A Matter of Trust has been withdrawn from publication.  Look for it later this year.

AC Katt

Check out my new release, A Matter of Trust, at xoxopublishing.com.

Donald “Bear” Drummond has almost everything he could want: a high profile,    successful real estate career, co-ownership of the city’s most exclusive gay BDSM    club, and a string of gorgeous boys interviewing to be his live-in sub. But the boy of    his dreams eludes him– until he meets Brian Murphy, a kindhearted and broke IT    specialist with a troubled past. Before Bear can win Brian’s trust and forge the    relationship he has always desired, he’ll need to overcome his own deep-seeded    wariness to save Brian from his abusive family and a murderous ex-con seeking    revenge against Bear.

Bear and Brian have an unusual love story complete with villans, a little old lady in bunny slippers who runs a drug and thug ring and secondary characters who will make you laugh outloud.  Meet Bear, Brian, Reed and Jim in A Matter of Trust available now at www.xoxopublishing.com.

Sincerely,

From Human Rights Campaign’s Equality Magazine, Winter 2010

In my new book, A Matter of Trust, I outlined a business where the owner was gay, yet covert an overt discrimination was rampant and the gay employees were afraid to report the abuse.

Today I came across this article from Equality Magazine.  I am reprinting the article in its entirety.  It points out in fact that which I imagined in fiction.

TURNING UP THE HEAT FOR A BETTER WORKPLACE

While the passage of ENDA is crucial, it is just one of several important steps in establishing safe workplace environments for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender employees.

There is often a disconnect between workplace policy and practice.  Even though many employers, cities, counties and states bar workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, it doesn’t mean that LGBT employees fell comfortable enough to be open at work.

For example, 51 percent of LGBT workers hide their identity to most people at work, according to the Human Rights Campaign Foundation’s new report, Degrees of Equality:  A National Study Examining Workplace Climate for LGBT Employees. Just 27 percent of LGBT workers are open to everyone at work.

This report -which finds that the inability of LGBT people to be open at work can negatively affect productivity, retention, and professional relationships – is among several resources that HRC Workplace is releasing as part of the Declaration of Equality initiative4.

The next step is working with businesses to improve the workplace climate for LGBT workers. An LGBT climate assessment tool a well as a toolkit of  resources for businesses and managers will be rolled out in the coming months.

This article proves the point made in A Matter of Trust. Discrimination exists.  It makes LGBT workers afraid for their jobs and income and reluctant to be who they are.  In the United States of America, in this day and age, this type of situation should not exist.

A Matter of Trust, a m/m light BDSM, was picked up by XOXO Publishing.  Expect an early spring release.  A Matter of Trust tells the tale of Donald K. Drummond and Brian Murphy.

Blurb:

Donald “Bear” Drummond has almost everything he could want: a high profile, successful real estate career, co-ownership of the city’s most exclusive gay BDSM club, and a string of gorgeous boys interviewing to be his live-in sub. But the boy of his dreams eludes him– until he meets Brian Murphy, a kindhearted and broke IT specialist with a troubled past. Before Bear can win Brian’s trust and forge the relationship he has always desired, he’ll need to overcome his own deep-seeded wariness to save Brian from his abusive family and a murderous ex-con seeking revenge against Bear.

Hi Everyone,

I am delighted, shocked and amazed that The Sarran Plague has been named as a finalist in the Science Fiction Erotic Romance Category of the Epic Awards.

I would like to thank my Editor, Foery McDonnell, Eternal Press, my publisher and my family for their support and assistance.  Without them, I certainly would not have found myself in such exalted company.

Hugs,

AC Katt

Painting + Moving + Song = Novel

“Where do you get your story ideas?” Is the first question most people ask a writer. My answer is, “It’s a process,” which probably annoys the hell out of whom ever asked the question.  I give this answer because to explain how the idea for a story jelled would, at most times, fascinate another writer, but bore the reader to tears.  However, since you have asked so many times, if not me, someone else, I will attempt to give you insight into how I get an idea for a story.

