It gives us great pleasure to present Season 11, Episode 40: Rob Loveless!
Rob Loveless joins us with his latest novel, Besties in Crime! We discuss real friendships and breakups leading to writing this high-stakes thriller that encapsulates the in-jokes and banter of two friends caught in an impossible situation involving arson, burlesque shows, a dead ex, and mobsters!
Bio:
Rob Loveless is an author and screenwriter based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Over the past decade, he has written several stories ranging in genre from murder mystery to humor. His first novel, A Family Affair, was published by NineStar Press in April 2020 and peaked within the top three percent of bestselling LGBT Romance novels on Amazon. In May 2021, it was named by the Independent Publishing Professionals Group as one of the best indie books of the year, and was a finalist of the Romance (Fiction) category in the 2021 Next Generation Indie Book Awards, the largest international awards program for indie authors and independent publishers.
This Podcast episode is available on these channels (in order alphabetical):
It gives us great pleasure to present Season 11, Episode 39: Karen Edwards!
Karen Edwards joins us to share her two memoirs and her foundation! We dive into My Kid’s Gay & I’m Okay, and discuss her writing to help parents of queer children, then how it grew into her foundation to provide queer kids safety and education. We also discuss her memoir as a cancer survivor, I’ve Never Been Bald Before. Karen’s a superhero and this is one interview you won’t want to miss!
Bio:
Growing up Karen Edwards traveled the world while her father, a military career officer, served his country. Those early years of living in various parts of the world gave Karen a unique sense of self and compassion toward other people. She finally settled down with her family as a young teen in a small mid-western town and became passionate about advocating for those who are silenced. Karen lends her voice and puts forth her life’s triumphs and challenges by sharing both her high and low experiences with her audience.
During a time of uncertainty for the LGBTQIA community, Karen became the voice of an ally for this minority segment that needs to be heard. Her first book, “My Kids Gay & I’m OK” is an emotional memoir from a mother’s point of view wherein she shares her families’ experiences as her child openly matures into a young adult in the LGBTQIA community. Karen exposes her personal biases, fears, and love for her family as she herself reevaluates her beliefs about love. Seeing little support along the way for families going through similar changes, Karen has decided to share her story in the hopes of helping others navigate their own life journeys.
Karen is also a breast cancer survivor and shared her personal journey in her second memoir, “I’ve Never Been Bald Before.” Through laughter and tears, she navigated surgeries, treatments, and more. Karen’s personal story of survival is motivational to every reader.
Karen resides in a small town in southwestern Indiana, working with the elderly, and volunteering her time to non-profit organizations such as Moms With Hugs and Patchwork Central.
This Podcast episode is available on these channels (in order alphabetical):
It gives us great pleasure to present Season 11, Episode 38: Marshall Thornton!
Marshall Thornton returns with two crime novels! First The Pink which leads us to discussing historic fiction and characters growing into their ideals. Then The Half-Double Murder about amateur sleuths investigating a murder that could frame the director of their beloved queer arts center.
Bio:
Marshall Thornton writes four popular mystery series, the Boystown Mysteries, the Pinx Video Mysteries, the Wyandot County Mysteries and the Dom Reilly Mysteries. He has been a finalist for the Lambda Award eleven times in two categories and is the only author to win the Lambda Award in Gay Mystery for more than one series. Aside from his mystery series, his other books include Femme, Code Name: Liberty, Fathers of the Bride, The Ghost Slept Over and Sentenced to Christmas. He holds an MFA in Screenwriting from UCLA.
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November 3, 2017
It gives us great pleasure to welcome Marshall Thornton as the guest on Episode 136: Enjoy What You Enjoy!
This week Marshall Thornton joins the show to discuss his novel, Night Drop, writing gay mysteries, and the love of RomCom!
Marshall Thornton is the author of the popular Boystown series. He has been a finalist for the Lambda Award five times and won once. His romantic comedy, Femme was a 2016 Lambda finalist for Best Gay Romance. Other books include My Favorite Uncle, The Ghost Slept Over and Desert Run.
He is a member of Mystery Writers of America.
This Podcast episode is available on these channels (in order alphabetical):
It gives us great pleasure to present Season 11, Episode 37: Richard S. Sargent!
Richard S. Sargent returns with The Revenge of the Horror Movie Cookbook and announces the pre-order of The Cult Classic Movies Cookbook! We cover the importance of coming together with your people to cook the meal, share conversation, watch an amazing movie, and maybe laugh over a thematic drinking game!
