Out of Light and Into the Night by Wayne Mansfield

Out of Light and Into the Night by Wayne Mansfield is now available in e-book format!

Karl and Daniel are driving back to their small farm after celebrating Daniel’s birthday when they strike something in the road. Whatever it is lands on the roof of their pick-up truck. Not keen to find out what it might be, Karl floors the accelerator as Daniel leans out of the window. Despite the light from a full moon, nothing is seen on the road behind them.

When they arrive home, their relief is short-lived. As Karl turns into their driveway, Daniel disappears out the window of the truck.

Karl hurries after his lover, and manages to catch sight of a dark shape flying through the night sky. Dangling beneath it is his beloved Daniel. Before he can call for help, he's knocked off his feet. A minute later, he finds himself int he air, too, held securely in the grip of a nightmarish beast.

The best Karl can hope is both he and Daniel will survive the night, but that might be easier said than done.

Read an excerpt or buy a copy today!

Major League Shutout by Terry O'Reilly

Major League Shutout by Terry O'Reilly is now available in e-book format!

O.B. Benson knows that, as a gay baseball player, his only chance to keep from being shut out of the Major Leagues is to stay as far from the pubic eye as possible. His low profile is threatened when the team manager insists O.B. take part in a TV interview to help boost lagging fan support.

Avery Turner, TV reporter, is handsome, fit, and definitely pushes O.B.'s libido into high gear. He’s also out -- something O.B.'s situation doesn’t allow. And Avery believes in monogamous commitment -- something O.B. cannot identify with. But when Avery delivers a curveball to the catcher, O.B. doesn’t know how to handle it.

When O.B.'s interview is aired, he’s forced to evaluate his life of meaningless one night stands. Can O.B. and Avery work out their differences and build a winning team, or will O.B. strike out?

Read an excerpt or buy a copy today!

From the Editor - What We Look For

It's a new year and our thoughts naturally turn to new submissions. Each Friday, we'll post a blog entry on what our submission editors would like to see in our inboxes.

What We Look For

After we read the query letter and synopsis (and a chapter by chapter outline for longer stories, please!), we open the excerpt with great anticipation.

It may come as a shock, but we can usually tell within a few paragraphs if we have a winner or a loser. This is where language comes in. Spelling mistakes, poor grammar, and bad dialogue attribution within the first few paragraphs raise red flags galore.

We look at all the usual suspects:

• A big information dump right at the beginning? Boring!
• The main character should be named as soon as possible.
• Don’t overload the reader with minute description, or over-choreograph the action. Readers have good imaginations; let them use it.
• Show, don’t tell. This means show in dialogue, don't tell in prose.
• Pace. Keep the story moving forward briskly.

These are things we expect the author to have mastered already. You shouldn’t submit a manuscript that hasn’t been edited and edited again by yourself, you beta readers, or your critique group.

Even if the story itself is good and within the range of genres we know will sell, a poorly-written manuscript is a risk. Why? Very simple: if J.M. has to pay an editor to fix mistakes the author should do, or acquire beta-readers to do, the book costs her more to produce than it may earn.

Also, many authors don't want to make heavy edits after a story has been accepted. That's understandable, so we try to tell an author upfront what issues we see in a story before we extend the offer of a contract. Self-editing not only limits the amount of changes required prior to publication but will also present your best possible story and increase your chance of getting published.

Most of all it boils down to this: can the author tell a story successfully? Hopefully the answer is YES!

Submit a story to us today!

Paul Alan Fahey on Your Mother Should Know

Guest post by Paul Alan Fahey

Your Mother Should Know is intended to be part of a trilogy that includes my two previous semi-autobiographical novellas: Boys Will Be Boys and When the Right One Comes Along.

The main character in the trilogy, Philip Noland, shares many of my own personality quirks, obsessions and experiences from the early 1950's through the early decades of the AIDS epidemic and up to the present time. If one had to fit Your Mother Should Know into a timeline with the other two books, it would slide quite nicely into the first act of When the Right One Comes Along, before Philip meets his true soul mate and eventually settles down in a relationship.

The Facts
In the early 1990's, I accompanied my ailing mother to Los Angeles and to The Norris Cancer Center at USC for six months of experimental chemotherapy. Mother had been ill for several years, off and on, and when her oncologist offered her the opportunity that would hopefully buy her more time, we both jumped at the chance. Mother and I were in L.A. the weekend of the Rodney King riots-late April, early May as I remember. The hospital was located near the center of the chaos. Television coverage of the looting and violence was nonstop and the major topic of conversation at the hospital.

The Story
Is Your Mother Should Know a true story? Yes and no. True is nice but it doesn't necessarily make for a thrilling and compelling read. Often writers have to fictionalize events and imagine characters to enrich a story, add excitement and keep the reader reading. So in structuring the plot and characters, I did the same.

The Idea
The story idea came to me some years after my mother passed away and began with the following WHAT IF: What if an elderly mother and her middle-aged gay son took a wrong turn on an L.A. freeway and ended up in the middle of the Rodney King riots? How would he shepherd his ailing mother through the madness raging around them? Who would they meet? Who would be helpful and what roadblocks would occur along the way to provide obstacles in their path?

In writing Your Mother Should Know, my main concern was to be truthful to the emotions of the time and to the relationship I shared with a woman who raised me alone at a time when it wasn't socially acceptable to be a single mother. When things got rough, she'd help me forget the unpaid bills in a darkened movie theater or use laughter as an escape valve. "There's always something funny in every tragedy, honey," she'd say. And you know I haven't proved her wrong yet.

I hope you enjoy Your Mother Should Know.

Paul Alan Fahey
paulalanfahey.com

Your Mother Should Know by Paul Alan Fahey

Your Mother Should Know by Paul Alan Fahey is now available in e-book format!

Philip feels in control of his life -- at least until his best friend, Jonathan, contracts AIDS, passes away, and leaves him feeling disconnected and uncertain about the future. Then the one steady influence in his life, his mother, becomes seriously ill. The doctor who makes the diagnosis of ovarian cancer is not hopeful. Once his mother commits to the treatment plan, there is nothing Philip can do but follow the blueprint they both hope will lead to her recovery.

In late April 1992, Philip accompanies his mother to Los Angeles for her monthly treatment. When he accidentally takes a wrong turn off the freeway, all hell breaks lose. Suddenly they find themselves in the center of the Rodney King riots. Gunshots ring out. Helicopters hover overhead. People loot and vandalize stores while others burn and overturn vehicles. Fires spring up all over the city.

In unfamiliar territory, Philip must guide his mother through this labyrinth of chaos to safety. With wit and insight coupled with a maternal concern for what's best for her son, Philip’s mother proves the old saying: a gay man’s best friend is truly his mother.

Read an excerpt or buy a copy today!