Thursday, January 31, 2013

The Next Big Thing ... Me!


.... well, sort of: the very cool Sascha Illyvich just posted a little interview with little ol' me on the great Sizzler blog. Here's a tease ... and you can check out the rest here.

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Even punks jump up to get beat down and M.Christian is no different! One of our senior editors has a lengthy career and since taking over duties at Sizzler Editions has done amazing things to help the company and our authors. But what about his own endeavors? We sat down to find out more!

1) What is the working title of your current/next Sizzler Editions book?



2) Where did you get the idea for that book?

Well, to put it mildly I have written more than my fair share of queer erotica and fiction – starting with "Stroke the Fire" that was picked up for Best Gay Erotica 1994 – and ending with this brand new best-of-my-very-best short gay erotica: Stroke The Fire: The Best ManLove Fiction of M. Christian!

The book is made up of my handpicked favorite stories from three of my queer erotic collections: the Lambda Award finalist Dirty Words, Filthy Boys, and BodyWork. What's even cooler than this brand new best-of-my-very-best book the great folks at Renaissance E Books/Sizzler editions – that also published Stroke the Fire – have re-released not just Dirty Words, Filthy Boys, and BodyWork, but my queer novelsThe Very Bloody Marys, and (the rather controversial) Me2 as part of a whole "M.Christian" imprint: The M.Christian: The Manlove Collection ... pretty cool, eh?

3) What's the genre of the book?

Even though Stroke The Fire: The Best ManLove Fiction of M. Christian is basically queer erotica is also contains a lot of stories that run the gamut from horror (like "Wet," Boy," "Echoes" "Matches" and others) to science fiction ("Blue Boy," "Utter West," "Counting," etc) and even stories that, sure, might be gay and erotic but are more-than-a-but off-the-map (like "How Coyote Stole Sun" and "Coyote And The Less Than Perfect Cougar").

I also kept the introductions to the three books that were used to make up Stroke The Fire: my own from BodyWork Felice Picano's from Filthy Boys and Patrick Califia's from Dirty Words.

4) How would you describe your book in one sentence (25words or less)?

Stroke The Fire: The Best ManLove Fiction of M. Christian is quite literally a collection of the best-of-the-best of M.Christian's short queer erotic fiction, taken from his acclaimed collections Dirty Words (a Lambda Literary Award Finalist), BodyWork, and Filthy Boys.

5) If you could pick actors to play the lead characters in your story, who would you pick?
Since the book is a collection that's really tough to say ... though I sometimes visualize actors when I write (like Christian Slater and R. Lee Ermey for my novel, The Very Bloody Marys) I rarely do it when I write short stories. But if I had to pick some actors to appear in Stroke The Fire: The Movie I'd have to pick Ian McKellen, Alan Rickman, Christopher Lee, Nathan Fillion, the boys from Supernatural -- sorry, girls, as it's a gay male book there aren't many roles for women, not that I wouldn't love to get Emma Thompson, Gina Torres, Judi Dench, in there somewhere ... if just because I think they are wonderful and it would be a blast to meet them.

6) Now this movie needs a soundtrack – what songs/tracks best fit your book?

Hum ... as it's a collection, I'd say everything from Johnny Cash to Daft Punk. It all depends on the story you're reading ;-)

7) How long did it take you to write the first draft of this book?

As the book is a collection – made of other collections – that's really tough to answer. Dirty Words came out in its first edition back in 2001 ... with the other collections coming out every could of years since then. But then the earliest story in the whole book, "Stroke The Fire," first appeared in Best Gay Erotica 1994 so you could almost say that the book took both a month to put together but the content took 18 years ... and, boy, does that sound like a long time when you think of it that way.

8) What other books within your genre are similar to yours?

For me, Stroke The Fire: The Best ManLove Fiction of M. Christian is a way of putting everything I've felt proud of writing – that's queer and erotic – into one juicy bundle of pages. Sure, there have been other collections but, as far as I know, there hasn't been a collection that's a collection of other collections ... so I think that Stroke The Fire: The Best ManLove Fiction of M. Christian is more than a tad unique.

9) Who or what inspired you to write this book?

The wonderful Renaissance E Books/Sizzler editions asked me to put this book together as part of their launch of their special The M.Christian: The Manlove Collection – to be the one place, if people interested in my queer erotica needed just one place, to go to get the best-of-my-best. If you like what's here, in other words, then you'll no doubt love the other books, collections, and anthologies I've done. 

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