GRL2017 Blog Tour: Bayou Book Junkie Welcomes J. Scott Coatsworth

GRL2017 Blog Tour: Bayou Book Junkie Welcomes 

J. Scott Coatsworth

A Banner Year

J. Scott Coatsworth

Last year was my first at GRL in Kansas City. I was a GRL virgin and a Supporting Author, which basically meant I had a few novellas out and some other miscellaneous work. It was an amazing con for me, and Mark and I are thrilled to be returning this fall for GRL Denver.

This year is different. I’m attending as a Featured Author for the first time. It’s a choice I made with some difficulty, as I still feel like the little guy no one really knows about. Yeah, folks know me for Queer Sci Fi and QueeRomance Ink, but I’m really just beginning to make my mark as an author.

My first novel, “Skythane”, came out in February, but up until two days before the GRL 2017 slots went on sale, I had no idea if my second novel would be accepted, and I didn’t want to attempt a Featured slot with just one full-length novel to my name.

So I made myself a bargain. If the second novel was bought by the publisher, I would try things out as a Featured Author this time.

In the end, it came right down to the wire. On Thursday night before the Saturday GRL registration release, I got my email from DSP. It was a YES—I was in. There may have been some dancing in the Coatsworth-Guzman household that night.

Being a GRL Featured Author comes with a bit of automatic cachet. You get included in the big Saturday free for all signing and meet-and-greet in the big room as an AUTHOR WHO MATTERS, though this is a rather subjective thing. In the grand scheme of things, I still matter a whole lot less than an Amy Lane or Angel Martinez or Mary Calmes.

It also means I get to do a reading, which alternately thrills and terrifies me. I’m a people person by necessity, an introvert who has force-extroverted himself because he has to communicate with others. I still look on in envy when someone like Damon Suede gets up and captivates an entire room by his sheer force of personality. I don’t have those kind of skills.

I am working on it.

So this is shaping up to be a banner year. Beyond the whole GRL thing, I have two series launched, a novella planned in the summer, a, part of a four author trilogy planned for fall or winter, and am plotting the launch of my own first self-published book.

Plus my husband Mark and I are working hard to make QueeRomance Ink an indelible part of the LGBTIQA romance landscape.

I had my first real fan at GRL last year. Will there be more in Denver? I’d love to meet them, but the whole idea that I have fans still boggles my mind. “You mean, you came to see little ole me?”

Time will tell. But however it goes down, we plan to have a great time at GRL 2017.

And if I’m lucky, 2018 will be a banner year too.

Author Bio
J. Scott Coatsworth

Scott was first indoctrinated into the worlds of science fiction and fantasy by his mother at the young age of nine. He devoured her Science Fiction Book Club library, but as he grew up, he wondered where all the people like him were in the stories he was reading.

He decided that if there weren't enough gay characters in his favorite genres, he would write them himself.

He runs two community websites—Queer Sci Fi and QueeRomance Ink—with his husband Mark. Both sites celebrate authors and fiction that reflect queer reality.