Archive for 2006

YEAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!

October 1, 2006 | It's All About Writing

I am ecstatic to tell you all I met my contract due date with Triskelion Publishing. Lonnie Heats Up has been submitted and received by my editor! It’s a relief to be completed and now I can sit back and relax until she sends me the edits. I can also come back and blog with you now that I have fulfilled my commitment.

Lonnie Heats Up is the second book in the Magnificent Men of Munich series. Be sure to check out chapter one of Teddi Turns On for the premise of the series. Better yet, head over to www.triskelionpublishing.net and pick up your own copy. The reviewers and readers tell me they love it.

To celebrate, Studs and I went to our favorite haunt, Shannon’s Irish Eatery, and listened to great Irish music performed live, yes folks I said live a rarity these days in our neck of the woods, by New Element. Lou and Sharon, of Dolly’s Mammary fame, were there. They’re a fun couple to spend time with. Someday I hope you all get to meet them.

Lou brought up two interesting questions about our world today so I’d like to ask you your opinion.

1 – Why is it that today so many women expose their bodies and erase the mystery for men?
2 – Where have all the ladies gone?

Have a great week-end!
Sloane

What are you doing here?

September 13, 2006 | Contests

Hop on over to Triskelion Publishing’s two loops http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TriskelionBooks and http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TriskelionFever to read hot new excerpts by fantastic authors, myself included. There are also fun contests and great prizes running all this week.

I’ll be on from 3-5pm EST with Cindy Pape and Charissa Ruechel. Come on over and join us. Today we’re discussing men’s undies.

This evening drop in at Fallen Angel Reviews . I’ll be there at 9pm EST. The addy is http://fallenangelreviews.com then follow the signs to the chat room.

Hope to see you all on the loops today and tonight!
Sloane

Count Down – 1 Day to Go

September 10, 2006 | Promotion

TRISKELION PUBLISHING

END OF SUMMER BASH
September 11 – 17, 2006

10 am to whenever

Come join our authors and get in on the fun all week, including hunks and maybe a peek into the infamous Harem or an appearance by the popular Fan Boy. Party day and night at both Triskelion Books and Triskelion Fever (18+) Groups.

CONTESTS for lots of prizes – books, music cds, T-shirts, gift certificates, goodie baskets, yummy treats, calendars, keychains, and more.

SPECIAL GRAND PRIZE – Ebookwise ebook Reader w/software and winner’s choice of 5 Triskelion ebooks.

Must be a group member to participate, to join:

TriskelionBooks-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

TriskelionFever-subscribe@yahoogroups.com (Adult 18+)

Hope to see you all there!
Sloane

You’re All Invited to a Party!!

September 8, 2006 | Promotion

Mark your calendars for Monday September 11. Triskelion Publishing is hosting a Week Long Bash on both of their Books and Fever loops. The fun begins at 10:00 EST. Meet all the excellent authors and win a few prizes. The Grand Prize is an Ebookwise, Winner’s Choice of 5 Triskelion books, and extra Goodies.

Log into http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TriskelionBooks and/or http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TriskelionFever to join in some lively conversation and excerpts.

I’ll be on both loops Wednesday, September 13, from 3-5 EST and again Thursday, September 14, from 2-4 EST.

Hope to see you all!
Sloane

The Red Lion Pub

September 6, 2006 | Promotion

event was well worth the hour plus drive. A group of talented writers met to share from their WIPS and excerpts from their published novels. Twilight Tales, www.twilighttales.com. hosted the evening. Emcee Eric Cherry did a wonderful job of scheduling the readers and moving the program along. Check out their website for a wealth of information on writing and books.

Erika Kire read Heart of the Bear,one of her stories from The Viking Stones anthology, a terrific book. Zip over to Triskelion Publishing, www.triskelionpublishing.net, and get yourself a copy.

The readings ranged from poetry to sci-fi and everything in between. Mine was the only erotica. I’m not too convinced the group of fifteen men and five women would welcome me back soon.

It was a good evening and I met a new group of people who produce outstanding work.