Bio:
Richard S. Sargent is an award-winning author, actor, director, producer, and filmmaker. He is the creator of a popular movie-cookbook series that includes The Horror Movie Night Cookbook and The Ultimate Chick Flick Cookbook. His other works include Gay for Plays, a collection of queer short plays that have been produced across the country and received several award nominations. Drawing on years spent working in restaurants and on food trucks—as well as cooking classes in New York City—Richard combines his passions for film, storytelling, and inventive food to create unforgettable movie-night experiences. When he isn’t writing, Richard can be found rehearsing in the theater, making music in his recording studio, or spending time with his pets. He also performs with The Green Winter, the alternative rock band he formed with his husband.
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November 7, 2025
It gives us great pleasure to present Season 10, Episode 44: Richard Sargent!
Richard Sargent shares his The Ultimate Chick Flick Cookbook. We discuss bringing people together with food and films, and he shares how he created recipes inspired by the films in the book.
Bio:
RICHARD S. SARGENT was born and raised in Pittsburgh, PA. Some of his earliest memories are sitting in front of the TV after school watching reruns of Chiller Theater with his mom. You can blame her for his obsession with horror films.
He is an award-winning actor, director, producer, playwright and filmmaker. You can find some of his short, lgbtq-themed plays published on Amazon via Left Coast Publishing. His short film, “Meat,” was released in the horror anthology World of Death. It is a subtle exploration into the mind of a vegan. Nah, just kidding. It’s torture porn with hamburgers.
He has always been interested in creative cooking. Most of his day jobs were in restaurants and on food trucks. After taking a few cooking classes here and there, he decided doing it for a living would take all of the fun out of it. So he decided to find a new way to make cooking fun: the Movie Cookbook Series, featuring The Horror Movie Night Cookbook (Book 1) and The Ultimate Chick Flick Cookbook (Book 2).
When he isn’t doing theatre or cooking for his friends or watching films, he is singing and recording with the band he created with his husband, The Green Winter. You can listen to their music on iTunes and Amazon.
This Podcast episode is available on these channels (in order alphabetical):
It gives us great pleasure to present Season 11, Episode 36: K.D. Edwards!
KD Edwards shares his series The Tarot Sequence. We talk about the books that are already out – The Last Sun, The Hanged Man, The Hourglass Throne, and The Eidolon – which leads us to conversations about family, platonic love vs romantic love, and rethinking mythology for urban fantasy!
Bio:
K.D. lives and writes in North Carolina, but has spent time in Massachusetts, Maine, Colorado, New Hampshire, Montana, and Washington. (Common theme until NC: Snow. So, so much snow.)
Mercifully short careers in food service, interactive television, corporate banking, retail management, and bariatric furniture has led to a much less short career in Higher Education.
The first book in his urban fantasy series THE TAROT SEQUENCE, called THE LAST SUN, was published by Pyr in June 2018. The third installment, THE HOURGLASS THRONE, was released in May 2022, and THE EIDOLON, the first official companion novel, was released in February 2023.
This Podcast episode is available on these channels (in order alphabetical):
It gives us great pleasure to present Season 11, Episode 35: Len M. Ruth!
Len M. Ruth shares his works, Beneath the Dark Water, Spectral Seduction, Star Haven Rising, and Unnatural Desires. He embraces many fiction genres: Dark Noir, Young Adult, Speculative Fiction, and even Supernatural Erotica, all while writing queerness in a way that matters… and we discuss them all!
Bio:
Len M. Ruth writes dark speculative fiction about people grappling with grief, loss, and the hard choices that follow when things unravel. His work blends literary sensibility with genre thrills. He’s written The Pull, The Unrecovered, Rachael’s Apocalypse Diary, Beneath the Dark Water, and Tales of the Doomed. He also co-authors the Spectral Seduction series with Devora Gray, a paranormal dark romance saga with weird mystery and dark humor woven through. His stories tend toward found family, characters who refuse easy answers, and the moments that remake you. He lives in Las Vegas with his partner Emory and their dog Cooper.
This Podcast episode is available on these channels (in order alphabetical):
It gives us great pleasure to present Season 11, Episode 34: Julie Averill!
Julie Averill embraces visibility and vulnerability in her business leader memoir Chief Impact Officer. We discuss how authenticity in leadership is strategically necessary, building a psychologically safe culture, and the power of breaking down the walls and letting people see you for who you are.
Bio:
Julie Averill has spent two decades scaling companies and the teams inside them. At lululemon, she led the technology that powered the business as it grew from $2 billion to over $10 billion, building global teams across four continents and the operating model to sustain that growth. Before that, she led digital and omni-channel transformations at Nordstrom and REI, through system failures, high-stakes crises, and the messy reality of turning technology into business results at scale.
