This is very fun - as part of the Stroke The Fire: The Best Manlove Fiction Of M.Christian blog tour that the great folks at Renaissance E Books/Sizzler Editions were so great to setup for me, the very first stop has just gone up: a very nice interview with yers truly by the great Jeep Diva.
The tour also includes a contest to get some freebie books: so check it out and see what might happen ;-)
Here's a taste of it - and just clock here for the rest:
The Jeep Diva:
Vanessa: Would you please start by telling us a little bit about yourself?
Well, I’m a male human born in 1960. I have green eyes, black hair, am circumcised, have a rather thin build, and am a little short of six feet tall.
I am a writer. Yeah, I know there are a lot of people out there who say that they are writers but when I say I am a writer I mean that I eat, drink, breathe, telling stories. I first caught the bug in high school and (yes, you may gasp) ten years later I sold my first story.
Okay, it as a pornographic story – sold to the magazine (now defunct) Future Sex, and then picked up for Best American Erotica 1994 – but that doesn’t bother me: I am a writer and I love to write pretty much anything for anyone. Sex, as the old maxim goes, sells and – no fool I – I write what people want to buy. Oh, I write all kinds of other things, from non-fiction (Welcome To Weirdsville, Pornotopia, and How To Write And Sell Erotica) to science fiction/fantasy/horror (Love Without Gun Control) but erotica is where I’ve done my most work.
Here’s a quickie bio:
I think the biggest thing that ‘throws’ folks is that, even though I have written a lot – and I do mean a lot — of queer fiction and erotica (both gay as well as lesbian) I’m actually … wait for it … a straight guy.
I’m not even that kinky of a straight guy … okay, I have a fondness for big beautiful women but I always fall in love with a woman’s mind before I fall for her body.
Now I have to be serious (for a second) I never, ever lie about my own sexuality when I write gay fiction: I am very out about being a heterosexual who happens to write quite a bit of gay fiction. It all happened rather simply: I had a friend who suggested I try my hand at writing gay erotica so I contacted the editor of a gay erotic anthology and asked if he wouldn’t mind getting a story from a straight guy – and he not only said sure but also bought the story … which then ended up in Best Gay Erotica 1994.
To use the cliché, the rest is history: one story lead to two, three, four, being offered to edit my own anthology, then a novel offer and … well, here I am. Stroke the Fire, in fact, is my own, personal, best-of-my-very best gay erotic short stories, taken from three of my best-selling gay erotic collections, Filthy Boys, BodyWork, and the rather-celebrated Dirty Words. I even kept the very touching introductions to each of the three books in Stroke the Fire: Felice Picano’s from Filthy Boys, and Patrick Califia from Dirty Words.
Here's a taste of it - and just clock here for the rest:
The Jeep Diva:
Vanessa: Would you please start by telling us a little bit about yourself?
Well, I’m a male human born in 1960. I have green eyes, black hair, am circumcised, have a rather thin build, and am a little short of six feet tall.
I am a writer. Yeah, I know there are a lot of people out there who say that they are writers but when I say I am a writer I mean that I eat, drink, breathe, telling stories. I first caught the bug in high school and (yes, you may gasp) ten years later I sold my first story.
Okay, it as a pornographic story – sold to the magazine (now defunct) Future Sex, and then picked up for Best American Erotica 1994 – but that doesn’t bother me: I am a writer and I love to write pretty much anything for anyone. Sex, as the old maxim goes, sells and – no fool I – I write what people want to buy. Oh, I write all kinds of other things, from non-fiction (Welcome To Weirdsville, Pornotopia, and How To Write And Sell Erotica) to science fiction/fantasy/horror (Love Without Gun Control) but erotica is where I’ve done my most work.
Here’s a quickie bio:
Calling M.Christian versatile is a tremendous understatement. Extensively published in science fiction, fantasy, horror, thrillers, and even non-fiction, it is in erotica that M.Christian has become an acknowledged master, with more than 400 stories in such anthologies as Best American Erotica, Best Gay Erotica, Best Lesbian Erotica, Best Bisexual Erotica, Best Fetish Erotica, and in fact too many anthologies, magazines, and sites to name. In erotica, M.Christian is known and respected not just for his passion on the page but also his staggering imagination and chameleonic ability to successfully and convincingly write for any and all orientations.
But M.Christian has other tricks up his literary sleeve: in addition to writing, he is a prolific and respected anthologist, having edited 25 anthologies to date including the Best S/M Erotica series; Pirate Booty; My Love For All That Is Bizarre: Sherlock Holmes Erotica; The Burning Pen; The Mammoth Book of Future Cops, and The Mammoth Book of Tales of the Road (with Maxim Jakubowksi); Confessions, Garden of Perverse, and Amazons (with Sage Vivant), and many more.
M.Christian’s short fiction has been collected into many bestselling books in a wide variety of genres, including the Lambda Award finalist Dirty Words and other queer collections like Filthy Boys, BodyWork, and his best-of-his-best gay erotica book, Stroke the Fire.He also has collections of non-fiction (Welcome to Weirdsville, Pornotopia, and How To Write And Sell Erotica); science fiction, fantasy and horror (Love Without Gun Control); and erotic science fiction including Rude Mechanicals, Technorotica, Better Than The Real Thing, and the acclaimed The Bachelor Machine.
As a novelist, M.Christian has shown his monumental versatility with books such as the queer vamp novels Running Dry and The Very Bloody Marys; the erotic romance Brushes; the science fiction erotic novel Painted Doll; and the rather controversial gay horror/thrillers Fingers Breadth and Me2.
M.Christian is also the Associate Publisher for Renaissance E Books, where he strives to be the publisher he’d want to have as a writer, and to help bring quality books (erotica, noir, science fiction, and more) and authors out into the world. His site is www.mchristian.com.Vanessa: What is one thing about you that your readers would find surprising or never guess about you?
I think the biggest thing that ‘throws’ folks is that, even though I have written a lot – and I do mean a lot — of queer fiction and erotica (both gay as well as lesbian) I’m actually … wait for it … a straight guy.
I’m not even that kinky of a straight guy … okay, I have a fondness for big beautiful women but I always fall in love with a woman’s mind before I fall for her body.
Now I have to be serious (for a second) I never, ever lie about my own sexuality when I write gay fiction: I am very out about being a heterosexual who happens to write quite a bit of gay fiction. It all happened rather simply: I had a friend who suggested I try my hand at writing gay erotica so I contacted the editor of a gay erotic anthology and asked if he wouldn’t mind getting a story from a straight guy – and he not only said sure but also bought the story … which then ended up in Best Gay Erotica 1994.
To use the cliché, the rest is history: one story lead to two, three, four, being offered to edit my own anthology, then a novel offer and … well, here I am. Stroke the Fire, in fact, is my own, personal, best-of-my-very best gay erotic short stories, taken from three of my best-selling gay erotic collections, Filthy Boys, BodyWork, and the rather-celebrated Dirty Words. I even kept the very touching introductions to each of the three books in Stroke the Fire: Felice Picano’s from Filthy Boys, and Patrick Califia from Dirty Words.
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