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  1. It was a love affair, carried out by letters and parcels, though the love was all on my side. I would wait, with both excitement and anticipation, for each new delivery, some of which would take weeks to arrive. Aged eighteen, in suburban Liverpool, in the early 1980s, I had little chance of finding any queer literature. The big chain bookshops in the city centre only sold bestsellers and mainstream books. The independent bookshops sold the same bestsellers and sentimental books on local history. I was starved for any gay literature; I was desperate for anything that reflected my sexuality, which showed me how gay life was lived. I would search the Central Library, Liverpool’s large city centre library, for any books with gay content, even if they were just minor characters or slight themes. I read so many offensive and homophobic books in that search. Almost by accident I fell upon a copy of Gay Times magazine, it was tucked away amongst the top shelf porn magazines in a rundown newsagent up near Liverpool’s two cathedrals. Almost with a nervous twitch, I bought it. It was only when I got it home and I was safely on my own that I started reading it. What leapt out at me, amongst all the other things within its pages, was a mail order service from the Gay’s The Word bookshop in London. They offered only gay books, several of which were mentioned elsewhere in the magazine. With excitement, I filled out the order form, choosing two novels, writing a cheque to pay for them, sealing it all up in an envelope and posting it off. Then I waited. Nearly two weeks later, my parcel arrived, wrapped in plain paper, and inside were my two new novels. With glee I started to read both of them right away, ignoring all the other books I’d been reading. Soon this became my routine, each month I would send off my order and wait for my parcel of books to arrive. The anticipation of waiting for those books was sometimes greater than the thrill of receiving them, but I was always excited when my parcel arrived. At first, I ordered gay romantic novels, stories where handsome men would meet and fall in love, eventually living happily ever after. They were fantasies, but I wanted that fantasy. I was deeply closeted, living in a strongly homophobic environment, and those romantic novels held the hope that one day I could find a lover and live happily ever after. I lapped them up, even with their poor plots and stereotyped characters. As the months passed by, though, my tastes began to expand. Gay’s The Word made book recommendations and Gay Times had its own book review section. I started to read contemporary gay novels, discovered the crime novels of Joseph Hanson (his portrait of California was so different from that of Hollywood), novels of gay life in 1980s England, and many coming out stories. I also began to read non-fiction books, I started with self-help books on how to be a Happy Homosexual but I soon moved away from them because of their very simplistic views. Quickly I moved on to biographies and historical studies of gay life. What did it mean to be gay in Victorian London? What was the Gay Liberation Front? Was there a gay scene before 1960? I read all those books with a voracious appetite. This was a world that had been hidden away from me. As those books kept arriving for me, I began to wonder where they were coming from. What did the Gay’s The Word bookshop look like? It must have been a huge bookshop judging by the variety of stock they carried. I imagined that it stretched over several floors of a big, brightly light book superstore; all smooth, laminated bookshelves, polished floors and assistants who all wore name badges telling the world who they were. I imagined it was a great palace of gay literature, where I could simply lose myself in the pleasure of buying a book. At nineteen, I began to explore the tiny gay scene that Liverpool had to offer back then. Even as I did this, I still relied on those parcels of books from Gay’s The Word. Those books were still such a large part of my life. They were my main entertainment, but they also offered me information and consoled me when my adventures in gay life flat-lined. At twenty-one, I finally moved to London. Ever since I’d started receiving my parcels of books, it had been my dream to move to London and finally throw myself one hundred percent into gay life. That dream had been created and fuelled by the books I’d read, so many of them had portrayed London as the centre of gay life in Britain, the San Francisco of British gay culture. The reality of London both lived up to my dream but also disappointed me; so many things were different from what I’d imagined them to be. But London was also where Gay’s The Word had their bookshop, in the heart of Bloomsbury. Even its location sounded literary. I didn’t rush to Gay’s The Word the moment I arrived in London; I didn’t have the opportunity. It was a month later that I was actually able to visit the shop. One Saturday lunchtime, I took a tube train to Russell Square and walked the short distance from there to Gay’s The Word. When I found the shop, on a street made up of Victorian buildings with a large 1970s block of flats dominating one end of it, I was shocked at what I saw. I wasn’t mistaken, this was the right