My husband and I were in Asbury Park, New Jersey.  Asbury is a New Jersey Shore town that grew seedy in the seventies.  Once, it was one of the hot spots at the Jersey Shore.  They still have a beautiful beach and the Clean Water Act along with the help of multiple environmental groups have worked hard to make the water as inviting as it was back when.  The town was financially troubled and never recovered from riots in the seventies or series of disastrous, promise long—cash short developers.

Late in the nineties, a new group of residents began to move into the town.  They weren’t concerned about schools, they had disposable incomes and the means to set up small businesses and the clientele to support them—they were gay.  By the summer of 2007, they established themselves as permanent residents of Asbury Park, welcomed by the town as a tax paying minority group who improved property and enlarged the tax base.

Along Cookman Avenue the once fashionable shopping district, boarded up storefronts reopened and turned into galleries, smart restaurants, and trendy boutiques.  This brought back business from the straight citizens of the surrounding towns and slowly but surely, Asbury Park was turning chic.  We used to go visit the boardwalk just to walk by the ocean on a regular basis.

After our walk along the boards, we usually strolled down Cookman Avenue to see what was new or to find somewhere for lunch.  That day we found a cute little eatery that was doing a bustling brunch business.  We stopped and ate.  Throughout the restaurant were paintings on the walls from the local galleries.  The one just behind my husband’s head caught my attention; indeed, I could say it caught my imagination.  It was a poignant study of a young man’s face.  The artist put it that indefinable something extra into the portrait.   The young man’s eyes held the weight of the world.  He was frightened, yet quietly resigned to something.  I knew I had to have that painting.  My husband sat through lunch watching me stare at a point somewhere above his left ear.  When he asked me a question for the third time, he finally said in exasperation, “Where are you?”

“Look on the wall in back of you,” I answered.  All of a sudden, he was as caught up in the painting as I was.  We discretely checked the name of the gallery on the tag and to our delight; it was only two doors away.  We were there as soon as we paid our check.  The owner of the gallery told us that their resident artist had done the painting on a board during his student days.  He had painted it from a photograph.  The compelling young man in the photo was Syd Barrett of Pink Floyd.  I did not care who he was. I wanted the portrait.  Leaving my husband to settle the details, I went to study my latest acquisition and after about fifteen minutes, I knew there was a story in that picture and it was not Syd’s story.  However, I still did not know whose story it was.  He was a rocker, from sometime in the late eighties to the early nineties, but I had no plot, just a face.  I brought the painting home and wrapped it carefully.  We were in the middle of packing up and moving from New Jersey to New Mexico primarily for my health.  I have a joint disease that thrives in the humidity of the Jersey Shore, but dies in the high desert.

When we unpacked, I put my painting of Syd Barrett right across from the chair in my office where I usually sat while I wrote.  I finished The Sarran Plague and was in the process of editing it for publication.  The radio was on and Jon Bon Jovi’s Make a Memory came on the radio.  I absently listened to the song while doing my edits but my subconscious mind heard something that my ear did not.  The next time I heard the song, I was in the car and my husband was driving.  I could to listen carefully to the lyrics.  Syd’s painting now had a story. With a little bit of imagination and an application of my particular writing niche the song became Shattered Glass, a work in progress.

Here is my blurb for the story— Liam and Milo, two former members of a mega band, are about to confront each other six years after the end of their love affair broke up the band.  But Milo will have to accept and publicly admit his sexual preferences and Liam will have to grow out of his role as the “little boy”, if they are going to reconcile their love for one another, overcome the meddling of a stalker who knows too much, and try to save their friend and former band mate Rick from a downward spiral into drug addiction.

I’m sure that this was not quite the story Jon Bon Jovi had in mind when he wrote the song. However, my painting of a young man who turned out to be Syd Barrett, coupled with a song from Bon Jovi and my move from the Jersey Shore to New Mexico gave me a book, Shattered Glass, which I hope will eventually be available at a website or bookstore near you sometime in the future.

Oh, and by the way, I located the photo from which the artist painted my painting.  He is a very talented young man.  The photo said nothing.  The painting said everything.

