Showing posts sorted by date for query Finger's Breadth. Sort by relevance Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by date for query Finger's Breadth. Sort by relevance Show all posts

Thursday, August 02, 2018

Listen to My Books!

Not only can you read many of my books and stories but did you know you can listen to them as well? Working with the amazing folks at Wordwooze I'm thrilled to share that all of these books are available on Audible!



Here are riveting as well as erotic tales of technology and desire, and arousal and innovation, told in an engaging and evocative style guaranteed to amaze as well as excite. Down and out hustlers, enhanced sex workers, enigmatic aliens, bleeding edge erotic technologies, and more - The Bachelor Machine is a unique vision of the future, while celebrating humanity's oldest pleasure...sex!




Pell was lost, alone, and lonely until Arc appeared. Fiery, enigmatic, with a mesmerizing cybernetic eye, Arc was everything Pell needed, wanted, and most of all, desired.

The next time Pell saw Arc the eye wasn't the only thing artificial about her new lover. And the time after that, and the time after that: each time the passionate and mysterious Arc drifted into her life, Pell saw more and more of her being replaced by refined and precise machinery and with each departure of her natural body for the artificial, Pell grew more and more terrified.

One day, she knew, there'd be nothing left of her lover but the cold, the engineered, the bionic.

Pell knew what she had to do, but the end, when it came, was worse than she ever could have imagined.




Here it is - the Lambda Literary Award Finalist for best gay collection, Dirty Words. M. Christian's extraordinary anthology shows just how hot and imaginative manlove erotica can be! From mischievous Native American spirits, to victims of cybernetic nightmares, these stories will enthrall, arouse, shock and - always - turn you on. They are all well-crafted tales, filled with what some people call dirty words and dirty men, and will touch you in ways you'd never expect.


"M.Christian's stories are the fairy tales whispered to one another by dark angels whose hearts and mouths are brimming with lust. He goes beyond the pale, ordinary definitions of sexuality and writes about need and desire in their purest forms. [Listeners] daring enough to stray from the safety of the path will find in his images and words a garden of delights to tempt even the most demanding pleasure-seeker." - Michael Thomas Ford, Lambda Award winner.



Erotic. Terrifying. Fascinating. Disturbing. Intriguing. Haunting ... You have never listened to a book like Finger's Breadth.

The cutter is haunting the streets of near-future San Francisco, drugging random queer men and amputating the tip of their little finger.

But so much worse than this brutality is how fear transforms the city, revealing the inescapable nature of society...and the darkest depths of human sexuality.




Set in San Francisco's past, present and near-future, the stories in this anthology provide imaginative, urbane, and even humorous glimpses into Sapphic love and lust that will both arouse and entertain listeners. Those who have never heard M.Christian's erotica are in for a treat. There are no clichés or hackneyed plots to be found in these erotic tales; instead they are filled with substance, creativity and diversity that encompass sweet innocence, sensual tenderness, raw lust, pleasure-pain and more.



One of the pleasures of a dystopic future is the erotists, professionals who paint their clients' bared skin with neurochemicals that induce all forms of sensation - even pain. Erotists offer landscapes of ecstasy, sexual extremes, joy, and delight. Few citizens can afford the skills of the talented Domino. Fewer still know her identity is but a mask. Beneath the facade, Claire hides from a vicious crime lord who would not only kill her but her childhood lover. But the mask of Domino is beginning to crack. Strange sexual pairings and strange sexual practices highlight this futuristic noir tale, set in a wildly imaginative erotic future, exploring who we are and the sexual awakenings that occur when we become someone else.



With The Bachelor Machine, M.Christian set the bar for erotic science fiction stories. Now he has returned to the genre with a brand new collection that will amaze as well as arouse: Skin Effect - tales that push the envelopes of both science fiction as well as erotica in innovative and stimulating ways. Here are stories voyaging to the near as well as the far future, exploring the ultimate limits of sex and arousal.

With an introduction by the Chicano science fiction legend Ernest Hogan (author of High Aztech and Cortez on Jupiter), the stories in Skin Effect - some never before seen - are beyond BDSM, beyond fetish, beyond kink...and even beyond the limits of science fiction!

Sunday, July 08, 2018

The Sexual Futurism Celebration Continues: Great Review of Finger's Breadth!

(from M.Christian's Technorotica)

This is so very, very, VERY cool: check out this lovely review of the audiobook version of my queer erotic sci-fi novel Finger's Breadth from Gay Book Reviews!

You can order the audiobook here - and the ebook version is also available on Amazon.


