trans character

Love for Love Rampage

Standard

It’s been a while since I gave some love to my past publications, so I’m going to do a post about one of my early works. Love Rampage is a short, sweet story about a trans girl named Maira who is secretly in love with a friend named Carol. She is too shy to admit it, especially to Carol herself.

Maira has a slight obsession with unicorns. What does Maira do when a real live unicorn shows up and demands that Maira confess her love to Carol? And even worse, what can Maira do when a demon shows up?

The cover for Love Rampage, originally commissioned by Less Than Three Press.

I love this short story because Love Rampage is my first (but not last) story about a trans woman. I originally wrote this story for the Geek Out collection, a call for short stories put out by now-closed publisher Less Than Three Press.

The cover design was done by London Burden. Unfortunately, I cannot find a website for London’s work anymore.

This short story is now self-published HERE!

New Titles Up

Standard

Hello everyone!

First of all, I’d like to thank you for being patient while I reformatted some of my previous work. Secondly, I would like to bring you two of my previously published works as self-published works.

The first is Love Rampage!

Love Rampage - cover2-01

Love Rampage is a trans romance about love and acceptance. 

Maira is a trans woman with feelings for a girl named Carol, who she believes will never love her. Being shy and awkward are the least of Maira’s problems. Maira thinks that nothing will ever change until she is kidnapped by a unicorn who claims that Maira must profess her love to Carol. Maira is skeptical, but can love win in the end?

Love Rampage is a short story of about 11k words and is trans f/f urban fantasy story. 

For only $0.99 you could own it today!

Originally published by Less Than Three Press for the Geek Out Collection, Love Rampage is being republished as a self-publication HERE.

Next up is a free read!

Charmed by Chance

Charmed by Chance is another romance involving a fairly hopeless mechanical design student named Merrit who sometimes has problems when dating mech mages. However, one mech mage comes along who doesn’t seem to mind Merrit’s quirks. In fact, Verity, the genderqueer shop owner who fixed up Merrit’s mechanical hand, seems to like it. But what happens when terrible circumstances befall Merrit? Can he and Verity overcome everything and be happy?

This short story is absolutely FREE to download.

Charmed by Chance is another trans romance with a m/nb pairing. 8k words. 

Download HERE

Thanks everybody for tuning in! 

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.

Love Rampage release date

Standard

Today is the day we’ve all been waiting for!

At least, I’ve been anxiously awaiting today for at least a month. Today is the release date for Love Rampage!

Love Rampage - cover2-01

As any author can tell you, waiting for a release date is like being on pins and needles for the entire day. Is my book doing well? Do people like it? What if my book actually sucks and no one noticed until now, but the readers will?

Luckily, I have a little reassurance.

First of all, I’m not alone! I’ve got seven other lovely authors who also have their stories coming out today in the Geek Out anthology. I’ve gotten to know a few of them pretty well, because right now, there’s a wonderful blog tour going on!

Check out Smoocher’s Voice, World of Diversity, and Love Bytes over the next few days for a chance to read about the books available and for a chance to enter a giveaway!

Blog Tour Schedule:

January 22nd: Alex Powell

January 23rd: Cecil Wilde

January 27th: Alison Evans

January 28th: Alden Lila Reedy

January 29th: Francis Gideon

January 31st: J.K. Pendragon

February 6th: Caitlin Ricci

February 7th: Francis Gideon

February 8th: Alessandra Ebulu

We have an awesome author chat coming up soon with Rainbow Gold Reviews, so I’ll tell you about that later!

I’d also like to share with you one of the great reviews that my book has already received! I’m actually really pleased with this review, because the reviewer definitely understood exactly what I was trying to do with the story.

So here it is! Bending the Bookshelf gave me an amazing review!

So that’s it everyone. Love Rampage is out today with Less Than Three Press, and it’s a book I’m particularly proud of. This is also the first book I’ve taken a really big role in trying to promote, so let’s see how that goes!

Why Unicorns?

Standard

Hey all!

I’m doing a couple of stops on my blog dedicated to Love Rampage, which is being released on the 28th of January.

So some of you may be wondering: Why Unicorns?

First of all: I love unicorns

Second of all: my friend Laurence also loves unicorns, and he told me to write a story about a girl who was obsessed with unicorns. I have an inkling he might have been joking, but I have been known to write on ridiculous prompts before. I’ve dedicated this story to him, mostly because it was his prompt that got me writing this.

Before you ask: no, unicorn is not some sort of euphemism for something else. I really do mean that there is an actual unicorn in this story, and when I say “rampage,” I really do mean that literally.

Unicorns are magical creatures of myth that have been depicted by humans since antiquity. Most people think of unicorns as beings of purity, uncorrupted. They are usually depicted as having an affinity for virgins. In some tales, they can purify water or heal people with their powers.

I wanted to use the symbol of the unicorn to represent the purity of Maira’s love for Carol. Her worry that Carol will not love her because she is trans is something that she must overcome. She has to learn that her love is just as valid as anyone else’s.