Lyrics from Bon Jovi’s You Want to Make a Memory

GLBT

Bookshelf

Now there is one place to get all of your GLBT Books, including menage and alternative lifestyle. That place is:

www.glbtbookshelf.com

Each one of your favorite GLBT authors has a page with buylinks to their books, along with author bios and links to their websites and to other authors of the same genre.

My own book, The Sarran Plague, which is a Erotic Science Fictioin Novel with a m/m/f   menage a trois is included in the directory.  There is a reading room, a cover art gallery, a dirrectory of books by topic, a user’s forum, and a booklover’s lounge.

There will be taste “bit” for readers of author’s published works and perhaps a taste or two of works in progress.

Finally, no more combing through two dozen sites to find the best in GLBT, it is all in one place, www.glbtbookshelf.com,   The GLBT Bookshelf.  See you there.

TONIGHT A GUEST APPEARANCE ON BLOG TALK WRITER’S RADIO!

Come to see me tonight on Writers Radio at Blog Talk Radio.

I will be talking about the writing process, The Sarran Plague, and two new exciting Works in Progress – Shattered Glass and A Matter of Trust. I will look forward to taking phone calls and will be taking names for giveaways.  Tonight I will have hard copies of The Sarran Plague, keychains, pens and notepads.

I hope to her from you tonight at 646 378 1781.

And don’t forget The Sarran Plage is available from eteranlpress.ca and in print at Amazon.com.

Sincerely,

I spent early summer running from Doctor to Doctor trying to find out how to stop the seemingly endless progression of my nemesis – MCTD.

The doctors scratched their head as usual and the answer turned out to be “less is more.” I am now on less medication than I was before and feeling great.

It is back to work for me! I have two novels in various slots of the acceptance or rejection process. The first is “Shattered Glass,” my m/m novel about the trials and tribulations of a Mega Hit Rock and Roll Band.

The second is more intimate. It its the story of a local real estate mogul and his search for a sub. It is a m/m, BDSM story and I have a publishing house in mind once I get it polished enough to submit. Its name is “A Matter of Trust.”

I’m also pleased to say that we are going to pursue the Live Chat – More than Erotica, now that the blaze of the flare has died down. I have been ordering new premium give aways for this program and no, they are a surprise until the show’s debut which will be sometime in early August.

“My novel, “The Sarran Plague” is still posting nice numbers and I am thinking about writing a prequel for NaNoWriMo this year in November, after which I will need an immediate vacation.

For those of you who do not know about NaNoWriMo, it is a challenge to write the first draft of a 50,000 word novel during the month of November. Shattered Glass was last years novel. This year I am hoping to break last year’s 51K record.

Of course, “Shattered Glass” is longer than 51K but it did get its start at NaNoWriMo. Personally, I believe that everyone of us has a novel in us and NaNoWriMo provides a very supportive and nurturing environment to begin. I suggest anyone who is the slightest bit literary, look this great program up on the web.

I spent the Fourth of July Weekend away from home doing some research on a proposed novel. It will be a prequel to
“The Sarran Plague” and cover the time of the Clan Wars. I have set it in Mezzo america, specifically the high desert of New Mexico and the Mezzaverde Colorado Plateau. Two interesting factoids that should intrigue – the only pottery cup with a handle resembling the modern coffee cup came from this area. The second is that the pre-Columbian Indians of the Pueblo region abandoned and resettled many settlements, but all of these were on the 108 meridian. A fact that would only be evident to astronomers; since the earth curves, the 108 meridian is NOT a straight line.

Along with my research came a shopping expedition. I bought some additional Native American Pottery for my growing collection, a hand beaded barrette, an etched sterling silver barrette and the cutest frog to hang on my wall.

Allen bought 2 beautifully crafted hand made arrows and we both bought books and story puppets for the grandchildren.

After the spending the weekend in wifey and grandma mode it was easier to slip back into sultry writer on Tuesday.

Tigger is bugging me for his next meal. With this cat’s capacity to eat – he would have made a great pig!