
Stories drive life. Sometimes life is good; sometimes life is bad. But it’s the nature of our community that in the aftermath of an act of hatred, we respond with love. Because darkness cannot exist in the presence of light. Cruelty cannot stand against compassion. Negativity will never overcome hope. To show our support for those affected by the Orlando shooting, our authors, editors, artists, and staff have volunteered their talents to create this anthology. All proceeds will be donated to LGBT organizations in central Florida. Join us as we celebrate the triumph of love over every obstacle. Jon Keys—A Single Night Alicia Nordwell—About Best Friends & Boyfriends Mickie B. Ashling—Adíos M.T. Aspen—Asking for Trouble M.A. Church—Chasing Tyme Caitlin Ricci—Coming Out George Seaton—Cucurrucucú Jayce Ellis—Dance Bree Cariad—Everyday Miracles Chrissy Munder—Everything I Need Ellis Carrington—For the First Time Felicitas Ivey—Get Me to the Church Town Hall on Time John Amory—Happy Pride Grace R. Duncan—Hope John Goode—Let Them Eat Cake J. C. Long—Magical Boys Just Wanna Have Fun Elizabeth Noble—Magicicada Renee Stevens—More Than a Pact Troy Storm—One Big Happy… Bunch Connie Bailey—One Heart at a Time Dev Bentham—Perfection Andrea Speed—Pride Laura Lascarso—Pull Lila Leigh Hunter—Raffled Kiss Emery C. Walters—Ranch Dressing C.C. Dado—Read My Lips Sera Kane—The Stag's Bane KC Burn—The Tithe Vicktor Alexander—The Wooing of the Marqués de Sierra de Outes Edmond Manning—They Danced
Authors

John Goode is a member of the class of '88 from Hogwarts school of wizardry, specializing in incantations and spoken spells. At the age of 14 he proudly represented District 13 in the 65th Panem games where he was disqualified for crying uncontrollably before the competition began. After that he moved to Forks, Washington where, against all odds, dated the hot, incredibly approachable werewolf instead of the stuck up jerk of a vampire but was crushed when he found out the werewolf was actually gayer than he was. After that he turned down the mandatory operation everyone must receive at 16 to become pretty citing that everyone pretty were just too stupid to live before moving away for greener pastures. After falling down an oddly large rabbit hole he became huge when his love for cakes combined with his inability to resist what sparsely worded notes commanded and was finally kicked out when he began playing solitaire with the Red Queen's 4th armored division. By 18 he had found the land in the back of his wardrobe but decided that thinly veiled religious allegories where not the neighbors he desired. When last seen he had become obsessed with growing a pair of wings after becoming obsessed with Fang's blog and hasn't been seen since. Or he is this guy who lives in this place and writes stuff he hopes you read.

Connie Bailey is a Luddite who can’t live without her computer. She’s an acrophobic who loves to fly, a fault-finding pessimist who, nonetheless, is always surprised when something bad happens, and an antisocialite who loves her friends like family. She’s held a number of jobs in many disparate arenas to put food on the table, but writing is the occupation that feeds her soul. Connie lives with her ultralight designer husband at a small grass-strip airfield halfway between Disney World and Busch Gardens. Logic and reality have had little to do with her life, and she likes it that way.
I write about painfully awkward, usually embarrassing, romance because long confident gazes followed by sexy dancing NEVER happens to me. I am a native of the Pacific Northwest, and will probably never leave. I'm like a hypochondriac sundae, with claustrophobic sprinkles, and a big cherry of anxiety on top, so I don't travel much. I read to relax my mind, so I love getting lost in someone else’s story, even if it is only for a little while.

Grace Duncan grew up with a wild imagination. She told stories from an early age - many of which got her into trouble. Eventually, she learned to channel that imagination into less troublesome areas, including fanfiction, which is what has led her to writing male/male erotica. A gypsy in her own right, Grace has lived all over the United States. She has currently set up camp in East Texas with her husband and children - both the human and furry kind. As one of those rare creatures who loves research, Grace can get lost for hours on the internet, reading up on any number of strange and different topics. She can also be found writing fanfiction, reading fantasy, crime, suspense, romance and other erotica or even dabbling in art.

M.A. Church is a true Southern belle who spent many years in the elementary education sector. Now she spends her days lost in fantasy worlds, arguing with hardheaded aliens on far-off planets, herding her numerous shifters, or trying to tempt her country boys away from their fishing poles. It’s a full time job, but hey, someone’s gotta do it! When not writing, she’s on the back porch tending to the demanding wildlife around the pond in the backyard. The ducks are very outspoken. She’s married to her high school sweetheart, and they have two grown children. Member of Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America My Facebook: MA churh http://www.facebook.com/pages/MA-Chur...

Chrissy Munder writes light and sometimes erotic contemporary LGBTQ+ romance filled with everyday people and extraordinary passion to transport readers into their personal world of love, laughter, and desire She is an avid reader, a wanderer of Michigan’s wilderness, and, while not in any particular order, a lover of lists, legally blind, and a certified crazy cat lady. There are those who might tell you she started writing as a way to justify her office supply addiction, but shhhhh! don’t listen to them. After too many jobs in too many states she’s eagerly awaiting her chance to become a full-time Lake Michigan beachcomber. Until then, she’s excited to share her love of romance, laughter, and happy-ever-afters.


