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Author Pick of the Month

When I was asked to do a short review of a story on Gay Authors, my mind went blank for a moment. Sure, I could have immediately written up a review of Dom’s The Other Side of Me, Vance’s Unbreakable Faith, Dio’s Broken Pegasus Wings, Viv’s From Behind Those Eyes, LittleBuddhaTW’s Somewhere Out of the Blue, or any of the other stories I follow(ed) on Gay Authors, but I wanted a story that I enjoyed that also isn’t something we’ve seen a lot of discussion about.

Stefan Schmidt came to our site a few months ago, and I realized I’d never read any of his stories. After a few false starts, I realized that his story The Lizard was best read in a curled up position in front of the fireplace (although we can’t light our fire place because well…the house still smells like smoke). Once I got comfortable, cleared the schedule for some hard-core focusing on the story, I found myself lost in the world of Italy where the modern world blends seamlessly with the Old World, and the characters are deep, and as real as I could want.

I found myself soon enthralled in the world that Stefan Schmidt creates, and I cried as well as laughed with the characters as they faced many different situations and outside pressures. Maybe it was that I always enjoy socio-political dramas as well as a good love story, and Stefan managed to include all of that in a setting with some of Europe’s most beautiful cities in the background. So, on a long, cold winter day, curl up to your monitor and read The Lizard!

Review by Dan Kirk

Author Interview

For this month's edition of the GAzette we thought long and hard about who we might like to interview.  GA has a large number of talented authors, so the choice was not an easy one.  We racked our brains trying to work out who would be perfect for the last edition of the year and almost kicked ourselves when we realised the answer literally sat right in front of us.

Razor is the exceptionally talented author who gave us stories such as "Rave Boy" and "Ana" as well as the short story "Somewhere Only We Know."  We caught up with him to hear what he had to say...

GA: Hi Razor! Thanks for being our interviewee tonight!

Razor: Heya, how's it going?

GA: Great, how are you? And thanks for doing this!

Razor: I'm great, too. Now let's get down to brass tacks, before I do this interview I'll need a signed hard copy of the contract I'm e-mailing you, protecting my interests as an individual and author.

Razor: I'm just kidding.

GA: ROFL! OK, First question: How did you find GA?

Razor: Okay, a long time ago, not quite sure when, I had a bastard (ex-boyfriend) who pointed me towards Comicality's story Gone From Daylight. I love vampire stories, and ate that up. So, I figured out that GA existed, but I only recently took the time to explore it and find that I like it.

GA: We are sure glad you did! You took the plunge and started writing, and became shared-hosted. Did you have prior writing experience?

Razor: Not formal at all, really. The people who read the things I write (teachers, friends, random people on the internet) usually encourage me, though, so I decided that I would try and write something with a bigger audience. Eventually, I found Nifty, and decided that amidst all the dirty stories which are nice in their own way, the good ones were what stood out to me. I started posting there, and received great feedback. After that, it was all GA, baby.

GA: Which of your stories is your favorite?

Razor: That's a hard choice. I think, out of everything I've written, there's a plausible reason for each piece to be my favorite. Even so, if pressed, I'd pick Somewhere Only We Know.

GA: Is there a specific reason you would pick Somewhere Only We Know?

Razor: It's based on something that actually happened to me, so it hits very close to home. Even though, to the reader, it seems a bitter, unhappy ending, that's not how I remember it. I remember one of the best nights of my life, something that contributed greatly to who I am today. Just because it didn't work out in the end doesn't mean there was nothing good about it.

GA: That's is a wonderful outlook to have. You sure are doing well on your writing! Are you enjoying it?

Razor: Of course I am! Why else would I do it? I'm not getting paid, and there's no gun against my head.

Razor: Though a couple fans who are less than happy with my time between updates would like to use the latter for motivation.

GA: ROFL! Yes, fans can get restless, but that is such a compliment in a way. Do you have any new stories in the works, or any plans we could perhaps coax a hint out of you about?

Razor: Hmmm... I can give a hint to the Rave Boy fans out there. Yeah, Rave Boy's ending. It's pretty close, too. But, did you ever stop and think just where the hell was Joey's mama during all this?

