a sky full of sound

The mostly-defunct fan home of Erin McRae, one half of the literary collective Avian30, co-founded with Racheline Maltese aka Lettersfromtitan, For our original novels, other fiction, and blogging, check out http://Avian30.com Current tumblr stomping grounds: SeetheAndTumble.tumblr.com

[lightspeedsound]

Ok if your introvert friend tells you “you don’t count as people” you know they will ride or die with you for life. Not counting as people is the introvert Platonic friend equivalent of getting married.

[tasteslikefail]

@geese-in-flight, @magelette

[savleighm]

The fact that Sir Patrick Stewart and Sir Ian Mckellen are best friends in real life makes me so happy

x

[diggly]

HOW ARE THEY REAL

[stillrestlesstymes]

#squadgoals

[klassy-klassy-klassy-deactivate]

Never stops making me smile. I want someone like this in my life. 💜

[teaberryblue]

Okay so the best thing,the best thing about Sirs Patrick & Ian being best friends is that they met because of the X-Men movie.

I saw Sir Patrick speak a year or so ago and someone asked him about their friendship.  He told this story about how I think they’d once or twice worked on the same production but had had very little interaction, and that when he’d been a kid, he’d utterly looked up to Sir Ian, who had had an established theater career at a very young age. 

People assume that they’ve been friends since they were young, which makes sense given the sort of work they’ve done and their career trajectories, but no. Sir Patrick basically had a giant hero-crush-from-a-distance on Sir Ian for most of his life AND THEN on the set of X-Men, their trailers were put next to each other and they were significantly older than anyone else on the set, so they started spending their downtime together. 

And became inseparable.  And this is amazing. 

So everyone who wants a friend like this, you have time. <3

[stunningpicture]

Zoomed out while taking a picture of my Christmas tree

[rpgwiki]

[CHRISTMAS INTENSIFIES]

[der-prinz-aus-stahl-deactivated]

THE CHEER HAS REACHED CRITICAL MASS

[mistiest]

wE’RE ENTERING WARP DRIVE

[ravingliberal-deactivated201802]

DING DONG MERRILY ON HIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIGH

[lettersfromtitan]

Hey, so The Art of Three, just got named a winner in the Rainbow Awards for Bisexual Contemporary Romance (how awesome is it we live in a world where we can slice categories that finely? Also the Rainbow Awards raised $13,000 this year for LGBTQ+ charities/advocacy groups).

Basically, if you’re into fiction about relationships and different ways people can do monogamy or polyamory or deal with their parents as adults or navigate friendships or jobs or exes or learn to communicate functionally, this is a book for you. And if you want to see what queer families can look like in your 20s or your 50s or in between, this is also a book for you. 

We’ve put the ebook on sale for $2.99 from now through December 16, 2017. As usual this price change is live on Amazon and we’re waiting for it to roll out to other platforms (I’m looking at you, Kobo. Also on B&N, iBooks, GooglePlay, ). There is also a paperback available.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01MZ4TY7Y/ 

Anyway, The Art of Three has:

- polyamory (no love triangles,no angst about love triangles, people are just poly and it’s fine)

- bisexual heroes (ages 54 and 24)

- an awesome 48-year-old heroine who does not have time for boys being incompetent, even if she’s married to and/or dating them.

- supporting characters include poly lesbians having a baby and a young woman with a boyfriend, a job in a bakery, and Down Syndrome.

- a dog named Vegetables because toddlers should always name dogs.

- lots of feelings about identity when you feel like your identity sorta got messed up by horrible historical things. This includes Jewish rep and stuff about the Magdalene laundries, and also being queer in the 80s.

- Okay despite that sentence this book is super low angst. It’s really cuddly. It’s about how you be chill and secure with yourself because love - of all types - does win.

- It is also low-heat. Like yes, you will be aware that many characters are having lots of sex but even describing the sex as fade-to-black overstates the case.

- This is all about the feels and the negotiations. 

- It’s set in a non-/pre-Brexit Europe (England, Ireland, and Spain). It starts with the Irish #hometovote for marriage equality and then no more politics. SO if you need a break from the mess of the world that is also this book.

