Tag Archives: contemporary

13Jun/25

Mo Fanning

June 13, 2025

It gives us great pleasure to present Season 10, Episode 21: Mo Fanning!

Mo Fanning returns to share his new novel: Rainbows and Lollipops. We discuss setting a story close to home – Birmingham in this case, healing from loss, and friends growing into found family!

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Mo Fanning is a Birmingham-based novelist whose character-driven fiction explores the complexities of love, identity, and human connection through the lens of LGBTQ+ experiences. With his signature blend of humour, heartbreak, and hope, Fanning creates deeply relatable characters whose journeys reflect the universal search for belonging in an often-challenging world. Drawing inspiration from his Midlands roots, Fanning infuses his writing with authentic voices and settings that resonate with readers seeking stories that celebrate the beauty of imperfection and the transformative power of resilience. His innovative narrative approaches and genuine emotional depth have earned him a dedicated following among readers who appreciate contemporary fiction that balances entertainment with meaningful exploration of human relationships.

When not writing, Mo lives with his husband Mark and their beloved Labrador Ernie, continuing to find inspiration in the streets, stories, and people of his beloved Birmingham.

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August 30, 2024

It gives us great pleasure to present a Season 9, Episode 34 Interview – Mo Fanning!

Mo Fanning joins us to share his latest novel Husbands! We discuss the dark side of Hollywood, telling stories while protecting identities, and finding happiness in the end.

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Mo Fanning is a part-time novelist, part-time stand-up comic and full-time ageing homosexual. He currently lives in the Black Country backwater town of Stourbridge but aspires to something more rural without neighbours.
With a unique talent for blending romance and comedy in intriguing settings, Mo is an emerging voice in the contemporary fiction scene and aims to be the best-known writer of LGBTQ romance.

This Podcast episode is available on these channels (in order alphabetical):
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20Dec/24

Lee Pulaski

December 20, 2024

It gives us great pleasure to present Season 9, Episode 49: Lee Pulaski!

Lee Pulaski returns to share the latest novel in his Chino Valley series: Miss Phoenix Goes Deliciously Mad. We then discuss writing current hot-topics into romance novels, like drag queen story hour and mentoring youth through their coming out. He also shares the release of his anthology: Fables From the Other Side of The Rainbow, wherein you’ll find stories like finding grandpa’s love letters to another man, and a DJ who returns a missing cat only to be happily rewarded.

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Stories are like potato chips. Lee Pulaski cannot write just one.

Lee’s journey of writing books started in 2006, but his love of writing and reading was born much earlier. He learned to read at age 3½, a fact his proud mother will tell anyone anytime and anywhere. That love of reading soon turned into a desire to write, ranging from short stories for school to three-act plays that include one that was produced when Lee was in high school.

Lee’s motivation to write was born by not seeing characters that were like him in the books he absorbed. Since he couldn’t find stories about two men finding their happily ever after, he chose to provide that himself. At the time, Lee was sadly single, so the books helped to provide form to his dreams of finding a suitable gentleman. Even after finding his sweetheart, Todd, the love stories haven’t stopped.

Even with his relocation to Wisconsin in 2011, part of him remembers his hometown fondly, prompting him to “go home again” and write love stories based in Chino Valley, Arizona. In those stories, Lee seeks to push boundaries with those books, tackling topics like gay fatherhood and coping with family members in the fierce grip of alcoholism, as well as writing about runaway drag queens and furries.

When he finds himself in a rare moment of not writing, he likes to travel around Wisconsin with Todd, checking out street art and out-of-the-way restaurants, among other things, as well as spending some quality time with the latest litter of Australian Shepherd puppies his mother raises.

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February 2, 2024

It gives us great pleasure to present a Season 9, Episode 5 Interview – Lee Pulaski

Lee Pulaski returns to share his recent books, Heartsong of the Lonesome Road, and The Tragic Tale of Tabby and Henny. After diving into those, we discuss his upcoming works, which include a mystery, a fantasy, an anthology and a drag queen.

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Living in the real world was never a long-term plan for Lee Pulaski. He spent many a day imagining bold adventures and playing them out in the quiet countryside of Chino Valley, Arizona. Lee was first published in high school for writing about the news and telling compelling feature stories about people. And while Lee’s still a working journalist today, his excitement for writing mystery, romance, and fantasy inspired him to write his first novel in 2006 after a particularly breathtaking autumn…

This Podcast episode is available on these channels (in order alphabetical):
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[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqoYyEvpbBY[/embedyt]


June 2, 2023

It gives us great pleasure to present Season 8, Episode 23: Lee Pulaski + our “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” review!

