Tag Archives: Young Adult

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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Bios:

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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Bio:

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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17Jun/22

Hans Hirschi

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June 17, 2022

It gives us great pleasure to welcome Hans M. Hirschi as the guest on Season 7, Episode 24 – Hans M. Hirschi + Our Review of Fire Island!

Hans M. Hirschi returns to discuss his novel Michel: Fallen Angel of Paris! We discuss how this minor character from an earlier novel has stayed with Hans waiting for his story to be told. Then Baz and Vance review Fire Island and share who won the week for them!

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Hans writes books and stories that deal with things that are important to him, family, relationships, everyday life of regular people in unexpected situations. They are mostly contemporary, inspiring feel-good fiction with unconventional, but always hopeful or happy endings. Because… It’s what he likes to read.

He’s not just an author, he’s a public speaker, a training executive, a tour guide, and an activist on behalf of our LGBTQ+ siblings around the world. He loves travel, as it often inspires his writing. Hans, his amazing husband Alex, their beautiful son Sascha, two cats, and a bunch of fish live together on an island in the Gothenburg archipelago where they are car-free and mostly carefree…

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March 27, 2020

It gives us great pleasure to welcome Hans M. Hirschi back as the guest on Episode 261 – Nobody Ever Told Me How to Douche!

Hans M Hirschi shares his upcoming release Matt: More Than Words, and a project he’s working on that pairs writers and dancers, plus a bit about being creative in this Covid-19 era.

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Bio:

Hans likes to read books that deal with issues he can relate to, tackling the big as well as the mundane questions facing humanity and particularly the LGBT community today, from parenting, family relationships, love, loss, but also difficult subjects like our environment, trafficking, child abuse, racism, global warming, aging etc.

He’s a father married to the most amazing man, Alex. Together they have a beautiful son, Sascha. He considers himself a citizen of the world, having lived on two continents and traveled extensively (a hobby) through another three. He has friends all over the world.

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September 6, 2019

It gives us great pleasure to welcome Hans M. Hirschi back as the guest on Episode 232 – I’ve Never Spoken About This to Anybody…

Hans M. Hirschi returns to discuss the conclusion of his YA series, The Golden One, and reveal the next children’s book he’s working on.

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Hans likes to read books that deal with issues he can relate to, tackling the big as well as the mundane questions facing humanity and particularly the LGBT community today, from parenting, family relationships, love, loss, but also difficult subjects like our environment, trafficking, child abuse, racism, global warming, aging etc.

He’s a father married to the most amazing man, Alex. Together they have a beautiful son, Sascha. He considers himself a citizen of the world, having lived on two continents and traveled extensively (a hobby) through another three. He has friends all over the world. When he’s not writing, he has a new side venture working as a tour guide in Gothenburg.

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April 12, 2019

It gives us great pleasure to welcome Hans M. Hirschi back as the guest on Episode 211 – Are We Supposed to Respond?

Hans M. Hirschi shares his latest book and audiobook releases for children (The Dragon Princess) and young adults (The Golden One trilogy).

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Hans likes to read books that deal with issues he can relate to, tackling the big as well as the mundane questions facing humanity and particularly the LGBT community today, from parenting, family relationships, love, loss, but also difficult subjects like our environment, trafficking, child abuse, racism, global warming, aging etc.

He’s a fifty-one-year-old father married to the most amazing man, Alex. Together they have a beautiful five-year-old son, Sascha. He considers himself a citizen of the world, having lived on two continents and traveled extensively (a hobby) through another three. He has friends all over the world. When he’s not writing, he has a new side venture working as a tour guide in Gothenburg.

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May 23, 2018


It gives us great pleasure to welcome Hans M. Hirschi back as the guest on Episode 165 – Don’t Do This Without Parental Supervision!!

Hans M. Hirschi returns to the show to share his latest novel Returning to the Land of the Morning Calm, to talk about how he weaves all the elements of life into a story, and why he’s a feel-good writer!!

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Bio:

Hans likes to read books that deal with issues he can relate to, tackling the big as well as the mundane questions facing humanity and particularly the LGBT community today, from parenting, family relationships, love, loss, but also difficult subjects like our environment, trafficking, child abuse, racism, global warming, aging etc.

He’s a fifty-one-year-old father married to the most amazing man, Alex. Together they have a beautiful five-year-old son, Sascha. He considers himself a citizen of the world, having lived on two continents and traveled extensively (a hobby) through another three. He has friends all over the world. When he’s not writing, he has a new side venture working as a tour guide in Gothenburg.

