M/M Authors I Recommend:
Publishers:
Other Interesting Sites:
Fang: Gothika
Penumbra
Borderland
A Cop for Christmas
A Viking for Yule
Tomte
The Christmas Wager – 2nd Edition
The Healing Power of Eggnog
Screwups
The Rules
Billy’s Bones
Murder on the Mountain
Violated
Small Town Sonata
We’re Both Straight, Right?
The Dogs of Cyberwar
Saturn in Retrograde
Bigfoot Hunters in Love
FREE READ! Finding Love Through Bigfoot
FREE! Do You Want This or Not?
Jamie Fessenden
Jamie Fessenden's Blog 
Hi Jamie The reviews are coming in on Violated but most importantly, what do you think?
I revelled in the mid-life drama and hope to read another Fessenden again.
I thought the audiobook came out wonderfully! You did a great job. I listened to it as soon as it came out, and I was delighted. Thank you!
Don’t have FB, blog or other social media, e-mail only. But I wanted to let you know how I felt about your short story in7&7 anthology: Train to Sevmash.
Dear Author,
I just finished reading your short story in the 7&7 anthology: Train to Sevmash.
Oh my gosh, what a lovely, sweet story! I am still crying as I write this! To have found love, tenderness and caring and then being forced to separate! I just can’t express the heartache I felt reading the last couple pages.
I am glad Colby didn’t go through with his mission. I was almost chewing my arm off with anxiety: is he going to do it? Is he going to let Yuri live?
Thank you Author, for such a moving, lovely piece.
Fessenden sounds like a German name. If it is, which area in Germany did your ancestors come from? I am German myself, Stuttgart area, near the Black Forest. The next town over from my town is where they make the Porsche! And we are pround of that achievement! LOL
Regards,
Daniela
I’m glad you liked it! I’ve been working on a full-length novel with that as the beginning section, but it’s taking a while. Soviet Russia was so closed off, it’s difficult to find information on life there in the 60s.
We thought we might be from Germany, but it turns out the family dates back to Anglo-Saxon England. At the time, the name was spelled “Phissenden” or other variants. I did, however, study German for a couple of years in college, and I love the culture.
Read your post “My take on women writing MM Romance” for insight on why a lesbian has written MM romantic fantasy for over a decade. I came across Ginn Hale’s Cadeleonian series by chance, after reading many stories of the sword and sorcery genre. Notable character development and world building, if the proofreading was a little lax. Although categorized as Young Adult, I’m middle-aged and really enjoyed that series, her Rifter series, and stand alone “Wicked Gentlemen.” I’d like your opinion on her commitment to MM.
Keep up the good work!
This is something I’ve been curious about, as well. As a man, I can’t say I truly know anything about it. But I have discussed it with friends who are more informed, and I do have some thoughts. There are a number of reasons, so pinning down any specific one or two points is challenging. On a purely financial basis, MM outsells FF fiction by quite a margin. The market for the latter seems to be growing, so hopefully this won’t be as much of an issue for authors in the future, but it definitely has been in the past. If you want people to buy and read your material, you’ll aim for a market that seems to sell well. (Though this is often deceptive. I’ve come across people who believe MM outsells straight romance, which is absolutely not the case.) Another factor is the equality of the two characters in the romance. In straight romance, there is always the implicit societal inequality between men and women at play. In MM, that more or less vanishes, leaving the author free to deal with other matters. (Though we often have class differences, such as educated vs. uneducated.) There is also the simple fact that MM is set in a “queer” space to begin with, which is more comfortable for some writers to move around in. Overall though, I’m really just speaking from a position of ignorance.
That’s one way to answer my question. I was more interested in your opinion of Ginn Hale’s characterization of gay men. Perhaps her portrayals are unrealistic. “M/M romance may be about gay men, but it isn’t really ours,” your own words quoted in a Duke University article, likely sums up her approach. In the same article, “write what you know” is also mentioned. James Wight became a successful author through detailing bodily functions of animals… Thank you for replying.
I haven’t read her books yet. I’ll give them a look, when I’ve got a bit more time. I don’t think the fact that MM is a traditionally female genre should encourage authors to be lax in their portrayal of gay men, however. We are still a minority and should be respected as such. I was once called out by a reader for having my main character relying on body language and other clues to guess whether a man was gay, rather than simply ask him. That demonstrates a distinct lack of respect for what we go through, and the fear we often have of what could happen if we guess wrong.