No significant common triggers. Brief incidents of bias are quickly and swiftly dealt with. Pregnancy is present in the book in non-graphic form. If you need more details about anything I am happy to answer questions.

[noctea]

My favorite self care tip is to pretend you’re a demon inhabiting a humans body and you gotta look after it, treat it right, cause these things are weak af man and you gotta protect your host

[thesylverlining]

…You know, that might actually work.

[twosidestarot]

Always and forever reblogging this

[resonance-of-libra]

Sigh. No self-respecting demon would let the body go this long without showering. Brb.

[infinite--skys-deactivated20180]

XD wtf that’s great.

[goldiesgrimoire]

This worked for me quite a few times. Especially when I have a hard time getting out of bed in the morning just like

The vessel must be present.

[unwisealistair]

This may actually work, motivation by “to be a successful infiltrator on the mortal plane my host must be as successful as possible”

[sciencescribbler]

THIS SHOULDN’T BE AS CONVINCING AS IT IS…WHAT THE FIERY-HOT BALLS OF SATAN IS MAKING THIS A CONVINCING ARGUMENT?

[beautytruthandstrangeness]

Possibly the fiery hot balls of Satan. Satan does not like it when his mortal host gets jock itch. Satan will take a quarter sick-day and pick up Lotrimin cream at CVS.

[lettersfromtitan]

Indie Ebook Award Winners 2017

The third annual LJ Indie Ebook Awards has now come to a close. Committees of librarians—plus the authors of some of last year’s winners—volunteered their time to evaluate hundreds of submissions and determine the best ebooks self-publishing has to offer in Sf/Fantasy, Mystery, Romance, and YA. These books—and many others—can be found in SELF-e, a subscription-based digital discovery platform for indie fiction. Congratulations to all of the honorees, including our first-ever overall winner.

So a kind of wild thing happened today. A Queen from the North – our weird contemporary royal romance featuring ill-timed birds, hints of magic, and a not-so-united kingdom still mired in the Wars of the Roses – was named the overall winner (and romance category winner) in @libraryjournal​‘s 2017 Indie Ebook Awards!

You can click through for the whole review and info on all the winners and honorable mentions, but I am particularly thrilled that the reviewers/judges noted the feminist themes, LGBTQ content, and the plotline where our heroine refuses to be slut-shamed by the media.

Erin and I are just… ecstatic, boggled, amazed, and really, really grateful.

(You can get it in ebook and paperback wherever you like to get books. A hardcover edition will be out in time for the winter holidays).

[lettersfromtitan]

To celebrate the royal engagement news, the ebook is on sale now (November 27) through December 3, 2017 for $2.99. Here’s the Amazon link, but the reduced price should be rolling out to all platforms now. https://www.amazon.com/Queen-North-Royal-Roses-Book-ebook/dp/B06XBPDJPM

kids have no concept of anything. i walked into my kindergarten class and one kid asked me what my name was. when i said miss jones, he said “i like that name. did you know i’m in love with you”

[letthemountainsmoveyou-deactiva]

i asked my four year old cousin how old he thought i was going to be at my next birthday and he said 8. im 23

[roonilwazlip-deactivated2022021]

once i told a 6 year old that i had finished school and was doing “more school” [university] and she asked “why haven’t you found anyone to marry then”

[byeeyeslikeacat-deactivated2019]

We were at a museum and I was asking for the student discount and my nine year old cousin looks up at me with his eyes wide and says “wait you’re a STUDENT??”

[meelothemanly]

I used to babysit these three kids and the eldest who was around 11 at the time was talking about how adults are boring and when I told him I was an adult he said, “That’s not true, you’re my age”

[cractasticdispatches]

our aunt teaches and she has this story about a little girl who really was always pretty quiet in class and then on the final day of kindergarten she just up and stated ‘i’m all teached now. i don’t need to be teached anymore. i’m done of being teached.’

[diamondelight92]

once when i was 19, I told my little cousin that i was 19 and she looked up at me with huge eyes and went, “Does that mean you don’t have to bring an adult with you to the pool?”

[maraudersvibes]

My 6 year old cousin saw me driving for the first time, looked up at him mom and said “does that mean she is married now?”

