minimum amount of words. He understands which details need to be included to make the setting 3D and which details the reader can fill in for themselves. I was able to see, hear, smell the setting without an info dump. No idea how that happens. I wish this ability could be cloned!
I'm happy to hear that you are updating Man Oh Man! I would love to read about today's market, even if I never put pen to paper (or hands to keyboard).I also like real mysteries rather than romantic suspense. Matter of fact, most of the time I dislike romantic suspense, in m/m, m/f or any combination of the two.
Ohh mystery writers! I agree with Jordan on both points for Neil Plakcy. Best location writer ever, and great mysteries besides. I also love his characters.
I also liked P.A. Brown, Charlie Cockrane (beautiful use of language too), and Andrea Speed for urban fantasy. Oh and Victor J. Banis.
Jordan wrote: "Oh! And I'm starting Andrea Speed's second book Bloodlines today, so of course, she write great stuff too that should be added to that awesome list of authors. I don't recall any fact-checking issu..."Get your kleenex out before you get to the end of Bloodlines!
As for factchecking, send me a PM if you want a couple examples.... ;-)
Oh yeah, other people mentioned JCP. IMNSHO, if you're doing a round table on "how to write" you HAVE to include her for her skill at efficiency and the use of subtext. She is able to say more in fewer words than just about any mm author I've ever come across.
I have a soft spot for Manna Francis, but she's chosen such a different way to make her work known.I also think Harper Fox is an incredible example of crystalline writing. And Nicole Kimberling has written across a few genres, but always consistently beautifully.
JCP and Ginn Hale and Aleks, of course.
Nicole, Jordan and Aleks can also wear different hats, so it would be interesting to read about their experience in publishing and their advice for would be writers. Not that I want to write, but the insider's view also makes me more aware as a reader, I like to understand why I felt a book really worked :)
Josh wrote: "I'm not sure if I mentioned this or not, but I'm planning to do a major revamp/rewrite of MAN OH MAN. One of the big edits will be a whole new section on genre writing (or, more exactly sub-sub-genre writing) on Mystery, Historical, and Spec Fiction.I'm hoping to include roundtable "discussions" on those three topics with writers who represent the best in each genre (although obviously that's going to be seriously subjective)."
One of the very best historical m/m writers is Lucius Parhelion.
I'd like to throw Erastes in the ring for "voice". Her writing voice is outstanding and changes a great deal from project to project. So maybe "authentic voice" as a topic for her to talk about?
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I pretty much agree with everybody about the authors who have already been suggested. I would be especially interested to hear what Jordan Castillo Price, Harper Fox, Ginn Hale, L.B. Gregg and A.M. Riley has to say.
Right now I'm reading L.B. Gregg's Men of Smithfield: Mark and Tony. I've read 37% and I'm enjoying it enormously. It's nicely fast-paced, witty, funny, sweet and hot. In other words something I really, really needed right now. :)
Johanna wrote: "Josh wrote: "I'm not sure if I mentioned this or not, but I'm planning to do a major revamp/rewrite of MAN OH MAN. One of the big edits will be a whole new section on genre writing (or, more exactl..."What about Tamara Allen on historicals, her books are lovely and seem very well researched.
Johanna wrote: "Right now I'm reading L.B. Gregg's Men of Smithfield: Mark and Tony. I've read 37% and I'm enjoying it enormously. It's nicely fast-paced, witty, funny, sweet and hot. In other words something I really, really needed right now. :) "Funny you should say that. I just bought this from Books on Board a few minutes ago. :-)
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I hope you'll enjoy it as much as I do. :)
Anne wrote: "Apropos of nothing, I am currently helping my daughter with her sociology dissertation (beta reading in a way). She writes about sub-cultures, especially the surfer culture in South-England - Cornw..."Wow, Anne, your children are so interesting! (Obviously they take after their mother...) I assume your daughter has carried out her own in-depth research in Cornwall?
I'd almost forgotten about Shining in the Sun. It was good to read; glad to know it's also accurate!
Josh wrote: "Susinok wrote: "I am on the last book of Nicole Kimberling's Bellingham Mystery series, One Man's Treasure. I've enjoyed these four books very much. I wish she wrote more and faster, one short nove..."I really enjoy these books, too. And as you say, they are true mysteries.
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I also think Harper Fox is an incredible example of crystalline writing. And Nicole Kimberling h..."
I go with all of Emanuela's list (Manna Francis, Harper Fox, Nicole Kimberling,
JC Price, Ginn Hale, Aleks). And yes, Tamara Allen (Johanna). I'd be very interested in hearing more of what Marshall Thornton and Victor J. Banis have to say.
