It was a good two years as I saw a second place win for my solo novel For Immediate Release in the 2018-2019 Rainbow Awards: Best Gay Mystery / Thriller category. I had a lot of fun writing it and scandalizing my writing partner Thursday Euclid who was reading it along the way. Writing alone is, well, lonely. But I did get to spring some surprises on someone who knows me best, so that was fun.
And now, an award! What I love about the Rainbow Awards, which I say every year (or every other year) is that the money goes directly to charity. You don’t pay organizer Elisa Rolle and hope for the best. You pick a rainbow charity that you like and send Elisa the receipt.
It makes the award—or even the opportunity to enter—even sweeter. Because, let’s be honest, getting awards and entering your books in these things can be pretty self-indulgent. I’m happy to think maybe someone else is benefitting from my need for an ego stroke.
That said, this year we did enter The Phisher King: Penetration Test into the Lammys. I don’t have a lot of hope. It’s definitely #ownvoices written with Thursday Euclid, but it’s not really trans man torture porn. It’s a mystery/thriller with a strong romantic element with a trans man. I’m not sure it’s everyone’s taste for “literature” but we were really proud of it and I hoped maybe it could get into a few more hands if nothing else. We’ll see.
But then what did win another Rainbow Award was The Congressman’s Whore: A Marriage of Convenience. It took second place in the 2018-2019 Rainbow Awards: Best Gay Erotic Romance category.
This one I wrote with Thursday Euclid, so it wasn’t quite as lonely an experience. In fact, we had a blast, particularly in planning the most extra wedding we could think of. Since then, we’ve written a couple of magical weddings in fandom that might be arguably as over the top. But woo boy was this story sexy.
I don’t always consider myself as a writer of erotica. Not because of any shame in it as much as I tend to think more in terms of plot and character and sometimes those things lead to some sexy hot erotic situations. I’ve often found myself envious of people who could write such scorching hot scenes and I’m tickled that this story was competitive in that area.
Anyway, we’re really excited to be honored so, and happy to have done a little good in the world as well as brought some entertainment, smiles and… you know… fun times to readers and judges.
As we look to 2020, we already have His Fake Prison Daddy scheduled to release on January 15. Pre-order now or wait until it’s out where it will be FREE on KU.
