Davis Pride 2025

Happy Wednesday Scribblers. I hope you’re all having a great day and a wonderful Pride 2025. Today I wanted to share a couple of photos from Davis Pride 2025 (learn more here). The day was warm (translate to hot) and the celebration went from 3pm to 8pm at the Davis Civic Center Park (6th and B Streets) located behind Davis City Hall. The day was filled with music, families, food, and fun. I’m so thrilled to be back at Davis this year for their pride event. As always, I was with the wonderful folks at QSac (learn more here). We had seven authors selling books from many genres: Sci-Fi, Fantasy, Urban Fantasy, Horror, Romance, Sapphic Romance, Mystery/Thrillers, SteamPunk, Anthologies and so much more. Here are some pictures from the day.

 If you want to learn more about these wonderful authors and you want to support queer authors, please go to QSac and learn more (click here). Until next time, have a great week and a wonderful Pride.

Elevator Pitches for Books

Happy Wednesday Scribblers and Happy Pride 2025! I hope you’re all having a wonderful week. Today I wanted to talk to you about something we authors don’t always do well; explaining our novels to potential readers. When we talk to someone about our book or books, we want to tell them the entire story. We want to explain the characters and the nuances. We are so excited to engage with someone about our novel that we ‘info dump’ on them. And that’s the best way to kill a potential buyer and turn off a potential reader. The sad truth is we all do this. I can’t count the number of times I start to explain my book to someone (including my husband) and I see the glassy look and vacant expression form. In Brittney’s words, ‘ops, I’ve done it again.”.

There is a solution.

The Elevator Pitch.

Every author needs to describe their book in one sentence (this is not a compound sentence either). You need to sum up your novel in as few words as possible. A group of us were at a book event this last weekend and we went around the group and asked each other to describe their books in one sentence. If someone struggled, we helped them. Here are some descriptions we came up with to help sell each other’s books:

  • Sapphic Nancy Drew mystery thriller with fade to black romance.

  • Contemporary historical Italian family gay drama

  • Mother Nature kills humans in thirty short stories

  • MM college roommate summer romance

  • Historical French steam punk novel where the French Revolution doesn’t happen

  • Dungeons and dragons meet AI

And the list goes on, but this should give you an idea of what I mean when I say, Elevator Pitch. Are these descriptions perfect? No. But what this information does, or should do, is peak the potential reader’s interest. The goal is for the reader to get enough information to want to ask more about your story if they’re interested. If they aren’t interested, you didn’t ‘info dump’ on them to where they will never ask you about your writing or your books again.

If you still aren’t sure what an Elevator Pitch is, this is how Harvard University, Writing and Communication Center (learn more here) defines a general Elevator Pitch:

What is an Elevator Pitch?

An elevator pitch is a compelling introduction about who you are, what you do, and why it matters. It is a teaser that lasts 60 seconds or less to begin a conversation and make meaningful connections with confidence when meeting new people.

Why Do We Need an Elevator Pitch?

First impressions matter. Impressions about people are formed immediately after meeting them.

I hope this helps. Now go write an Elevator Pitch for each of your books and practice that Elevator Pitch with your family and friends until next time have a great week and a great Pride 2025.

Sacramento Book Festival 2025

Happy Wednesday Scribblers. I hope you’re all having a great day and a wonderful Pride 2025. Today I wanted to share a couple of photos and an update from an exciting event I attended last week (well two weeks ago now). This year I was invited to be part of the Sacramento Book Festival (learn more here) this is the first book festival that Sacramento has held in eleven years and what an event it was. The festival had over 140 authors from all over Northern California and an estimated attendance in the range of 3k–4k people, but there could have been more.

The book festival was wonderful and I loved being around so many terrific authors (publishers, bookstores, and writing groups). There were some terrific panels (that I unfortunately didn’t get to see), a kids’ zone, a scavenger hunt with amazing prizes, and so much more. It really was a beautiful day and everyone who came to the event was there to support their local authors.

After the event, a few of us went to dinner and hung out for a while. The day was truly delightful.

The event organizers are already working on next year’s book festival, which will be in a larger location with more parking from my understanding. This will also allow for more authors and vendors. If you want to learn more about the Sacramento Book Festival so you plan for next year (click here). Until next time, have a great week and a wonderful Pride.

Sac ComiCon - Spring 2025

Happy Wednesday Scribblers. How are you all doing? I hope you’re all taking care of yourself this week. Today, I wanted to share on March 22nd and March 23rd I attended the Sac ComiCon (learn more here) event in Sacramento, California. I was with the QSac group (check them out here and learn more here). I had an absolute blast. Thank you to everyone who came out and said, ‘Hello’ and picked up a copy or two of my books.

Despite being a smaller event, the crowd and the costumes were fantastic.

Coming up in just a few short weeks (April 18–20) I’ll be up in Roseville at the Sac Anime–Spring Event (find out more here). If you are in the area, come on out and say, ‘Hi’. It’s always a lot of fun.

Here are some pictures from Sac ComiCon (the droids were fun, however I think my favorite were the Fembot and Austin Powers):

I hope I’ll be seeing you up in Roseville, CA at Sac Anime- Spring 2025 (April 18th - 20th). Well, that’s all I have for now, so until time, have a great week.

Romance is a Drag

Happy Wednesday Scribblers. I hope you’re all having a wonderful week. Today I’m thrilled to announce that on March 28th I have a new short story coming out. The short story; Miss Vina Volaria–A Volaria Story will be part of a new anthology; Romance is a Drag.

This is an own voices gay men anthology. All stories have been written by gay men in honor and to celebrate the lives and loves of our drag community. Drag has been around as long as humans have been walking the planet. These stories were created to celebrate the drag community and to give these artistic and creative people romance stories and to show our love and appreciation to the drag community.

Here is the link to where you can buy the anthology (click here).

About the anthology:

A queer Anthology that embraces the romantic life and happy ever afters of drag queens navigating the LGBT landscape. All stories are written by Own Voice gay authors! From small towns to big cities, drag queens are the heart of the gayborhoods they belong to. Stories by Shane K Morton, Blake Allwood, Jole Cannon, Kelvin Young, J. Scott Coatsworth, Kristian Parker, Brent Archer and M.D. Neu.

Go out and grab your copy of Romance is a Drag (click here) and kick back and enjoy some amazing stories, but some talented authors. Until next time, have a great week.

SacAnime - Winter 2025

Happy Wednesday Scribblers. I hope you all had a wonderful holiday and your New Year is off to a great start. I’ve been a bit quiet these last couple of weeks because I wanted to finish up my next novel, Hawaiian Sun. Once I got the first draft written, I then wanted to get as much editing done as possible before sending the book off to my Beta Readers. I can’t wait for this next novel to come out. Writing the book was a lot of fun.

Also, during my winter break I went to SacAnime 2025 with the wonderful authors from QSac (find them here) and had an absolutely amazing time. I got to reunite with so many fans and I had the opportunity to meet so many folks. Overall, the con was a great time, if not a bit exhausting. Below are some photos from the event and you can see all the shenanigans we got into.

If you have the opportunity to go to one of these cons, I suggest you do; they’re a lot of fun. Well, that’s all I have for now. Until next time, have a great week and Happy New Year!!