love spelled in scrabble tiles

How Much He Must Have Hated Himself

Karin Kallmaker LIFE + STYLE 10 Comments

For more than four decades of my life, Pat Robertson heaped vitriol and invective on me and my kind. He unceasingly called us deviants and dangers to our country and the world. Every natural disaster, every plague, every ill in the world was our fault or the fault of those who tolerated our existence. We were the reason for the suffering of billions of people.

He mouthed the words “Hate the sin, not the sinner” — six short words — after “sermons” of thousands of words that hated the sinner. Read More

quill pen and ink well on old book in library

Heart Set on a Signed Book at GCLS?

Karin Kallmaker Events and Appearances 0 Comments

CONTENTS

How can it be June? It’s only a couple of weeks until I’ll be hopping in the trusty Subaru to head to my favorite event of the year. This year the Golden Crown Literary Society conference for all people who love sapphic fiction is in Denver, a city I’ve visited often and love.

Along with the many great panels and ways to interact with readers and answer questions is a huge vendor booth hosted by Bella Books that will have a wide variety of actual, real, smell the ink, pick-up-and-hold books. Every author present will have books there, including me. Read More

Scoop of Baskin-Robbins Chick'n & Waffle Ice Cream on a waffle

How I Know the Universe Loves Us – My First Post about Ice Cream

Karin Kallmaker Cheers & Chocolate, Favorite Things 5 Comments

CONTENTS

Given that my food love centers around ice cream, it’s hard to believe I’ve never written a blog about it. Ice cream is such a part of my life that when I was researching food for my medieval romance Knight of Nights I was sad for an entire day that there was no way to include ice cream. It’s quite depressing to imagine a world without ice cream.

I’m Not an Ice Cream Snob. Seriously.

I like everything from soft serve to supermarket gelato to the artisanal goodies made in small batches in restaurants. I happily range from a Mickey D’s vanilla cone on a 105 degree day after running errands, to a Talenti pint of whatever chocolate, caramel, crunchy gelato concoction was on sale, to fancy plated desserts. Baseline, it has to have balanced flavors that work well together and a mouth-pleasing creaminess.
And yes, I stalk ice cream on sale and pounce on any brand that doesn’t use substitutes for the sugar or fat. They can use less of those two things, but not substitutes. There are concoctions that use molecular gastronomy techniques, emulsifiers, and stabilizers which can taste good. To me, they’re ice cream cousins. Not ice cream.
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190+ Sapphic authors have chosen their favorite scenes just for you at I Heart SapphFIC!

Picking a Favorite Child – Free Anthology and Mega-Sale News

Karin Kallmaker Book News, Events and Appearances 0 Comments

CONTENTS

That Dreaded Question

One of the most challenging questions a writer can get is, “What’s your favorite of what you’ve written?” The answer is never easy.

Most of the time, my favorite thing is what I last imagined in my head and actually made it to the page the way I hoped it might. Or that scene that for some reason always makes me cry. Or has a writer’s tool in it that I managed to use to its best effect. It’s hard to answer “That scene – look at the foreshadowing!” and have anyone who isn’t a writer really get it. Read More

profile of dark-skinned black woman with natural hair wearing a sleeveless top. Golden lights are over her shoulder and a wine glass in front of her.

Finding Nikki Velvet

Karin Kallmaker Book News, Checked Out, Coin of Love Series, Covered Hearts, Knight of Nights, Velvet in Venice, Wind in Her Hair 10 Comments

CONTENTS

I have an itchy brain, and it pokes at me when a group of things has one item not like the others. Like when all the towels but one face fold-out on a shelf – what kind of madness is that!? I wish it had kicked in a little bit earlier on my latest project, though.

One of These Things . . .

If you follow me on social media, you know I was having a crisis of “One of these Things Is Not Like the Other” about my new Coin of Love novella series cover art. It was making my brain itch.

Once the next four installments were planned and the covers set side-by-side with Velvet in Venice, the five covers looked like this:

The itch in my brain was that the lovely gondola, canal, and old building on Velvet was nothing like any of the other covers, all of which featured a character from the story inside and conveyed (at least I hope so) the time period of the story.
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