This Podcast episode is available on these channels (in order alphabetical):
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October 13, 2017


It gives us great pleasure to welcome Hans M. Hirschi as the guest on Episode 133: Hits Close to Home!

This week Hans M. Hirschi joins the show to discuss his latest release, Disease, writing about the tough topics that face families of every type, and the upcoming GayRomLit Retreat!

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Bio:

Hans likes to read books that deal with issues he can relate to, tackling the big as well as the mundane questions facing humanity and particularly the LGBT community today, from parenting, family relationships, love, loss, but also difficult subjects like our environment, trafficking, child abuse, racism, global warming, aging etc.

He’s a fifty-year-old father who clings to the illusion of still being his pen-age of twenty-seven, despite his body’s daily wake-up reminders to the contrary. He’s married to the most amazing man, Alex, and together they have a beautiful four-year-old son, Sascha. He considers himself a citizen of the world, having lived on two continents and traveled extensively (a hobby) through another three. He has friends all over the world. When he’s not writing, he likes to do public speaking or training (where he has his professional background).

 

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22Apr/22

‘Nathan Burgoine

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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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Mentioned in this episode:

Bios:

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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May 14, 2021

It gives us great pleasure to welcome ‘Nathan Burgoine back as the guest on Season 6, Episode 19 – The Most Annoying Trait in the World!

‘Nathan Burgoine returns with laughter and joy as he shares his new novella Village Fool. He also shares how he wrote while injured, and we dig into the merits of writing novellas as a series.

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‘Nathan Burgoine grew up a reader and studied literature in university while making a living as a bookseller. A cat lover, ‘Nathan managed to fall in love and marry Daniel, who is a confirmed dog person. Their ongoing “cat or dog?” détente ended with the rescue of a six year old husky named Coach, who gave them four wonderful years before crossing the rainbow bridge. Since then, they’ve rescued Max, another husky, who is much younger and very determined to be a bed dog. They live in Ottawa, Canada, where socialized health care and gay marriage have yet to cause the sky to cave in.

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November 30, 2018


It gives us great pleasure to announce ‘Nathan Burgoine as the guest on Episode 192: The Queerlings!

‘Nathan Burgoine returns to discuss his latest, and first Young Adult, release: Exit Plans for Teenage Freaks. He then shares what it was like for him talking with today’s youth about the stories they want and his beautifully interwoven short story collection.

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‘Nathan Burgoine grew up a reader and studied literature in university while making a living as a bookseller. His first published short story was “Heart” in the collection Fool for Love: New Gay Fiction. Since then, he has had dozens of short stories published, including Bold Strokes titles Men of the Mean Streets, Boys of Summer, and Night Shadows as well as This is How You Die (the second Machine of Death anthology). ‘Nathan also has a series of paranormal erotic short stories that begins in the Bold Strokes anthology Blood Sacraments, and continues with further installments in Wings, Erotica Exotica, and Raising Hell. His standalone short erotic fiction pieces can be found in the Lambda Literary Award finalist Tented, Tales from the Den, and Afternoon Pleasures. ‘Nathan’s nonfiction pieces have appeared in I Like it Like That and 5×5 Literary Magazine.

‘Nathan’s first novel, Light, was a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award. His second and third novels, Triad Blood and Triad Soul, are available now from Bold Strokes Books. Both are available wherever quality LGBT fiction is found—always check Indiebound for your local brick and mortar, if you can. For novella lovers, ‘Nathan’s wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey gay romance In Memoriam is available on Kindle and Audible, and his gay holiday chosen family romance Handmade Holidays is available from NineStar Press.

A cat lover, ‘Nathan managed to fall in love and marry Daniel, who is a confirmed dog person. Their ongoing “cat or dog?” détente ended with the rescue of a six year old husky named Coach. They live in Ottawa, Canada, where socialized health care and gay marriage have yet to cause the sky to cave in.

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June 2, 2017


It gives us great pleasure to announce ‘Nathan Burgoine as the guest on Episode 114: The Three Second Review!

This week ‘Nathan Burgoine joins us to discuss his series, to drop announcements of his upcoming projects, share the importance of chosen families, unveil Canada as a setting, and share the magic of the three sentence review.

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Bio:

‘Nathan Burgoine grew up a reader and studied literature in university while making a living as a bookseller. His first published short story was “Heart” in the collection Fool for Love: New Gay Fiction. Since then, he has had dozens of short fiction pieces published. His first novel LIGHT was a Lambda Literary Finalist. Both Light and his second novel, Triad Blood, are available from Bold Strokes Books.