GA: Ohhh, now that is a teaser! Great! Thanks!! Is there anything you would like to say to your fans?

Razor: Um, to all the fans that have written to me and let me know that they're reading, the greatest thanks go to you guys. GA rocks, yes it does. All the people who taught me grammar and style are cool. It's the ones that write to me and let me know that I'm not talking to myself that make me write more, though. I love hearing from you guys, you're all so interesting and fun, and I love getting
your take on my work. After all, writers are performers, and performers can hardly be called such without an audience, right? To all of you who haven't written me... I'm really good at breaking in houses without people realizing it. Muah ha ha! Watch where you sleep!

GA: ROFL! Always good advice! LoL

GA: What are your plans for the future?

Razor: I'm taking the ACT soon. Took a practice writing one and made that 12 you guys heard so much about since I wouldn't shut up about it for days. I'm applying to USM, gonna major in English. Can't decide if I wanna add psych or continuing and adult education to that, yet. Yeah, I'd like to be a teacher, but they're all poor.

Razor: Eventually, I wanna publish something! How cool is it to be able to say you wrote a book, huh? That's just plain awesome. Other than that, everything's on a day by day basis.

GA: A 12? That is awesome!!! Congratulations!! As for publishing, you have one heck of a good start on it. I have no doubt that we will one day see you on the bookstands! Thanks you for doing this Interview!

Razor: No problem. Thanks for interviewing me, I feel special.

interviewed by C James

The GA Gossip Column

Wow, I think the authors must be hiding from their new years resolutions! I had to search high and low, far and wide to find any to spy on. My luck was good early on giving me a false hope that the rest of the authors may be so easy to find when I ran into Nickolas James purely by coincidence outside of the local convenience store.

Knowing him but him not knowing my position as the gossip columnist he was a fountain of information into the projects he’s working on. Seems he has an exciting project going on over at eFiction featuring one of GA’s own members, none other than Kevin aka ‘AfriendlyFace’ he’s going to add several more chapters with hopes it will turn out to be a Round Robin, recent sources have told me that another author has contributed to it. In his other stories, ‘Staking My Claim’ is about to go into one chapter a week mode and Bodega bay is almost finished. He says also that’s he’s “Planning something really huge for Spring!”

It was nearly a week before I ran into my next author, one I hadn’t actually met myself yet, leaving little chance he knew of my affiliation with this column, my assumptions were correct and I was given this juicy information from hosted author Stefan Schmidt.

“My new novel "Six Feet from the Edge" is progressing. I think I have three quarters of it done, though unfortunately I'm lacking in time recently. So, I ask for patience from people who are interested in my stories because it will take a couple of more months before the first chapter will be out.”

I had the same luck with anonymity when I ran into Razor a week or so after that and was able to ascertain some intriguing news from him. He’s figured out how to end his very popular story “Rave Boy” and is bringing it to a close. Not wanting to spoil the ending, I couldn’t get any more information out of him than that, though he did say that in future stories readers might be reminded of Rave Boy.

I had about given up hope of running into anyone else as hard as I tried, when just before my deadline I ran into Dan Kirk. Seems he has been a very busy guy. He’s got the final chapters of Dreams of Humanity all written and is preparing several new stories, one of which has already started posting, a fan fic based in the world of Pern (created by Anne McCaffery) it is completely written already. Another story he is working on has several characters familiar to readers. It will also be posted sometime this month and it is already more than halfway written. Bully will be wrapping up very shortly as well. He says there will be plenty of stories for people to enjoy in the coming year!

Well there you have it! The latest scoop from the best place to find it! OH WAIT! I actually have a little gossip of my own this month. I have started a new story, I’ve been working on it for a couple weeks now and I’m about halfway through chapter five. I expect it’ll be about 20 chapters long. I don’t have a title yet though I can say the main character’s name is Matt and the story starts out with him entering a youth rehabilitation program. That’s all the preview I can give for now because things from that point on may change as I go along.

Okay I’m really done now! Don’t forget to check for us in the next Newsletter to find out the latest news from your favorite authors.

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