lgbtq

Spring 2020

Standard

Hello all,

I’m just updating everyone on the status of some of my works in progress.

First, Weekend Girl is currently 8 chapters finished and needs two more to be complete. I am really excited about this one because it’s my first full length novel about a genderfluid character. Their name is Ash, and they are a student in Vancouver, Canada. They are 20 years old and just wrapping up their third year at UBC when they meet fellow student Nolan on the bus. It’s fun and light-hearted, and my first try at a contemporary novel. I will be getting it beta’d soon, so I’m very excited about that!

Second, I’m still awaiting feedback on my novel Far Patrol, which is about dragons and politics. Not certain where this one will end up, as it’s not really about romance at all. My dragon character Ignius is ace/aro and hsyr rider Kathely is agender pansexual. It’s a more introspective novel, and is very much fantasy.

Lastly, still on the backburner is my novella about a post-apocalyptic society that lives underground. I hope that this one will be next up on my list to finish after Weekend Girl. My main character is bi, and his love interest is a trans gay man.

Just before I go, I’m going to share some news not related to my writing. I have received and accepted a PhD offer from McMaster University in Ontario, Canada. I will be joining the English and Cultural Studies department there. I’m really excited about this offer and hope to continue writing while I study and teach!

See everyone later!

LT3 Closure

Standard

The news is out: after ten years of successful business, Less Than Three Press is closing its doors.

across borders

I was 23 when I was first introduced to this publisher by my good friend J.K. Pendragon. They were getting their first story The Fairy Gift published there. I was nervous at first, because I’d never thought that I could publish anything. But I did it, I submitted my first ever published work to Less Than Three Press, and to my unending surprise, they accepted my novella Across Borders for publication in The Bestiary collection.

Since then, I published multiple stories in various genres, mostly sci-fi and fantasy romances. Less Than Three Press was a good place to start my writing career. Because of them, I gained confidence in my writing, attended several writing conferences, and met many different authors from all over the world.

So, now what’s going to happen?

For a lot of my novels and novellas, this sad occasion is not the end for me. I received the news before the general public, and I’ve been planning out what to do since I first found out.

Love Rampage - cover2-01

First of all, I have two shorts: Insanity Girls and Love Rampage. I will be self-publishing each of these shorts and advertising their release fairly soon. To be honest, Insanity Girls is already published, but I’m waiting on a cover release in order to advertise it. If you want to see my awful placeholder cover, then I’m sure you can find it if you look on Amazon or the like. Love Rampage has a beautiful cover made by a Less Than Three Press cover artist and will be released as soon as I reformat it.

Second, I have a few novellas of less than 50 000 words, which is the unofficial novel length. These are Hakusan Angel, Sky Knights, and Across Borders. Two of these have lovely cover art already done, and I am fully satisfied with them. I will re-release Hakusan Angel and Sky Knights as self-publications as well. Across Borders is currently being re-written and may reappear as a full length novel at some point in the future. That one will also need a new cover!AlltheKingsMen

Lastly, I have two full length novels: Rangers over Regulus and All the King’s Men. I would like to find a new publisher for both of these novels. This means resubmitting them to a new LGBTQ+ publisher and possibly revamping them. I would love anyone’s suggestions for where to republish them!

That is all for now. I will announce each new short, novella, and novel as it is rereleased so that everyone knows.

Thank you!

Alex

Camp NaNo 2019

Standard

It’s almost that time again!

It’s time for the July Camp NaNoWriMo writing challenge. I haven’t partaken in a while, but I’m up for the challenge this year. I have chosen to try and write 50K words in 31 days.

My project is one which I’ve been planning out since May. I am hoping to finish this novel and get it published. I love the concept and setting. My protagonist is in Vancouver, Canada, and they go to UBC.

My protagonist is genderfluid, and the idea is that they are just starting to come out as trans. They are trying to start dressing in traditionally feminine clothing for the first time as well, and while they are doing that, they run into the love interest who I haven’t named yet (oops). I’m modelling the love interest on actor Bradley James.

BradleyJames

For those of you who have seen the show BBC Merlin, you know that Bradley James played Prince Arthur. I love his acting in this show, but I’m only modelling Bradley James’ looks and not his personality.

As for our protagonist, I don’t really have any particular person in mind to model them after. A severe lack on genderqueer actors is one of the main reasons for this problem. I really wish that there were more to choose from!