Lila Leigh Hunter is the pen name of a Puerto Rican author with a hyphenated surname. Born and raised on the island, Lila grew up making up stories her siblings pretended to like. But no matter what they say, as the youngest of six, she’s still their mom’s favorite. According to the dusty diplomas on her wall, she’s an architectural designer living in Southern Texas with her husband and four military brats.
She spends most of her free time writing homoerotic romances about middle-aged men finding happiness and the rest hiding from pesky house chores. When outside of her cave, she likes to observe people and try to guess their stories. Sometimes she wishes the voices in her head were real; going out with the boys in her books sounds like a plan made in heaven.
Lila writes romances with female protagonists as Leigh Hunter, works as a freelance designer for Hunter Hues, and review books for Scattered Thoughts and Rogue Words & Someone Else's Stories.
CONTACT & MEDIA INFO:
Email | Website | Twitter | Facebook | Lila's Cabana | Pinterest

Dev Bentham believes in the transformative power of true love. She’s the author of many gay romances, including Moving in Rhythm, August Ice and the Tarnished Souls Jewish Holiday series. Over the years, she’s lived in way too many places and had far too many jobs, but she’s finally settled in frozen northern Wisconsin where she draws on her former lives to write enduring love stories in which wonderful men find each other. Her restless feet take her globetrotting whenever she gets the chance, but most of the time she’s tucked up in her office in the woods dreaming about romance.

Edmond Manning has always been fascinated by fiction: how ordinary words could be sculpted into heartfelt emotions, how heartfelt emotions could leave an imprint inside you stronger than the real world. Mr. Manning never felt worthy to seek publication until recently, when he accidentally stumbled into his own writer’s voice that fit perfectly, like his favorite skull-print, fuzzy jammies. He finally realized that he didn’t have to write like Charles Dickens or Armistead Maupin, two author heroes, and that perhaps his own fiction was juuuuuuust right, because it was his true voice, so he looked around the scrappy word kingdom that he created for himself and shouted, “I’M HOME!” He is now a writer. In addition to fiction, Edmond enjoys writing non-fiction on his blog, www.edmondmanning.com. When not writing, he can be found either picking raspberries in the back yard or eating panang curry in an overstuffed chair upstairs, reading comic books.

MICKIE B. ASHLING is the pseudonym of a multi-published author who resides in a suburb outside Chicago. She is a product of her upbringing in various cultures, having lived in Japan, the Philippines, Spain, and the Middle East. Fluent in three languages, she’s a citizen of the world and an interesting mixture of East and West. Since 2009, Mickie has written several dozen novels in the LGBTQ+ genre—which have been translated into French, Italian, Spanish, and German. A lot of her backlist is “Under Construction” as she slowly transitions from traditional publishing to representing herself. Her goal is to have most of her novels back in the universe by the end of 2023. CONTACT INFO: Email: mickie.ashling@gmail.com Website: mickieashling.com Blog: mickiebashling.blogspot.com Facebook: www.facebook.com/mickie.ashling Twitter: @MickieAshling BookBub: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/micki... Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mickieashling/

Hi! I'm Alicia, also known as Cia. I'm a huge bookworm and I also write straight and gay fiction online under both names. I love to mix modern and paranormal worlds! When I'm not reading for pleasure or writing, I'm beta reading for my author friends, doing photography, or taking care of my very patient family! You can find links to all of my free online fiction through my blog. You can find a list of my free ebooks under the author name Cia_.
Felicitas Ivey is the pen name of a very frazzled helpdesk drone at a Boston-area university. She's an eternal student even with a BA in anthropology and history, since free classes are part of the benefits. She's taken courses on gothic architecture, premodern Japanese literature, and witchcraft, just because they sounded like fun. She has traveled to Japan and Europe and hopes to return to both in the future. She knits and cross-stitches avidly, much to the disgust of her cat, Smaugu, who wants her undivided attention. He's also peeved that she spends so much time writing instead of petting him. She writes urban fantasy and horror of a Lovecraftian nature, monsters beyond space and time that think that humans are the tastiest things in the multiverse. Felicitas lives in Boston with her beloved husband, known to all as The Husband, and the aforementioned cat, whom the husband swears is a demon, even though it's his fault that they have the cat. The husband also is worried about Felicitas’s anime habit, her love for J-Pop music, and her extensive collection of Yaoi manga and Gundam Wing doujinshi, which has turned her library into a Very Scary Place for him. Visit her blog at http://Iveys\_Tales.livejournal.com and e-mail her at Felicitas.Ivey@gmail.com.


John Amory is and always will be a hopeless romantic, which he blames on watching too many episodes of Beverly Hills, 90210 growing up. He began writing stories and poems as a child, continuing through high school. He put writing on the backburner for a number of years, during which time he finished both Bachelor and Master of Arts degrees in English. In another life, John is a college professor, as well as an actor/director/choreographer/playwright whose work has been performed in New York City, Philadelphia, Princeton and elsewhere. Feel free to drop a message here or on Twitter to say hi!

MM+ AUTHOR | Romance so good it hurts Laura Lascarso wants you to stay up way past your bedtime reading her stories. She aims to inspire more questions than answers in her fiction and believes in the power of storytelling to heal and transform a society. When not writing, Laura can be found screaming “finish” on the soccer fields, rewatching Avatar: The Last Airbender, and trying to convince politicians to act on climate change. She lives in North Florida with her darling husband and two kids. She loves hearing from readers, and she’d be delighted to hear from you. Join her Facebook group at www.facebook.com/groups/LaurasLounge Sign up for her newsletter at www.lauralascarso.com