Hj wrote: "Anne wrote: "Apropos of nothing, I am currently helping my daughter with her sociology dissertation (beta reading in a way). She writes about sub-cultures, especially the surfer culture in South-En..."She has actually spent the three last summers in Cornwall, working and learning to surf, thus she got the idea to write her dissertation from that sub-culture since she has been a part of it. The kids sound interesting because I think so and is very proud of them, and can't help "bragging". :). I like the fact that young people are unafraid and go abroad to learn and to work. It expands their horizon and as a consequence, mine as well.
Johanna wrote: "Josh wrote: "I'm not sure if I mentioned this or not, but I'm planning to do a major revamp/rewrite of MAN OH MAN. One of the big edits will be a whole new section on genre writing (or, more exactl..."Since you like L.B. Gregg and it is Christmas soon (the time goes by fast!) you could check out Simple Gifts. An ultracute holiday story I love to reread and reread ...
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My memory is beginning to jog since I started reading the second book. Not that I recall specific examples, but I do remember there were a few minor issues. I think I liked her writing style, characters, and plot enough to put the issues to the back of my mind for the first book.
I've been warned twice now about the Kleenex. I was told not to read the ending at work on my lunch break. But I'm only a few chapters in and this book is breaking my heart.
You know, I'm not normally an emotional person who cries a lot. But one would think from all the M/M I read that makes me cry that I cry every day or something! Oiy! lol.
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Most of the actual writing advice will remain as is. That stuff doesn't go out of style. But I'll be adding new sections and expanding sections and, frankly, ripping out a lot of old interviews and excerpts and replacing with new.
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I also think Harper Fox is an incredible example of crystalline writing. And Nicole Kimberling h..."
There are so many good writers to choose from now. Francis was someone I considered, but she's only known for the one work (and it's based on fan fiction, yes?), and because there's so much material out there -- and I kind of have to limit the roundtable discussions to four or five participants -- I made the decision to only use people who have been around and established a real track record.
Part of having a "real" track record means having a variety of successful credits to one's name. There are all kinds of authors who score with one story or one series but never manage to write anything else that captures the attention of readers. The focus of the book is to provide a writing tool for people who, let's face it, hope to be hugely successful!
And when it comes to giving advice to others, longevity is the real litumus test.
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I don't know if the book will be of much interest to readers -- although I'd like to think there's enough in there for those who are at all interested in the creative process -- but I do think it's going to be enormously useful for writers.
Enough, hopefully, to compensate for how quickly the market info will go out of date again.
Josh wrote: "Most of the actual writing advice will remain as is. That stuff doesn't go out of style. But I'll be adding new sections and expanding sections and, frankly, ripping out a lot of old interviews and excerpts and replacing with new. "I'm not a writer -- not even an aspiring one -- so I haven't bothered to buy Man Oh Man. But you are making it sound more and more interesting. Now I'm thinking I may need to get both editions!
As for who I'd like to see at an established writer's round table, a few more thoughts --
Definitely JCP for efficiency and subtext. One thing that REALLY bugs me about a lot of mm writers is that prevalent "tell instead of show" syndrome.
Harper Fox for prose and sense of place, and her ability to create that sense of despair/desolation.
Roux and Urban (don't laugh!) for the chemistry between their characters. Lousy plots, but they do passion (both physical and emotional) like crazy.
Lanyon for characters. Always great characters.
Lane for her ability to do overwrought angst so well. She can do it without making me gag or roll my eyes.
Maybe Witt for her hot sex? I dunno, something about her writing always appeals to me.
Derr because she has a lot of different good ideas. She isn't my favorite author, but she actually has a clue about how to write fantasy -- and not just one type of fantasy.
Tymber Dalton -- yeah, I know, she doesn't write just mm, but good GOD can she write the sex.
Merrow for writing with an appealing narrative voice.
Just a few thoughts. Not that you asked! ;-)
eta -- sorry, you were posting while I was writing. Nevermind!
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:-D
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Thanks for the recommendation, Anne! I will definitely read Simple Gifts. I'm currently almost finished with Men of Smithfield #2: Seth and David and it seems that I'm hooked. I'll probably start #3 later tonight. :)
Josh described L.B. Gregg's writing on this topic earlier: "She has a knack for writing humor (one of the hardest things to do) and she writes blazing hot sex scenes, so you put all that together and you're in for a highly entertaining read." Oh man, he wasn't exaggerating. Not one bit.
L.A. Witt is a master of sexual tension. I always enjoy her stories. Always.
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Q&A with Josh Lanyon
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I'm glad she has written some less-angsty books lately. While I love also the angsty ones, those were "comforting", in a way.