I lucked out that it’s leap year so I get an extra day to finish and post my February blog! This month has been a little bit of a whirlwind, in a good way! It feels like 2016 is in full swing, and I’m hitting my stride creatively again which feels really good. Alas the Inside Out valentines I sent my pen pals basically all got chewed up by the postal system. Lesson learned, next year I can’t send lollipop valentines booooo.
This month was my 14th anniversary of bring kicked out. That day I was at my high school when I got paged to go to the office, I was told to never come home again. I had never felt more alone in my entire life. I lost my dogs (my whole world). That day there was no way I could have imagined the wonderful queer world that was waiting for me. The actual anniversary of being kicked out fell on a Thursday this week – dog training night! It was unreal to realize that 14 years later instead of crying myself to sleep on a strange couch, I was assisting at a dog agility class with an amazingly talented queer dog trainer who is one of my best friends. Talk about full circle!
Early this month I had the pleasure of getting to read at the NYC release of the
Heels On Wheels “Glitter & Grit” anthology! My story in that anthology is titled “Constellation.” And is about a kickass broken hearted femme named Star. This story took a while to find the right home it was rejected from literary magazines (I share in part because I think it’s important to name that we all get rejected all the time and how important it is to keep sending our work out) but found the perfect home in the Glitter & Grit anthology!!! Do you have a copy of the book yet? It’s a really beautiful book and I’m so thrilled to be in this book, and to have a copy on my bookshelf!
This month we celebrated our youngest cat Thing’s second birthday (really his gotcha day)! Two years ago we found him as a tiny filthy little kitten starving in a snow bank, brought him home. We called him Thing so we wouldn’t get attached – clearly that didn’t work, and the name stuck! He ads mischief and fun to our little family every day!
February brought some unexpectedly exciting praise for my books. Roving Pack was named a Top 10 Trans book by a Trans author by The Guardian! The article is an impressive array of transgender literature aimed at YA readers – check it out!
What they had to say about Roving Pack:
“Roving Pack explores the world of queer homeless youth, a demographic that is often left behind even as the LGBT community makes strides. As Click, a trans kid, navigates throughout Portland, ze struggles not only with being genderqueer in a world that tries to force people into binaries but also with finding a place in the transgender community. An edgy and often painfully honest upper YA novel.”
I’ve been keeping up with my 2016 GoodReads goal of reading at least a book a week most weeks in February I managed to read a couple books (most of which courtesy of the Brooklyn Public Library!) So far for the year I’ve already read 20 books!!! The very best book I’ve read so far this year is Bill Konigserg’s “the Porcupine of Truth” truly outstanding queer YA. Want to see what else I’m reading? Follow me on Goodreads! I look forward to seeing what books you’re reading too because at the rate I’m reading this year I’m going to definitely need some book recommendations before spring!
In less serious news from this month, Neko Atsume obsession continues – I 
collected enough fish to upgrade my yard, got sassy Fran and the little conductor cat, and Billy the Kitten! I also got super excited, that Jamberry (my femme secret weapon for awesome designed nails) released Disney themed strips! I FREAKED out when I heard the news they were coming – Disney nail art is super exciting to me and thankfully Kestryl was able to order them for me right when they released (I was in a meeting and couldn’t excuse myself to place the order)! Right now my nails have little Minnie Mouses on them!
The most exciting thing that happened in February when it comes to the books for me has to be the announcement of finalists in the National leather association-international writing awards – LOST BOI is a finalist!!! I’m so thrilled! Regardless of if I win the ward or not, it’s just a tremendous honor to have been a finalist in an award by/from my community of leather folks, and to have Lost Boi be listed amongst so many awesome books.
I let the secret slip on social media this month- I’m working on a new project, it’s going to be novella length (something new for me!). I don’t want to give too much away yet, but it’s a queer leather Christmas story!!! I just hit the 10,000 word mark this month so far this has been a really fun project to jump into. I’m really excited to see how the reset of the novella comes together!
In addition to working on a new writing project I’ve been writing a lot of articles. I still have my two columns at Curve and then have had four articles go up on Dogster.com one looking at discriminatory practices by guide dog training programs, my feelings against cloning dogs, training in canine parkour, and the one that has gone a little big dog world viral my letter to other dog parents that make life for my reactive dog much harder.
Upcoming:
I’m really looking forward to going back to New Orleans for Saints & Sinners Literary Festival! I’m not one to generally get super excited about writing conferences, but I’m totally smitten with this one. I attended S&S for the first time in 2013 (and wrote about the experience here on Lambda Literary). I’m thrilled to have the opportunity to go back this year I’ll be on panels, reading and will be hanging out with some of my author friends I don’t see often. I am also THRILLED that I’ll have the opportunity to take a mater class with my all-time favorite writer Dorothy Allison!!! I’ll definitely be updating my facebook/twitter at the conference!
Easter!!! Easter comes really early this year; an I’m super excited about it. Easter is my second favorite holiday (after Christmas) and is a big leather family time for us. I can’t wait to dye my eggs and I hope the Easter bunny will come to visit our house!
I’m committed to more frequent updating of my website in 2016 (and have been doing lots better with it so far) but for more frequent (like really really frequent) updates of cats, my embarrassing obsession with shopkins, cheesy Disney princess memes, bubble tea, and updates on my current writing projects please friend me on Facebook, Twitter Instagram and/or Fetlife!
p.s. one of the books I read this year that has made a big impact was Amanda Palmer’s “The Art of Asking” so….. here goes… if you’ve read one of my books (Lost Boi, Roving Pack, Kicked Out, Leather Ever After) and liked it, will you please consider leaving it a little review on Amazon or Goodreads? Those reviews go a LONG way for indie authors like me!!!