News Roundup: Everyone’s got the Blogging Bug, Manda Scott & VG Lee at Brighton Pride, and the Pope’s testicles cause a stir…

As the schools break up for the summer hols, the roads fill up with staycationers and unnecessary roadworks, and the weather inevitably turns rubbish, what better excuse is there than to sit in a quiet spot with a good book, or a good blog? Or maybe you’re more inclined to write the good book or blog. Whichever floats your boat, UK LesFic is here for you. So, what have folks been up to this week?

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A fair bit of blogging, seems to be the answer…

I. Beacham is a bit of a secret squirrel when it comes to an online presence, but she has been spotted over at Women and Words chatting about her new release The Rarest Rose, a love story with ghostly undertones:

I have a genuine love of history and I am more than aware that next year will be the 100th anniversary of the 1914 – 1918 World War One. As a keen reader of that period of time and, in particular, its emotive and powerful poetry, I have always felt drawn to its sadness and loss. It was a time that deeply impacted many across the globe, and certainly here in Britain. I have grown up hearing about those in the family who went to fight, and who did – or did not—return… So I think my latest book was influenced by this approaching anniversary and that, subconsciously,I wanted to acknowledge it. The outcome is that The Rarest Rose delivers two love stories, both blighted, and where echoes of the past still resonate. These gentle reverberations offer direction and hope for the two contemporary characters in this book.

You can read the full piece here.

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A former secret squirrel, Bella author Kate Snowdon is becoming less of an enigma with the creation of a brand new blog, which was swiftly followed by her very first post. The aptly titled The First Post! gives an insight into Kate’s début novel You Can’t Run From Love, as well as explaining why she initially preferred to keep things on the hush-hush. It’s a telling reminder that lesbian authors may face a real dichotomy between publicising their works and keeping their private lives private, but it’s one with a happy ending. Once Kate gets started, there’s apparently no stopping her: we will be hosting a guest post from her later this week.

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Sticking with the blog theme, Suzanne Egerton‘s blog might not be new, but we don’t seem to have it listed on our Author page. So you should all go on over there and see what you’ve been missing out on, and I’ll update the information as soon as Talk Talk get their fingers out and stop WordPress from being a temperamental little arse!

Suzanne will also be reading from her novel Out Late with Friends and Regrets in a five minute spot at Café Rio, Glasgow, tonight (Monday 29th.)  The readings begin at 8p.m, there are other fabulous performers on the schedule, and all are welcome.

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Last blog mention in this bloggiest of blog roundups comes from Clare Ashton, who will be guesting over at Kim Taylor Blakemore‘s blog this coming Tuesday. Can we tempt you with the tag-line?

After Mrs. Hamilton, Pennance, and all things indie! Drop on over Tuesday to learn what inspires and motivates the inimitable Clare Ashton.

Of course you’re tempted. Head over here on Tuesday to read the post.

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An advance heads up now for Brighton Pride, where Manda Scott and VG Lee will be making appearances in the Literature Tent on Saturday 3rd August between 2-5 p.m. At 3 p.m. Manda will be giving a talk about the roots of writing history. We’re not exactly sure what VG will be up to, but it’s guaranteed to be entertaining. Full details about the Pride festivities can be found at the official website.

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Finally this week, a big thanks to Rachel Dax whose recent guest post about The Legend of Pope Joan II is single-handedly responsible for providing the funniest search term resulting in a hit to our site: “so why the testicles are checking the pope?”

For a explanation, see Rachel’s guest post of June 28th… Hell, the Pope’s testicles certainly makes a change from Lesbian Ass Kissing…

News roundup – free book, new anthology, Cherry Potts and the Bold Strokes blog tour

We’re in the final run-up to the UK Bold Strokes Festival in Nottingham which takes place this weekend, and the attending authors have been doing a blog tour this week. Amy Dunne talked about the power of books and their vital company for someone coming out. Rebecca Buck described the excitement of the festival and its origins. I. Beacham explains why she wrote her latest book The Rarest Rose. And Andrea Bramhall talks about word power. Catch up with all the blogs on the Bold Stokes Festival site.

