Author Archives: Gabriella West

About Gabriella West

Author of LGBT historical fiction and contemporary queer romance. Copyeditor/proofreader.

Smashwords End of Year Sale Expands!

Posted on December 16, 2021 by Gabriella West

The 5th Annual Smashwords End of Year Sale is longer this year: it runs December 17-January 1. I decided to keep it simple this time. The first two books in my medieval Knight’s Tale series will be on sale for … Continue reading →

Posted in LGBT, News, Self-publishing, Writing | Tagged A Knight's Tale: Kenilworth, ebooks, Happy Holidays, LGBT historical romance, medieval romance, once you are mine, pre-order, Smashwords, Smashwords End of Year Sale | Leave a comment

Fall Bargains and Musings

Posted on October 10, 2021 by Gabriella West

I wanted to let folks know that a couple of my books are on sale now at Smashwords. You can get Once You Are Mine for 25% off; The Pull of Yesterday, book 2 in the Elsie Street trilogy is … Continue reading →

Posted in Health, LGBT, News, Personal, Self-publishing, Writing | Tagged Bookbub, cancer, Colin Powell, Covid, death, Elsie Street, Free, hearts, mortality, once you are mine, Radish, Smashwords, The Pull of Yesterday | Leave a comment

The Letters of Shirley Jackson—a Preview!

Posted on August 23, 2021 by Gabriella West

I’ve been busy reading the delightful, yet somewhat vexing Letters of Shirley Jackson (Random House, 672 pp., $14.99 on Kindle) and writing a long review of it! Finding a home (irony alert, as Shirley was always focused on the physical … Continue reading →

Posted in creativity and its discontents, News, Reviews, Writing | Tagged 1950s, cruelty, dysfunctional relationships, female breadwinners, feminism, husbands, marriage, mental health, Morris Minors, Shirley Jackson, The Internet Review of Books, The Letters of Shirley Jackson, Vermont, women writers, women's lives | Leave a comment

A Tenuous Time (Two Unexpected Losses)

Posted on July 25, 2021 by Gabriella West

Seems like a weird time we’re in right now. The delta variant is upon us, and even in San Francisco, cases are rising robustly. I continue to wear my mask and am relieved that so many of my fellow SFers … Continue reading →

Posted in Personal, San Francisco, Writing | Tagged Autism, cancer, Chico, deaths, delta variant, Denise Minor, Facebook, feminist, friendship, loss, obituary, Patrick More, San Francisco State, women's lives, writing group | Leave a comment

Summer Odds n’ Ends

Posted on June 26, 2021 by Gabriella West

Summer’s a good time for bargains, and here are a few! First of all, the audiobook of Connecting the Dots: My Midlife Journey with Adult ADHD is on sale for just $1.99 thru the end of June over at BN‘s … Continue reading →

Posted in LGBT, News, Writing | Tagged ADHD, app, connecting the dots, LGBTQ, Own Voices, Radish, sale, Smashwords, summer, Summer/Winter sale, time of grace | Leave a comment

Belated Bloomsday Musings

Posted on June 16, 2021 by Gabriella West

Originally posted on Gabriella West:
Being interviewed is a scary thing. The folks at 1st Author Interviews made it totally easy for me to answer some questions about my writing process and my recently published novel The Leaving. I think…

Posted in Writing | Tagged Bloomsday, cloche hat, David Norris, joyce, Kindle, Liz Adams, nora, Sacramento, Time, Ulysses, wedding day | Leave a comment

Happy Pride 2021

Posted on June 5, 2021 by Gabriella West

Pride comes but once a year! This month we are emerging from a pandemic. It feels like we ought to be joyous and yet there is more anxiety in the air than joyousness, for the most part. (Although on June … Continue reading →

Posted in creativity and its discontents, LGBT, Personal | Tagged ADHD, Apple, audiobook, Barnes & Noble, connecting the dots, Covid, Daniela Acitelli, Gay Pride Month, Google play, June, passings, Pride, Smashwords, time of grace, women's lives | Leave a comment

A Final Word on Blake Bailey

Posted on May 29, 2021 by Gabriella West

You can’t keep a bad man down. That’s what sprang to mind when I read on Twitter yesterday that Blake Bailey’s infamous biography of Philip Roth, unpublished by Norton, had been picked up by Skyhorse Publishing and will be rushed … Continue reading →

Posted in creativity and its discontents, News, Personal, Writing | Tagged academics, alcoholism, biography, bisexuality, Blake Bailey, decline and fall, double lives, Eve Crawford Peyton, fathers, Lusher, Philip Roth, publishing, Rape, Scandal, Skyhorse Publishing, sons, The Splendid Things We Planned, Valentina Rice, W.W. Norton | Leave a comment

Review: Summer Will Show by Sylvia Townsend Warner

Posted on May 23, 2021 by Gabriella West

Occasionally, I will pick up a library book (and I vow to do this more, post-pandemic). I wanted to review a striking, mostly forgotten novel by 20th-century English author Sylvia Townsend Warner (1893-1978), whose long life spanned almost a century … Continue reading →

Posted in creativity and its discontents, LGBT, Reviews, Writing | Tagged 20th-century women writers, bisexuality, Communism, feminism, historical fiction, Jewish fiction, lesbian fiction, NYRB, Penguin, relationships between women, revolutionaries, Summer Will Show, Sylvia Townsend Warner, Valentine Ackland, women in love | Leave a comment

A Note on Overdrive for Library Users

Posted on May 11, 2021 by Gabriella West

I was thrilled to see on Smashwords that three of my ebooks had sold to the Sacramento Public Library via OverDrive. OverDrive has been around since at least 2014 and is a distributor for libraries to purchase ebooks. As far … Continue reading →