Welcome to my Reading
Comfortable? Wonderful. Now
let’s get started.
To get us started can you
tell us a little about what you are working on or have coming out? Hi
Dawn! I take my martini's dry as the
Sahara with four olives please! Thanks for having me and Happy Holidays,
everyone!
I'm currently in the middle of promoting Snow
Globe my short story recently released as part of Dreamspinner's annual
Advent Calendar.
It's a little quirky, one MC has a form
of Tourette's that isolates him, the other has left his life in Chicago to care
for his elderly uncle and brain damaged older cousin. It's the cousin who
brings the two men together.
This year's calendar theme was
"heartwarming" and when the submission call came I spent months
racking my brain for a story that was original and interesting (I'm a huge fan
of Christmas/holiday stories in general and the Advent Calendar in particular).
By the time the deadline loomed, I'd given up. Two days before, inspiration finally
hit and Snow Globe flowed out of me like a river--I practically wrote every
spare minute I had, just submitting it seconds before the midnight
deadline. The result is a story with an energy that mimics some of the frenetic
pace of the way the Kris' brain works.
The story captures moments of connection
between the two men - bad and good as they occur over six months - and yes, the
fast pacing doesn't allow for much lingering or fleshing out. However, my plan
writing this was to follow up with a longer novel written from Tyr's point of
view. Tyr's a much more complicated man and it will be interesting to explore
the reasons behind some of the decisions he makes in Snow Globe.
Currently I'm working on a sequel to my
Novella 6 Days to Valentine which should be out next month. 6 Days to
Valentine is the story of Nick, happy living his life as a mixologist for a
trendy bar/restaurant in the South. He's shut himself off from having more than
a casual relationship and his friends and co-workers are starting to worry.
6 Days to Valentine
takes place in the days running up to Valentine's day - a holiday Nick loathes
because of his name, and the state of his love life currently being complicated
by pushy bouncer, Davis "Fat Boy" Newman, who's trying to set him up
on a blind date. My hope for the series is to follow the main character Nick
Valentine as he slowly gets a clue about life and love.
If we asked your muse to describe you using five words, what do
you think they would say? Changeable, Eclectic,
Sensual, Quirky, Pain-In-The-Ass (that counts as one word, right?)
Name one thing readers would be surprised to know about you.
I'm a mostly-Vegan.
Food often plays another character in my
stories. I have an amazing editor who slums, playing Beta for me and I can
crank her up with descriptions of food dishes. She was craving steak by the
time she finished going through 6 Days To Valentine for me.
What's surprising? That I can describe
food and the sensual pleasure of eating as well as I do, since I'm a natural
born vegetarian/mostly Vegan. By the time I was 15 I was down to a small
selection of shellfish and, of course, bacon (the candy of meats). High school
biology killed the last lingering enjoyment I got from any sort of food with a
digestive track after dissecting clams, and the rest was pretty easy to let go.
But it doesn't stop me from cooking with meat or writing about it.
If you could live anywhere in the world, where would it be? France.
I confess, I've been in love with the
country, the language, the culture since I was in middle school. Whenever I'm
in Paris, it feels like home. I was there on business for a couple of weeks and
the last thing I did was buy a fresh Pain au Chocolate to bring home to my
husband. I hand him the bag at the airport, he opens it and pokes it,
eventually taking a bite and then sort of shrugs. I'm staring at him like he's
grown another head. For him, after twelve hours it's a stale pastry the cafe
would toss…but for me--it's a frickin' Pain au Chocolate FROM PARIS! He
has no soul. I ate it (and it was good).
If someone hasn't read any of your work, what book would you
recommend that they start with and why? Snow Globe is
a good one to start with - it's short and gives you a flavor about my writing
style - the downside is the frenetic pacing and short length leaves a lot on
the table. 6 Days to Valentine coming out in January, is a longer piece
- you'll get a better sense of my love a characters and quirky humor.
Where do you find the inspirations
for your stories? I have no clue. The submission prompts
help - but it's lightening in a bottle. That's the muse at work. If I can't
capture that split second impulse…it's gone for good.
Are your characters able to
love or do they need to be taught? I have to say
I feel most comfortable tagging along in the middle of their journeys, so it's
often a combination of both. I think they're headed for a HEA ,
but it's the internal development that surprises and interests me. Sometimes
it's easy--they just need a random circumstance to get them on track, and
sometimes there's a cluelessness that makes things complicated (Nick Valentine
from 6 Days is a case in point). Sometimes I get caught in their heads and I
can't get out. A few weeks ago I wrote a birthday not-so-flash fiction for a
friend of mine - another author. I made the MC so angsty and such a head case I
suffered along with him for weeks. Finally I had to remind myself that
birthdays are to be celebrated. I lightened it up a little and it turned
out fine.
