Take 5: Read These Lips, Volume Five – now available

We’re delighted to be here in our fifth year, with a new and stunningly beautiful volume of Read These Lips. As with previous volumes, we will travel through all kinds of stories from lesbians with a point of view. We will discover and rediscover ways in which women connect—through identity, through pleasure or through shared experience—as we continue to relay lesbian experiences through our own literature.

We feel lucky to be able to receive and present more lesbian stories each year and with such variety. In Take 5, we welcome the entertaining and thought-provoking writings of Adrienne Fleming, Angel Propps, Deborah La Garbanza, Doreen Perrine, Elaine Burnes, Gill McKnight, Ina Bak, Joan Annsfire, J.E. Knowles, Lee Lynch, Natasha Carthew, Rachel Green, R.G. Emanuelle and Vanessa Stewart.

The gorgeous paintings in this volume invite you to take a moment to enjoy women and literature, together. The team at RTL wish you good reading.

Take 5 is available as a free e-book from www.readtheselips.com

Call for submissions: Read These Lips, Volume 6 (2012)

Read These Lips is a free e-book project dedicated to lesbian literature. In our sixth year, we are inviting submissions to our anthology series.

We seek multi-dimensional literary writings that speak the possibilities of lesbian lives. We feature popular genre as well as cross-genre works.

Submissions are being accepted through to 29 February 2012.  Please read our Submissions Guidelines carefully, and our previous anthologies for guidance.

Early expressions of interest are encouraged.

All correspondence to submissions@readtheselips.com

SUBMISSIONS  GUIDELINES

• Each submission: Not more than 4000 words per entry. Not less than 500 words, or 1 page, except for poetry or graphics. However, if making two (2) submissions per author per anthology, the word limit is 4000 in total.  Maximum of two (2) submissions per author per anthology, except for poetry.
• You may submit stories, poetry, verse, graphics…any genre that can be reproduced on paper.
• Submissions should have a lesbian flavour but may include anything LBTIQ inspired. New work preferred.
• Submissions should be in MSWord or RTF format or any text file to preserve format, but not in the body of an email.
• Enclose a short biography, picture and email contact with your submissions. Submissions without biographies will not be considered.
• Third party sources must be credited.
• You agree to provide your submissions free of charge to the anthology.
• You agree to our editing process. For more information see Behind The Curtain at our blog.
• Accepted entries will not be removed from the anthology once published.
• We are not responsible for any copyright infringement that may be caused by the use of your submission in our anthologies.

How the anthology works.

Our anthologies are published only in electronic format.

The anthology is distributed via the internet.

It is free to download and to share. It is not for sale.

Authors retain their moral rights, but once a submission is included in the anthology and is published, it cannot be removed.

IMPORTANT: Those who wish to submit to us or host or distribute our anthologies should be aware of our Terms of Use.

The Great Bib

For those of you who’d like to look for more reading, our intrepid bibliographer, Renée, has compiled an amazing list of anthologies. Some oldies but goodies and some newer collections, with links to publishers and other sources.

If you know of any anthologies she has missed, please email her at bibliographer@readtheselips.com

You can see our Bibliography of lesbian and lesbian-friendly anthologies of short fiction and poetry at www.readtheselips.com

The break you’ve been waiting for

We like to take it easy here at RTL. We enjoy living full lives with dramas, routines and the occasional holiday. We communicate among ourselves everyday and I have to say, I really enjoy discussing everything under the sun from a lesbian and queer perspective.

Well, we have another great bunch of quality stories and poetry coming up for you in the next volume of Read These Lips. Some of our favourite contributors return, accompanied by writers we’re pleased to feature for the first time. We love that RTL has enabled us to open the world to lesbian writings and we feel really lucky when writers approach us to share their stories.

We, and they, will see you in August for Take 5.

Season’s best wishes

As most of the world goes on holiday, we’ll be sashaying off for our own leisure activities. Whether you’re stuck indoors because it’s cold or enjoying summer in the south, have a good book to fill the time between activities. And if you’re able, please drop a note to the author.

We hope you made it through 2010 in good spirits and we wish you well for the coming year.

Call for submissions: Read These Lips, Volume 5 (June 2011)

Read These Lips is a free e-book project dedicated to lesbian literature. In our fifth year, we are inviting submissions to our anthology series.

We seek multi-dimensional literary writings that speak the possibilities of lesbian lives. We feature popular genre as well as cross-genre works.

