Tag Archives: Baz Collins

22Jul/22

J. Marshall Freeman

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July 22, 2022

It gives us great pleasure to present Season 7, Episode 29 – J. Marshall Freeman + Our Review of The Umbrella Academy!

J. Marshall Freeman returns to share his latest novel: Barnabas Bopwright Saves the City with us, and we then discuss how to make inactive adults believable in YA, as well as diversity and father/son themes. Then Baz and Vance review The Umbrella Academy and share who won the week for them!

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J. Marshall Freeman is the author of the young adult fantasy novels, The Dubious Gift of Dragon Blood (2020) and Barnabas Bopwright Saves the City, which came out in May. He is one of three authors in the YA novella collection, Three Left Turns to Nowhere (2022), along with Jeffrey Ricker and ’Nathan Burgoine. Freeman is a two-time winner of the Saints+Sinners Fiction Contest. He is currently researching and writing The Yonge Line, a novel set in Toronto’s queer community in the early ’80s. Freeman lives in Toronto, Canada with his husband.

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April 22, 2022

It gives us great pleasure to welcome Jeffrey Ricker, J. Marshall Freeman, and ‘Nathan Burgoine as the guests on Season 7, Episode 16 – Oooh, Nerd Hot!

Jeffrey Ricker, J. Marshall Freeman, ‘Nathan Burgoine tag-team the show to introduce their latest work, Three Left Turns to Nowhere. Each has written a novella about a young man on his way to a sci-fi convention when Fate intervenes and strands them in Hopewell where they find that thing they didn’t know they needed. These three authors are so much fun, and it’s easy to see how well they worked together!

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Jeffrey Ricker is the author of Detours (2011) and the YA fantasy The Unwanted (2014). His stories and essays have appeared in Foglifter, Phoebe, Little Fiction, The Citron Review, The Saturday Evening Post, and others. A 2014 Lambda Literary Fellow and recipient of a 2015 Vermont Studio Center residency, he has an MFA in creative writing from the University of British Columbia and teaches creative writing at Webster University.

J. Marshall Freeman is a writer of novels, short stories, and poetry. He is the author of the young adult fantasy novel The Dubious Gift of Dragon Blood (2020) and the upcoming YA adventure Barnabas Bopwright Saves the City (May 2022). He is a two-time winner of the Saints+Sinners Fiction Contest (2017 and 2019), and lives in Toronto, Canada, with his husband and dog.

’Nathan Burgoine grew up a reader and studied literature in university while making a living as a bookseller. His first novel, Light, was a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award. Triad Blood and Triad Soul are also available from Bold Strokes Books, as is his YA novel Exit Plans for Teenage Freaks and his first collection, Of Echoes Born. For novella lovers, In Memoriam, Handmade Holidays, Faux Ho Ho, Village Fool, and A Little Village Blend are shorter queer romances (often with a dash of speculative fiction). A cat lover, ’Nathan managed to fall in love and marry Daniel, who is a confirmed dog person. They live in Ottawa, Canada—with their rescued husky, in case you were wondering how the cat-dog thing turned out.

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November 20, 2020

It gives us great pleasure to welcome J. Marshall Freeman as the guest on Episode 295 – Coming Out As a Novelist!)

J Marshall Freeman shares his latest release, The Dubious Gift of Dragon Blood. We talk about the evolution of the book and real, self-discovering queer characters in a world with dragons!

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J. Marshall Freeman is a writer of fiction and poetry, a musician, and graphic designer. He is a two-time winner of the Saints+Sinners fiction contest (2017 and 2019). In 2019, he published “Arthropoda,” a chapbook of poetry.

In December 2020, his young adult fantasy novel, The Dubious Gift of Dragon Blood, will be published by Bold Strokes Books. Upcoming work includes the young adult adventure novel, Barnabas Bopwright Saves the City, and the climate change science fiction novel, Cicada Rises from the Earth.

He lives in Toronto, Canada with his husband and dog.

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21Jan/22

Robyn Gigl

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January 21, 2022

It gives us great pleasure to welcome Robyn Gigl back as the guest on Season 7, Episode 03 – There’s A Little Bit Of Backstory!

Robyn Gigl returns with her second Erin McCabe novel, Survivor’s Guilt. We talk about trans characters being someone with whom you could have a beer, courtroom action, human trafficking, and vengeance.

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Robyn Gigl is an attorney, speaker and activist who has been honored by the ACLU-NJ and the NJ Pride Network for her work on behalf of the LGBTQ+ community. Robyn is a partner at Gluck Walrath, LLP in Freehold, NJ, where she handles complex commercial and employment litigation. She has been selected as a NJ Super Lawyer since 2010 and as one of the Top 50 Women Lawyers in NJ in 2020 & 2021. Robyn is a member of the Board of Directors of Garden State Equality, NJ’s largest LGBTQ+ Civil Rights Organization. She is a graduate of Stonehill College and Villanova University School of Law. A frequent lecturer on diversity issues, she lives in New Jersey where she continues to practice law by day, and work on her next novel by night. Fortunately for us bibliophiles, she has a very boring social life.

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June 25, 2021

It gives us great pleasure to welcome Robyn Gigl as the guest on Season 6, Episode 25 – A Behind-The-Scenes Peek!

