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THANKS To All Those Who Came Out To "Meet The Editors"

(from M.Christian's Classes And Appearances)

Thanks to all who came out on Saturday the 29th for the "Meet The Editors" digital event to hear myself, Sascha Illyvich and Jean Marie Stine talk about erotica writing, marketing, publicity and so many other fun topics!

For those who, alas, couldn't make it, the entire event will be soon available through CreativeSexuality.org

Welcome To Weirdsville: The Imitation Of Those Who We Cannot Resemble

(from M.Christian's Meine Kleine Fabrik)

This is very, very cool: a brand new Welcome To Weirsville piece I wrote just went up on the excellent The Cud site.  

Here's a tease below - and, of course, if you want to read more pieces about fun and odd and strange and (yep) weird history check out my book Welcome To Weirdsville

The Imitation Of Those Who We Cannot Resemble

Almost all absurdity of conduct arises from the imitation of those who we cannot resemble. –Samuel Johnson

"Stop fidgeting, everyone ... Jimmy, that'd better not be gum in your mouth!  No, Betty you can't go to the bathroom – you should have thought of that before we started ... now you'll just have to wait for the break.  Okay, class, today we're going to be discussing possibly one of – if not the -- most important literary figures of the twentieth century: a woman who pretty much single handedly created what we consider to be modern literature..."

It's quite sad, really, that so many of us have had the juices systematically squeezed out of history, reducing it to nothing but powdery, gagging facts and bland, pasty figures – or, even worse, giants carved in marble, hands on hips, forever steadfastly glaring out at us in the future, their destinies unquestionable.

But, believe me, do some digging and there's juice a plenty in those dusty heroes – and while many of them certainly deserve to be on their lofty pedestals you'll quickly learn that more than a few of them might be wonderfully, delightfully, fun ... if not totally nuts.

Sarah Bernhardt, for instance, the legendary light of the stage, not only had a wooden leg, liked to sleep in her coffin, but also had quite a few ... involvements, shall we say, with people such as Victor Hugo and Gustavo Doré; Tycho Brahe, one of the brightest stars in astronomy not only had a fake metal nose (having lost his original in a duel) but kept an on-staff dwarf for the entertainment of his guests as well as himself; Richard Feynman, a Nobel Prize to his name, was an notorious humorist and prankster -- as well as quite the established cracksman, even claiming to have once easily got into the safe containing the plans for the first atomic bomb; Georges Simenon, the master French mystery author, not wrote over 200 novels but also claimed to have made love to 10,000 women; and let's not even get started on what M.Christian likes to do with balloon animals...

Which takes us to 1910, back when Britain quite literally ruled the waves: the time of what has been called by many to be the date of the greatest prank in all of history ... and the literary light who had a major part in it.

Now pranks were nothing new, especially for students of Cambridge, but this one – orchestrated by the infamously witty Horace de Vere Cole – set the bar.  Horace tried afterward to top himself several times afterward, including infamously dumping horse ... leavings in the canals in Venice (to confuse the non-horse city residents), or arranging a group of bald men to sit in strategic places at the theater so that their domes, when viewed from the balcony, would spell out a rather (ahem) rude word, but his crowning achievement involved the pride of the British Navy, a few of his close friends, some costuming skills, the flag of Zanzibar, and a brilliant degree of planning – all of which rocked the world and nearly got one of them a sentence of ten of the best with a cane.

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Congratulations!

Reminder: Sizzler Editions & Creative Sexuality Education Presents “Meet The Editors”

(from M.Christian's Classes And Appearances) 

Sizzler Editions & Creative Sexuality Education Presents

“Meet The Editors”

  

Free Live Interactive Web Event
Sat. June 29, 2013
5:00–6:30 pm East Coast time
2:00-3:30 West Coast time

M. Christian

Sascha Illyvich

Jean Marie Stine

Anyone with web access can join-in free from anywhere in the world and participate through microphone, webcam, or text chat. Participants can  get expert guidance from writing professionals – without having to drive to and from a crowded, noisy event facility and with no costly fees.

Current and aspiring writers of erotica, erotic romance, and sexuality-themed nonfiction won’t want to miss this live, interactive, online discussion and Q&A with three highly successful editors/authors, hosted by Sizzler Editions and Creative Sexuality.

Editors M.Christian, Sascha Illyvich, and publisher Jean Marie Stine will provide insight into trends and taboos in the field. They will offer writing tips and tricks, and advice on marketing and promotion of books. In a live, interactive session, they will take and answer questions from those who have logged in for the event.