[standard-fiend]

I watched my dad and my niece (3 at the time) arguing over a pair of pants and whether or not they were also a dress. My neice’s argument was that they were, in fact, also a dress because they were blue.

[loveyoutothem00n]

I asked the kids in my daycare class what they thought I should be for Halloween and this little boy goes, “ooh I know! A pickle! You’d be such a good pickle”

[aimmyarrowshigh]

On the first day of class with my favorite student of all time, I said, “Are you okay? You look like you have a question.” And she looked me right in the eyes and said, tremulously,

“Can a piranha eat a stapler?”

[manic-kin]

One time I was working with a kid and he looked up at me and asked “Do you have a boy?” I had no idea what he was talking about, but I told him that I did not have any boys. He looked shocked and then deeply concerned and said “Well, you better hurry up and shave your arms so you can get married; August is next month!”

[dinovia-grant]

I was sitting on the floor with my 3yo niece and we were playing with her younger brother’s alphabet blocks and the O had an octopus on it.  So I picked it up and asked her what it was.

“Octopus,” she said, all curls and smiles.

“And what kind of animal is an octopus?” I asked.  I was looking for “fish” or “sea creature” but I would have accepted almost anything–”weird,” “gross,” even “slimy.”  “Underwater” or “it lives in the ocean” would have also been acceptable. 

She looks me right in the eye and says, happy as a clam, “It’s a cephalopod.”

I haven’t been the same since.

[yourenotaloneinthis]

I was babysitting my cousin’s kids one weekend a couple of years ago (so C was 9 and R was 7).  My mother had left her car & car keys so I could take the kids for ice cream after dinner.  (I live in a city with awesome public transit so have no car.)

The kids got in, and I made sure they were strapped in properly before backing out of the garage to head up the driveway.  R asked, just as we were pulling up the drive, “Where’s your car?”  I said, “I don’t have one.”  She paused for a beat and said, “Do you know how to drive?”

That same weekend R also asked, after learning I am in my mid-40s, if I have any children.  I said I didn’t.  (Where would I have been hiding them all these years if I did?!?!)  Then she asked if I was married.  I also said no.  She was quite perplexed, saying “But you’re a grown-up.  Grown-ups have kids and are married.”

[dyrnekeeper]

My mom is a kindergarten teacher. One day a kid asked her how old she was. She told him - 55.

"Whoaaa," the kid said, all wide-eyed. "When do people start to die?"

[lettersfromtitan]

Indie Ebook Award Winners 2017

The third annual LJ Indie Ebook Awards has now come to a close. Committees of librarians—plus the authors of some of last year’s winners—volunteered their time to evaluate hundreds of submissions and determine the best ebooks self-publishing has to offer in Sf/Fantasy, Mystery, Romance, and YA. These books—and many others—can be found in SELF-e, a subscription-based digital discovery platform for indie fiction. Congratulations to all of the honorees, including our first-ever overall winner.

So a kind of wild thing happened today. A Queen from the North – our weird contemporary royal romance featuring ill-timed birds, hints of magic, and a not-so-united kingdom still mired in the Wars of the Roses – was named the overall winner (and romance category winner) in @libraryjournal​‘s 2017 Indie Ebook Awards!

You can click through for the whole review and info on all the winners and honorable mentions, but I am particularly thrilled that the reviewers/judges noted the feminist themes, LGBTQ content, and the plotline where our heroine refuses to be slut-shamed by the media.

Erin and I are just… ecstatic, boggled, amazed, and really, really grateful.

(You can get it in ebook and paperback wherever you like to get books. A hardcover edition will be out in time for the winter holidays).

[dyrnekeeper]

Or, What I Am Up To These Days. Which is, writing original romance!

I've posted on here a few times about it, but about a year ago Racheline Maltese aka lettersfromtitan and I teamed up and started writing romance (Those are some of our covers above) 

My new tumblr home is seetheandtumble, and you can also find our joint website at http://Avian30.com

So come say hi at my new stomping grounds, glad to see you all around!

[lettersfromtitan]

Please Don't Feed the Alligators

Please Don’t Feed the Alligators

What happens when a bunch of authors at a convention see a sign on the pier in Savannah that reads, “Please Don’t Feed the Alligators?”