In February Twilight Tales dedicates an evening to erotica. Erika, Beth Anderson, and I plan to go return and read.

Happy Writing!
Sloane

Did you ever want to know?

September 5, 2006 | Promotion

Hi Everyone,

Yasmine Phoenix is running a month long interview with me at http://www.yasminephoenix.com/writing/. If you want to know all my secrets boogie on over and check it out. Feel free to respond, feed back and questions are good.

Hope you enjoy it!
Sloane

Join Us

September 4, 2006 | Promotion

Labor Day is a holiday for most people in the United States, but not for Erika Kire and me. Erika has invited me to join her in a reading at the Red Lion Pub. It’s my first public reading and I admit I’m a little nervous. She’s reassured me there’s nothing to it. We’ll see.

Erika is reading from her new release the Viking Stones. I’ll present two passages from Teddi Turns On and one hot scene from my new book Lonnie Heats Up. we’ll each have pens and bookmarks to pass out to the audience.

Tonight, around 7:00p.m., if you’re out and about in the Chicago land area, please drop by the Red Lion Pub, 2446 N. Lincoln Avenue. I’d be grateful for a friendly face.

Have a good holiday,
Sloane

It’s Party Time!

September 2, 2006 | Applause

Author Gabrina Garza, aka Erika Kire, held her book release party for The Viking Stones at the Gary Rail Cats baseball game last night. A huge group of people, along with our friends Dennis, Janine, Mick, and Carmen, came out to celebrate the success of this extremely talented and prolific author. The U.S. Steel Field management ran a Congratulations to Erika Kire banner on the scoreboard as the announcer introduced Erika. Of course our group and the people around us went up for grabs cheering. Erika had plenty of pens and bookmarks to share with everyone.

If you’re into Vikings and hot sex go on over to www.triskelionpublishing.net and check out The Viking Stones. You can also go to Gabrina’s website Welcome to Suburbia for more insight on this up and coming author. Enter www.gabrina.com into your browser and have a good time.

Congratulations, Erika!!
Sloane

Champagne for the Author!

August 30, 2006 | Applause

A Good Man is Hard to Find, but not if you hurry over to Loose ID where Jeanne Laws,a hot author, has released her new book. I just bought my copy. Whoa, Baby! Luscious!

This m/m cowboy erotic romance is written with class and enough grit to make this straight woman holler, “Ye Haw!”

Now cut and paste http://www.loose-id.com into your browser and plunk down your credit card. You’ll be glad you did.

Congratulations, Jeanne Laws and keep ’em coming!

Sloane

A Serious Situation

August 26, 2006 | General, The Soapbox

Maya Reynolds at http://www.mayareynoldswriter.blogspot.com/ writes excellent blogs. Check out her site for many pertinent topics.

With Maya’s permission I’ve her blog for August 25. Please read this and share it with everyone you know. It is a serious problem that we can help stop.

Friday, August 25, 2006
Wake Up, America!!
I had a plan for another blog for today, but something happened to change my mind.

This evening I was working on the membership rolls for Passionate Ink, an RWA online chapter, which is in the middle of its membership renewal drive. I had the television on, but wasn’t really paying attention to it.

Primetime was doing a special on AIDS in America. Within minutes, I found myself getting up and moving to where I could watch it.

The statistics were almost unbelievable:

***African-Americans make up 13% of the American population, but account for 50% of the new HIV cases in this country

***The HIV infection rate is eight times higher in the black population than in the white population

***Black women are twenty-three times more likely than white women to be diagnosed with AIDS

***AIDS has been the leading cause of death for African-American women between the ages of 25 and 44 for the past eleven years

***Sixty-eight percent of all new AIDS cases in the U.S. are black women

If you don’t believe me, go to www.abc.com and check. That’s where I got these statistics. Coincidentally, this was the last story Peter Jennings worked on before announcing his lung cancer diagnosis. In an eerie interview during the program, Peter met with a group of HIV-infected black men about ten days before telling the world of his own illness. You can already see the ravages of the disease on him.

