Thursday, April 19, 2012

Rentboys, boardrooms and hope

Book News:

I was very happy to see that the upcoming Rentboys Anthology from Riptide Publishing,  which includes my own story Where You Hurt The Most, was mentioned on Top 2 Bottom Reviews this week - very exciting indeed.

I've also just caught sight of the book cover for gay short story The Delaneys At Home (Delaneys *5), which will be available on 3 June and very happy I am with it too. Just the right amount of humour and cheekiness that I hope people get from the series, ho ho.

In the midst of all this, I've started a gay short story/novella set in a boardroom battle scenario which I'm hoping to submit to Riptide Publishing over the summer. Very early days at the moment and definitely no title as yet, but hopefully that will turn up at some point ...

Meanwhile, you can find an interview about me and gay short story The Heart's Greater Silence over at Blak Rayne's Blog, where you can discover my favourite colour, my favourite film and who I'd really like to be. Could be in for a surprise then ...

And at Vulpes Libris Reviews, I find myself a little disappointed with Ken N Kamoche's short story collection, A Fragile Hope. Rather more fragility than hope there, in my opinion, ah well.


This week's meditation poems are:


Meditation 640
Following the party
the riot –
it’s the way
after far too much wine.

So stick to the safety
of bread
and beware
the fruit of the vine.




Meditation 641
In the face of disaster
and a vast sea
of enemies and fear

it’s a powerful act
to step back and trust
that somehow God is near.




Meditation 642
Every word we say
and decision we take
are ripples on the pond
of the whole world

for we cannot measure
by tongue or hand
the secret influence
of our life unfurled.


Life News:

Fabulous news from work this week! We've been shortlisted for the second year running for the Times Higher Education Student Services Awards, which is really thrilling. I'm hoping we'll win this year as the awards ceremony takes place on my birthday, and of course because the University of Surrey Student Support team is obviously the best there is, by a long chalk. Wish us luck!

At home, we've now spotted goldfinches in the garden (hurrah!) and now K and I have both heard the first cuckoo of the year, well gosh. I did actually hear it a few days ago on 12 April, along with several other people in Elstead, so it's arrived earlier than last year when (in case you're interested ...) you might like to know that the first cuckoo in 2011 arrived in our parts on 17 April. So a week early this year - must be the call of the countryside.

Had a great time last night catching up with some friends from the company I used to work for during dinner and chat in Guildford (many thanks, J, M & A!) - though much amusement arose from the fact that somehow A and I managed to miss J & M in the restaurant/bar, and we were only united by the fact that J could hear my voice from a whole room and a dividing wall away and eventually realised it wasn't some kind of auditory nightmare, but was in fact me ... Well, who ever said I needed a phone? I just open the window and shout.

Tonight, K and I are out at the theatre to see Wife Begins At Forty. Which is rather curious as we originally booked tickets for Two Into One, also by the same playwright. So we've been bamboozled for a while as to which alternative universe we are currently in, but the theatre have rescued us from our displacement anomaly by explaining they couldn't get the actors for the original one so had to replace it. Apparently the letter telling us all manner of thing would be well in spite of us having the incorrect tickets never arrived, alas. Good job I looked it up then (I usually don't) though whether we would actually have noticed is anyone's guess. Well, one farce is much like another, isn't it? Hush my mouth.

Finally, I've been impressed by the NHS's First Steps for Emotional Wellbeing site, which has been set up to help us all with our wellbeing. Some interesting stuff there, and as I'm facing scaling down my antidepressants over the next month or two, then I'm sure it will come in very useful indeed.

Anne Brooke
Gay Reads UK
Gathandria Fantasy Trilogy
Biblical Fiction UK

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