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Earlier this year, UK online magazine When Sally Met Sally and publisher Freya Publications held a short-story competition for female writers of LGBT fiction. The winning entries have now been posted and the best entries have been published in a new anthology called Counting Down the Seconds.  It features writers from all over the world and stories from science fiction to period drama, darker tales of lost love, from literary fiction to chick lit.

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The audio version of Emma Donoghue’s Astray by Hachette Audio has just won the award for Best Short Story Collection at the Audies. The Audie Awards are a US competition only for audio books. Narrators include Khristine Hvam, James Langton, Robert Petkoff, Suzanne Toren and Dion Graham and the edition has already won an Earphone award.

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Cherry Potts, author of fantasy, science fiction and fairy tales, has several readings lined up starting this weekend. She’ll be reading in Lewisham, Brixton and central London. For more details check here.

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Finally, grab a free copy of Suzanne Egerton’s new book Out Late with Friends and Regrets. It’s free to download on Amazon today and tomorrow. This is Suzanne’s debut novel and you can read more about the background on the novel’s publication and the story in this guest blog on UKLesFic.

A Plague Upon All Your Genres – guest post by Suzanne Egerton

Today’s guest post comes from new author Suzanne Egerton whose  début novel Out Late with Friends and Regrets was published this month by Paddy’s Daddy’s Publishing.

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Standing up in that large gathering of women, when the nice lady from BSB had been assuring aspiring writers that their editors were happy to provide feedback and advice with their rejections, and hearing myself saying, sorry, but you didn’t give me any… was hard.

“Oh. What’s your name?”
(Gulp) “Suzanne Egerton.”
“Erm… oh yes, I remember. I’m afraid it… just wasn’t romance.”

Dear friends, never underestimate the importance of research. I knew that romance figured large in their titles of course, but the thought that a big, nurturing company was actively seeking lesbian writers had focused my eyes on the pages of the website that spoke most eloquently to my ambitions. I never tumbled that they were a genre publisher. Duh!

Many rewritten words ago, when my book was still called “My Proper Place” (ugh, but there was a good, lyric-based reason for it – though not everyone is into the Velvet Underground, granted), I spent over a year painstakingly crafting submissions to the exact requirements of agents and publishers various, logging every one and later inserting the rejection date against each. I’ve just looked in that small red notebook; twenty-four polite rejections or time-outs in all. Of these, only one very sweet Irish agent took the trouble to give me the invaluable information that, though she really did like the sample, she just wouldn’t know where or to whom to market it.

Everyone knows that you shouldn’t write to a formula; it should come from the heart. But it sure helps if your story happens to fit comfortably into one of the popular genres. I was in the position of having edured a long, elephantine gestation, only to find that my baby would have to struggle through much hostile terrain before finding an environment capable of sustaining life.

I always wanted “Out Late with Friends and Regrets” to be a crossover book, not a novel aimed exclusively at lesbians. But Contemporary Women’s Fiction is a vast, amorphous  genre, and is heavily populated by that upmarket sub-genre, the Literary Book. Nothing against literary; I have enjoyed many literary books. But then scan the remaining available boxes, and tick them off on your fingers: Romance. Crime (God, I wish I could write crime!). Thriller. Historical. Family Saga. YA. Children’s. Sci-Fi (let’s include Specfic and Steampunk, shall we?) Fantasy. Erotica. Memoir. Biography. Autobiography. Political. Hey! Humour! Yes well, mine’s got plenty of humour, but also sorrow, difficult stuff about relationships and family, lust, food, friendship, getting drunk…you know, real stuff. And yes, the main character does discover that she’s gay, after being in an abusive heterosexual marriage from far too young an age. (No, she isn’t stupid; read up the psychology – these charismatic controlling men are typically attracted to bright girls and women, and unpick their personalities over the years until every last thread of the woman’s confidence and independence is shredded. And then there’s the complication of children…)

