Rainbow Snippets

Happy Saturday! Life is back on track after the storm-that-wasn’t last weekend. I was glad to be back in dance classes; they’d been canceled the last two weeks.

I haven’t done a lot of writing this week. There were too many other things to catch back up on, including my editing jobs. Speaking of which, in case you missed it in any of the many other places I posted it, my publisher is seeking proofreaders.

One last thing: I’m working on a Super Top-Secret Project (okay, it’s not that secret, but I’m keeping it a surprise for now). I’ll have details for you next week, but some of you who write great lesbian fiction might want to stay tuned!

My snippet this week follows from last week’s in Ashes & Alms, my short story in the Never Too Late anthology from Beaten Track. (Seriously, go check this out…some of our past & present Snippeters are in it!)

Forty years; that was the reason for the postcard invitation. If everyone showed, all five of the others would be meeting back in the same part of Chicago where they’d spent a summer fixing houses and making Bible-themed artwork with school-aged children. Jo was the only one, as far as she knew, who still lived in their hometown. She’d stayed to get her life on track after what had happened that summer, but she’d only succeeded in creating more messes. Three of them, in fact. She supposed she was fortunate her mother had come around eventually. If only some of that would rub off on Jo’s grown daughter.

Rainbow Snippets is a safe and welcoming space for LGBTQIA+ authors, readers, and bloggers to share 6 sentences each week from a work of fiction—published or in-progress—or a book recommendation. Feel free to join in!

Happy Saturday! I’m about to be off with my family to get our passports for a trip this spring. It’s cold, but I sense the sun making a half-hearted attempt at peeking out. Sadly, my kids’ school lock-in was canceled because they thought the weather would be bad (it’s not). The good news is, we have tickets to go see a friend in a show tonight instead.

I’m snipping again from Ashes & Alms, my short story in the Never Too Late anthology. I think I short-changed on a sentence, but it wouldn’t make sense to add the next one. So here is the opening paragraph for the story. No, it’s not really religious, despite the mention of missionaries. I tend to write about the complexities of belief/non-belief and identity.

Jo stared at the card in her hand. It was addressed under her pre-married name, Hodges. She hadn’t yet changed it back, even after two divorces, the most recent one less than a year old. The person had sent it to her eighty-three-year-old mother, who had laughed and forwarded it on. Even she recognized the sheer foolishness of anyone thinking Jo wanted to be reminded of her missionary summer.

Rainbow Snippets is a safe and welcoming space for LGBTQIA+ authors, readers, and bloggers to share 6 sentences each week from a work of fiction—published or in-progress—or a book recommendation. Feel free to join in!

Happy Saturday! New year, new goals: I have several definite projects to work on for this year. My next novel, Drumbeat, which is now with the publisher, should be back to me within six weeks or so for final revisions. It’s the third part of my Notes from Boston series. If you’ve been keeping up with those, it’s Jamie’s story. That one should be out in the spring.

I’m writing the fourth part of that series, Minuet, as well as a companion novel to An Act of Devotion called Tree of Life. I should finish both of those drafts, hopefully by summer. Then I’ll be revising an old NaNoWriMo project, which I’m keeping under wraps for now. And I’ll be participating in the Queer Sci Fi flash fiction contest again.

One of my goals for the year is to shift to broader subject matter. I’m not a great romance novelist, and I don’t want to be—I’ll leave that to the experts. I’m struggling a bit in how I view my writing and my place in the Book World. I never intended to write romance, nor did I want to write mainly about queer men. Heck, I didn’t really want to write novels; I’m a shorty writer at heart. So I’m exploring options and seeing where it takes me once I’m done with the two novels on my plate.

Anyway, in the interest of bringing you something different, here is a snippet from my recently released short story, Ashes & Alms. It’s part of the Never to Late anthology from Beaten Track. Oh, my word, if you want diverse stories all over the LGBTQ+ spectrum, go read this collection!

Shaking a little from nerves, Jo leaned in. Annie tilted her face up, and they shared their first soft kiss in forty years. Jo half expected fireworks to pop behind her, but instead, all she felt was the sweet exhilaration of finally coming home.

They parted, and Annie said, “Did you want to come in with me?”

Jo hesitated. She would have liked nothing better than to spend the rest of the night with Annie.

Rainbow Snippets is a safe and welcoming space for LGBTQIA+ authors, readers, and bloggers to share 6 sentences each week from a work of fiction—published or in-progress—or a book recommendation. Feel free to join in!