Hi Everyone!

I've just published my first novel, Orphan's Quest. It is the first volume of an epic Fantasy trilogy called Chronicles of Firma which features young gay heroes. You can check it out and order signed copies on my website:

http://www.samersguild.com.

It will be on Amazon.com and other online bookstores soon, but my price is lower and all my copies come autographed free of charge. There's also a link on my site called "Spread the Word". This leads to a flyer that you can download and post wherever you think it might generate some sales for me. Since I'm a new author, and doing all my own publicity and marketing, this would help me out a great deal. If anyone has a webpage of their own and would like to link to mine, that would also be great.

One of the things I've gotten around to setting up is a member's directory.

Logged in users will be able to click on the members link in the top navigation bar to go to the member's directory. This shows a list of the registered users on the site. This is ONLY visible if you are logged in, to protect your privacy.

Part and parcel of this, was the addition of a couple of fields to make the profiles a bit more interesting. I am talking about the tag, and the tagline fields.

Read more for a description of these extra fields

I finished the scheduled upgrades to Oasis Magazine this afternoon, and I thought I'd point out some of the new features.

Firstly, you guys will notice our swanky new theme, which was primarily based on the new Drupal base theme. I have also (started) re-working the navigation of the site, to make things more cleanly linked, and simpler to navigate.

The next important change we made, is that you can no longer view user profiles without being logged in. This is an important security consideration, as it stops google and other search engines from crawling your user profile pages for details such as your AIM account, or myspace pages.

(more after the jump)

Hey everyone, just want to welcome you to the new site. There's still more to come very soon, but this was one big step that needed to happen before the rest can fall into place. Post here if you find any technical issues, etc., so we can fix them. And, if you have any questions about the new site, ask here as well.

Thanks.

I'm sooooo tired and sooooo bored, but I can't sleep. Suddenly I thought, "Hey, what is it that I want to do after high school?"

Not exactly what I can do, but what I want to do.

Then, I wondered what my fellow Oasians dreamed of doing after high school, college, or whatever.

So, everyone, what do you want or plan to do in the future?

So first, a little background. I'm a science major in college, 20 y/o (soon to be 21...yay!). And oh yeah, I'm gay. Anyway, thought that this topic would be interesting for the forum:

What do you all think of homosexuality in the context of evolution? I mean, natural selection says that the fittest survive, and that all species continually evolve so as to ensure the best odds of their continued existence. So that means that we should evolve so that we are better able to procreate and populate the world. Where do you think homosexuality fits in here? I mean, it seems counter to evolution (which is, as an aside, a theory which must be accepted by any rational person...sort of like gravity). That said, how is it that homosexuality would ever come about with any significant frequency, considering that it reduces the amount of procreation?

I signed out and then I remembered what I wanted to type.

What made you question your sexuality in the first place?

For me it was a girl. I sort of had to get a serious crush first.

Surprisingly, it wasn't the fact that I have had romantic thoughts about girls for years. Or the insane nervousness of entering a locker room. Hmmm... I should have figured it out a lot sooner.

What's

I havnt written in a while but yeh been busy anyway i finally did it finally came out to my friends WOOP WOOP haha well heres how it went down.
Ive been having a good few months lately ive been really close with friends i mean real close like it used to be before all the questioning my sexuality thing. I actually have a best mate now lol were so damn close. You no wen ur around someone for so long that after a while ur personalities kinda mix and you start finishing each others sentences well thats wat i have with my best friend lacey lol everyone thinks its weird since noone but us understands a thing were talking bout lol.

okay, so i was gonna wait until like saturday to update, but i can't, i am jsut sooooo excited. I have a girlfriend. The girl from another school who i kissed two weeks ago, asked me out tonigt on the phone, she is sleeping over tomorrow after the dance, and i soo cannot wait. I am sooo excited to have a girlfriend right now, omg, and she is adorable, i have the biggest thing for her. HELLS YEAH. I wish tomorrow would come already. god. Time is moving too slow, and i can't stand it, i swear, i looked at the clock like a half hour ago, but it has only been like 5 minutes, i can't stand it. Why is it that when you want time to go fast, it goes even slower?? i hate it

well I havent posted in a bit, but I HAVE been looking at what all you other people have been posting. It seems that the majority of you are here to rant about how you're crushing on her, but you dont want her to know that you're gay. or that you like him, but you dont wanna tell him you're bi. i know how all of you feel, but i just wonder... wouldnt life be easier if we could all just be out and proud (i know some of you are) and let the world know what we ARE gay or bi or whatever. i think that as who we are, we get discriminated against unfairly and i dont like that. to make myself feel better, i think i might become the first ever women president and change all the state laws about same sex marrige. i mean come on. is it really that bad that that girl over there likes that one shes hanging out with? (or possibly going out with?) or is it so hard to believe that some of us were born differently than that striat girl or boy playing basketball?

I'm usually asleep when the alcohol wears off. Mornings where I didn't get enough sleep for it to wear off though can be hell. Those mornings, I am over-ridden with anxiety and fear I'm coming close to death.

