International Day Against Homophobia is May 17th. To help spread the word and get people thinking about what homophobia is, what kinds of damage it can cause, and how we can all help to combat such discrimination and hatred, I’m participating in the Blog Hop Against Homophobia.

To view links to all the blogs participating in the hop and how you can enter each giveaway, go to http://hopagainsthomophobia.blogspot.com.

Keep reading for details on how to enter to win a copy of my latest eBook TAKE ME HOME.

SLOAN’S MESSAGE ABOUT HOMOPHOBIA

There are many ways people discriminate. One I’d like to share about today is discrimination through the support of laws that continue to ban gay marriage, or more precisely the act of discriminating by not supporting marriage equality.

There are many people who do not consider themselves to be homophobic. They know (and often love) gay men and women. They’re family and friends and coworkers and neighbors of LGBT people. They say they have no issues with gay relationships. Yet, they do not believe we need a federal law for marriage equality. They do not understand or acknowledge that gay and lesbian couples need the same protections afforded heterosexual marriages. Perhaps they are in favor of civil unions or some other designation for gays and lesbians, but are opposed to calling it marriage.

The thing is…Separate is not equal. Unequal leaves a lot of room for discrimination to occur, leaves room for legal interpretations that are not the same as the rights automatically granted to married couples.

A scenario like the video I’ve included below, and even worse—not being allowed to say good-bye or to care for my partner in an emergency—is a fear I live with every day. Without going into a long history of our lives, I’ll just say situations similar to what you’ll hear about in this video are a very real possibility in my life.

And yeah, that scares the hell out of me. Even after 20+ years of living with my partner, and no matter how many legal documents we sign, we are not married.

I have a roommate.

If you’re unsure about the federal government stepping in to legalize gay marriage, to protect gay and lesbian couples under the same rights as heterosexual marriages, please watch this video to the very end, and give it some thought.

What if that was you? What if that was your child?

Direct link to the video

Here’s what Shane says on the video’s YouTube page:

“It has been said that sharing personal stories is one of the most effective ways to change people’s hearts and minds. This is my story and I hope you are inspired to share it with others.”

For more information on combating homophobia, to donate to a worthy cause, or learn about more ways you can help, check out these sites:

• Americans for Marriage Equality
• The Coalition for Equal Marriage (UK)
• The Trevor Project
• Stop The Hate
• GLADD
• Straight But Not Narrow
• PFLAG
• GLBT National Help Center

SLOAN’S GIVEAWAY

I’m giving away an ebook copy of Take Me Home for the Blog Hop Against Homophobia. To enter, leave a comment on this blog post stating you’d like to enter the giveaway. If you are unable to leave a comment for any reason, shoot me an email and I’ll add your comment for you.

Be sure to include a valid email address in the email form field in order to be entered in the drawing. Your email address is for my use only (in order to contact the winner). It will NOT be published on the blog or used for marketing/promotional purposes.

This contest ends at 11:59 pm EST on May 20th.

The winner will be randomly selected on May 21st and contacted via email. I’ll also post the winning name in a new post on the blog.

Thanks for stopping by and checking out Shane’s video!!
Sloan

“If you don’t think there is magic in writing, you probably won’t write anything magical.”

- Terry Brooks

My sweetie picked the three words this time:

The scenario I came up with is more the start of something, or perhaps the ending of an m/m romance between friends, a sweet moment in time that could lead to more.

Christmas Eve. Out first together in a real home.

Outside it was raining, the ground covered in mud—not the snow I’d always imagined—and Tommy was late getting home from work. I shouldn’t have been this happy. I shouldn’t have been sitting on the floor of the living room staring up at the Christmas tree with its blue twinkling lights and candy canes, smiling like peace on earth really was just a wish away.

I carefully secured the end of the wrapping paper around the 1970’s alien action figure set. A garage-sale find that had taken me four Saturdays of walking through one suburban housing development after another, scouring through boxes of old toys in search of the little plastic green aliens. Tommy’d had the same set as a kid. Since we’d both run away from less-than-stellar homes as teens, neither of us had any childhood mementos to remind us of the few good days we had in our youths.

The smile grew as I imagined his face when he opened the box.

My first gift for him. The first time I’d had money to spend on something this frivolous. Only, to Tommy it wouldn’t be that at all.

Word Count: 200 (just made it!)

Dang, now I have a new story I want to write.

Leave a comment if you have an idea for a 3-word scenario I can use in the future. I’d love to hear your ideas.

This scenario was cross-posted at Loose End this week.

What could be better than 150 m/m stories? 150 free m/m stories.

The M/M Goodreads group is posting another round of member stories. The event is called Love is Always Write, and it’s a great way to try out new-to-you authors and read a free story from one of your favorites too. The first story has been posted in celebration of the group’s membership passing the 6,000 members mark!

