Silver Dagger Book Tours has organized an amazing tour starting on Thursday, December 13, kicking off at their own site. Below is a list of the many blogs that are a part of the tour – make sure to check back often for updated links to each appearance.
In addition, there is also a giveaway through Rafflecopter, which you can find at the bottom of this post or here. The giveaway will run from December 12, 2018 through January 4, 2019, so be sure to enter for a chance to win an Amazon gift card!
Hello, and welcome to my post for the style: color;maroon>Happy Holidays Blog Hop! I decided to keep it simple, and post a short list of short (holiday-flavored) lists. That’s coming right up. I’ve also got a little Lou Sylvre news and info, and a prize drawing and teensy swag offer for Holiday Hoppers. For more holiday-style goodness, check out the other bloggers in the hop, listed right here at this link to the blog of our host, Nikki J. Markus..
Now to the lists!
My three favorite things about the holiday season (not counting being with people I love, because that goes without saying):
(The first list.)
Lights! Or perhaps I should say “light,” because winter is soooooo dark. It would be different if I lived in the southern hemisphere, I suppose, and I don’t’ think I felt this way growing up in Southern California, where it never gets quite as dark in December as it is here, a mere thousand miles north in Washington. Our daylight hours here are pathetically short for the months bracketing the solstice, and the low-angled sunlight often hides behind cloudy skies. Holiday lights and candle flames truly “make the season bright,” and it’s a life-saver.
Pajamas. No seriously. It’s a family tradition to gather on the day of our celebration for breakfast. The rule is pajamas. No one is allowed to be dressed in actual street clothes, even if driving many miles to get to the gathering. This is my rule, and since I’m the grandma, well, it goes. I’d make allowance for guests, but generally speaking, those outside our immediate family who have chosen to join us are perfectly willing to get into the spirit, and they wear pajamas too. In fact, they often wear the silliest pair.
BreakfastWe have lots of food. I no longer have to cook it all. We all manage to squeeze in at the round table . Those are all good things. But my favorite part about the day is German pancakes—that’s what we call them, and they’re reasonably close to what I’ve seen called a German pancake in the few restaurants that have them on the menu. But this is a family recipe. Interestingly, my mother, who was from Germany and came to the US as my father’s bride when he was stationed in Frankfurt in the late 1940s, had never seen such a pancake in her homeland. She learned the recipe from her mother-in-law, whose heritage was a mix of Native and French Canadian. Regardless of whether they’re German, they’re darn good eating, a hefty version of a large crepe, which can be eaten with maple syrup, or rolled up with jam (or whatever) inside. They were always a treat when I was growing up, and now the big treat for me is to see not only my children, but my grandchildren devour them.
(The second list)
Three lists of holiday books (a list of lists in a list of lists):
M/M Holiday Delights.”This is more than a list, really. A long series of cover-blurb-link type posts hosted by Melyna on her beautiful Books, Coffee, and Captured Moments blog. Delight-full. (heh!)
My own tiny list, right here:The Christmas Wager by Jamie Fessenden, Finn’s Christmas by Angel Martinez, and (yes, of course I’m going to put my own book in here!) Falling Snow on Snow by Lou Sylvre.
(The third list)
Four winter holidays, with a tradition and song to go with each
YuleTradition: Bonfire. Song: “Solstice Bells” by Jethro Tull
Hanukkah Tradition: Menorah. Song: Maoz Tzur
Eid Milad un-Nabi Tradition: Mawlid (festival). Song: Well, I’m not sure, but here’s a great article instead.
Kwanzaa Tradition: Seven days, seven principles. Song: O Kwanzaa Christmas Tradition: Evergreen tree, decorated and lit. Song: Carol of the Bells”(this is the Pentatonix version, cool.
That’s it for my holiday bloghop entry. Comment by 12/21 with a tiny winter list of your own and enter win a $10 GC for the Dreamspinner Press catalog.
Some Lou Sylvre news: Falling Snow on Snowreleases 12/23 from Dreamspinner, available for preorder now, and I’m on a blog tour! Start here at MM Good Book Reviews blog for day one (yesterday), and get all the links for preorder and for the rest of the tour. While you’re there enter the blog tour giveaway, too! Here’s a review by Mt Snow on Rainbow Gold Reviews.
One last special thing. I’m giving away a litte, itsy-bitsy holiday Vasquez and James Universe vignette, available online at Love Bytes blog, or get a printed and signed copy. If you trust me with your mailing address (I won’t abuse it), write me at lou.sylvre@gmail.com, and I’ll mail you a copy.
Hello! It’s IDAHOT (International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia), and I’m here (with the rest of the hop bloggers and readers) to talk about visibility, awareness, and equality.
Well, that’s a lot to talk about, so let’s break it down. Let me start today by talking about visibility, and specifically visibility in the United States.
This year, Trans-related issues are big on everyone’s radar, what with hater legislation (let’s call it what it is) about—of all thigs—bathrooms being very visibly bandied about and enacted in several states, with North Carolina’s HB2 taking a front and center position though Tennessee and eight other states including Minnesota have similar bills. Yes, visibility is an issue across the LGBT-QIA spectrum, but for now, let’s talk about Trans, baby.
“Some things are more important than a rock show and this fight against prejudice and bigotry—which is happening as I write—is one of them.”
~~Bruce Springsteen
Why focus on visibility?