Well, we found out at Authors After Dark in 2013 that such a sign can evoke strong images for a lot of people. BA Tortuga, Kiernan Kelly and I wanted to do an anthology, but we just didn’t have the time to write long stories. So we asked the great authors at Torquere Press Inc. to write us some flash fiction so we could use the theme.

Everyone came up with something wonderful, and I personally want to thank all the amazing authors who donated their time to this free read!

We hope you love the stories, too, but be careful around that pier in Savannah.

XXOO Julia Talbot

Over 20 free stories from Torquere Press authors, available for download now.

Erin’s & my story, “Bad Idea Alligators” is arguably a spoiler for Starling in that in the timeline it fits between Starling and its sequel Doves. On the other hand, we did write it as a teaser because we knew this would be out before Starling.  So it doesn’t give a lot away. 

But if you want to feel like you have any sense of surprise re: mid-game vs. end-game relationships in that book, you probably shouldn’t read it now (I think the romance genre in general has a very different relationship with spoilers than fandom).  That said, if you do read it now, I promise you revisiting it will be infinitely more hilarious after you’ve read Starling.

Mostly though, this is just a silly little thing that was an excuse to write the trailer sex we’ve yet to write in the series to date.

You can download for free from Torquere here and I believe it will also be available on All Romance soon.

P.S. there’s a coupon code in the back of the book to use on a future purchase.  You might be into that.

[dyrnekeeper]

I don't reblog everything Racheline and I are up to here, so you should totally go follow seetheandtumble. But hey, free stories, and a first look at our guys from Starling!

[lettersfromtitan]

Tuesday night (June 24) from 8 - 10pm EST, Erin and I are taking over Torquere’s twitter account. While you can always bother us at our individual Twitters (@erincmcrae & @racheline_m), please come play with us tomorrow night. We’ll be tagging tweets with #rm or #em so it’s not just creepy hive...

[dyrnekeeper]

Hey, so if you're not following me over at seetheandtumble you should be, because that's where most of the good stuff is getting posted, but for those of you who so far just know me here: Hey! Twitter takeover! Also lots of other awesome stuff going on.

[pierregrassou]

[deerhoof-deactivated20151018]

the future is here and it’s horrible

[lettersfromtitan]

The They Do anthologies and stories are now out from Torquere Press.

If you want to buy just Erin and I’s story, “Lake Effect" it’s $2.49.

If you want to buy the whole M/M anthology, They Do it’s $4.99.

If you want to buy the group of F/F stories it’s $3.99. No matter which option you choose, remember to use the discount code PRIDE at checkout for 20% off everything in your cart (that code will be good through the end of June). Stories and anthologies will be available at major ebook retailers sometime tomorrow, but that discount code won’t work there.

Summaries of the stories and anthologies are below and you can read samples at the Torquere website.

If you read any of these stories, please leave a review at your favorite website (e.g., Goodreads, Amazon, etc.) as reviews help authors convince more people to try their work.

Lake Effect

by Racheline Maltese & Erin McRae

When Kyle and Daniel return to their hometown to get married, they find themselves facing an obstacle course of family drama and small-town misadventure in their quest to make it down the aisle. 

Misbehaving relatives and a reformed high school bully, along with an ill-advised hookup in the wedding party and a weird late-night meal with a cabbie and his ex-wife, leave the happy couple doubting whether they want to get married at all. But a hot quickie before their walk down the aisle helps remind them that the most important part of getting married is being married.

They Do M/M Anthology

edited by Elizabeth L. Brooks with stories by M. Durango, Lynn Townsend, Genna Donaghy, Lazuli Jones, Racheline Maltese & Erin McRae, Sean Michael, Berengaria Brown

There’s nothing like a wedding to make things interesting, for the grooms, the wedding party, the family, the friends, and even the caterer! 

Sean Michael’s Hammer Club favorites Billy and Montana are back in “Put a Ring On It”, a tale that begins with the celebration of their best friends’ first anniversary. In “Building Us,” by Lynn Townsend, Eric and Temple discover that, for want of a nail, a ring is lost. In “Hold Your Peace” by Lazuli Jones, Terrence’s best friend (and best man) Michael makes a confession hours before Terrence’s wedding. In “Tony’s Tiara” by Berengaria Brown, Tony’s sister’s wedding is a neverending saga of disasters, but Josh is there to support Tony through them all.