Her love is pure, but I am not trying to suggest that either of these girls must be a virgin because of the presence of the unicorn. People may read it that way as they want, but the idea that one should remain pure of body, or that virginity will make one pure is something that I don’t want to spread. I do not agree with virgin idealization or with slut shaming, or with shaming anybody about their level of sexual experience.

Some people might say, “But Alex, those girls are just teenagers, they shouldn’t be having sex at their age!” Too bad. Some teenagers have sex, and that is the truth.

I also think of unicorns as creatures of adventure. Unicorns are untamed magical creatures, and I like to think that they would only approach those that are pure of heart and have good intentions. Maira certainly discovers what it is like to go on an adventure with the unicorn in this story!

And for anyone who used to love The Unicorns of Balinor series, or The Last Unicorn, or even The Black Unicorn by Tanith Lee, Maira might just be a girl after your own heart.

Thank you Laurence, for this idea, and for many others before it!

This is one of the stops on my blog tour for Love Rampage, so leave a comment below and your email address for a chance to win a $10 gift certificate with Less Than Three Press!

Geek Out Blog Tour

Standard

Hey everyone!

Sorry I’ve let the blog posts go awhile without updating, but I’ve been super-busy!

Not only have I started going to university again, but I’ve been organizing a blog tour for the trans* anthology Geek Out published with Less Than Three Press.

What is going on with this blog tour?

Well, let me tell you, since I’ve finally seemed to get a grasp on what’s going on!

The Geek Out anthology includes 8 authors:

Francis Gideon with Sext-based Adventures

https://francisgideon.wordpress.com/

Caitlin Ricci with Horse Crazy

www.caitlinricci.com

J.K. Pendragon with Double Take

www.jkpendragon.com

Alison Evans with Long Macchiatos and Monsters

alisonwritesthings.com

Alessandra Ebulu with Of Anime and Baeci

alessandraebulu.wordpress.com

Cecil Wilde with Defying Convention

www.cecilwilde.com

Alden Lila Reedy with Manifest

aldenlilareedy.com

We have all written a story with a trans* protagonist, and we all feel that because this is a trans* anthology, we need to go all out with getting the word out. People are asking for representation in media, and we’re delivering. But without people knowing about it, then there’s not much point!

I see people writing fanfiction with trans* or genderqueer characters, writing ace or aro characters, genderbent characters, because they are lacking that what they really desire: representation. There are no stories out there about these types of characters that portray them in stories that are not a) specifically about their trans*-ness or b) tragic.

So we’re doing a blog tour. It’s a really fun time, actually, apart from the logistics and organization, which really aren’t my strong point. But you’ve got to try, right? I hate trying to organize things, but I’ve learned sometimes you’ve got to do things you don’t enjoy in order to promote the things you actually like doing.

It was a bit of a challenge, because while there were a LOT of m/m review sites, there are far less review sites that do trans* story reviews or blog tours. Thankfully, with the help of our amazing publisher Megan Derr, we were able to find a few.

Here’s the sites where our guest blog posts will be showing up over the next two weeks.

Smoocher’s Voice

Love Bytes

World of Diversity

Read, Play, Review

We’ll also all be doing blog posts on our own blogs, so make sure to check them out! Of course, I’ll be compiling a list of links for you all to get the big picture once they’re all up, so stay tuned for that!

The first stop on our blog tour will be at Smoocher’s Voice, and my blog post for Love Rampage on January 22nd!

Also, make sure you check them all out, because authors are doing giveaways for all sorts of fun stuff! Gift certificates, ebooks, naming a character in their next novel… so make sure to leave lots of comments for a chance to win!

Weird Unicorn story

Standard

So I’m almost finished my trans girl unicorn story. It’s probably going to end up being between 10-15K words, so it’s not too long. I feel like I should have been able to finish this one a long time ago, but between chaos at work and general stress, it’s been rough going. Not to mention, I’m just a procrastinator. I’m going to have to do a really quick editing job, which isn’t ideal, but it’s better than sending in a rough draft.

My very first story with Less Than Three was a rough draft, and you could definitely tell. My entire manuscript was returned for editing absolutely covered in revisions and cross-outs. The more you edit it before you send it in, the less you need to do after! I’ve learned much better by this point, and I’ve never sent in anything that was just a rough draft ever since.

15K isn’t a big deal to edit and revise, though. I am looking forward (NOT) to editing my 50-60K cyberpunk story that needs a lot of revisions (according to my beta reader, and we must always listen to our betas) and a lot of editing (according to me, because when I get tired I put in too many excess words).

Anyway, my trans girl story with unicorns is for an anthology, so it doesn’t need to be too long. My cyberpunk is going to be submitted for general release, however. It’s going to be interesting. I usually go with collection calls and anthologies so that I have a deadline to finish things by. But I have miraculously almost finished the cyberpunk story, so that seems like a point in favour of general release, right?

Anyway, my writing life really needs to step it up. I feel like I haven’t really accomplished much these past few months. Anyway, I will write again when something interesting happens. Such as my next story comes out with Less Than Three (very soon, actually).