GRL - Author - T.A. Webb

Pure as the new fallen snow and unsoiled by GayRomLit

T.A. Webb

1. The list of events is amazing. What are you looking forward to the most?  Wow – meeting everyone. 

The list of attending authors – like a wet dream. LOL  I’m really looking forward to the Western Night hosted by the guys.  The cabaret night sounds fun too – I like the casual events.

2. Where will you be traveling from and who will you be bringing with you?   

I’m coming in from Atlanta. Sue Brown is coming in from London for a couple of days prior to the event, and she and I are flying out together.

3. If you could ask an attendee from last year one question to help prepare you for GRL what would it be?   

How does a fanboy like me keep from embarrassing himself with all the great writers there? I mean, I have a book out, and another coming out right before GRL, but I’m nothing compared to these folks! 

4. This will be my first ever, public appearance and I’m nervous as hell. Is this your very first public appearance or have you attended other event? If you’ve attended other events, what were they like? Were you nervous the first time?

 I went to Outlantacon this year as an attendee, and met Kage Alan and Eden Winters and Shae Connor and JP Barnaby.  I was nervous just meeting them, but we all hung out and they are fantastic, warm people.  And funny!  But I am a reviewer and a reader first and foremost – and very new to the whole writer side!

5. I am very quiet when I meet new people (Oh shut up Joel I hear you snickering from here) Are you outgoing? More reserved?  

 Horribly reserved.  Until I get to know you, then I am fine. And tequila makes me funnier and looser. But not THAT loose.

6. I admit, I’m going to be like a crazy stalker fan of Rick R. Reed. Who are you looking forward most to meeting? 

Besides you???  Amy Lane. My writing partner Laura HArner. Scotty Cade, Ally Blue, Damon Suede, ZA Maxfield, Eric Arvin, Sara York, TJ Klune, Danny Juris, Patti Logan, Zahra Owens, Andrew Grey, Chris Koehler…Jeez, all my heroes!!!

7. No way in hell could I stand up and do a reading? I’d be spitting, sputtering, and turning 50 shades of RED. Did you sign up to do an author reading? 

 HA  Never! I am Southern and it would take me twice as long, and I’d have to drink myself blind to do it.

8. What do you think readers and other authors will be most surprised by when they meet you?   

That I’m a mean old bear and haven’t been kidding. And that I really am kind of a geekboy about all this.

9. I hear the boys of our genre put on a hell of a party! Do you plan to attend the Cowboy party Thursday night?  

 Uh hell yeah!  Scotty’s gonna wear assless chaps just for me!

10. Go ahead you can be honest with me. You want to know what is under Damon Suede’s Kilt don’t you? 

Darlin’ I already know what’s under his kilt.  Now the better question is, how much tequila will it cost me to get him to show me.

Deep Blues Goodbye

By Laura Harner and T.A. Webb

Wearing nothing but blue jeans, Travis stood staring at the inside of a nearly empty refrigerator. Type A or…well, shit, he was down to his last bag. All right, first on his things-to-do-list for the night was buy more blood. And something other than the bland synth-A flavor. He removed the bag and put it in the squat chrome Normalizer that sat on his counter like a normal person’s coffee maker, then pressed the temperature control to Human. He knew there were some vamps that used the microwave, but he preferred his blood freshly oxygenated and heated to precisely 98.6 degrees. Saliva pooled in his mouth and he slid his tongue over his fangs in anticipation even as his mind rebelled at the thought of drinking blood. Two fucking years and he still hadn’t come to terms with being turned.

While his dinner hummed, Travis listened to the noise outside his French Quarter home. The sounds of a brass jazz band interlaced with the voices of happy tourists, the shouts of the harkers, the whores. Living on Chartres Street let him feel in touch with the humanity he was no longer part of. The timer dinged just as the sound of his own name brought his attention to a familiar voice floating on the evening breeze. Someone was talking about him on the street below his third story sanctuary.

“Sure, he lives here, but let me tell you something, Burkette. I’ve known Travis Boudreaux for close to ten years, and he ain’t gonna want to talk to you or anyone one else on the Odd Squad. Jesus, slow down, would you?” Maxine’s voice rasped out, full of smoke, bourbon, and brass.

There’d been a day he’d counted her among his closest friends on the force, and the only one who’d known his secret, until that last case. After—he swallowed hard—after he’d been changed, she’d been one of the very few who would still talk to him. And she knew damn good and

well her words would carry on the night air. The loud comment was her way of letting him know trouble was coming.

The Odd Squad. Otherwise known as Paranormal Criminal Investigations Unit of the New Orleans Police Department. The same NOPD that forced his medical retirement when he’d had the bad taste to sit up during his own funeral.

Travis hadn’t been the first publicly confirmed vampire, thank god, but it had been damn close. His case had been the impetus for the first Vampire Protection Law in the US. Now all paranormal beings enjoyed Federal protection under the amended Civil Rights Act and Universal Bill of Rights. Of course, the laws had been rushed through, because vampires were the latest cause célèbre. Which meant there were holes big enough to drive a train through, but they got laws. The courts were jammed with cases challenging everything from right to vote to right to life. The steps of the Supreme Court looked like a circus came to town.

The pounding on the wooden sliding door downstairs was followed by a surprisingly quiet request.

“Travis Boudreaux? My name is Detective Danny Burkette, with PCIU. I need your help. May I come in?”

Funny. Wasn’t that supposed to be a vampire’s line? Having to be invited in, crossing the threshold of a person’s home and all that. Thank god that tripe wasn’t true.

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