Lee Pulaski returns with his audiobook White Christmas in the Desert, which he proudly gets to label “narrated by the author!” Then Baz and Vance rate and review The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, and close by sharing who won their weeks!

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Living in the real world was never a long-term plan for Lee Pulaski. He spent many a day imagining bold adventures and playing them out in the quiet countryside of Chino Valley, Arizona. Lee was first published in high school for writing about the news and telling compelling feature stories about people. And while Lee’s still a working journalist today, his excitement for writing mystery, romance, and fantasy inspired him to write his first novel in 2006 after a particularly breathtaking autumn…

This Podcast episode is available on these channels (in order alphabetical):
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[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QsKCU_XVSk4[/embedyt]


August 26, 2022

It gives us great pleasure to present Season 7, Episode 34: Lee Pulaski + Our Review of Uncoupled!

Lee Pulaski returns to share his latest novel, The Night of the Hodag. We discuss writing supernatural investigations, the importance of writing non-traditional relationships (three men in this case), incorporating local lore into writing, and the importance of local writing groups. Then Baz and Vance review Uncoupled and share who won the week for them!

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Bio:
Living in the real world was never a long-term plan for Lee Pulaski. He spent many a day imagining bold adventures and playing them out in the quiet countryside of Chino Valley, Arizona. Lee was first published in high school for writing about the news and telling compelling feature stories about people. And while Lee’s still a working journalist today, his excitement for writing mystery, romance, and fantasy inspired him to write his first novel in 2006 after a particularly breathtaking autumn…

This Podcast episode is available on these channels (in order alphabetical):

Apple PodcastsGoogle PlayiHeartRadioSpotifyStitcherTuneIn

Or Listen Right Here:

OR Watch on YouTube:

[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSmewK-8yqI[/embedyt]

 


October 29, 2021

It gives us great pleasure to welcome Lee Pulaski as the guest on Season 6, Episode 43 – All Of A Sudden An Idea Was Forming!

Lee Pulaski joins us to share his recent release, White Christmas in the Desert, how the fall colors inspired his first novel, writing stories about non-standard families, tender romances, mysteries, and so much more!

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Living in the real world was never a long-term plan for Lee. He spent many a day imagining bold adventures and playing them out in the quiet countryside of Chino Valley, Arizona. Still, he never could have imagined at the time that the dreams and worlds created in his mind would someday be in print form.

Lee first published in high school, where he wrote about the news and told compelling feature stories about people. His talent for photography helped to bring those stories to life. Lee’s still a working journalist today.

Despite seeing his byline several times a week, Lee still yearned to see his name on the cover of a book. He was inspired to write his first novel in 2006 after spending a vacation camping with family during a particularly breathtaking autumn, where the reds, oranges and yellows were on full display. The experience helped bring about a romantic story called The Colors of Love and Autumn, which he published through Torquere Press in 2008 as an e-book. Now twenty books in, Lee is still writing—and still in the pursuit of new worlds and new dreams.

He joined the Shawano Area Writers in 2011, giving him a chance to test out his WIPs, and providing an opportunity to work with other writers striving to see their work in print.

This Podcast episode is available on these channels (in order alphabetical):

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[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pS96K6YxQxA[/embedyt]


01Nov/24

Elisabeth Nonas

November 1, 2024

It gives us great pleasure to present a Season 9, Episode 42 Interview: Elisabeth Nonas

Elisabeth Nonas joins us to share her novel Grace Period. It leads to conversations about aging, losing a spouse, teaching writing, and connecting to the stories you want to tell!

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Her earlier novels focused on how lesbians form community and create family. Given that her first book appeared in 1985 when she was in her mid-30s, she clearly has different concerns as she ages and her life continues to unfold. These were what sparked Grace Period.

Born and raised in New York City, and despite believing she’d never leave, she moved to Los Angeles after N.Y.U. graduate film school and stayed for eighteen years—long enough to think that sixty degrees felt cold. In July 1995 she followed her heart and moved back east to Ithaca, New York.

In January 1996, when she wasn’t chipping ice off her car, she taught two introductory screenwriting classes in the Roy H. Park School of Communications at Ithaca College. That ultimately led to a full-time position. In her twenty-five years there, she taught all levels of screenwriting, developed courses in adaptation, writing for video games and emerging media, and, her favorite, “Story: From Cave Paintings to Emerging Media.” She felt incredibly lucky to be teaching writing in a time of expanded narrative delivery.

Elisabeth retired from teaching in December 2019 and continues to live in Ithaca, NY, with her spouse, Nancy K. Bereano, founding publisher and editor of Firebrand Books.