shop, its name was clearly on display above the plate glass window that covered its tiny frontage, but it was so small. It was tiny. It was as small as so many of the shops squeezed onto many of London’s streets. It was no bigger than the newsagent where I bought my morning newspaper. It wasn’t the huge gay book superstore I’d imagined it to be. It was a tiny, dusty London bookshop, like so many others across the city. It wasn’t the glorious palace I’d imagined it to be. It was another of the disappointments I found in London. But this was a gay bookshop and I was running out of reading material, so I went inside. Inside, though, was a different world, an Aladdin’s treasure cave of books. Though small, miles of wooden shelves had been squeezed into there, all filled to bursting with different books. The mail order service had had a wide range of books, but the shop itself was bursting full of different ones. I’d never have imagined there could be so many different lesbian and gay books in one place, let alone that so many had been published. I was so excited, almost too excited to know what to do. So I simply started at one end of the shop and worked my way round to the other end of it, looking at every book I found. I was lost in the most perfect world to me, a world of books. Gay’s The Word wasn’t the shiny, laminated bookstore I’d imagined; it was crowded and cramped, with dusty wooden shelves that were overstuffed with books. It was perfect though and I fell in love with it in that first moment I stepped inside. It was full of the widest range of queer books, journals and magazines; I was in heaven. On that first visit there I stayed twice as long as I meant to and spent three times as much as I had intended to, but I didn’t care. I’ve returned there many times, but how could I not when they love books as much as I do. (I originally wrote this essay for a proposed anthology of true stories called My First Gay Bookstore. It was accepted, the editor liked my different take on the subject, and I was elated. But all good things… The anthology was never published, everything just went very quiet and I heard nothing. But this is still an essay I like; it is a personal story but it is a different telling of a familiar subject. It shows one of the ways I slowly overcame my very isolated teenage years and is about a place that is still very special to me) Drew
  2. I've never written a blog before. But you guys seem like a cool bunch, so I'll give it a try. Also I want to get my reputation up from Zero What I want to do here is to talk about legal things--things related to law, the practice of law, the enforcement of law, and law school--both as encouragement for myself to be reading legal news, as well as to give information to aspiring law students in the GA community. So first, let me self-introduce. I am what they call a 0L--that is, a senior in college who's in the process of applying to law school. I've gotten into a couple already (don't want to say which ones exactly lest I out myself), but the process runs through till August, if you're on a wait list. In this post, I want to make an introduction to law school, and give the reader assess whether it is the right decision.Through the application and, now, the waiting process, I've learned a few valuable things that I wish I had known at the beginning of the application cycle. Please note that none of the following is meant to discourage, merely educate. 1) Before you apply, ask: is LAW SCHOOL right for me? Do not rely on caricatures of law school life based on things like Legally Blonde, or even law school websites. If you are seriously thinking about applying, make sure you sit in on classes at your local law school (if one exists) or at a law school nearby (there are hundreds of them). Do you like reading? We're not talking about GA fiction here--do you like reading legal writing? If you don't know, pull up any law journal (most of them are free) and try out an article that you find interesting. Read a few Supreme Court rulings. Do you like writing? Again, not talking about GA fiction. Pull up your law journal again and read the "notes" and "citations". Those are the things you will be writing in law school. Do you think you are the kind of person who is willing or able to write that sort of thing? NOT A TYPICAL LAW STUDENT 2) After answering 1, ask: would I enjoy the PRACTICE of law? Do not rely on caricatures of legal practice based on things like Law and Order, Suits, Damages, or John Grisham novels. All those things are amazing, and I enjoy all of them, but they do not represent what legal work is like. Instead, legal work and legal hiring generally work in the following way: After the end of your 1st year of law school (hereafter, 1L), you will get a set grades that will almost completely determine where you will end up practicing law. In most law schools, the fall after 1L involves an event called On Campus Interviews, or EIP--early interview program. Through this program, law firms and other legal recruiters come to your campus and screen law students. If you are lucky, have the right grades, and have a charming personality, you may be invited to a callback. If again you do well at the callback, you will have a job. NOT AN ACTUAL LAWYER There are generally three types of jobs: PRIVATE PRACTICE: This