A cat lover, ‘Nathan managed to fall in love and marry Daniel, who is a confirmed dog person. Their ongoing “cat or dog?” détente ended with the adoption of Coach, a six year-old husky. They live in Ottawa, Canada, where socialized health care and gay marriage have yet to cause the sky to cave in.

 

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01Apr/22

Candas Jane Dorsey

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April 1, 2022

It gives us great pleasure to welcome Candas Jane Dorsey as the guest on Season 7, Episode 13 – If You Read This Your Head Will Explode!

Candas Jane Dorsey shares her wise-cracking, grammar-obsessed, pansexual amateur sleuth from her The Adventures of Isabel and What’s the Matter with Mary Jane? crime novels AND her intersex teen from her The Story of My Life Ongoing, by CS Cobb young adult novel. She also can’t help teasing a masterclass in harnessing her passion for advocacy and using it to guide her writing.

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Candas Jane Dorsey is an internationally-known author of sci-fi, Y/A, and contemporary novels, poetry, short stories, reviews, and critical essays. She has received a variety of awards and honours for her books and short fiction.
Dorsey is a partner in Wooden Door & Associates, a professional communications consulting company in Edmonton since 1992, providing writing, editing, and consulting for private, public and non-profit clients. At WDA, Dorsey was the co-author of several significant reports including The Report of the Review Panel on the Alberta Human Rights Commission, Cultural Diversity in the Workplace, and Children’s Interactive Television in Canada. She has written screenplays and educational television scripts. She was editor/publisher for ten years of the arts newspaper The Edmonton Bullet and for fourteen years of literary press The Books Collective, including River Books and Tesseract Books.
She teaches writing to adults and youth, has been teaching at universities and continuing education since 1983, and at MacEwan University since before it was a university, where she now teaches in the Bachelor of Communications programme. She also speaks widely on writing, speculative fiction, and other topics.
She was founding president of SFCanada, and has been president of the Writers Guild of Alberta. Her awards include the Province of Alberta Centennial Gold Medal for her artistic achievement and community work, and the WGA Golden Pen Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Literary Arts, the Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame, YWCA Woman of the Year Arts and Culture, and an Edmonton Arts Achievement Award. And in 2019 she was inducted into the City of Edmonton Arts and Cultural Hall of Fame.
Candas is also a community activist, advocate and leader who has won two human rights awards and served on many community boards and committees working for neighbourhoods, heritage, social planning, equality of policing, and human rights advocacy. And she also makes time to be a visual artist.

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14Jan/22

Matthew R Corr

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January 14, 2022

It gives us great pleasure to welcome Matthew R. Corr as the guest on Season 7, Episode 02 – Start In The Action!

Matthew R. Corr shares his debut novel, Land on Me, which leads to discussions about LGBTQ issues in fiction, Young Adult vs New Adult, and a few stories from a first-time author.

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Even though Matthew was born and raised in New England, he always knew he was a city boy. He moved to NYC at 18 to pursue his dream and never looked back! He attended the American Musical And Dramatic Academy where he earned a degree in Musical Theatre. After years of performing on stages across the country, he is now adding Author to his resume! He currently lives in Brooklyn with his boyfriend, their cat Logan, and their pug Finn. Check out his socials to get to know him even more; but he guarantees it’s mostly made up of Marvel Superheroes, Movies, and cute pets.

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04Dec/20

Wayne Goodman

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December 4, 2020

It gives us great pleasure to welcome Wayne Goodman as the guest on Episode 295 – I’m Missing a Part of My Brain!)

Wayne Goodman, writer of historical fiction and producer of the Queer Words Podcast, joins us to discuss his recent releases, Tim Tam and the Space Pirates, and his collection of queer short stories, All the Right Places.

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Wayne Goodman has lived in the San Francisco Bay Area most of his life (with too many cats). Goodman hosts Queer Words Podcast, conversations with queer-identified authors about their works and lives. Over the last decade he has mainly written historical fiction with an emphasis on queer characters. Recently, Wayne has branched off into the world of Middle Grade Readers. When not writing or recording, he enjoys playing Gilded Age parlor music on the piano, with an emphasis on women, gay, and Black composers.

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09Oct/20

Abigail de Niverville

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October 9, 2020

It gives us great pleasure to welcome Abigail de Niverville back as the guest on Episode 289 – They Went There!

Abigail de Niverville returns to share her latest novel, We Go Together, and we discuss healing from abuse, bi-representation, a trans love interest, and music’s role in a story. A great discussion all the way around.

