December 2022
The festive season will soon be upon us! Maybe not everyone's favourite time of the year, but the Rainbow Advent Calendar is back for 2022 - which means free stories (including my own Christmas Present), and how can that be a bad thing?
I have other stories to share with you as well - A Death in Tombstone, A.T. which is free for all - and my flash fic Verity which features in Queer Sci Fi's new anthology Clarity.
On top of which, I can offer you the absolutely ideal festive gift for yourself and everyone else you love! All the details are below...
Wishing you all the comfort and joy you can handle over the coming weeks - along with cake. Oodles of cake! You totes deserve it.
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Rainbow Advent Calendar 2022
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I am delighted to be participating in the Rainbow Advent Calendar again this year, run by the lovely Alex Jane ♥.
Join the Facebook group or follow along via Alex's Masterlist, for the opportunity to read free festive LGBTQ fic by many awesome authors - and by me, too! In the advent calendar tradition, new fic will be revealed every day in the lead up to 25 December.
We already have offerings from Nic Starr, Alex Jane, Clare London, Jay Mountney, Barbara Elsborg, HJ Perry, Edie Montreux, Kaje Harper, Sue Brown, Suki Fleet, and A.D. Ellis!
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My Rainbow Advent Calendar contribution is called Christmas Present - and it follows directly on from Oliver and Finn's story in Crisis at Christmas, which I shared as part of the Rainbow Advent Calendar in 2018. I don't expect anyone to remember the details after four years, so both stories are included in the one new volume. You can download it for free in various formats from:
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Blurb: Oliver volunteers for Crisis at Christmas to help the homeless. The last thing he expects is that he'll meet someone.
Total word count: 4,100
Charity: Many of you will already be familiar with Crisis, a national UK charity supporting homeless people, particularly known for providing good food and a variety of useful services over the Christmas period, with the help of volunteers. A donation of £29.07 will reserve a place at Crisis for someone this Christmas. If you are in a position to help, that would be wonderful!
Caveat: I have donated dosh in the past, but I haven’t volunteered at a Crisis Centre myself, so I apologise for any inaccuracies or infelicities in this story, and really the whole idea is probably well inappropriate. But my heart’s in the right place, so I may be forgiven…?
Thank you!
Thank you to Alex and to all the authors who are taking part in this festive fic fest. And thank you to all the lovely readers, too!
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A Death in Tombstone, A.T.
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On a slightly less festive note... 26 October 2022 marked 141 years since the Gunfight at the OK Corral - and one year since I published my Western novel Writ in Blood, which was inspired by the events in and around Tombstone, Arizona in 1881.
To celebrate, I shared a new story titled A Death in Tombstone, A.T. - for free! The story's genre is detective fiction, so it's a bit different from my novel, but I hope you'll enjoy it nevertheless. The two main characters are historical figures Clara Brown - one of our "eye witness" sources of what happened in Tombstone - and Kate Elder, otherwise known as Doc Holliday's lover.
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Blurb: Clara Brown, a journalist in the mining boomtown of Tombstone, Arizona Territory, is mildly interested in a coroner's inquest - and intrigued that 'soiled dove' Kate Elder seems the only person who cares about the verdict. The two women shouldn't even acknowledge each other, but some things are far more important than the social niceties.
Word count: 4,400
Available for free from:
I'd love to hear what you think of the story!
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I am absolutely thrilled to be a (deliberately!) small part of the new anthology Clarity - edited by J. Scott Coatsworth - and the result of the Queer Sci Fi ninth annual flash fiction contest.
Not so many years ago I thought I could only write long, unable to even kick things off in less than 1000 words - but I guess I've been learning how to be succinct! So when this opportunity arose to write a queer speculative fiction story in 300 words or less, I gave it a try. I was surprised to tell my tale in only 278 words - and stoked to make it into the anthology itself!
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My story is titled Verity, and deals with the ghost of an author long passed. The truths of her life are out there - but how does she ensure people find them?
For the details of the anthology, and all the buy links, visit the Clarity page on the Other Worlds Ink site. I'm sure you'll find plenty in this volume to delight you. The spec-fic genres include Fantasy, Horror, Paranormal, and Sci-Fi - and the LGBTQ+ identities include Ace, Aro, Bi, Demi, Gay, Gender Fluid, Lesbian, Non-Binary, Poly, and Transgender - which I'm sure you'll agree is absolutely marvellous.
That link again: https://www.otherworldsink.com/book/clarity/
Thanks again to Scott and Other Worlds Ink for such a wonderful read!