Anyway, my protagonist Ashley (or Ash for short) runs into the love interest while dressed as a woman and then again while dressed as a man. In either case, this Bradley James look-alike seems to be flirting with them. Chaos ensues.

So that’s the story. Hopefully you’ll see it released later!

Weekend Girl

Standard

Hello all! 

I’ve been outlining a new project! This one I already have a title for, which makes me so excited, because titles have always been the hardest part for me. This one is called Weekend Girl and features a nonbinary protagonist named Ashley who uses they/their pronouns, but who is also struggling with coming out. It is a romance, so there’s going to be some very funny misunderstandings happening in the future.

I have the outline complete, so I am aiming to start writing during the month of July, which is Camp NaNoWriMo month. I’m hoping to complete this novel as part of that challenge, as I usually write better under a deadline. 30 days should be long enough for 50K words, right? I’m also hoping to outline another story to write for November NaNoWriMo, but I’m not sure what yet. We shall see.

I’ve gotten a lot better at organizing since being in grad school, which is great for me. My thesis project was about 40K words long, and it went through 5 rounds of revisions. Wow, that was tough, but I finished it! But to organize all the research I did, I had to be very meticulous. I’ll talk about my new method of organization in my next post!

Anyway, if you have any questions about Weekend Girl, feel free to comment or chat with me on Twitter! (@aa_powell)

Pride Prince George

Standard

Hello everyone!

Just this weekend, I was able to attend Prince George Pride! I had an author booth at the festival, which I thought was fun. I saw a lot of people I know in the community, and it was great to see everyone out in celebration and resistance.

I think my time at the Pride festival was moderately successful. I sold a few books of mine, including a copy of Geek Out, which is a collection of trans romances. I’m going to try and get more involved in my own community, which will be fun. Up until recently, I have only ever participated as a queer author in online communities. I think Prince George needs to know that our city has queer writers and that we are writing queer lit.

I had the interesting experience of meeting lots of queer youth who had no idea that there were queer romances out there. They also had no idea that their voices could be heard, and that their own stories could be put out there in the world, too.

So, to those of you in Prince George, please feel free to chat with me. I’d love to connect with more queer writers in the community. I think at some point I will establish a queer writing club as well, to connect writers together.

I’ve done a lot of activism, but I think it’s time to join my online presence with my actual physical presence on the ground. After all, I’ve been dividing my time and presence between two places, and now it will be one. 

So welcome new followers! I will try and keep in touch with everyone! And if I can establish a queer creators community, that would also be great!

Happy Pride!

End of Summer update

Standard

Hello all! I’ve been MIA for a bit, and I want to explain a bit.

I’ve been having a hard time with chronic exhaustion, which as of yet does not have an explained cause. I’ve been to the doctor, had numerous blood tests and even undergone a test for sleep apnea. The doctor is still trying to diagnose me with something so that we can treat my tiredness. Just so you all have an idea of how this is affecting me, I haven’t been able to concentrate or focus on anything for any length of time. I’ve been missing work, haven’t been able to do any of my Masters coursework and haven’t done any writing or editing since late July. It’s been very stressful and frustrating for me. I’ve been slowly trying to do some work again, and I hope by September I’ll at least have a doctor’s diagnosis for my problem.

Now that that’s out of the way, on to more happy news.

So, a little while ago I put out a call on Twitter for artists to do an art exchange with me – my writing in exchange for art. To my surprise, someone actually answered me!

Reiko Meyer was interested in doing an art exchange with me, and nothing could make me happier, because I’m actually terrible at art. There’s nothing I want more than to have amazing fanart of my characters, but my artwork is laughable. So, in the hopes of finally having fanart, I made a call, and Reiko answered.

Ta-da! This is Yaliana. Reiko did an amazing job. I love it an incredible amount, and I hope to do many more art exchanges with her in the future!

Yaliana

This is also a call for any other artists out there who would like to do an art exchange. I’m a writer who is willing to write from pretty much any prompt in exchange for artwork.

If that’s something you are interested in, email me at aa.powell.author@gmail.com

And lastly, I have the final cover art for Yaliana! I’m really excited about it as well, because as usual, LT3 Press has outdone themselves with their cover art.

Here it is!

Yaliana final

So I’m still doing my best to get the editing for Yaliana finished so that we can get a release date for it. I’m getting it done slowly, but it’s been difficult, as outlined by my tiredness issues above.

I hope that next time I talk to you, I’ll be able to tell you that I’m back on track!

Summer 2017 Updates

Standard

Hey all,

Just wanted to update you on what my current projects are looking like.