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Abigail de Niverville is a Moncton-born composer and author living in Toronto, Ontario. She graduated from the University of Toronto in 2017 with a Master’s of Composition, having studied with Alexander Rapoport. She has previously studied with Kevin Morse at Mount Allison University. While studying music, Abigail would often escape the daily stresses of university life by writing stories and novels. Her experiences in theatre performance and production often influence her creative works in all mediums. In 2019, her debut novel I Knew Him was released by NineStar Press. She continues to dedicate her time writing novels, poetry, and songs.

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April 26, 2019


It gives us great pleasure to welcome Abigail de Niverville as the guest on Episode 213 – Unnecessarily Mysterious!

Abigail de Niverville joins us to discuss her new novel, I Knew Him, as well as how her musical composition informed her work and her take on YA literature.

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Abigail de Niverville is a Moncton-born composer and author living in Toronto, Ontario. She graduated from the University of Toronto in 2017 with a Master’s of Composition, having studied with Alexander Rapoport. She has previously studied with Kevin Morse at Mount Allison University. Her experiences in theatre performance and production often influence her creative works.

Recent musical works include: Letters (for tenor and piano), Let Me In (for Ensemble Atlantica), and October 4th, 1967 (a mini opera).

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28Jun/19

Lou Hoffmann

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June 28, 2019


It gives us great pleasure to welcome Lou Hoffmann as the guest on Episode 222 – Lots of Light and Flying!

Lou Hoffmann joins Baz for a lively and thoughtful discussion about queerdom in literature, society and how they are expressed in YA works.

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Lou Hoffmann, a mother and grandmother now, has carried on her love affair with books for more than half a century, and she hasn’t even made a dent in the list of books she’d love to read—partly because the list keeps growing. She reads factual things—books about physics and history and fractal chaos, but when she wants truth, she looks for it in quality fiction. She loves all sorts of wonderful things: music and silence, laughter and tears, youth and age, sunshine and storms, forests and fields, flora and fauna, rivers and seas. Even good movies and popcorn! Those things help her breathe, and everyone she knows helps her write. (Special mention goes to (1) George the Lady Cat and (2) readers.) Proud to be a bisexual, biracial woman (of European and Native American descent), Lou considers every person a treasure not to be taken for granted. In her life, she’s seen the world’s willingness to embrace differences change, change back, and change again in dozens of ways, but she has great hope for the world the youth of today will create. She writes for readers who find themselves anywhere on the spectrums of age, sexuality, and gender, aiming to create characters that live not only in their stories, but always in your imagination and your heart.

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11Jan/19

Josh Aterovis

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January 11, 2019


It gives us great pleasure to welcome Josh Aterovis as the guest on Episode 198 – Suddenly There Was a Dead Body!

Josh Aterovis joins us to discuss his YA sleuth series (with the current release of A Change of Worlds), and how the landscape of queer YA has changed so much from 2001 when he published his first gay mystery novel.

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Josh Aterovis fell in love with mystery novels in the fourth grade when he discovered the Nancy Drew series in his school library. He soon moved on to Agatha Christie, which led to a lifelong love affair with whodunits, culminating in his award-winning Killian Kendall mystery series.

His first book, Bleeding Hearts, introduced gay teen sleuth Killian Kendall, and won several awards, including the Whodunit Award from the StoneWall Society. All Lost Things was a 2010 Lambda Literary Award finalist for Gay Mystery.

Aterovis grew up on the bucolic Eastern Shore of Maryland, which, coincidentally, just happens to be the setting for the Killian Kendall books. He now lives in the quirkiest city in America — Baltimore, Maryland — where, besides writing, he is also an artist and, sometimes, an actor.

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04Jan/19

Tash McAdam

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January 4, 2019


It gives us great pleasure to welcome Tash McAdam as the guest on Episode 197 – Cassius Is Screaming!

Tash McAdam joins us for a ripping conversation about the status of YA, their current release, I Am the Storm, and about the importance of trans and queer representation in literature.

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Tash is a Computer Science and English teacher in Canada, although they were born and raised in the hilly sheepland of Wales (and have lived in South Korea and Chile before settling down in Vancouver). Tash identifies as trans and queer and uses the neutral pronoun ‘they’. As an English teacher they are fully equipped to defend that grammar! They have a degree in computer science so their nerd chat makes sense, and a couple of black belts in karate which are very helpful when it comes to writing fight scenes.

Their novel writing endeavours began at the age of eight although they will admit that their first attempt was derivative, at best. Since then, Tash has spent time falling in streams, out of trees, juggling, dreaming about zombies, dancing, painting, learning and then teaching Karate, running away with the circus, and of course, writing.

They write fast-paced, plot-centric action adventure with diverse casts. They write the books that they wanted to read as a queer kid and young adult (and still do!)

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