I was outraged by this documentary. I cannot believe that this issue could have been going on in this country without anyone talking about it. Frankly, I’ve been under the impression that we were on top of the HIV epidemic in this country. We keep hearing about AIDS now being a chronic disease as opposed to a death sentence. The press focuses its attention on the AIDS crisis in Africa. No one is talking about this issue’s impact on American citizens.

Terry Moran finished the report that Peter had started. The ABC website sets it up this way: “‘In America today, AIDS is virtually a black disease, by any measure,’ says Phill Wilson, executive director of The Black AIDS Institute in Los Angeles. Wilson also points out that while many black American leaders and celebrities have embraced the cause of the epidemic’s toll in Africa, few have devoted similar energy to the crisis here at home.”

The documentary listed five reasons for this crisis in the black community:

1) Ignorance of the problem: I can buy that. No one even knows there IS a problem.

2) The War on Drugs: According to Moran, since 1980, the War on Drugs has quadrupled the prison population in America. The infection rate is five times higher inside prison than outside. Men who go into prison HIV negative come out HIV positive. Although the state and federal governments are aware that sexual activity is taking place in prison, they refuse to provide condoms to the prisoners.

3) Sexual practices in the black community: It turns out that there are 85 African American men of marriageable age for every 100 African American women. This imbalance leads to the fact that “Black men are more than twice as likely as white men to have multiple female partners at the same time,” according to studies by the Universities of Chicago and North Carolina. The study in North Carolina concluded that black women in that state were fourteen times more likely to contract AIDS than white women. One of the results of the increased number of sexual partners is that blacks have a higher rate of STDs, which facilitates HIV transmission by making it easier for the disease to attack the host.

4) The stigma of homosexuality in the black community: Homosexuality is so frowned upon in the black community that blacks are much less likely than whites to come out of the closet. This leads to men being “on the down low” (DL). Bisexual black men or married homosexual black men do not share their sexual histories with their female partners. The result is that many black women contract HIV from a male partner who is also engaging in homosexual sex on the down low.

Women who are in committed–and they think–monogamous relationships are being infected by partners who are having–or once had–sex with other men. The first time many of these women learn of this is when they receive the diagnosis.

When AIDS first emerged as an issue in this country, it was a disease of gay men. However, the gay community was all over it. They mobilized and worked hard to get information out on safe sexual practices. The result was that they slowed down the rate of new cases of the disease–even though it devastated their ranks for many years. The black community has not rallied in the same way. The documentary postulates that this is largely because of the stigma associated with homosexuality.

“‘I know of few communities as conservative as the African American community, especially about sex,’ says Debra Fraser-Howze, CEO of the National Black Leadership Commission on AIDS in New York. ‘And when it comes to homosexuality, it’s a real problem. Nobody wants to talk about it.'”

5) A failure of leadership in this country: According to ABC, “Moran also reports on the role of the churches, traditionally the most powerful source of political and social activism in black America. Black churches have been silent on AIDS, says The Rev. Calvin Butts Jr., Rector of Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem. ‘When you see the numbers going up, you know you have not done enough,’ he says.”

The Rev. Eugene Rivers of Boston says, “too many young people are dying because black leaders have failed their children.”

A lack of support on the part of the federal government for needle exchange programs for drug users, which have proven effective in reducing HIV transmission, was also cited as an example of a failure of leadership.

Fixing this problem begins with making Americans aware that there even is a problem in our own country. If everyone who saw that program or reads this blog will just tell three other people about it and those people will tell three more, we can begin to lift the veil of secrecy that has been hiding this problem for far too long. We should all be offended by the lack of action on the part of our leadership to address this serious health issue.

I feel a particular kinship with my black sisters who are being infected, often without their knowledge. This is not right. It has to stop.

P.S. Sloane Taylor has asked whether she could cut and paste this message. Please feel free to do so. I offer permission to copy today’s post and email it. Whatever. Just get the word out, please. We need to get enough people angry that our leadership will have no choice but to respond.

Thank you for reading this and please remember to pass it along.

Sloane