I finished my dev edits on “Yaliana.” I’m currently looking for an alternate title for this one and am debating with myself over which one is best. I might go with “The Jungles of Harr” because that one was most popular when I did my poll. I haven’t received the line edits back yet, but I expect them to be a little while. This one is well on its way to being published, however, so I’m looking forward to working more on it!

dragon_wallpapers

Links to original page

I have one book draft written in a series of three that I need to revise. This is my ace/aro dragon series which seriously needs to get finished. I’ve had the draft of the first novel written since November 2015, which I did for Nanowrimo. I have a solid plan to finish the other two books. I have three chapters written for the second novel. I plan to finish the draft of the second novel in July for Camp Nanowrimo. Then, I plan to finish a draft of the third book in November for NaNoWriMo. It’s getting finished!

 

Lastly, I just need to revise Rangers over Regulus to resubmit it. I think I should only need minor revisions for it. I’m also going to do huge amounts of revisions on Across Borders and resubmit that one as well.

I just received the rights back for Insanity Girls as well, and with the encouragement of a few different people, am planning on self-publishing it! It’s only 15k words, so it’s not too long. But I think maybe it could do well. I’ve asked my sister if she will do the cover art for it, and she has agreed! I’m excited about it!

Those are my current projects, I just hope that I will be able to keep up, especially with grad school taking up so much of my time.

 

Giveaway 1

Standard

Hello all!

giveaway1

I’m just writing a very quick blog post to announce the winners of the June 10th draw for the print copies of All The King’s Men.

giveaway 0101giveaway 0102giveaway 0103

 

I wrote down the number of comments on a piece of paper, flipped them all over and mixed them up before drawing three numbers which correspond to the comments on the blog in order from earliest to latest.

The three numbers were 19, 17, and 3.

Those numbers corresponded to comments by Toni, JenF27, and Reiko Meyers. 

Congratulations on your win! Please email me at aa.powell.author@gmail.com and give me an address which I can mail your print copy to.

The next giveaway will be held on June 17th! All of those people who commented previously are still in the draw to win either a print copy of Damsels in Distress vol 2 or A Loose Screw vol 2. 

Anyone can still enter my draw for next week by commenting on my 5 Year Anniversary post!

Thanks everyone for entering!

5 Year Anniversary!

Standard

Hey all!

So, it’s my five-year anniversary for signing a contract with Less Than Three Press this month! It’s also Pride Month! Woohoo!

giveaway

Five years ago this month, I signed a contract for Across Borders, which is one of the novellas which is no longer in print. I’m going to do some major revisions on it and resubmit it! I’m very excited about this project.

Also, I want to hold a giveaway to celebrate my 5 year anniversary!

So, here are the details!

On June 10th, I will hold a draw for my book All the King’s Men. I will pick 3 people to receive a print copy, shipping included, to anywhere in the world.

giveaway1

On June 17th, I will hold a draw for the anthology A Loose Screw vol 2 or Damsels in Distress vol 2 (out of print). I will pick 3 people to receive a print copy and you can choose whether you want A Loose Screw volume 2 or Damsels in Distress volume 2. 

giveaway2

On June 24th, I will hold a draw for a $30 gift card and a $15 gift card to the Less Than Three Press book market. I will pick 2 people, the first person will be the winner of the $30 gift card and the second person will be the winner of the $15 gift card.

So, how do you do get into the draw?

All you have to do is comment below, and your name will be added to the draw. I will be using a hat to draw the names the old fashioned way. I will be using the same group of names for all the draws, so you don’t have to comment again to be entered again. Also, I will also be counting only one comment per person, so even if you do comment again, you will only be entered once.

IMPORTANT NOTE: If you share this post and link me to proof that you have done so in the comments, I will send you a FREE EBOOK COPY of Rangers over Regulus, which is no longer in print.

If you have any questions about the draw, please ask in the comments or email me at aa.powell.author@gmail.com

Good Luck!

Magic and Mayhem release date!

Standard

Hello everyone,

Today is the release date for the Magic and Mayhem charity anthology which benefits the Gay Romance Northwest meet-up!

MagicMayhem

The anthology includes my short story Charmed by Chance, which is a cute little story about a cyborg who meets a mage and is instantly smitten. I’m really excited about this story because it features a genderqueer character and a bisexual character. It’s supposed to be short and sweet, so I hope it delivers! 

You can buy the anthology on Amazon or on Smashwords.