huge and diverse group makes up the vast majority of legal hiring right out of law school (or right after 1L). This group includes large law firms--some with over 3000 attorneys--handling multinational deals, mergers, corporate litigation, and the like; mid-sized law firms, which mainly handle regional issues; and small law firms, which many say is a dying breed and more and more are snapped up or put out of business by the aforementioned large and mid-sized firms. This group also includes things like plaintiff's firms (see: Damages), criminal defense (see: Law and Order), and civil representation (see: Intolerable Cruelty, Ella Enchanted, Liar Liar). GOVERNMENT WORK/PUBLIC INTEREST: This makes up a smaller percentage of legal hires, and the difficulty of getting this type of job varies from the ultra-prestigious Manhattan DA's Office to phone-answering boy in the district courthouse. This group also includes things like legal aid and legal work for ACLU-type non-profits. BUSINESS/IN-HOUSE WORK: This group of recruiters almost never hire straight out of law school. Usually, they ask for lawyers with a few years' experience at a law firm to lateral in. No matter what job you take, remember: you won't start doing cool things like argue before the Supreme Court or even the local village court jury until you have many years under your belt. Your first years as a lawyer will mostly include doing things like document review--sifting through millions of emails to find information; and due diligence--researching things like legal liabilities for companies undergoing mergers. It will include a LOT of reading and writing...I cannot stress this enough. You will read and write and rewrite memos until your fingers bleed. You will draft and re-draft motions to do the simplest things all night long. But if you get through it, that's when the fun starts. 3) If you've decided you want to be a lawyer, ask: WHICH law school should I attend? The answer to this question should depend on three things: WHERE DO YOU WANT TO LIVE? Of the more than 200 law schools in the nation, only 3 of them--Harvard, Yale, and Stanford--offer truly portable degrees. That is, you can take your Harvard Law Degree and work anywhere in the world and they will trip over themselves to grab you. If these schools are not an option, choose a highly ranked school in your region. The University of Virginia, for example, feeds well into the South and D.C. markets, and The University of Texas dominates the market in Texas. HOW DEBT AVERSE ARE YOU? Law school is a huge investment. At full sticker price, a legal education will run you at least $200,000 dollars. To offset this, there exists things like scholarships and loans. How you perceive the trade-off, of course, depends on you and you alone. For example, a debt averse person might turn down paying full tuition at Columbia Law School for a full ride at Boston University Law School. But is this a wise decision? WHERE WILL YOU GET A JOB? This is, without doubt, the single most important consideration. The legal market is over-saturated by J.D.'s in the tens of thousands. Every year, about 45,000 new attorneys pass the bar, but only about 30,000 legal jobs are created. This means that the law school you choose--and its reputation--is vital to your future livelihood. In general, the Top 14 schools, from Yale to Georgetown, have excellent job prospects (and excellent loan repayment programs, more on this in a later post), the Top 50 schools have decent job prospects, and past the top 50, job prospects get increasingly grim. An excellent resource for legal job statistics is lawschooltransparency.com. And please, for the love of God, do not attend a non-ABA accredited law school. On that note--I know someone is going to say, "oh but I went to People's College of the Law and now I have my own practice and am a gajillionaire/Supreme Court Justice/God." If that's you, then congratulations, you beat some very steep odds, because that's all it is, odds. You are placing a $200,000 bet on a legal career (depending on scholarships), why be more risky than you need to? NOT A GOOD LAW SCHOOL 4) Once you have a goal set, ask: WHAT can I do to get into the school of my dreams? Remember, if you get any advice from this blog, it is that law school is an extremely numbers-driven game. Remember when you thought your SATs and high school grades were important for college? For law school, this is much more the case, with your college grades and LSAT score being important than any other component of your application. Good numbers can overcome a weak major, lack of extra-curricular activities, lackluster recommendations, or a boring personal statement. To get your GPA up...well you know how to do that, I won't tell you. To get your LSAT score up, remember: the test CAN be learned. ANYONE can score in the 95th percentile. I will post specific study strategies and such later. But for now, just know this. If you took the test cold and got a 150 (out of 180), don't despair! Raising your score by 20 or even 30 points is not nearly unheard-of. Anyway, this was my first post. Feel free to let know what you think and whether I should continue. I hope I can help someone out there struggling for answers. In the meantime, the December LSAT is this coming Saturday. If you're taking it, knock'em dead!