This Podcast episode is available on these channels (in order alphabetical):
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27Sep/24

Paul Lamb

September 27, 2024

It gives us great pleasure to present a Season 9, Episode 38 Interview: Paul Lamb

Paul Lamb joins us to share his contemporary, generational novels: One-Match Fire and Parent Imperfect. It leads to discussions of generations of fathers and sons (including two gay dads), different types of coming of age, and a cabin in the woods as the safe place to be one’s self.

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Paul Lamb has a cabin in Missouri, at the edge of the Ozark Mountains. The cabin waits most of two hours away from his home in suburban Kansas City. The irony is that he doesn’t write there. The setting seems ideal, doesn’t it? A one-room cabin with a shady porch overlooking a sparkling lake, at the end of a road no one needs to come down, deep in a trackless forest. The only sounds that intrude are the occasional lowing of cattle from the ranch to the east or maybe a distant chainsaw. Paul has a chair and a table and pencils and notebooks there. He has uninterrupted solitude. He has everything a writer needs, and yet Paul cannot write at his cabin.

All he feels is a desire to go outside, into the forest, down to the lake, along the paths. He wants to see what bird is calling, whose shadow is floating across the ground, or what he heard scampering through the leaf litter. Paul wants to feel the sun on his skin or listen to the rain on the roof, to stare into the orange flames of a campfire, to throw a line in the water or watch for a beaver emerging from the lodge across the lake.

In short, when he’s there he wants to do all these things that keep him from entering the fictional universe where his characters go about their lives. So instead, he writes at home. Paul’s been doing this for a long time, so he calls it a win. He’s retired now from being a wage slave in the vulgar business world where he had worked to pay bills but had never sought a career. His children are grown and flown, leading fulfilling lives. Which leaves Paul free to pursue writing his stories as much as he wants.

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20Sep/24

Timothy Jay Smith

September 20, 2024

It gives us great pleasure to present a Season 9, Episode 37 Interview: Timothy Jay Smith

Timothy Jay Smith joins us to share his upcoming gay-coming-of-age contemporary thriller: Istanbul Crossing. It leads to discussion of homosexuality in Muslim states and a young man trying to help others get to safety and freedom, a story that grew from Timothy’s own experiences helping refugees.

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From a young age, Timothy Jay Smith developed a ceaseless wanderlust that has taken him around the world many times. En route, he’s found the characters that people his work. Polish cops and Greek fishermen, mercenaries and arms dealers, child prostitutes and wannabe terrorists, Indian Chiefs and Indian tailors: he hung with them all in an unparalleled international career that had him smuggle banned plays from behind the Iron Curtain, maneuver through Occupied Territories, represent the U.S. at the highest levels of foreign governments, and stowaway aboard a ‘devil’s barge’ for a three-day crossing from Cape Verde that landed him in an African jail.

Tim brings the same energy to his writing that he brought to a distinguished career, and as a result, he has won top honors for his novels, screenplays and stage plays in numerous prestigious competitions. Fire on the Island won the Gold Medal in the Faulkner-Wisdom Competition for the Novel, and his screenplay adaptation of it was named Best Indie Script by WriteMovies. Another novel, The Fourth Courier, was a finalist for Best Gay Mystery in the 2020 Lambda Literary Awards. Previously, he won the Paris Prize for Fiction (now the de Groot Prize) for his novel, Checkpoint (later published as A Vision of Angels). Kirkus Reviews called Cooper’s Promise “literary dynamite” and selected it as one of the Best Books of 2012.

Tim was nominated for the 2018 Pushcart Prize. His stage play tribute to Matthew Shepard, How High the Moon, won the prestigious Stanley Drama Award. His screenplays have won or placed in dozens of screenwriting competitions including those sponsored by the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, Capital Fund Screenplay Competition, WriteMovies, Houston WorldFest, Fresh Voices, and StoryPros.

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04Aug/23

Hamour Baika

August 4, 2023

It gives us great pleasure to present Season 8, Episode 33: Hamour Baika

Hamour Baika shares his novel Stolen Moments of Joy! We talk about being kind to refugees because you have no way of knowing their circumstances, overcoming domestic violence, and finding happiness.

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Hamour Baika was born in Iran and lived in Ahwaz during his teen years. He wrote his first novella, a fan fiction piece about the alien creature E.T. at age 12. Baika has a master’s degree in human rights. He’s a painter and classical pianist, and he now lives in the Washington, DC, metropolitan area.

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[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMc2MG4Fbv4[/embedyt]

17Feb/23

Liz Faraim

February 10, 2023

It gives us great pleasure to present Season 8, Episode 7: Liz Faraim + our “Tell It to the Bees” review!