Participants will:
·  Hear expert advice on formatting, submitting, and publishing your book; Develop and strengthen writing, plot development, and characterization;
·  Learn the most effective ways to market and publicize a book;
·  Have the opportunity to ask questions about the writing and publishing process;
·  Be able to pitch their own erotic story, novel or nonfiction.

All three panelists are writers as well as editors/publishers, with several decades of experience to their credit, and are well-versed in the craft and business of writing. They will address topics and questions such as:
·   Trends in Erotic Romance and Erotica
·   Writing your book
·   Covers
·   Promoting and Publicizing
·   Publishing
…and it these are only some of the issues to be covered in this multifaceted opportunity to interact live over the web with professional editors.

Who will benefit? Anyone who:
·    Is thinking of writing hot romance or erotica.
·    Is writing their first erotic novel, story or work of sexuality-related nonfiction.
·    Has finished writing one or more erotic books, but doesn’t know what to do next.
·    Has questions about the writing process.
·    Has questions about the publishing process (including self-publishing).
·    Is seeking effective ways to publicize and grow readership for their books.
·    Is already published or self-published, but wants to know more about the business and craft of writing erotica.

For further details visit: http://crsex.org/meettheeditors
Or contact: mchristian@sizzlereditions.com
SizzlerEditions.com
CreativeSexuality.org

TWO Classes This Week!

 (from M.Christian's Classes And Appearances)

Just a reminder, folks, that I'm teaching not one but two classes this week.  If you're in the San Francisco Bay Area come down and have a good time!

Creative Sex Play for Good Vibrations (Polk Street), in San Francisco:

Thursday June 20, June 20th: 6:30 PM - 8:30PM

Good Vibrations Polk
San Francisco, CA

Cost: $20.00 at the door (or via Brown Paper Tickets)
Dress code: Whatever makes you comfortable

Even the most experienced sexual adventurer may run short of inspiration. Let M.Christian introduce you to a variety of exciting exercises guaranteed to increase your erotic possibilities and creativity! There are plenty of techniques and sexual worlds to explore - and you can do it safely, both physically and emotionally. Free up your imagination through story-telling and writing exercises. Learn when to silence - and when to listen to - your inner critic. Explore and rediscover your senses! Learn at-home exercises to get in touch with the flow and power of erotic sensation and orgasm via solo and mutual masturbation: exploring your body and erotic potential without shame or fear. Discover the pure joy of sex play and erotic enjoyment when they're laced with laughter, excitement, and wonder.

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Impact Play: Beyond Floggers And Canes at the Citadel, in San Francisco

Tuesday, June 18, 2013: 8:00 PM - 10:00 PM

SF Citadel Community Center
181 Eddy Street, San Francisco

Cost: $20.00 at the door
Dress code: Whatever makes you comfortable

Join this workshop to receive (ahem) 'hands-on' instruction in a wide and sometimes-strange variety of different impact toys hands, hairbrushes, paddles, crops, wooden spoons, batons, quirts, and more. While often the physics of these toys are sometimes closely related, to use each one effectively takes particular skill and techniques that are not immediately apparent. Participants will learn not only how to inflict the most pleasure as well as pain but also how to use each item without hurting the wield-er as well as the wield-ee.

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M.Christian has been an active participant in the San Francisco BDSM scene since 1988, and has been a featured presenter at the Northwest Leather Celebration, smOdyssey, the Center For Sex and Culture, The National Sexuality Symposium, QSM, San Francisco Sex Information, The Citadel, The Looking Glass, The Society of Janus, The Floating World, Winter Solstice, and lots of other venues. He has taught classes on everything from impact play, tit torture, bondage, how to write and sell erotica, polyamory, cupping, caning, and basic SM safety.

M.Christian is also a recognized master of BDSM erotica 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 many other anthologies, magazines, and other sites; editor of 2t anthologies such as the Best S/M Erotica series, Pirate Booty, My Love For All That Is Bizarre: Sherlock Holmes Erotica, and more; the collections Dirty Words, The Bachelor Machine, Love Without Gun Control, Rude Mechanicals, and more; and the novels Running Dry, The Very Bloody Marys, Me2, Finger's Breadth, Brushes, and Painted Doll. His site is: www.mchristian.com

Kindle Give-Away! Get Running Dry FREE For Three Days!

(from M.Christian's Queer Imaginings)

This is exceptionally cool: for three days - starting today, May 14th - you can get the special edition of my gay/vampire/erotic thriller Running Dry absolutely FREE for Kindle! 

Just click on this link and you can start reading the brand new, expanded and enhanced, version of the book that will not just turn you on but totally change the way you think about vamps!

Every time he thinks he's found someone, it all goes horrifically wrong.