  3. OK, it's been a long time since I used this forum, but here goes. This is the first little bit of something I've been mulling over, and which the lovely Reader1810 has also been mulling over with me (with infinitely more editing skill than I, it must be said). Are we intrigued? I have: 1) no idea where this is going 2) no name the for the main character, and I’m not totally sure he's ever going to get one 3) no planning of any sort 4) no clue where this idea came from, or when my brain thinks I'll have the spare time to write it. _____________________________________________________________________________________________ BAD The realisation that Kai Fischer isn’t the good golden boy everyone else thinks he is hits me one Thursday afternoon as I’m taking a piss. I’m just finishing up in a cubicle when I hear the door bang open, trainers squeak on the floor, and half of a very tense conversation. “Yes… yes I know. Of course I’m trying!” Whoever it is sounds like someone trying very hard not to punch the wall. “Sorry Father, I’ll work harder. Yes. Yes OK. But-!” Another pause, this one silent. “Yes Sir. Goodbye.” Just as I’m about to zip up and flush, the near silence is broken again. “FUCK!” There is the sound of something I guess is a rather expensive mobile phone being hurled across the room, smashing against the tiles. “FUCK! AHHH! Useless fucking shitting hell!” I turn, tuck myself into my jeans and open the door to see Kai Fischer. Everyone’s favourite everything is standing in what he clearly thought was an empty bathroom, glaring at the remnants of a brand new iPhone. I could never afford one, even on credit; but already, I know he’ll have a replacement by the morning. His whole body snaps towards me as I appear, lounging against the doorjamb with a small grin. Kai Fischer is always the model of control and poise, elegance, grace, maturity, and consideration. But apparently, not always…. “Well, well, so you do have a shadow after all.” His blue eyes are hard and narrow, lips pressed tightly firm. I doubt he’s going to say anything to me. “I wonder what your fan club will say when they find out you’re not actually a demi-god, and you have a temper like us mere mortals.” “It’s none of your business.” His voice is terse and sharp, not at all like the smiling, laughing, uber-polite young man I sometimes see across the quad. I cross to the sinks silently, still watching him as I wash my hands before running damp fingers through my fringe. My hair isn’t what you’d call ‘styled’ but as long as it doesn’t get in the way when I’m working, I don’t care. Good hair doesn’t make up for never having any money, and getting dates with hot girls isn’t really high up on my list of priorities. I’d rather make rent and get my rocks off after a fight with whoever happens to be there. Kai is still watching me watching him, his eyes flashing with bottled in fury, one hand clenched around the porcelain sink. His knuckles are white. “Will you stop fucking looking at me?” “Nope.” I stand, and turn towards him, hooking my thumbs into my pockets. “After all, once you leave here, you’ll probably go back to being the perfect golden boy everyone else thinks you are.” Kai shoots me a look, which might make a lesser man wither in his boots. “And what’s wrong with being seen as nice to everyone?” he snaps. I take a step closer to him, our bodies inches away from each other. Suddenly I can smell him, a clean smooth scent like I’d imagine fresh laundry to be; like the sort you see in adverts where everything is super white and a pretty woman wafts a bed-sheet in the summer shine. The scent makes me dizzy in the back of my mind, and I want to move away, but I refuse to appear weak in front of him. “Because it’s a lie.” “Oh, because you’re so well known for being honourable?” Kai arches a perfectly maintained eyebrow at me. “What is it you do exactly besides skip classes and get wasted?” I’m not sure what makes me do it; maybe it’s his body heat radiating against me, or how neat and perfectly put together he looks, or the hard anger in his eyes which looks so out of place; whatever it is, I don’t think about it, I just grab the front of his shirt, yank him forwards so our chests meet with a dull thud and kiss him. I’m taller, fractionally, but he still had to have angled his face up to meet mine, our lips landing on each other so perfectly. I’ve never wanted to kiss another guy before, never been tempted to experiment, but Kai’s lips are soft as he opens up for my tongue, his body firm, and when his hand presses tight over my crotch, I can feel that he’s strong. He’s a man after all, and I try to move away, but Kai squeezes me and my body responds. Whatever else Kai Fischer is famous for, it should be his dexterity. Before I can even form a thought, he’s got my fly open, his hand in my boxers, and his fingers wrapped around my cock. I gasp sharply into his mouth, and Kai gives a little purr of satisfaction as he touches me. I break the kiss, and find Kai’s blue eyes inches away still watching me as he jacks me off. His gaze is possessive, powerful, complicated, and all consuming. I can’t look away and I don’t want to. I find my fingers running through his perfectly coiffed hair, he almost snarls as I grip the silky strands tightly. The fact that I didn’t jerk off this morning has nothing to do with it: Kai is as gifted at the art of hand jobs as he is at pretending to be Mr. Perfect in front of the rest of the world. His fan-girls would faint if they had any idea what he was doing to me in a third floor bathroom. “Are you close?” Kai’s voice is barely above a whisper, his lips brushing mine as he speaks. “Do you want to come?” “Unghh….” I don’t ever remember feeling so warm, so close to ecstasy, not even whilst fucking, not even during a fight. Kai is pressing every single button I didn’t even know I had.