Today, through Gold Thread, she and her senior partners advise boards, CEOs, and founders on AI strategy and workforce readiness, the space where most transformations stall. She also serves as an independent board director and lives in Bellevue, Washington, with her wife Cindy.
This Podcast episode is available on these channels (in order alphabetical):
It gives us great pleasure to present Season 11, Episode 33: Louis Flint Ceci!
Louis Flint Ceci shares his novel The Cross Quarter Mysteries. We discuss writing a suspenseful murder that explores multiple meanings of “mystery.” Plus the magic of the setting, the impact of trauma, and finding love and peace.
Bio:
Louis Flint Ceci is an author, educator, and retired software engineer. His published works include poems, short stories, autobigraphical essays, and a novel. He has also published scholarly works on poetics, linguistics, and artificial neural networks. He is a masters swimmer, having competed in the past four Gay Games, the FINA World Championships in Perth and Montreal, and numerous IGLA meets. He won the gold medal in the Poetic Justice poetry slam at the 2002 Gay Games in Sydney.
This Podcast episode is available on these channels (in order alphabetical):
It gives us great pleasure to present Season 11, Episode 32: Andy Barrow!
Andy Barrow shares his debut novel Peter in Progress. We discuss coming out later in life and facing self-shame as well as other people’s scrutiny, plus finding joy in wellness, queer friendships + situationships, and embracing a life of growth.
Bio:
Andy Barrow is a New York-based writer whose debut novel, Peter in Progress, draws inspiration from his own later-in-life gay awakening. Despite the challenges of a thirty-something reckoning, Andy counts his coming out—and ongoing “second” adolescence—as his most wonderful life chapter. His return to writing fiction, which was a passion in his younger years, has been no small part of that joy. Gay life has been too big, beautiful, delirious, and complicated to not pick up the pen!
While embracing life as a gay man and author, Andy somehow manages to maintain a day job; he’s a proud educator who has taught, designed and led middle and high schools, and now consults with schools and districts. He has won awards from Harvard University and Teach for America for his teaching, and his writing on education has been published in both popular periodicals (Chalkbeat, Grown and Flown) and academic journals (Penn, UCLA). He holds a doctorate in curriculum, instruction, and innovation from the University of Virginia, and his dissertation on the relationship between student struggle and deeper learning won the departmental award.
When not writing or teaching, Andy is likely perfecting his backhand, nabbing last-minute theater tickets, or making up for lost time on the dance floor—preferably with ‘90s icons (Crystal, CeCe, Whitney…) on rotation.
An unabashed extrovert, Andy is always looking to expand his network and to connect with fellow creatives—especially queer ones.
This Podcast episode is available on these channels (in order alphabetical):
It gives us great pleasure to present Season 11, Episode 31: Rob Costello!
Rob Costello shares his debut YA novel An Ugly World for Beautiful Boys. We discuss past trauma, facing shame, and why the young adult genre can be dark. We then talk about his anthology We Mostly Come Out at Night, and the queer joy he and the contributors share through monsters.
Bio:
Before Rob Costello discovered writing, he cleaned toilets and flipped burgers for a living. He dealt cards in a casino. He processed trade documents for an international bank. He dispatched police and emergency services, and answered 911 calls. He’s been a receptionist, a secretary, and a chief of staff. He was a social media manager for a while and even a speechwriter.
In 2012, he earned his MFA degree in Writing from the Vermont College of Fine Arts. He’s proud of that, but let us know it doesn’t mean he knows how to write any better than anybody else. It just means he tried really hard and did his best.
Rob’s also an alumnus of the Millay Arts, a beautiful and secluded retreat for artists and writers located on the former estate of the poet Edna St. Vincent Millay. It’s an amazing place he highly recommends!
In addition to writing short stories and novels, he also teaches.
In June of 2023, Rob launched R(ev)ise and Shine! (with co-founders Lesa Cline-Ransome, Jo Knowles, and Jennifer Richard Jacobson), an online writing community where passionate writers come together to learn, grow, & thrive.
He and his husband live on top of a wide and windy hill in the countryside of upstate New York, where they dutifully take orders from their four-legged overlords who graciously allow them to live there. And feed them. And walk them twice daily. And pick up their poo.
Rob is an active member of the Horror Writers Association (HWA) and a full member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA).
This Podcast episode is available on these channels (in order alphabetical):
It gives us great pleasure to present Season 11, Episode 40: Rob Loveless!