Manlove classic, first time ever containing the original story, the sequel novel, and a new, never-before-published concluding novella. M.Christian's masterful queer thriller/horror novel is back in print with 20,000 additional words.

He’s immortal. He drinks blood. But he's not a vampire. Doud’s totally unique – a being no one’s ever seen before – and he’s desperately lonely for a lover: a special someone who will not just join him in his bed but his strange life as well. But every time he thinks he's found someone it all goes horrifically wrong.

Then one day a monster from his past returns: a thing of bitterness and fury he believed was long dead. Doud, with his friend Shelly in tow, begins a terrifying chase that begins in Los Angeles and ends in a blistering confrontation in the desert’s baking wastes. There, in the heat and the dust, Doud will confront what he is, what he’s become, his deepest and darkest sexual desires and lusts.

Doud will get what he’s always wanted out of his long, strange life – but it will be nothing that Doud, or you, could ever have imagined!

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"I found Running Dry to be a very good read indeed and especially enjoyed its message. Carpe diem, this story tells us. Love is a rare and wonderful thing; use the time that you have in this life to find it instead of reaching for the unattainable. Because where is the joy in a life lived alone?"
– Book Wenches 

"Let's see. Vampire bites man. Man becomes vampire. The biter and the bitten are in love. Must be a gay vampire novel. But not just another gay vampire novel. RUNNING DRY is, yes, about vampires. Hardcore vampires. Unless they're passing along the vampire gene, they don't just sip blood - they suck out every sweet empowering ounce of a body's bodily fluids, leaving behind but a dusty husk. Christian, author of hundreds of acclaimed short stories and editor of many fine anthologies, has crafted a brisk combo of decades-arcing romance, contemporary suspense thriller, and original horror story - Doud, the vampire longing for the lover he thinks he's lost forever, is a mysterious artist whose every painting is daubed with the blood of victims he's had to kill in order to survive, a spooky kind of homage. This is a rip-roaring read that ought to come with this warning: don't read the last page before starting the first, then devouring the rest. The book's ending is a shocker, as lives end and another begins. Enough said."
-Richard LaBronte 

"If you like fiction with gay themes their presence here is a bonus, but the reason to buy this book is because this book is good." - Emily Veinglory 

"With this impressive debut novel, one of our best short story writers shows why he is tops in his field; this book is fascinating, original, creative and can't be put down till it is finished. I cannot recommend it highly enough."
-Greg Herren, author of Murder In The Rue Dauphine and Bourbon Street Blues

Confessions Of A Literary Streetwalker: The Right Word

I'm very proud to have another one of my Confessions Of A Literary Streetwalker pieces up on the excellent Erotica Readers And Writers site - and bit thanks to the folks at Erotica For All where the article first appeareed.

The Right Word

“The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter — it’s the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.
– Mark Twain

No insult to Mr. Twain (Samuel Langhorne Clemens to his pals), but he’s a bit wrong there … but, more importantly, a lot right.

Wrong in when writing, slaving over just the right word can, too often, grind the process to a halt. When I hit that speed bump I usually just put the word I know isn’t the perfect, ideal, and – yep – right I just highlight it so I know, when I look over whatever I’m writing I can come back and fix it later. The key to keeping up your flow is not just writing well but to keep writing. Period. It’s far too easy to let niggling details get in the way of where you’re doing, and what you’re saying: it’s far better to just keep at it and then come back and do some tweaking after.

But Sam (Mark Twain to everyone else) is damned right about the damned right word. It’s been a very strange trip, going from writer to editor and, now, to publisher: I see a lot of things I wish that writers would get into their heads – and, similarly, try to get into my own thick noggin. The number one has to be to show and not tell: in more words, rather than less, it’s far better to be evocative and imagination-feeding than completely, unarguably, accurate.

Let’s try something: the brown chair. Not much there right? We know it’s a chair, we know it’s brown. End of story. But what if I wrote, “the chair was the color of a well-worn dirt road”? Immediately you not just see the chair but might even feel a bit about it: the road, and it’s color, overlaid with an image what a chair like that might look like, feel like, smell like, etc.

It’s far better to conjure the chair, with magical language and imagery, than carry it onto the stage. You can so much with so little if you take the time to think of words, and language, that is evocative and alluring that unarguably precise. The same, naturally, goes with sex: rather than saying that, say, someone’s breasts were perfect, or conical, or whatever shape you’re thinking of, try, instead to say they were “happily rich and full, tipped by the inquisitive arousal of umber nipples.” Okay, that might be a bit too much but I think you get my point: the first was dull, boring – the second says so much more happily at that.

