Cyndi Lauper Is Fantastic!

Cyndi Lauper Is Fantastic!

Cyndi Lauper Advocates for LGBT Homeless Youth:

Chicago Tribune-Health:

Cyndi Lauper has been singing about True Colors; since the 1980s, and these days she's speaking out for young people whose true colors have put them and their health at risk -- the thousands of young homosexual and transgender people who face the emotional and physical ordeal of homelessness.

And JUST Found This Cool -

- and very futuristic Absolut ad ... so I had to post it here and on Technorotica.

(oh, and check out QueerImaginings for another pre-re-release review of The Very Bloody Marys)

Stumbled Across This

-too true, too true...

Writers are forgetful,
but they remember everything.
They forget appointments and anniversaries,
but remember what you wore,
how you smelled,
on your first date…
They remember every story you’ve ever told them -
like ever,
but forget what you’ve just said.
They don’t remember to water the plants
or take out the trash,
but they don’t forget how
to make you laugh.

Writers are forgetful
because
they’re busy
remembering
the important things.

The Very Bloody Marys - The NEW Edition

I'm thrilled to be able to announce the imminent re-release of my queer vampire thriller/humor novel, The Very Bloody Marys - coming very, very soon from Renaissance E Books.

Here's a tease of the new cover:

And here's a wonderful review of the book by the also-wonderful Kit O'Connell:

It’s no secret that M. Christian and I are friends. I’ve introduced one of his books and we’ve guest blogged for each other too. So even if I’m not the most unbiased critic, I still like to highlight interesting books I read from time to time even if they are by friends of mine.

One of Chris’ many recurring themes are alternate visions of the police. One of the characters in his wonderfully weird novel near-future novel Finger’s Breadth is a freelance officer who receives his orders and files reports via a distributed police ap on his smartphone. “Bluebelle” in The Bachelor Machine explores a future cop’s intimate relationship with his police vehicle, and Christian even co-edited the anthology Future Cops.

The most recent book I read by him is The Very Bloody Marys. Like Finger’s Breadth, it takes place in an alternate San Francisco but  creatures of the night. Our hero is Valentino, a young gay vampire so uncertain of his place in the world that he can’t even decide how to start telling his story at the beginning of the book, so he begins again 2 or 3 times. Somehow, despite his Lestat-like confidence or prowess, he’s been selected to join an undead police force charged with maintaining the secrecy of the undead and the weird. Here, Valentino laments his own impending doom after his superior officer disappears:

Two hundred years. It’d been a good run. Lots of … well, there’d been blood of course. Moons. Stars. Rain. Fog. Hiding, too: all-night movie theaters, bars, discos, stables, warehouses, churches, a few synagogues (even a mosque or two) [...] Lots of … I was going to say friends but, to be honest, the nightlife might be advantageous to boogying but doesn’t make for long-term relationships. Some back-alley assignations, sticky stuff in my mouth or pants; not blood, or at least not up until a few years ago. 

Two hundred sure sounds like a lot, but … the time just seemed to have hopped, skipped and jumped by. Never skied, never sailed, never surfed, never had two guys at once [...] What surprised me the most, though, was what I wanted more: orchids, bow ties, potato salad, string, oil or watercolor, hooks and line, two of everything.

The book has a breezy, playful noir style which would make it perfect summer reading. Though it doesn’t have the usual romance (though it has a handful of interesting unrequited ones), I found it especially interesting as a queer take on the torrid vampires-and-werewolves subgenre of urban fantasy.

I'm Going To NYC!

Be afraid - very afraid - all you New Yawkers: I'm planning a trip to the Big Apple (probably around the end of September).

If you know of any possible venues for readings, classes, or just want to hang out, drop me a line and I'll make it happen while I'm there.

Way to Go, Ralph!

Here's a hearty congratulations to my dear, sweetie, and very-wonderful friend Ralph Greco, Jr - who is having one of his plays produced as part of the Chatman Playhouse's 18th Annual Jersey Voices Festival. Way to go, Ralph!

In The Kid
By Ralph Greco, Jr. of Clifton
A young aspiring writer interviews with a famous playwright to be a research assistant. But the playwright may not be exactly who they seem to be; or maybe they don't really want a research assistant after all. This production features Cooper Sacks of Summit, Jean Kuras of Glen Ridge and Terri Sturtevant of Hillsborough.

Confessions Of A Literary Streetwalker: Bond, James Bond ... Or Do I Really Need An Agent?

Check this out: I just wrote a brand new "Confessions Of A Literary Streetwalker" piece for the always-great Erotica Readers & Writers site - all my previous columns, of course, have been collected in How To Write And Sell Erotica by Renaissance Books.  Here's a tease:

The world of professional writing can be ... no, that's not right: the world of professional writing is - without a doubt - a very frightening, confusing place.

Not only are there only a few diehard rules – to either slavishly follow or studiously avoid - but even basic trust can be a very, very rare: should I put my work on my site, or will it be stolen?  Should I even send my work out to other writers, for the very same reason? 

