One in Every Minyan

The blog of writer EM Ben Shaul

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Is Our Happiness Not Worth A ‘Mazal Tov’?

Same-sex marriage, homophobia and an Orthodox shul bulletin.

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We’re extending our holiday sale one more day so that you can help us give back. For every print order at store.interludepress.com on #GivingTuesday, we’ll donate a new YA title from our Duet imprint to a registered LGBT Youth Center.

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HAPPY BOOKLOVERS DAY!

We’ll help you celebrate with 25% off all eBooks at store.interludepress.com with the discount code: BOOKLUVR

Also, don’t miss our clearance sale with discounts up to 50% on select print titles!

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Coming this Saturday for one day only—half off all eBooks at store.interludepress.com!

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Looking for a little summer reading at a big discount? Stop by the IP Web Store, where select titles are 25-50 percent off!

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Sneak Peek: “After the Sunset” by Lilah Suzanne

Looking for a breeze holiday read? Need a little RomCom in your life? 

We’re celebrating our first stand-alone digital short story by sharing the first chapter of Lilah Suzanne’s new short story, After the Sunset. You can download it here, and the entire story will be available July 6 from the IP Webstore, Amazon, and other eBook retailers for $2.99.

Caleb Harris and Ty Smith-Santos are struggling actors who have never crossed paths until their lives take a turn for the bizarre when they learn that a farm in Sunset Hollow, Washington has been bequeathed to both of them. Intent on selling the property, Caleb and Ty clear out the cluttered farmhouse, but soon find themselves falling for the charming farm nestled between two misty-topped mountains, the lonely man who left it to them, and each other. When a real estate developer offers them a hefty payout, will they take the money and run or keep the farm and their budding relationship?

[pr1nceshawn]

That Seems Totally Unnecessary. 

[mapelie]

Don’t slap pandas

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I’m crying…🤣🤣🤣

[pardonmewhileipanic]

pls don’t slap pandas :(

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Rachel Davidson Leigh’s “Hold” Wins Literary Award

Congratulations to author @racheldavidsonleigh​, whose 2016 debut novel Hold  has won the Tofte/Wright Children’s Literature Award. 

Hold was one of eight books singled out in the Wisconsin Writers Awards , sponsored each year by Council for Wisconsin Writers to highlight the best in literature by the state’s authors.

The Arthur Tofte/Betty Ren Wright Children’s Literature Award is given to the Best Children’s Book published by a Wisconsin-based writer in the previous year.

To celebrate, Hold is now on sale for 25 percent off at the IP Web Store through April 2. Congratulations, Rachel!

[damnpene]

I cannot recommend this book highly enough. It’s funny and heartbreaking and hopeful and shines such light on grief and friendship and young hearts falling in love.

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So incredibly well-deserved! This book is a treasure!

[racheldavidsonleigh]

I am utterly speechless with joy. Wisconsin has an incredible writing community and it is an honor just to be included in their fine company. Thank you to the entire IP editing/publicity/emotional support crew that made this possible and to everyone who woke me up with the best facebook messages EVER.

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Mazal tov!!

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Congratulations to authors Pene Henson and C.B. Lee, who this morning were both named finalists for Lambda Literary Awards for their novels Into the Blue and Not Your Sidekick!

We’re celebrating by taking 25 percent off all titles by Pene and C.B. at store.interludepress.com through Friday, March 17th! No discount code needed.

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Interlude Press Books Now Available for Pre-Order at Target.com

Hold the phone! Did you see that right? Well yes; yes you did. Interlude Press books are now available for pre-order from Target.com—and at great sale prices!

Target currently lists Ghosts & Ashes, The Seafarer’s Kiss, Huntsmen, And It Came to Pass, and Grrrls on the Side available to pre-order for 25-to-30 percent off list price—and with available two-for-one specials. We have to admit, it’s a great deal, and we hope our readers will show Target some love for offering these great books.

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Want to curl up with a good love story? Treat yourself to our Valentine’s Day 30 percent off discount! Use code LOVE at checkout Sale starts NOW.

[penehenson]

I've written two essentially cheerful and comforting books about essentially cheerful and kind queer people. INTO THE BLUE has cheerful queer, demi, ace, bi kids on the ocean. STORM SEASON has cheerful queer, bi, wlw, trans people in the Australian bush. I write people I would like to be, people I would like to be friends with. I write people I am already friends with. I want my characters to be content with their lives with or without the love story they’ve tumbled into. Conflict comes from their characters and their love and priorities, not from their queerness. The stories are intended to be not just a happily ever after for LGBTQA characters, but a happily ever every day ever.

I’m not saying that being queer isn’t rough. We suffer real fears, disappointingly finite familial love, internalized homophobia, sorrows and loneliness. Queer people grow up both early and late. Queer people have to learn not to hurt themselves. Queer people have to remind ourselves we are good and valuable and worth love. I’m also not saying that being queer makes us better and more thoughtful (though it should). Many cis-gendered queer people are transphobic, many white queers are racist. We need to be awake, we need to care for ourselves and one another.

But I am saying that it’s not all rough. This comforting existence I write about is also my lived experience. I am surrounded by queer people who look after one another and love one another as family. I live with my wife and kids and the neighbours treat us as their own. I have been loved and welcomed by every long term girlfriend’s family, regardless of religion and beliefs. My colleagues are disinterested in a good way. My kids are spoiled by queer family and friends and welcomed by all. Their schoolfriends accept that the kids have two mothers without blinking. They are loved. It’s all love is love is love around here.

I am deeply privileged. I have fought through some nasty times to be here and things got better and I’m still fighting for me and for others. It’s a good place. But it’s not just privilege that makes this queer life a good life. It’s friendships and found family and ordinary days and personality and careers and hobbies and love.

We don’t all get a romance novel. But I hope that queer people (and less queer people) read my books and mostly take away that real queer people do get to live in this world and be happy.

Find me at: https://penehenson.com/

Find my books at: interlude press

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New for 2017!

Pre-order the print edition and you will automatically receive the multi-format eBook for free!

We’ve always offered this deal as an option, but you had to go through several steps to claim it: discount codes, adding items to shopping carts, back flips! Well, no more. Pre-order a print book from the IP Web Store, and we’ll send you the eBook. No hoops, no discount codes, no back flips. 

So even if there is a hiccup with the USPS, you’ll be able to start reading the moment the book is released.

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My Ten Best LGBT Book List 2016 My Personal Choices Amos Lassen These were the ten books I loved this year and I give them to you in no special order. This are purely my personal choices and for th…

I am honored and thankful that Amos Lassen included Flying Without a Net in his Ten Best LGBT Books of 2016.

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Welcome the New Year with 30 percent off eBooks at store.interludepress.com

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Alligators All AroundBy EM Ben ShaulAvi was both excited and nervous. While this was not the first hard to explain but religiously important errand th...

A future snippet with Dani and Avi.

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(E.M. Ben Shaul) knows her Judaism and she knows her Torah and she manages to bring those together with a modern love story and show us that “love is love” and sometimes we have no control over who we love and why.

Amos Lassen in The Jewish Advocate on E.M. Ben Shaul’s Flying Without a Net

Flying Without a Net is currently available from the IP Web Store and other online book retailers.

(via interludepress)