Robyn Gigl, attorney and novelist, serves up a summer crime thriller with her novel By Way of Sorrow. We discuss a transgender main character, followed by the intersection of race, privilege, gender identity, and power on the justice system… and then get a behind-the-scenes peek into Robyn’s life!

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Robyn Gigl is an attorney, speaker and activist who has been honored by the ACLU-NJ and the NJ Pride Network for her work on behalf of the LGBTQ+ community. Robyn is a partner at Gluck Walrath, LLP in Freehold, NJ, where she handles complex commercial and employment litigation. She has been selected as a NJ Super Lawyer since 2010 and as one of the Top 50 Women Lawyers in NJ in 2020 & 2021. Robyn is a member of the Board of Directors of Garden State Equality, NJ’s largest LGBTQ+ Civil Rights Organization. She is a graduate of Stonehill College and Villanova University School of Law. A frequent lecturer on diversity issues, she lives in New Jersey where she continues to practice law by day, and work on her next novel by night. Fortunately for us bibliophiles, she has a very boring social life.

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18Jun/21

D’yan Forest

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June 18, 2021

It gives us great pleasure to welcome D’yan Forest and Stephen Clarke as the guests on Season 6, Episode 24 – Try Thinking The D’yan Way!

D’yan Forest & Stephen Clarke join us to talk about living a full life, creating both stand-up and written comedy, their co-authored memoir “I Did It My Ways” and asking the difficult questions.

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D’yan Forest has always done things her way – or her ways, because she’s lived a dozen different lives. She’s been a desperate Boston housewife, a New York night-club singer and a Paris swinger. She’s been the only Jewish girl in a Christian choir and the female pianist in a transvestite cabaret. She had day jobs teaching basketball, piano and sex education. She dated Paris’s second-ever female bus driver, a transsexual rock guitarist and a defrocked nun. She also managed to get German friends to visit Nazi concentration camps, on her personal quest to understand why her European relatives were massacred. At 86, D’yan is still a working stand-up comedian and musician, but she’s much, much more than that, as her hilarious but heartfelt memoir reveals.

Stephen Clarke grew up in Bournemouth (the Bondi Beach of England), where he played bass in some of the worst rock bands in musical history before leaving town to study French and German at Oxford. After university, he got a series of high-powered jobs – in the wine industry (grape picking), tertiary sector (washing up in a German hotel), and in international diplomacy (teaching English to bored French businessmen). Meanwhile I started writing novels, all of which remained unpublished due to a vast – and never before revealed – conspiracy in the global publishing industry. Deciding to self-publish, his Paul West series includes a sequel to a sequel. Stephen also does his bit for non-fiction, though still through his delightful comedic lens.

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18Jun/21

Stephen Clarke

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June 18, 2021

It gives us great pleasure to welcome D’yan Forest and Stephen Clarke as the guests on Season 6, Episode 24 – Try Thinking The D’yan Way!

D’yan Forest & Stephen Clarke join us to talk about living a full life, creating both stand-up and written comedy, their co-authored memoir “I Did It My Ways” and asking the difficult questions.

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Follow Stephen and support his work:

Mentioned in this episode:

Bio:

D’yan Forest has always done things her way – or her ways, because she’s lived a dozen different lives. She’s been a desperate Boston housewife, a New York night-club singer and a Paris swinger. She’s been the only Jewish girl in a Christian choir and the female pianist in a transvestite cabaret. She had day jobs teaching basketball, piano and sex education. She dated Paris’s second-ever female bus driver, a transsexual rock guitarist and a defrocked nun. She also managed to get German friends to visit Nazi concentration camps, on her personal quest to understand why her European relatives were massacred. At 86, D’yan is still a working stand-up comedian and musician, but she’s much, much more than that, as her hilarious but heartfelt memoir reveals.

Stephen Clarke grew up in Bournemouth (the Bondi Beach of England), where he played bass in some of the worst rock bands in musical history before leaving town to study French and German at Oxford. After university, he got a series of high-powered jobs – in the wine industry (grape picking), tertiary sector (washing up in a German hotel), and in international diplomacy (teaching English to bored French businessmen). Meanwhile I started writing novels, all of which remained unpublished due to a vast – and never before revealed – conspiracy in the global publishing industry. Deciding to self-publish, his Paul West series includes a sequel to a sequel. Stephen also does his bit for non-fiction, though still through his delightful comedic lens.

This Podcast episode is available on these channels (in order alphabetical):
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20Dec/19

Trebor Healey

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December 20, 2019


It gives us great pleasure to welcome Trebor Healey as the guest on Episode 247 – I Took All These Trips and I Didn’t Pay For Any Of It!

Trebor Healey shares his journey through Latin America, discusses his latest release, Falling, a collection of short stories, and touches on political, social, and economic issues and how they relate to queer life.

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Trebor Healey is the recipient of a Lambda Literary award, two Publishing Triangle awards and a Violet Quill award. He is the author of three novels, A Horse Named Sorrow, Faun, and Through It Came Bright Colors; a book of poetry, Sweet Son of Pan; and two previous collections of stories, A Perfect Scar and Eros & Dust. He co-edited (with Marci Blackman) Beyond Definition: New Writing from Gay and Lesbian San Francisco and co-edited (with Amie M. Evans) Queer & Catholic.

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