What about editors or - especially - publishers?  Does my editor really have my best interests in mind?  Should I make the changes he or she suggests or should I stand my ground and refuse to change even one word?  Is my publisher doing all they can for my book?  Are they being honest about royalties? 

Back in the days of print - before the revolution – a lot of these questions would have been answered by an agent: a person who not only knew the business but would actually hold a writer's hand and lead them from that doubt and fear and, hopefully, towards success ... however you want to define that word.

Agents spoke the cryptic language of rights and royalties: they could actually read – and even more amazingly - understand a book contract.  They'd be able, with their experience and foresight, to say when a writer should say yes or no to edits.

[MORE]

Out Now: The Mammoth Book of Erotica presents The Best of M. Christian

I am extremely pleased and proud to be able to announce the publication of The Mammoth Book of Erotica presents The Best of M. Christian

What makes this book so special is that it is made up of stories that have previously appeared in Maxim Jakubowski's excellent Mammoth Book of New Erotica series - an honor that still makes me giggle like a schoolgirl.

What's also cool about this new collection is that it has a little bit of everything ... for everyone: erotic science fiction, queer erotic stories, and more! It's quite literally a book for just about everyone.

The Color of Lust - A shark, seedy poolhall, and a wager ... Daisy knew the hustle but what she didn't count on was being played herself. But in the best possible way.... Everything But The Smell Of Lilies - In the near future, Justine is a sex worker with a unique twist: for a fee her clients can do whatever they want - including kill her. Everything is going well for her ... until, that is, she comes across an ambulance attendant with his own unique fetish.  Betty Came - A sweet, and extra-hot, tale of longing and lesbian desire: what do you do when you know what you is so very wrong ... but feels so very right?  Regrets - Sitting on a chair, arms on the desk, fingers on the keyboard, words on the screen-" the letter is a final goodbye from a fellow to the world he's wronged ... or is it? And if he didn't write it then who did?  The New Motor - A steampunky tale of outrageous turn-of-the-century inventiveness: John Murray Spear created The New Motor, The Mechanical Savior, but it was a special woman who gave it a sexy spark of life ... and then some.  NY by Way of Taos - In a trailer baking in the hot desert sun, two women lose themselves to desire and fantasy: going to new and, for them, unexplored sexual worlds ... like New York City

M.Christian's Technorotica: I See Into The Future!

Reprinted from M.Christian's Technorotica

... or, at least, I wrote about what I saw as the next logical step in personal computers.  In Painted Doll, which I did a few years back - and is now available from Sizzler Editions - I wrote about an alternative culture in New Zealand that used an elegant head-mounted display:


(here's a bit about that, from a letter Flower wrote to her lover about this group - called the Noos - and their tech):

After dinner – did I mention the glasses?  Shit, forgot about them.  Easy to do, I guess.  They're a huge part of the world here, so big you don't even notice them.  Gave me my pair after the first week.  They called them iglasses, a joke they say no one under forty understands.  Which I'm not, so I didn't.  Anyway, they're mnemonic plastic.  They look cheap but they aren't.  Big guy named Star, like a golden bear with a huge bristly beard, told me they'd cost something like 5 million new yen if they sold them, which they don't.  He also told me they are a "mesh networked, micro thermopile powered, molecular computer system with a virtual retinal display" which I don't understand.  But they work, I know that.  You put them on and you can see and hear all this stuff that is and isn't there.  Like you can look at the ground and see where the irrigation pipes are, and then reach out and touch a little icon and then see instructions on how to fix them.  Or look at someone and see their name, what they are good at, what they don't like – stuff like that.  Sometimes it's like cartoons, little symbols and stuff floating around, other times it's like a ghost world that you can but then can't see.  I'm writing with them, too.  They showed me how to get them to show me a keyboard, and then I just touch where the letters are.  Kinda cool, but also kinda creepy.

They use the glasses to talk to one another.  They shoot videos with them, make cartoons, write poems, do all kinds of things, and send them to each other.  They may look like primitive, but they're really wizards with this kind of stuff.  It makes me sad to think how I know that, but I do.  

And now - guess what? - we not only have Project Glass from Google but now rumors that Apple may be getting into the game.

Welcome to the world of tomorrow, people: we're not writing it - we're living it

Creepy Uncle Sam

(via greggorysshocktheater)

What's Going On Today

Check out Technorotica for news, reviews, and other fun stuff about my cybersex stuff

Take a look at Meine Kleine Fabrik for articles, essays and - you guessed it - more fun stuff of a non-fictional nature

And over at Queer Imaginings there's going to be other kinds of cool stuff ... with a queer twist

"I put my whole self into everything I do"

It's so easy to think Andy Griffith was just Sheriff Andy Taylor on The Andy Griffith Show. But you have to - and I mean have to - watch A Face In The Crowd to see just how brilliant an actor he man could be.