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The Ideal Festive Pressie!
And now at last for the ideal festive gift - for yourself and your other loved ones. If there's one thing that reviews of our Queer Weird West Tales anthology have in common, it's the conclusion, "There's something in here for everyone!"
Share the delightful diversity! It's what we all deserve.
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I remain stonkingly proud of our anthology Queer Weird West Tales.
The 22 stories - totalling 115,000 words of quality reading - include a fantastic diversity in characters and settings. The common elements are Queer (LGBTQ+ main characters), Weird (speculative fiction), and West (the American Old West or other frontiers) - everything else was up for grabs!
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Frontiers have always attracted the Other - where they find that the Other is always already there. These 22 stories explore what happens when queer characters encounter weirdness on the edge of the worlds they know.
Authors: Julie Bozza, J.A. Bryson, Dannye Chase, S.E. Denton, Miguel Flores, Adele Gardner, Roy Gray, KC Grifant, Peter Hackney, Bryn Hammond, Narrelle M Harris, Justin Warren Jackson, Toshiya Kamei, Catherine Lundoff, Bunny McFadden, Angus McIntyre, Atlin Merrick, Eleanor Musgrove, Jennifer Lee Rossman, Lauren Scharhag, Sara L. Uckelman, and Dawn Vogel.
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Payhip Store
I have a Payhip store attached to my website. You can use this to buy my currently available ebooks directly from me, in epub, mobi and pdf formats. (There are some free stories there, too...)
The link is: payhip.com/juliebozza
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Writ in Blood Merchandise
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Another opportunity for unusual festive gifts!
As you've seen already, the awesome Mags Kulbicka provided the most gorgeous artwork for my Writ in Blood novel - for the front and back covers, as well as five full-page illustrations of specific moments in the story. I just love it!
I love the artwork in the book itself - but I also need a new mouse pad, and I want Johnny Ringo on my coffee mug, a print of the cover illustration for my study wall, and... and it's all too good to keep to myself. So Mags and I set up a shop on RedBubble, so we could all enjoy ourselves!
Please do drop by for a browse... We have all of Mags' artwork available - some options branded with the title, and some not. I'm sure you'll find plenty to covet - and of course if we haven't made a particular combination of art and product available, then just let us know!
Happy trails, pard!
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My Review of Madly, Deeply
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Madly, Deeply: The Diaries of Alan Rickman - edited by Alan Taylor, with a foreword by Emma Thompson
Canongate
Blurb: The diaries of the late actor Alan Rickman are to be published, with 27 handwritten volumes of his “witty, gossipy and utterly candid” thoughts about his career and life spanning more than 25 years set to be edited down into a single book.
Find it on Goodreads and Amazon.com.
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Review: Not always the easiest read, especially early on, as we're lacking the context. Footnotes frequently provide full names, occupation and dates for the peeps mentioned, but only occasionally offer more. But what the hell. I loved this glimpse into Alan Rickman's life and thoughts, and happily award it 5 stars.
After the last entry, Rima's* few pages on Alan's last days were lucid and beautiful. Worth the price of admission in themselves.
But I confess my favourite bits were Alan's mentions of Richard Wilson.+ Alan was known for speaking his mind and for not suffering fools gladly - so his great affection for Richard shines like the sun.
Recommended!
* Rima Horton, politician, academic and A.R.'s wife (1947-).
+ Scottish actor (1936-).
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GLO, Sydney, 15 April 2023
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It's time to start planning events again - and crossing our fingers that all will be well!
I am planning to attend GLO (Gay Lit Oz) an LGBT+ Genre Author Signing Event to be held in Sydney, Australia on 15 April 2023. All kinds of wonderful authors will be there - and I hope you will be, too!
Join the Facebook group to keep up to date with the news.
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And I'd love for you to join my Facebook group!
I have a Facebook group for my friends, readers and fellow travellers, called Life, Libraries, Love and Knitting. We are a small group so far, with a fairly low-key dynamic - while I want to keep the atmosphere relaxed and informal, I would love for more of you to join us!
As you'll gather from the group's name, I don't intend this to be all about me and my writing, but instead about anything in life that we love, whether that's knitting or not!
Please do click the link and ask to join. As required by Facebook, there are rules to agree to and questions to answer - but seeing as that's part of their efforts to keep interactions civil, I trust you won't find it too onerous.
We'd love to see you there!
P.S. This is where I make ARCs available…
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