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Welcome to Weirdsville: The Lady Vanishes

 (from M.Christian's Meine Kleine Fabrik)

Very cool: the fantastic Dark Roasted Blend just posted by article on the theft of the Portrait of Lisa Gherardini, wife of Francesco del Giocondo (the Mona Lisa to you and I).

This, and other fun articles can, of course, be found in my fun book, Welcome to Weirdsville - out now from Renaissance E Books/PageTurner Editions.

The Lady Vanishes

If it had been done in this age of iphones, ipads, and the rest of our high tech ilives, the movie would have had Clooney or Willis dangling upside down over a pick-up-sticks weave of alarm lasers while a geeky cohort (maybe Steve Buscemi or Alan Cumming), face green from the digital overload bouncing up from a laptop, rattles off a second-by-second update on the imminent wee-oo-wee-oo arrival of the stern-jawed Groupe d'Intervention de la Gendarmerie Nationale.


But while the lady did vanish – a very, very special lady – the means of her vanishing, while maybe a tad less dramatic, is no less fascinating. While you'll no doubt immediately recognize the lady in question, you may not know her full name, or some of the more interesting details of her portrait. Begun by a certain well-known artist back in 1503, the likeness of Lisa del Giocondo wasn't finished until some years later, around 1519. After the death of this rather well known artist, the painting was purchased by King François I, and then, after a certain amount of time and other kings, it finally ended up in the Louvre. An interesting note, by the way, is that – while not a King – the painting was borrowed from the Louvre by Napoleon to hang in his private quarters, and was returned to that famous French museum when the Emperor became ... well, not the Emperor.



Its official title is Portrait of Lisa Gherardini, wife of Francesco del Giocondo but the smile says it all, and in 1911 it was stolen – and wasn't returned until 1913.

While much of the theft is still a mystery, what is known is that on August 22, 1912, Louis Béroud, a painter and fan of the legendary Mona Lisa, came into the Louvre early one morning to study the famous work of Leonardo da Vinci, instead finding a bare wall. In a pure Inspector Clouseau bit of history, the museum staff didn't immediately put bare wall and missing painting together and instead thought the painting had been taken to be photographed. It took
Béroud, checking with the photographers themselves, to bring it to the attention of the guards that the painting had been stolen.

Suspects were many and varied: a curious one was Guillaume Apollinaire, the critic and surrealist, who, because he can once called for the Louvre to be burnt to the ground, was actually arrested. While no-doubt annoying, he was eventually cleared and released, but not before trying to finger, unsuccessfully, a friend of his for the theft, another rather well known painter by the name of Pablo Picasso.

Alas, the actual thief and the method of the robbery are almost painfully plain, though the man and the means weren't discovered until much later. In 1913, Vincenzo Peruggia, a Louvre employee, was nabbed when he contacted Alfredo Geri, who ran a gallery in Florence, Italy, about the stolen painting.


The story that emerged after his arrest was that on August 20th, 1912, had Peruggia hid in the museum overnight. On the morning of Sunday, the 21st, he emerged from hiding, put on one of the smocks used by employees and, with ridiculous ease, simply took what is arguably the most famous painting in the world and put it under his coat and walked out the door with it. When the gendarmes later knocked on Peruggia's door they'd simply accepted his excuse that he'd been working somewhere else the day of the theft, while the painting was hidden under his bed.

What isn't plain, though, was Peruggia's motivation for the theft.

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Amos Lassen Likes Running Dry

(from M.Christian Queer Imaginings)

Now here's a treat: my great pal, Amos Lassen, just posted this review of the new edition of Running Dry - just released by Renaissance E Books/Sizzler Editions as part of their M.Christian ManLove special imprint.

 

Ernst Doud is non-human and 154 years young. He lives quietly in Los Angeles and all was fine until he got a letter from a lover he has not seen since 1913 and it was then that he killed him. Now that is a way to start a story as you soon realize that you are reading about the undead. Most of us love a good vampire story and I have often wondered why that is true. I suspect that there are two major reasons and a bunch of lesser ones. Vampires are very sexy and mysterious; they are dark and live forever.

This is a vampire story without all of the “vamping”. M. Christian writes stories that are quite far out yet maintain a sense of truth. This is his way of showing that our worlds can come together. We tend to fear that which we do not know and here is where vampires gain ground. We have never seen a vampire but he has a sense of mystery which is exciting and sexy. In this story we see the themes of vengeance, loyalty and “the humanity of the inhuman”. I believe vampires made a comeback with the AIDS epidemic when gay men’s lives depended on blood tests. The fact that blood is so essential in vampire lore has been a conundrum and an enigma for me especially when you consider the importance of blood in Christian religions and in Roman Catholicism when at the act of transubstantiation, wine turns into blood. Yet it is those very same religions that condemn vampires because of the emphasis on something that is so integral to what their members and religious leaders believe.