  4. Hi, I have just started posting my first story on this site and am looking for people to comment and give suggestions on what they want to see. I have always enjoyed telling stories to my friends and family, but have only recently decided to start putting my work out here for people to see. Please read my story by following the link below and I look forward to hearing from everyone. :-) Story: https://www.gayauthors.org/story/cazpedroso/chapmistresview-andrewandjamie
  5. Hi guys, I just wanted to create a discussion thread for my story A Knight To Remember. It's a love story focused on a high school senior named Ian Ferri, who goes after the boy of his dreams, but has a hell of a hard time figuring out how to even find him, since he'd only ever seen him in an Instagram post one of his friends commented on... Hopefully you guys find the story funny and engaging. I wanted to write a romance that FEELS like an adventure story, without all the crazy plots twists or wild storylines. Hopefully I'm accomplishing that. This story was largely inspired by the following works: Oh Radio Tell Me Everything You Know - Nifty Crosscurrents - GA How I Got Carter - GA All three of those stories influenced my writing, and I hope - and feel strongly - that those of you that really like those books, will like mine as well. Anyway, hopefully some of you guys have comments/questions/concerns or perhaps just want to vent about one of the characters. I'd be happy to hear it all.
  6. For any readers of the story, feel free to discuss things on here. I'm trying to promote the story a bit more at the moment, so If you are enjoying things so far please tell EVERYONE! I love hearing from my readers and it makes it all worth while to hear your comments so keep them coming. https://www.gayauthors.org/story/iamawriting/campingcanbefun
  7. For discussion of themes and topics. The book can be found here: https://www.gayauthors.org/story/timothy-m/cluelesscamping
  8. I thought I should do this to get more exposure to my story. Fifth chapter of this story was posted yesterday, so if you haven't read it yet you haven't missed too much. You can catch up quickly enough. About the story - It is from the point of view of a guy named Austin Reyes. He is quite a looker - a small town boy, a funny man, a great friend and a loving son. His life used to be quite normal, working as bartender serving the patrons, earning a decent income and checking out hot guys secretly; that is until a horrible incident happens to him. He is raped and it all ends up being a mess after that. His mother commits suicide, he loses his job and is forced to flee away from his own home to hide from his molester. Ending up in a big city like Denver, Austin finds his life going back to normal. it gets better when a guy named Dylan Carver walks into it. Dylan is the hottest thing in the city and a porn actor by profession. They cross each other's paths and series of unexpected events begin to stir up the life of him... Let me introduce you to the characters: Austin Reyes - the main protagonist of the story and the narrator Dylan Carver - Austin's potential love interest and a porn actor by profession Liana Myles - Austin's childhood best friend, who takes him in when she finds him aimlessly wandering around Denver streets Amy Roerig - Liana's room-mate and friend, having only one thing on her mind - sex! Caleb Marshall - The son of the bar owner where Austin worked as a bartender. Trevin Murphy - Dylan's manager and his best friend. He is also a hot-shot porn movie director. Minor ones - Amy's friend Eddie, the truck driver Ben, Porn actor Rafe Here are the links to the chapters that are already posted under this story: Chapter 1 || Chapter 2 || Chapter 3 || Chapter 4 || Chapter 5 Chapter 6 || Chapter 7 I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoy writing it. Please do leave a review to let me know of your thoughts. Don't hesitate to point out the flaws either.
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