Author Archives: Gabriella West

About Gabriella West

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

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 →

Posted in News, Self-publishing | Tagged ADHD, Audible, audiobooks, Bookbub, Bookmate, borrow, connecting the dots, ebooks, libraries, mobile apps, overdrive, Sacramento Public Library, San Francisco Public Library, time of grace | Leave a comment

It’s Spring!

Posted on May 2, 2021 by Gabriella West

And that’s always exciting. This was what my kitchen looked like last month, with the fruit trees outside in the terraced back yard pressing in at the window. Things are greener now. The cedar waxwings are taking their last bites … Continue reading →

Posted in creativity and its discontents, Personal | Tagged abuse, billie eilish, Blake Bailey, British Vogue, fashion, feminism, Matt Gaetz, sexuality, spring, teen girls, women | Leave a comment

Once You Are Mine by Gabriella West ~ Book Review

Posted on March 29, 2021 by Gabriella West

Originally posted on Lily Michaels:
In this pandemic love story set in the tense, unpredictable summer of 2020, 21-year-old Alex Martinez gets out of San Quentin after serving three years for a nonviolent crime. He’s hardened by his time inside…