Do you have a book that was
easiest to write or one that was the hardest?
Once I got started Snow Globe was
the easiest by far. It just poured from me.
Birthday Cake -
a flash fiction I wrote to celebrate author Vicktor Alexander's 30th birthday
was the hardest. In that story I wrote in First Person, Present tense and then
used sensory deprivation ad a vehicle that kept him in his head. I'm surprised
people like it. I still can't read it with any objectivity, all I see is the
suffering and angst I went through. One of these days I'll post it on my
website and see if someone can explain it to me.
If you could collaborate
with one author who would it be? Anyone? Can I
pick three? Currently I co-write the Wolves & Waves series with
author Sara York. She is amazing to work with. Kind, generous…talented. What
more can you want? We wrote Prodigal Wolf together over a few months.
It's the introductory book to a series which is a little unconventional for
wolf shifters. There's no easy HEA
or simple romance. We wrote our pack angsty and hot. I think we have to finish
the series for some readers to understand where Sara and I are going with these
books.
But if I could pick anyone else? Hands
down, it would be Josh Lanyon for craft and style and story… and Mary
Calmes for voice (and the other stuff, too.) It would be like taking a
masterclass from these folks.
Coffee, tea or other drink
to get you moving in the morning? Coffee is my
preferred brew (as dark as you can make it…smoky roasts…yum) I do take it with
scaled almond milk in the morning. When I'm being a good vegan I'll go off
coffee and turn to green tea. Peets Green Tea Lattes are bliss. I'd like to
give a shout out to LatteBoy - he's been delivering my first cup to me
in bed most days for years now. I highly recommend to everyone to find your own
LatteBoy. Bliss!
What is coming up from you
in 2014? Anything you want to tease us with?
6 Days to Valentine will
be released sometime next month by WildeCity Press. As I mentioned earlier, I'm
very excited that Nick gets his time in the sun, so to speak. I'm currently
writing the sequel 6 Days to Get Lucky - so fingers crossed on that one.
Sara and I are working on our sequel to Prodigal Wolf but it's early
days for that, and I have a couple of things submitted I'm still waiting to
hear back from, and like every other writer a stack of wips, teasing me.
Anything else you want to
add? If you'd like to to read
more, or follow along as I pick up the random threads of life I stumble across
and see where there go here's where I am. Each is a little bit different.
Facebook - please like my author page.
You'll find more news and links about what's important to me as well as release
info: https://www.facebook.com/LEFranksAuthor
Twitter - this is where I'm my snarkiest
as @boxtersushi https://twitter.com/boxtersushi
Tumblr - is well…tumblr.
http://www.tumblr.com/blog/boxtersushi
Blog: Naked Butts and musings. I enjoy
posting here - more personal & whimsical. http://lefranks.wordpress.com
Website: What can I say… It's practical
and PG. http://www.lefranks.com
Thanks for taking the time to
be here today. I wish you many sales and wonderful reviews.
Thank you Dawn, I'm grateful that you've
allowed me a moment to put your readership to sleep - afternoon naps are very
healthful, particularly during the stress of the holidays!
On a serious note, this is such a lovely,
incredible community we have. When I look around I am constantly touched by
acts of encouragement and support, not only from other authors, but readers and
reviewers. I want to thank everyone who reads and supports LGBTQ writers and
their work. Without you we wouldn't have a forum to share the knowledge that Love
is Love, no matter the flavor it comes in. Thank you again, Dawn for this
lovely opportunity to share a little more about myself.
Wishing everyone a joyful, happy, and
safe holiday season. - LE Franks
SNOW GLOBE
– by LE Franks
Heat rating PG-13 (no
explicit scenes)
Available at Dreamspinner / Amazon / ARe
Kris
Hamilton escaped the rat race in LA to live his dream of owning an art studio
and making snow globes in a Christmas-themed town in northern Minnesota. But
life in a tiny town isn’t as peaceful as advertised, and being treated like an
outsider is making Kris’s Tourette's flare up. When he inadvertently offends
Tyr Tollefson—a beautiful blond giant of a man—Kris is ready to chuck it all.
But he strikes up an unlikely friendship with Tyr's cousin Bun, who shows them
the magic of Christmas and gives them both a lesson in love and
acceptance.