Submissions are open from 1 November 2010 to 31 January 2011.  Please read our Submissions Guidelines carefully, and our previous anthologies for guidance.

Early expressions of interest are encouraged.

All correspondence to submissions@readtheselips.com

SUBMISSIONS  GUIDELINES

• Each submission: Not more than 4000 words per entry. Not less than 500 words, or 1 page, except for poetry or graphics. However, if making two (2) submissions per author per anthology, the word limit is 4000 in total.  Maximum of two (2) submissions per author per anthology.
• You may submit stories, poetry, verse, graphics…any genre that can be reproduced on paper.
• Submissions should have a lesbian flavour but may include anything LBTIQ inspired. New work preferred.
• Submissions should be in MSWord or RTF format or any text file to preserve format, and not in the body of an email.
• Enclose a short biography, picture and email contact with your submissions.Submissions without biographies will not be considered.
• Third party sources must be credited.
• You agree to provide your submissions free of charge to the anthology.
• You agree to our editing process. For more information see Behind The Curtain at our blog.
• Accepted entries will not be removed from the anthology once published.
• We are not responsible for any copyright infringement that may be caused by the use of your submission in our anthologies.

How the anthology works.

Our anthologies are published only in electronic format.

The anthology is distributed via the internet.

It is free to download and to share. It is not for sale.

Authors retain their moral rights, but once a submission is included in the anthology and is published, it cannot be removed.

IMPORTANT: Those who wish to submit to us or host or distribute our anthologies should be aware of our Terms of Use.

Fagbug DVD winner

Congratulations to Glenda who is our Fagbug DVD winner (our first dvd giveaway!)

Thank you to all who participated and to Erin Davies for stumping up the prize.

For youse others, go see the doco movie.

Reminder: Win a Fagbug DVD

You have till 13th July to post a comment on our blog post below to win a brand new DVD of  a cute VW showing up homophobia with the help of its brave owner, Erin Davies.

Tell us your favourite moment on any form of transport and you could share more than one adventure.

4Play: Read These Lips, Volume Four – now available

4Play: Read These Lips, Volume Four

In 4Play, once again Read These Lips presents stories and poetry to whet your appetite and feed your mind. The brilliant Janis Spehr shares a glimpse of rural Australia life you hadn’t expected. Feast on the charismatic poetry of Natasha Carthew, the bittersweet denial in Joan Annsfire’s ‘trip’, and the soulful passion from Robinet Christian. Amy McDonald pens a spicy other-worldly tale that could happen. See the world unfolding through young eyes in stories by R.G. Emanuelle and J.E. Knowles. Read on to Jessica Mason McFadden’s take on loving a woman and partake of a breakfast chat with a twist from Rachel Green, before ending on a lover’s serenade by Tamara Klinger.

This collection is brought to you through the generosity of our featured writers and the creative team at www.readtheselips.com.

4Play is for fun, for life, and for you.

Available as a free ebook from ReadTheseLips.com.

Win a Fagbug DVD

In Second Helping: Read These Lips, Volume 2,  we featured a brave young lesbian, Erin Davies, who drove around North America to confront homophobia after her beloved VW was defaced. Since then, she’s been doing a ton of stuff to record her adventures which you can read up on at http://fagbug.com/. One of her projects was to make a film about the event that became fagbug, the journey. We’re happy to report that Fagbug will be released as a film and on DVD on July 13.

FAGBUG (83 minutes) – Official release: July 13, 2010
Garden Thieves Pictures
On the 11th Annual National Day of Silence, Erin Davies was victim to a hate crime in Albany, New York. Because of sporting a rainbow sticker on her VW Beetle, Erin’s car was vandalized, left with the words “fag” and “u r gay” placed on the driver’s side window and hood of her car. Despite initial shock and embarrassment, Erin decided to embrace what happened by leaving the graffiti on her car. She took her car, now known worldwide as the “fagbug,” on a 58-day trip around the United States and Canada. Along the way, Erin discovered other, more serious hate crimes, had people attempt to remove the graffiti, and experimented with having a male drive her car. After driving the fagbug for one year, Erin decided to give her car a makeover. DVD cover photography by Katherine Wright ©2010. Also available on Amazon and Barnes and Noble.

