No one writing in 2019 could have predicted what was in store for us in 2020. So you’d have to be insane or arrogant beyond belief to think you can predict anything about 2021. Yet here I am, hopefully neither insane nor arrogant. I guess I’ll have to leave that up to you.

The Beginning of the End of the Pandemic

When my employer moved to a virtual office to maintain social distancing, I thought I had it made. For some time, I’d been working remote on Fridays. I spent those days focused on desk projects and work-related reading. I tried not to schedule meetings on Fridays. I worked in my pajamas. I was alone in the apartment while my wife was at work.

Now I could have days like that all the time!

How wrong I was.

After just one full week of working from home, I am exhausted! I sat through more meetings (16!) than I usually have to…

There are 14 of them and I’ll list them by genre, but in no particular order after that. These are all 5 star books in my opinion. Mostly that means strong writing, interesting characters, and a story that engaged me.

Here they are:

Lesbian-Bi-Female (F/F) Romance — Adult Pairings

The Truth by Erica Lee

Carly is aimless in her life, going from dysfunctional relationship to dysfunctional relationship, her only positive connection is with her best friend, Samantha. Then Carly meets Diana, and she’s off on another relationship. The chemistry is strong until she finds out Diana is married to a woman and they have a young…

If you pass through most Manhattan neighborhoods this month, chances are you’ll see a rainbow.

Pride & Profit?

I’ve been working on this book — a young adult, speculative fiction novel that includes elements of Jewish mysticism — for almost two years. This would be my fourth novel and definitely the most challenging.

For many fiction authors, two years doesn’t sound like a lot. A friend who wrote a beautiful historical novel said it took her six. But in the world of lesbian fiction I inhabit, where some authors produce two or three books in a year, two years is like a lifetime, certainly long enough to feel like you’ve been forgotten and left in the dust.

Because…

By Cindy Rizzo

A recent survey taken by the lesbian dating app, HER, and reported in Pink News, Broadly and them, asserted that this is the case. Almost one-third of all the women HER surveyed said that they did not feel welcomed or comfortable at Pride events. The numbers rose even higher among bisexual women and those who identify as queer. And, even more troubling, only 40% of those women who live in an area with a local Pride event said they would be attending.

Why is this the case?

HER’s marketing director offered an explanation, speculating that perhaps Pride…

When you grow up in what is referred to as the “outer boroughs” of New York City, and you’re a kid who lives with the nagging feeling that there must be something more in store for you than what you know, you hunger for a life you think might exist in Manhattan. While it’s only 15 miles from my former home in Whitestone to Christopher Street in the West Village, in the late 1960s when I was a kid, it felt more like 1500.

Way before there were express buses, I’d travel to what we called “the city” on the…

I’m sure some journalist who is more skilled than I am can write about the 30th Creating Change conference that just wrapped up in Washington DC in a way that encapsulates the entire experience. But I want to do it via the bullet points that form the highlights of my experience:

• So many young people! (And that’s a good thing) As I walked across the lobby level of the Marriott Wardman Park hotel I repeatedly heard phrases like “as I was walking across campus,” “our campus queer group,” etc. Yes, that did make me feel old, but so what? There’s…