Excerpt:
IT WAS the face
pressed against his storefront window that first caught his attention.
"Pressed"
might have been too delicate a word. "Mashed" is better, Kris
thought idly, admiring the spread of pink skin sticking to the glass before his
brain latched on to the thought spinning and tumbling at an increasingly
alarming rate.
The litany of words
shoved their way to the tip of his tongue, rushing to spill over and out of him
in a waterfall of frothing adjectives: smushed, squashed, scrunched,
crunched, crushed, squished, pushed, flattened, pancaked…. He'd barely been
able to throw on the brakes, limiting the torrent to a barely audible whisper
until the words dribbled to a halt.
Crap. It had been weeks since the last time he lost
control of his own peculiar form of Tourette's.
He looked around the
tiny store to see if anyone had noticed, but was quickly drawn back to the
spectacle outside. The little voice teasing at the edges of his mind suggested
a few more words that he ruthlessly rejected, fully alert to the insidious
nature of his own brain. The person outside was an impossible mélange of old
and young, tiny and broad, all brown and pink and white and fluffy red. Was
that a scarf and hat?
Pompoms in July
seemed off to Kris, and the noise came rushing back—odd, unusual,
unexpected, surprising, strange, weird, astonishing, peculiar…. Gasping, he
stuttered back a breath, choking in the words and squeezing eyes shut tight.
Twenty-five cleansing
breaths. Twenty-four, twenty-three…. His head noise kept pace with his
diaphragm until petering out around number twelve. Kris paid attention, waiting
to open his eyes again until the countdown reached number one… or was it zero?
He felt another tingle of panic try to erupt. Shit. If he wasn't
careful, he'd be off to the races again, and he could feel the happy little
ponies inside him bouncing in delight at the thought.
This time when he
opened his eyes, his world was still. No strange visions at his window, no
customers with pity or contempt in their eyes, no rampaging word strings
waiting to torment him. With shaking hands he put up the Out to Lunch
sign and locked the front door.
Not for the first
time, Kris felt like he was living inside one of his own snow-globe
creations—never knowing when something was going to yank him upside down and
shake him. At least for now, all the blizzarding shards seemed to have settled
back to the bottom.
"NO, BUN, we'll
be late for Eddie's appointment." Tyr ran his long fingers through his
white-blond hair as he silently begged for patience. His cousin was having one
of her "days," and she wasn't in the mood to go along with "the
plan." Insisting that they go back to the little Christmas shop across the
square. Gently he pulled out the yellow, lined paper, carefully unfolding it to
show the pair. At least no one had started wringing their hands. Yet.
"Look, Bun, this
is the step we're on." He'd gathered them next to a convenient mailbox,
carefully laying it on the top so that they could all see. Bun jerked forward
to smooth and touch every inch of the paper and run her fingers over each of
the meticulously printed words.
They'd referred to it
numerous times since leaving the farm. Tyr hoped this would be enough to get
them all back on track with enough time to get his uncle to his cardiology
appointment. Monthly trips into town had always been stressful, but his uncle's
declining health and Bun's advancing age seemed to be making them worse.
Sighing, he carefully
pointed to item number two: Eleven thirty appointment with Dr. Morgan for
Eddie. "See, Bun, Dr. Morgan is expecting us in…." A quick glance at
his watch showed that they were already ten minutes late. "Well… we have
just enough time to make it if we walk over there now."
A flash of movement
from across the way drew his attention. There was a God. Someone in the
Christmas shop had just put up the CLOSED sign. From across the street,
he caught just a glimpse of long dark hair before the figure disappeared. It
only took a few nudges and a promise to stop by later to get them all moving
again.
Prodigal Wolf by L.E. Franks and Sara York
Wolves & Waves Series, Book One
Paranormal M/M
MLR Press
Carlo has a problem, after years away he's finally returned to his South Carolina roots - but instead of peace and quiet all he's found are nosy wolves, romancing twinks, an out of control roommate threatening to expose them all, and a demanding Alpha who just won't go away.
All his Alpha wants is to show Carlo who he really is, and where he belongs. But Carlo Montefiore is a man fighting his instincts, memories, and responsibilities. His beachside home was supposed to provide sanctuary, but pack politics, unruly roommates, and human neighbors at risk of discovering that shifters exist, are making life anything but peaceful. Twinks Kevin and Grady have their own problems. Two college freshmen are no match for a couple of hot wolves who like to play chase. If they don't stop playing games they'll miss the biggest thing to happen in their young lives---love.