This scenario seemed to me to offer a wealth of potential for dramatic tension: when Fiona finds herself alone and long separated from friends and family, she has the struggle of relearning social skills as well as coming to terms with her previously unsuspected sexuality. She never had the chance to learn the rules of the dating game first time around, so imagine how scary her first night out with another woman feels! Oh yes, and I’ve made her a convent-educated Catholic as well, just for good measure. Authors can be so cruel…

So there they are, a hundred and eleven thousand words shuffling around in a phalanx, muttering under their combined breath and wondering which way is home – which genre will have them? My wonderful mentor, Helen Sedgwick of Wildland Editors, who read the ms and told me bluntly which parts weren’t working and had to go (twelve thousand words slain at a stroke! Never fear, they’ve been cryogenically preserved and I just may recycle them sometime in the future – writing is so planet-friendly) suggested “Coming-of-Age”. I can see how it might be a fit, but since my girl is thirty-seven when the story begins, it could be slightly misleading to those seeking teenage kicks. And the “Journey” category has been well shagged into a tattered cliché by all those X-Factor contestants.

You may have seen my bio, in which case you’ll have noted that I’m a fitness instructor when I’m not writing. When you go to instructor college, the tutors teach you (amongst a heap of other stuff) to devise your own choreography and exercises. However, much of the fitness market today is occupied by multinational franchise companies, who supply music and choreo to those instructors willing to deliver classes identical to every other instructor of that class in the world. Sorry, that isn’t for me. It stifles creativity, doesn’t allow for client (or instructor!) error, and robs a class of its USP. We upstream-swimmers are known as freestyle instructors, and I guess my natural writing genre, if any, could be termed freestyle too. Despite the sexuality-unfolding storyline of “Out Late etc.” there are some important straight characters, and gay men too, amongst the lesbian and bisexual women; I have been very chuffed by the compliments I’ve received from mixed audiences of all sexes and sexualities when I’ve given readings from the book.

It’s significant, I think, that when my submission finally found that special person who fell in love with the sample chapters, and who sat up most of the night to read the rest, it was a young, straight, family man; a man who decided to be a publisher because he cares more about the writing and the story than about the commerciality of the genre.

I guess my book is essentially about the freedom to be yourself.

Here’s to freedom.

Suzanne Egerton is English by birth, but settled in Scotland in the eighties, and for the last few has lived with her partner in Motherwell, with deceptively cute mutt Jonesy (F) and a house and garden that take a lot of work to maintain. Her debut novel Out Late With Friends and Regrets is published by Paddy’s Daddy Publishing and you can read more about her here.

Out Late with Friends and Regrets by Suzanne Egerton

New author Suzanne Egerton, has just had her first book published by small independent publisher Paddy’s Daddy Publishing. Congratulations Suzanne on your debut. Here’s the blurb for Out Late with Friends and Regrets:

Fiona was married far too young, to a man who controlled her every thought. His sudden death leaves a scary vacuum; she is without friends, alienated from her family, and her confidence is in shreds. But a late coming of age in her thirties proves more joyous, funny, alarming and painful than for an adolescent. With the aid of an ebullient mentor, Ellie, she grabs her second chance with both hands, renames herself Fin, and finds herself propelled along pathways she could never have forseen.

Learning to cope with normal social and family contact is challenge enough, let alone facing up to growing evidence that she might, in fact, be gay. But Fin attacks life with all the gusto of one who has missed out on far too much of it, intent on making up for lost time. Thanks to an assortment of new friends she begins to rebuild her battered personality, and strives to heal the rift with her estranged daughter.

At last, her strength and determination seem to have proved her equal to the triumphs and disasters of her new life. And then comes the stalker…

About the author: Suzanne Egerton’s illogical career path has zigged up to doorsteps with a bag of cleaning products, and zagged through jewellery shops and casinos. She is currently a fitness instructor, and lives in Motherwell. Writing has been a constant in her life, but only since a move close to the artistic honeypot of Glasgow has it become The Other Job. Suzanne loves the scary presence of an audience, and has read her work at numerous events, including the Edinburgh International Book Festival. So far she has refrained from throwing up in the wings. Her debut novel is Out Late with Friends and Regrets.