I have to have another drink. My anxiety is, at least in this situation, caused by my drinking and drinking is what I do to alleviate my anxiety.

This morning I tried to shake off the feeling but I couldn't help myself from expecting

It's 9:30 at night, and I've been sitting here infront of this computer all evening. Why? Because I felt like coming home tonight to actually do my homework. My friend was talking to me on MSN, and told me to join this RPG thing called Maple Story. So I downloaded it jsut to try it. And now it won't let me even open it, so that was a waste of time. I babbled on Myspace and Piczo a bit, and decided Piczo is a useless waste of perfectly good cyber space. I don't know why my friend is obsessed with it, it makes no sense to me what-so-ever.

occasionally i get feelings...and rarely i get thoughts....and very rarely i like to share the two:
5)
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1)
0)
-1)

ever since i came out early this year things have rapidly changed for me. seems that in the latest installment of my changes is loss of friends, not because of them, it's not their fault, but rather it's mine...or nobody's, depends how you look at it...anyway assigning responsibility isn't the point. i think that the greatest factor that's making these things happen is the simple fact that i've finally come in contact with a little gay culture and as a result it's rubbed off on me and changed me. i dunno, i always thought that i knew myself pretty well, i mean i'm the most selfish person in the world for starters. what i mean is that i don't really know what i'm turning into here, but whatever it is it's miles (or kilometres) away from what i was before. i'm not sure if i'm happier or sadder, prolly neither, i don't know that i'm more confident, i don't feel like i'm liberated, i don't feel like a load has been taken off my shoulders and i don't feel like my relationships have changed in their dynamics...in fact it all feels numingly the same. i wanted everything to change, i wanted my world to turn upside down, i wanted to feel like people actually knew and understood me, like i had some sort of fundamental connection to them, but i don't. in fact, it's quite the opposite, i feel further away from people now than i ever did.

I can't even begin to conceive the meaning and point to life anymore.

I feel like I want to live, and not die, but I also feel like to find true worth and reason would be like beating a video game. Then it's boring and you want to beat a different one. I tell you there is no point in that. There has to be a final point, and not just a round the merry go round fun fair approach to it all. Then again, I said that's what I feel, and since when have feelings been truly accurate?

Shallow reason for joining site: To discuss national and local issues concerning the gay world
Deeper reason for joining site: To reflect my emotions, fears, and desires to a group of people that already accept me for who I am

Yesterday, I came to the conclusion that I need an outlet for my gayness. I need to let my thoughts be heard, whether or not others agree with me. Sadly, I'm not true to myself about this. I can't talk to my friends and family about my sexuality or issues of gay marriage. Fortunately, I found Oasis to be my connection with others with the same yearning for connection, understanding, and acceptance.

I'm Riku now! I've been wanting to change my username for a while, but I finally got around to it. I'm still me, but I rather be called Riku anyways. *nods* I hope not too many people are confused.

So you're probably wondering what happened, I sent Sora an e-mail that basically asked her to be my girlfriend right? Sora came over, and she checked her e-mail. (I told her too. Since I knew she haddn't yet.) And by the time she has the browser up I've left the room. I sat in a different room and listened to her type. (I was littarly shaking.) And she came in and hugged me. Then we avoided the subject and watched stuff on youtube for a little while, and then she brought up her e-mail account on Yahoo again and started sending me something and then she kicked me out of the room. And so I waited. And then she told me to check my e-mail.

welp. I'm satisfied. The democrats now control Congress and Senate. I can sleep peacefully now.

Ah, well. It definately turned out better than I expected. I was afraid that the republicans and the conservataves were gonna take the vast majority. Maybe after all the shit Bush's done, the dem's realized they needed to take a stand?

Now all we can do is pray that the 2008 elections are just as good.

Hey there...

Just wondering, who are your role models? Who helped you come out, accept yourself, feel that being gay was OK? Was it a writer, celebrity, musician that is openly gay (or, by extension, a book or something they wrote)? Who are they?

Or, who is someone openly gay that keeps serving as an inspiration to you?

Let me know...

Someone new is on MySpace, more details to come later... but its URL is:

http://www.myspace.com/oasismag

Add them!

Loving Annabelle (www.myspace.com/weloveannabelle) is the most recent production of director Katherine Brooks (www.myspace.com/katherinebrooks). The indie film tells the story is about a Catholic School teacher’s romantic affair with a student (Annabelle). It’s a very tasteful and realistic story that has won a number of awards in recent Lesbian and Gay Film Festivals across the US, UK, and Germany, it even gathered an award in Barcelona. Director Brooks is now working on her next project: Mad World. Fans can access www.myspace.com/madworldmovie and www.myspace.com/weloveannabelle, and join a growing community that actively participates with Katherine in chatrooms, forums, and blogs to comment ideas for the new movie’s music, cast, and script. In the next weeks, the new site www.madworldmovie.com will be available for anyone who subscribes freely to be witness of the making of the movie.