The rest of the stories will be coming in a week, two per day for the next 2.5 months. If you’re not already a member of the group, you can join here (Due to the adult content in this group, you must be at least 18 to join).

More information about the Love is Always Write Event
To read the stories

Enjoy!

Built to Last, Melee

It’s been added to my website’s Behind The Story page for Take Me Home.

This Saturday, May 5th, the lovely SJ Frost and I are hosting another m/m Romance Reader Appreciation Day at the Sweet Spot Yahoo Group. This is a day for authors to say thank-you to the wonderful readers of m/m romance. This month we have a fantastic list of prizes! Be sure to check them out below. Some of the authors included in the giveaway will also be sharing excerpts of their work.

Here’s how to enter the giveaway:

1. If you haven’t already, join the Yahoo Group at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TheSweetSpotMM/
2. Watch the group page (or your email if you choose to receive emails from the group) on Saturday, May 5th for a message with instructions on how to enter.
3. Reply to that message between 8am and 8pm EST indicating you’d like to enter the giveaway.

That’s it. You’ll be added to the drawing for your chance at a random prize. Winners will be announced via the group after the giveaway closes. Authors will be sent the winning email addresses at that time and will contact their winners directly.

So far, the following authors have generously donated these or other prizes. Thank you, authors!

• Erica Pike – ebook copy of College Fun and Gays series – winner’s choice
• Lori Toland – ebook copy of The Long Con
• Michael Mandrake – ebook copy of Vertigo
• Belinda McBride – ebook copy of Blacque/Bleu
• JM Cartwright – ebook copy of A Change Of Pace
• Kendall McKenna – $15 gift card to Silver Publishing
• Kendall McKenna – ebook copy of Brothers In Arms
• Kaje Harper – winner’s choice of ebook from her backlist
• Jambrea Jo Jones – winner’s choice of ebook from her backlist
• Sue Holston – PDF copy of In the Name of the Law
• H.L. Holston – ebook copy of Coffee,Tea and the Mile High Club
• Lex Valentine – ebook copy of Afterburner
• Lex Valentine – ebook copy of Kissing Joan Collins
• Allison Cassatta – ebook copies of Dear Diary and Pride (combo)
• PD Singer – ebook copy of The Rare Event
• Ellis Carrington – ebook copy of Immortal Valentine
• TN Tarrant – pdf copy of The Absentminded Astrophysicist
• Sloan Parker – ebook copy of Take Me Home
• Sloan Parker – $15 in eBooks Bucks from All Romance eBooks
• S.J. Frost – $15 in eBook Bucks from All Romance eBooks
• S.J. Frost – winner’s choice of ebook from her backlist

Hope you can join us at The Sweet Spot Reader Appreciation Day, hosted by Sloan Parker and S.J. Frost.

Direct YouTube link

Rosie has this silly and adorable habit of paging through those catalogs and giggling as she finds gem after gem.

Like this…it’s called the Butt Putt.

Image source

Can you believe that name? And to top that off, it farts when you sink the ball in the hole.

So, there’s my sweetie sitting on the couch, turning pages, laughing, and showing me item after item while I was trying to read my email. Good thing I find her laugh infectious and her 12-year-old-boy humor cute.

Then she stopped laughing and said, “Oh, that’s kinda cool.”

I was scared.

Seriously scared.

I didn’t want to end up with some sort of farting alarm clock.

Then she showed me this…

Image source

And she was right, it was kinda cool. Of all the things I’ve looked at to hold my Kindle while I read in bed, I think this one looks like it might be both useful and comfy.

Anyone have anything like this? Or something similar you can recommend? I’m not sure I can bring myself to order from the catalog with the Butt Putt.

Ah, maybe I will.

Uh-oh…It looks like several of the links to my free short stories were not working for the past few weeks. I think some of the ebook files were inadvertently deleted from the web server (the PDFs worked fine but some of the others were gone). Sorry for the inconvenience to anyone who wanted the mobi, epub, or html formats. All of the links are working again.

I also took the time to redo the files. They are the same three stories. I just recreated the various ebook formats to correct a few formatting issues and to include the updated cover for Swept Away.

I also added new web pages to my site with the full story for each, so now you can read the short stories right on the site, instead of downloading one of the ebook formats.

Here are the direct links to read online:

Swept Away
A Lesson in Truth
The Break In

You can also check out my serial story “More Than Just a Good Book” here. I’ll be starting on part 5 shortly. Not sure when that’ll be out yet, but I’ll keep you posted.

In the meantime, I’m still plugging away on revising Walter and Kevin’s story.

The fabulous Ethan Day has interviewed me about my Rainbow Award-winning book Breathe and the moment in my own life that led me to the story.

I adore Ethan and his writing, so to hear he enjoyed Breathe was quite a thrill. Thanks for the thoughtful questions and such kind remarks about this book, Ethan!

Read the interview at Ethan’s blog