Liz Faraim, our guest reviewer this month AND author of the Vivian Chastain series (Canopy, Stitches and Sepsis, Concussion and Contentment) shares her upcoming novels, then helps us review Tell It to the Bees, and shares what won her week!

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Liz Faraim is a recovering workaholic who has mastered multi-tasking, including balancing a day job, solo parenting, writing, and finding some semblance of a social life. In past lives she has been a soldier, a bartender, a shoe salesperson, an assistant museum curator, and even a driving instructor.

Liz writes contemporary fiction that highlights queer characters and often includes complex polyamorous relationships. Her writing has a hefty dose of soul searching and emotional turmoil while also taking the reader on fun adventures. She loves spending time in nature and does her best to share nature with her readers.

This Podcast episode is available on these channels (in order alphabetical):
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[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akneO7FdKes[/embedyt]

 


October 23, 2020

It gives us great pleasure to welcome Liz Faraim as the guest on Episode 2919 – It Takes Some Time!

Liz Faraim joins us for her first interview ever! We discuss the first book in her series, Canopy, due Oct 26 from NineStar Press. Come find out what Liz’s debut novel is all about and what the she has planned for the rest of the series.

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Liz Faraim is a recovering workaholic who has mastered multi-tasking, including balancing a day job, solo parenting, writing, and finding some semblance of a social life. In past lives she has been a soldier, a bartender, a shoe salesperson, an assistant museum curator, and even a driving instructor.

Liz writes contemporary fiction that highlights queer characters and often includes complex polyamorous relationships. Her writing has a hefty dose of soul searching and emotional turmoil while also taking the reader on fun adventures. She loves spending time in nature and does her best to share nature with her readers.

This Podcast episode is available on these channels (in order alphabetical):
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21Oct/22

Polis Loizou

October 21, 2022

It gives us great pleasure to present Season 7, Episode 42: Polis Loizou + Our Review of Interview with the Vampire!

Polis Loizou joins us to share his artful combining of storytelling, folklore, and the places he’s lived. Then horror author Michael G. Williams joins our review of Interview with the Vampire. Followed by Baz and Vance sharing who won their weeks.

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Polis is an award-winning writer and performer working across various disciplines. He draws on history, social politics, folklore and ‘queerness’ in all its forms. His debut novel, Disbanded Kingdom, was published in 2018 and long-listed for the Polari First Book Prize. His second novel, The Way It Breaks, is set in his motherland of Cyprus, as is A Good Year, a historical novella inspired by local horror folklore.

Polis is also one third of the award-winning fringe theatre troupe The Off-Off-Off-Broadway Company, as well as a performer of folk tales. He lives in Nottingham with his husband and cats.

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[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wuICyLkGniE[/embedyt]

03Jun/22

Marcus James

June 3, 2022

It gives us great pleasure to welcome Marcus James as the guest on Season 7, Episode 22 – Marcus James + Our Look at Queer Themes in the Star Trek Series!

Marcus James joins us to share his novel about sex, revenge, deceit, and affluenza – Where the Vile Things Are! Then Baz and Vance discuss queerness through the Star Trek series!

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Marcus James has been writing since the age of 5. At 17 he finished his first novel, and at 19 he was signed with his first literary agent. He’s been published in a dozen anthologies, and has published nine of his own novels – all of them varied and wonderful, filled with complex and engrossing people.

Marcus’ experience with conversion therapy at the age of 14 led to a lifelong activism for LGBTQ rights and sharing his story to help end clinical conversion therapy in Washington state.

He’s a horror FANATIC, and loves to cook. Marcus also loves his pets, history, music & live shows, and drinking champagne till he can’t take the bubbles anymore! Through his novels he hopes to always show that everyone can be a hero, everyone can save the world, even a fem gay boy with a swish in his step!

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[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nEaLmv3t-SY[/embedyt]

06May/22

Laury A. Egan

May 6, 2022

It gives us great pleasure to welcome Laury A. Egan as the guest on Season 7, Episode 14 – I Got to Write the Lyrics!

Laury A. Egan joins us to share her recent novels, Wave in D Minor and Doublecrossed. We talk about artistic solitude, sexual ambivalence, psychological suspense, and revenge!

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Laury A. Egan is a prolific author. She’s written young adult and adult fiction in multiple genres, including comedy, mystery, psychological suspense, and poetry… and many of her works seem to include the messy realism of romance. Living on the northern coast of New Jersey, she is also a fine arts photographer and former book designer.

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[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nib8dkzZYQo[/embedyt]