In “Having His Cake” by Genna Donaghy, Matty Strauss is about to cater the biggest wedding in his career, but the last thing he expects is for the groom to be his former one night stand. In “Always a Groomsman” by M. Durango, best men Doug and Garth have to keep a wedding-day disaster at bay. In “Lake Effect” by Erin McRae and Racheline Maltese, Kyle and Daniel return to their hometown to get married only to find themselves facing an obstacle course of family drama and small-town misadventure in their quest to make it down the aisle.

They Do F/F Anthology

edited by Elizabeth L. Brooks with stories by Vrai Kaiser, Alexandra Vaughn, Jessica Chase

They say a marriage takes work, but for these brides, getting to the altar may be the hardest part. 

In “Frayed” by Alexandra Vaughn, Esther Goodwin’s first encounter with another girl ends almost as soon as it begins and it is several years before she allows herself to believe in love again. In “12,000 Hour Day” by Vrai Kaiser, Devon couldn’t be happier about the thought of being married to Sarah — it’s the planning she’s not sure she’ll survive! In “Her Dream Day”, by J. Chase, it’s the day before Alex and Sophia’s wedding, when the venue cancels, ruining their plans.

[lettersfromtitan]

Morning reblog.  There will also be an evening reblog. Then we will be moving on to new and exciting announcements coming tomorrow that involve multiple authors and publishers.

[dyrnekeeper]

First story written with Racheline is now available!

[lettersfromtitan]

When J. Alex Cook, a production assistant on one of network TV’s hottest shows, is accidentally catapulted to stardom, he finds himself struggling to navigate both fame and a relationship with Paul, one of the show’s key writers.

But despite their incendiary chemistry, Alex’s inexperience and the baggage they’re both carrying lead to an ugly break-up.

With Alex’s subsequent affair with his polyamorous co-star, Paul’s ill-advised reunion with an old flame, and the meddling of their colleagues, friends, and the entire T.V. viewing audience, Alex and Paul’s story quickly becomes the soap opera of the television season.

The only question is whether they can find their way back together again.

Starling will be released in ebook and print from Torquere Press on September 10, 2014. It’s the first in the Love in Los Angeles series, with book 2, Doves, already scheduled for January 2015.

An m/m erotic romance, Starling and the series as a whole also features stories about characters of a wide range of sexual orientations, genders, and relationship styles.

You can read more about Starling and our other projects at Avian30.

[dyrnekeeper]

So this is the thing we've been working on!

[dyrnekeeper]

gleescape said: OMG, you’re Erin???!!! I was always going to buy the book - now I’m even more excited about it! :)

I am indeed! And I'm thrilled you're excited :) Thank you!!!

(For the morning Tumblr crowd, if there are any of you out there besides me -- migrate with me over to seetheandtumble.tumblr.com, where you can find updates about the Love in Los Angeles books and other projects I have going on, with lettersfromtitan, with some other awesome people, and on my own! Because hey, books!)

[dyrnekeeper]

So it's been a while since I've posted here...

But that doesn't mean I haven't been busy!

In fact, there is a LOT going on in this neck of the woods. Starting with: I have a new blog! Check out seetheandtumble.tumblr.com for all of my current exploits.

The most prevalent of which is: I wrote a book! With lettersfromtitan! And it's getting published! So while I'll continue to post the occasional update over here, most of my time is spent at S&T these days, and at our joint writing blog, www.Avian30.com

So come on over and check the new digs out. We have some massively exciting projects going on that I'm excited to share with all of you!

[sitcomdadvegeta-blog]

a sitcom that slowly turns into psychological horror as the series progresses, while still keeping the low budget feel and laugh tracks and poorly timed jokes to create a contrast between the context and the characters, and to disorient the audience 

[into-the-weeds]

#and that’s what you missed on glee

[lettersfromtitan]

#feature not bug

[dyrnekeeper]

#ThatWouldExplainThePuppets