Unlike other vampire stories, here is one that will get the reader to think. This in one of those stories in which sex is not important but thoughts are. M. Christian is known as an erotic writer but this time he chose to forego sex and concentrate on the mind. Instead of using his literary skills to write vivid sex scenes, he chose not to write about sex this time and develop characters who not just sexual beings but who have minds with which to think. Instead of a lot of sex, we get a lot of adventure so this is not like other books in this genre. It may just be that M. Christian has begun an entirely new genre but I guess we may have to wait awhile to see if that is true. In the meantime there are many other opportunities to read M. Christian. He is always new and never bores.

Billierosie Likes Love Without Gun Control

(from M.Christian's Technorotica)

This is very special flashback: a lovely review of my science fiction/horror/just-plain-weird collection, Love Without Gun Control, by my wonderful pal, Billierosie .Thanks, sweetie!

I am a junkie! A poor pathetic thing, crawling up the walls, shredding fragments of wallpaper and plaster beneath my broken finger nails, screaming for my next fix. Hollow eyed, I plead with M.Christian for just one more story. He’s a hard man. He turns away, telling me it’s for my own good. Then finally, finally, he relents. And I blubber my thanks through a mess of snot, spit and tears.

M.Christian sends me LOVE WITHOUT GUN CONTROL. And like any true addict, I find a vein, stick in the needle and overwhelm myself with the fix.

I’ve read all of his stories. Every tantalising word he’s ever written. I worry that one day he’ll stop. No more stories. What the hell will I do?

You see he never fails to surprise me. His stories move seamlessly from straight erotica to gay erotica and now, in LOVE WITHOUT GUN CONTROL, he gives me a collection of science fiction and horror.

In ‘Needle Taste,’ there is haunting despair, from the disciples of Owlsley, a serial killer. They take mind bending chemicals to enhance his hideous deeds. His followers can’t leave him alone and live in a desperate, deadly fascination of what has happened to those he has brutalised and killed. Prair replays the final moments of Owlsley’s capture in his mind and repeats the killer’s mantra; “the only sin is letting them go unpunished.”

‘The Rich Man’s Ghost’, reads like a fable and Christian tells the story with the skill of Aesop. Hiro Yashido sees a ghost, and to see a ghost means doom. He has not only seen the ghost, the ghost has seen him. His wealth, his overwhelming success in high finance is nothing. He will have to embrace his worst nightmare, poverty. Hiro Yashido fears nothing. He has not achieved his great wealth by walking on tiptoe. But he does fear the ghost and it’s curse. Ghosts walk between the bite and the bytes of the datasea and they are jealous. Hiro Yashido works hard to dispel the ghost’s curse and the ghost ponders on whether, or not to release him.

‘Wanderlust’, takes us out on the road. The story reads like a classic ‘road’ film and we embark on the archetypal American journey. The landscape unfolds with panoramic camera sweeps; gasping, breathtaking images of mountains, snow, jagged peaks and windswept pines. A cheap doll, embodies the idea of perfection, of absolute love. It is conveyed to the driver in his own overwhelming, Christ like beauty. He stops at a roadside gas station. The people he meets are spellbound by the ecstasy of his beauty. But sheer love has its opposite and hatred, and ugliness and the abject fear it brings, must have its say. He wants to say sorry. But all that he can do is drive away.

In ‘Orphans’, Christian gives us a drifter, seemingly, a man without purpose. He hitches lifts and meets people. Is he running from something, or running to something? He doesn’t know. Or he won’t say. What is the virus they speak of; the wasting disease that has taken their loved ones? Is it loneliness? Or is it something else? He apologises, it’s all he can do. Is this an allegory, a story for our times? Christian doesn’t tell us; but he certainly makes us think.

As if all that weren’t enough, Christian retells the story of Robinson Crusoe in ‘Friday’.

Combining Daniel Defoe’s style with a futuristic slant, the traveller’s ship crashes into the earth. Like Defoe’s hero he is stranded, like him he has to improvise to survive and like him he has his Friday.

As I said earlier, what the hell will I do if M.Christian ever stops writing? There’s a gem here, a jewel, a real talent. Where does all of this come from? Where does he get his ideas and images? “…eyes as dark as knots in old trees…” “…titles for them were as irrelevant as trying to take apart a static charge before a lightening strike…” Beats me! I’ve saved the title story until last. ‘Love Without Gun Control,’ and I’m going to read it now! Excuse me while I drool!