2013 GRL Authors: Some Authors I Wish Could Be There

This final pre-GRL post is dedicated to the authors I wish could have attended this year. Really, there are too many folks out there to name. If I've missed you, no slight was intended. I've read too many books and have too many holes in my brain.

But here are some folks I would A) fangirl stalk if they were to attend next year B) wish desperately to finally meet in person or C) have met in person and just miss terribly

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First and foremost, my partner in crime, (and now business) the squirrel that stole my heart, Freddy Mackay.

Freds and I met in Tennessee the first time and found that our biology-background, geek brains meshed well. Maybe too well sometimes. We communicate by telepathy. A good friend and one of my staunchest supporters, I can't tell you how much I appreciate her.

Freddy's writing is sometimes surprising if you've met her. It can be dark. Very dark. Complex. Twisty. I enjoy these things in a good story. Yes, the stories have often made me cry. She's quite proud of that fact. (Freds - I'll miss you this year!)

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Some day I will meet Lou Sylvre. This is will happen before I die. I met Lou on a Goodreads chat (kids, this is a really good way to stalk, er, meet authors) and she had me at bagpipes.

But Luki and Sonny stole my heart from the first chapter of that first book. I read everything Lou writes. It may take me a bit sometimes, but she's always at the top of my biannual must-have list.

Can't wait until I can get my grubby paws on the next one - Saving Sony James :)

Some day I will meet Lou. In the meantime, I'm content with my desperate crush on Luki, whom I love as much as...

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Roan McKichan (not pronounced in any way like kitchen.) Andrea Speed has that gift for quirky, troubled characters you can't help but love and Roan has a huge heart shelf right next to Luki where I'm concerned.

Like me, Andrea writes both kinds of gay romance - SF and Fantasy - though she tends toward a few shades darker. Even though she's committed literary felonies I often don't deal well with (character death, cliffhanger endings and so on) I love the stories and the characters so damn much that I just need more. Yep. Infected junkie and not looking for a 12 step program, thanks.

Again, an author I would like very much to meet someday, even if I can't get two words out.

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Someone I definitely could talk to and have at length - Toni Griffin. We'll miss our giant platypus this year, from the land of all things writ giant. I do understand that it's tough for a single mom to make the trip over to the States too often, but really? You couldn't have stowed away in Geoff Knight's luggage?

Maybe not. Toni is kinda tall. Toni writes with mix of humor and pathos that's refreshing and touching. Sweet endings, hot men, and some very funny conversations pepper her tales of shifters, hellhounds, and cowboys.

Looking forward to 2014! Toni promises to visit :D

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My fellow Mixed Tape Anthology authors - these folks I've known for some time online and would love to meet. Lee Brazil, he of the cooking skills extraordinaire and the green thumb. The irrepressible Havan Fellows. The lovely and kind Em Woods.

Through their intervention and kidnapping, er, invitation, I got to be involved with this little venture - our first work together with the newly revamped Totally Bound coming out in November, :D Each of these writers has a unique voice, from Lee's often surreal twists on romance to Havan's unique characters to Em's gift for an intriguing situation.

I do hope we get to work together again but even more, I hope we can meet someday.

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Mathilde Watson and Andi Anderson... two more authors I met in Tennessee and wish would be there with us this year. Matty and I even grilled together. You don't get a better bonding experience than pouring way, way too much lighter fluid on the coals and watching them go up in a glorious inferno. Oh, and there were offerings to the bear gods, as I recall. Matty's stories intrigue me - each one I see from her gets better all the time. We're looking for some shifter stories coming out soon. :)

Andi is the sweetest person I have ever met. People say that all the time, but this time, it's all the gods honest truth. And how cool is it that she writes about angels? (Yes, I react to that on a personal level but these angels are much prettier than me, lol.) Hoping to have Andi join us in anthologies in the months to come. (Hooray!)

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The last author I want to mention is something of a mystery to me and I very much doubt I'll ever meet her. L.E. Bryce was my first actual M/M Romance read. Oh, yes, I'd read gay fiction and GLBT erotica before but this was the first gay romance I ever read. (Please remember that romance, for me, was a dirty word until I was in my early forties.)

She writes fantasy worlds of such astounding depth and breadth, with such an marvelous grasp on the history and cultures involved, that her worlds became real to me. I understood the historical timelines, understood the cultural variances as if I had gone back to college and was studying them. I have read everything she wrote in the genre. Then she stopped. There are no new L. E. Bryce novels. Her website hasn't been updated since 2010. As a reader, I am devastated. I think a lot of erotic romance readers didn't "get" her work. It was too serious, too dense, not always happy, not simply concerned with sex. Sometimes the endings were bittersweet, sometimes tragic. Perhaps the criticism was too much, and that would be a great shame. At least if I saw her in person, maybe I could ask why.

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So many more authors...Charlie Cochrane, Ava March and on and on. The world has grown smaller communications-wise, but it's still a big place that poses huge obstacles to travel, especially for authors who are rarely independently wealthy.

Those of us who will be at GRL will enjoy the company and the camaraderie - but I think each of us will have that odd spot in out hearts where we feel someone is missing. Here's to the day when we can all be in the same place at the same time. Cheers everyone and I'll see the GRL'ers starting tomorrow when my flight gets in early afternoon!

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