As I see it from a historical perspective, because visibility is the crux of this focus on toileting. Conversely, invisibility has been both a product and a tool of hateful bigotry for… well, maybe as long as there have been humans who hated. If you are a member of any group that has been marginalized (to any degree) by the dominant culture, you very likely have experienced invisibility. Sometimes, it is a protective instinct to retreat into it. If a hypothetical ‘they’ don’t know that a hypothetical ‘you’ is African, Native, gay, lesbian, refugee, bisexual, HIV+, immigrant—anything that doesn’t match ‘their’ perception of ‘like us’—if ‘they’ don’t know, it is possible to avoid being excluded, ridiculed, ignored, followed around by the store detectives, or beaten to a bloody pulp. Sometimes, invisibility isn’t on purpose. ‘You’ can’t or won’t or just don’t happen to hide your color, country of origin, sexuality, gender identification, age (etc), and therefore the store employee skips over you, your job application gets lost, you speak and no one hears you.
But it shouldn’t be like this. Not only does rendering certain people invisible in society result in numerous individual violations of constitutional human rights, it attempts to rob people of status as human beings. You realize, don’t you, that in the sixties, if you had asked school officials about gay or queer students, they very likely would have said they didn’t exist?
I believe bigoted people feel threatened because trans (and other rainbow spectrum) individuals have shrugged off their cloaks of invisibility—a brave thing to do, dangerous, but life-affirming. People have embraced their identity and thus their humanity. “I am this person, exactly as I am meant to be.” That is a joyful thing, to be celebrated.
Except to the person who keeps their mind closed around the training tapes they’ve heard all their lives, which make it clear that if someone is different, they’re dangerous. If that’s the case, you’re likely to be afraid.
Two ways to deal with fear. One: find out why and fix it. This usually involves a willingness to learn and understand—to listen and truly hear. Two: turn it into something else—hate.
Getting back to North Carolina where you might have to flash your birth certificate to get into a bathroom (because hey, what’s more important for a state legislature to spend time on than where people pee?), just today I saw an article relative to North Carolina’s ridiculous law, being trans, and visibility. Singer Laura Jane Grace, founder of the punk band Against Me, decided they shouldn’t cancel their appearance. In her particular case, she thought another approach would be more effective.
She’s a trans woman, you see, so she burned her birth certificate on stage.
Thank you for reading and hopping for the cause. Comment on this post and enter your name for a giveaway: $15 Gift Certificate Dreamspinner Press, ARe, or Amazon. I’d love to hear how you feel about visibility, whether you have experiences to share, news, or thoughts on the subject. Or, comment on any aspect of these issues, the hop, or my post.
Here are all the blog hop links, for your convenience! (Thanks all you bloggers!)
Just a quick note: Still time to enter my personal giveaway (scroll down to the next post), and the group giveaway (3 $35 GCs)! You have until 1/6 to make the circuit. Here’s all the links:
Hey everybody, welcome to Inkslingers’ M/M author progressive New Year’s Eve 2014 dinner buffet.
I know, what does slinging ink have to do with cooking, right?
Nothing, but nevertheless, as a group of authors (who write dirty, sexy, queer books) we’re staging this event for the fun of it and for the opportunity of awarding some pretty decent prizes.
Here’s the way it works:
You can “choose your own dinner adventure” from appetizers, soup, salad, main dish and dessert, but those of you who visit and comment at each and every blog will be entered into a drawing for one of three (3) $35.00 gift cards to the venue of your choice: Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or All Romance Ebooks.
Plus, some individual authors might include a private drawing for those people who stop by. (A comment on this post, for instance, earns you a chance to win any Vasquez and James e-book.)
So read, drink and be merry! Happy New Year from all of us, at the M/M Writers’ Buffet!
My cooking theme these days is simple, light, and tasty, and all the more so for New Year’s Eve, and my soup choice is dead on. This recipe comes from Fitness magazine online, “12 Simple Soup Recipes,” and it’s one of the few recipes I don’t alter at all when cooking. It’s not going to break the bank, require a foot-long shopping list, or keep you busy for hours chopping stirring. And, it uses up the extra can of pumpkin that always seems to remain in my pantry after the holidays! Most importantly: it tastes righteous. (Nomnomnomnom…)
Pumpkin Soup Ingredients:
2 slices of bacon
1 can of pumpkin
3-1/2 c. chicken broth (low sodium works well here, and vegetable broth is a veggie alternative)
1 c. applesauce (the more apple-y the better, and if you feel like working a bit harder chop up a half cup of apple (peeled) and sauté it with your bacon)
2 tsp ginger
salt and fresh ground pepper
sour cream (the recipe says light, but… I can’t do it)
Putting it together:
Saute the bacon (with apple if desired), drain fat. Add (to the bacon, not the fat, heh)the pumpkin, broth, applesauce, ginger, salt and pepper, bring to boil, simmer for a little while (non-specific, I know). Garnish with sour cream. (Easy-peasy, right?)
I like to have a little sparkling apple cider to complement this, but if you’re a lush… er, person who drinks wine, you might like something light and white, a tad fruity.
Thanks for stopping by! See you at the next stop. Have a good time, and don’t forget, comment here for a chance at an e-book, and visit all the blogs for the $35 gift card (x3) giveaway.
Vasquez Inc #3—A Shot at Living (Click to preorder)
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This blog is not pornography, however it will from time to time include material suitable for adults. If you are not of legal age in the country where you live, please leave the site. Thank you. Others, proceed at your own discretion, and please enjoy!