To celebrate the release of Fagbug, Erin is giving one copy of the DVD to a lucky reader of ReadTheseLips.com. To win this DVD, all you have to do is post a comment below, telling us Which is your favourite form of transport and why. Don’t forget to leave us your email address. Entries close July 13. Limit of one entry per person. Winner will be notified by email.

RTL4 in the works

Ah, we’ve been busy in the last few weeks, but Read These Lips Volume 4 is currently in the works. We think it’s another very interesting collection.

Want to be a featured writer?

Just About Write (www.justaboutwrite.com), a resource site for lesbian authors and readers, is calling for authors to submit their bios and news about their upcoming books for JAW’s Featured Author section.

Send along your info thus to Lynne at Sage320@aol.com :

• Author biography
• A picture of the author in JPEG format
• A summary of each book – you can send the blurbs on the back covers
• A copy of each book cover – again in JPEG format

Submissions deadline closing

Our call for submissions for 2010′s  Read These Lips is closing soon.

Thank you to those who’ve sent in their entries. For those thinking about it, our deadline is in less than a week (short extensions may be permissible on request)

For submission details please see our guidelines here.

Y’sBLF

Nominations are open for stories with lesbian content to be considered for this year’s Year’s Best Lesbian Fiction anthology. Short stories to 12,500 words featuring significant lesbian content, first published in an edited venue (online, magazine, anthology, etc) in 2009, are eligible for nomination.   Fanfic is not eligible, and erotica stories are strongly discouraged.

This year’s issue will be edited by Fran Walker and Andi Marquette and published by Bedazzled Ink Publishing.  Authors whose stories are selected for inclusion by the editors, and whose reprint rights are contracted for this anthology, will receive a $25 payment and one contributor’s copy.   The anthology will be published in print and e-book form in June 2010.

If you published one or more lesbian stories in 2009 that you feel would be of suitable quality and content and that you would like to nominate, please email me the date and venue of original publication and a copy of the story, preferably by 31 January 2010.  Alternatively, if you could forward this information to your authors, they can nominate their published stories themselves. Info on last year’s issue can be found here:  http://bedazzledink.com/?page_id=150

Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions; please also feel free to forward this call for nominations to anyone you think might be interested.

Many thanks,

Fran Walker

(franwalker@ihug.co.nz)

Season’s greetings

On behalf of the RTL team, I wish our readers and friends a safe and enjoyable end to 2009, and a fresh and happy outlook for 2010.

Call for submissions: Read These Lips, Volume 4 (June 2010)

Read These Lips is a free e-book project dedicated to lesbian literature. In our fourth year, we are inviting submissions to our anthology series.

We seek multi-dimensional literary writings that speak the possibilities of lesbian lives. We feature popular genre as well as cross-genre works.

Submissions are open from 1 November 2009 to 31 January 2010.  Please read our Submissions Guidelines carefully, and our previous anthologies for guidance.

Early expressions of interest are encouraged.

All correspondence to submissions@readtheselips.com

Let’s Check In With Smudge

Our RTL mascot, Smudge had his very first rabies shot yesterday.  He is 18 weeks old and 5.5 pounds of sleek, sturdy, willful young kitten.   He is busy learning many things.

He helps me keep track of monsters in my online game.

And writes down my stats. See his single white whisker?

He is a big help to Aunt Tilly in the office.

He is learning computer repair. "This fan needs to be plugged in."

An afternoon nap, like Uncle Skuffy, is common.

Dont need no silly spine! How can he sleep on that loud fabric?!

And to bed in the evening. G'nite all.

Sweet Afters – 1000+ and counting

ReadTheseLips.com, the project that could, has given away more than a thousand copies of Sweet Afters – the third anthology in the RTL series – in just over a month from release. (We would’ve posted this sooner but we had technical problems)

Thank you to everyone who’ve supported us. Please tell your friends, and do look up the authors who’ve contributed to our free anthologies.

Writers’ news

We’ve added a page to link to news and updates from our contributors.

Writers:  if you don’t have a website or blog yet, email us your news and we’ll pop them up on here.

E-books you can’t resist

We’re so pleased to share that Bedazzled Ink sponsored the prize for our Name the Kitty contest. They came up with the offer all by their lovely selves.

Check out their cheaper than chips e-books. How can you resist at those prices!

Now before y’all overrun their e-bookstore at http://bedazzledink.com/bbp/, please note that they are in the midst of revamping their main website, where you can see upcoming releases and yes, buy print books too.