I am generally bored with the extensive sex scenes in a contemporary romance genre but I love gay erotica, the cradle of the boys’ love genre and all LGBTQ sub-genres that have been resulted from the mother-father of the LGBTQ fiction.

We can have long discussions about broad disparities between the genres and sub-genres and their missions but, without appearing too vulgar, no doubts, the main target of erotic literature is to arouse the reader sexually.

To write GOOD erotica is not easy, don’t underestimate it. Not only sexual fantasy has to be impressive in its own way, but the PLOT itself and the WRITING have to be in har­mo­ny with each other. M. Christian with his Finger’s Breadth met all the criteria for a fascinating erotic novel. Not what I expected, but it made this book even more impressive.

I won’t qualify it as horror, but I read not too many horror books to be a judge. There is a touch of romance, suspense, psychological thriller and a social satire. It is kinky and philosophical. Erotic. Terrifying. Fascinating. Disturbing. Intriguing. Haunting.

A gay community of San Francisco is terrified, anxious and insecure. A maniac is at large with an eye for mutilation. No one is safe from him. He drugs his victims and cuts off the top of their little fingers. Cops and freelance agents are hunting him but all they have are dead-end leads. The number of gay men with nine and a half fingers grows up and with it a spirit of solidarity. You have still 10 fingers? Maybe you ARE the Cutter?

We learn from different men and the way they deal with the fears and handle their lives in these gloomy times. It is like an analogy of a short stories that in some way are connected with each other. But WHO does it and in the first place WHY. Don’t expect a clear statement at the end, don’t hope too early that you get it, and you know what is going on here. Very intriguing.

I listened to an audiobook, and I would like particularly to mention an extraordinary writing style that A.A. Ron, the narrator, emphasizes even more.

It has an invisible strong rhythm that is SIMPLY impossible not to hear. Very creative and captivating.

A.A. Ron did a fantastic job. I have to admit, it was not love from the first tone. His style appeared a bit robotic. But once the story started to unfold, his voice grew on me and I asked myself how I couldn’t have seen it from the very beginning.

I’m glad to discover M.Christian, a new interesting writer of erotica genre. My first but for sure not the last book by the author.

Monday, March 20, 2017

Pre-Release Book Announcement: Groundbreaking FIVE TO THE FUTURE SciFi Anthology

Digital Parchment Services (distributed by Futures-Past Editions) and M.Christian are pleased to announce the imminent release of a brand new science fiction anthology edited by M.Christian:
Five To The Future
All New Novelettes of Tomorrow and Beyond

Five to the Future_eBook.jpg



Featuring never-before-published work by Ernest Hogan (Locus Award Finalist), Arthur Byron Cover (Nebula Award Finalist), Emily Devenport (Boomerang Award winner), Cynthia Ward (Asimov’s SF Magazine), and M.Christian (Lambda Award Finalist):

Here’s what editor M.Christian says about this new anthology:

And here we are: a Chicano fiesta of multicultural caliente salsa from Ernest Hogan, a soul-touching tale of furry friends and bittersweet affection by Emily Devenport, a neon-highlighted 80s love letter to a classic anime by Cynthia Ward, a multi-dimensionally kaleidoscopic tale of love beyond reality by Arthur Byron Cover, and even my own modest contribution in four stories as one, about the Soviet-era practice of smuggling Western music impressed onto discarded X-rays.

About the contributors to Five To The Future:

Extensively published in science fiction, fantasy, horror, thrillers, and non-fiction, it is in erotica that M.Christian has become an acknowledged master, with more than 400 sales 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.

But M.Christian has other tricks up his literary sleeve: in addition to writing, he is a prolific and respected anthologist, having edited twenty-five anthologies to date including The Mammoth Book of Future Cops, The Mammoth Book of Tales of the Road (with Maxim Jakubowksi); Confessions, Garden of Perverse, Amazons (with Sage Vivant), and many more.

As a novelist, M.Christian has shown his 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 Finger’s Breadth and Me2.

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Arthur Byron Cover is a former bookseller, critic, and big mouth. He published several sf novels in another era. He was raised in Tazewell, Virginia, which is in Tazewell County, which was named after a man who opposed the formation of the county until he learned it was going to be named after him. He is one degree of separation from F. Scott Fitzgerald, former President Clinton, Nelson Mandela, and a whole lot of rich and famous people in liberal Hollywood, many still alive. He currently lives with his wife and six pets in the middle of nowhere called Packwood, Washington, where the elk roam and the volcanoes haven’t erupted for thirty years.

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Nine of Emily Devenport’s novels were published in the US by NAL/Roc, under three pen names. She has also been published in the U.K., Italy, China, and Israel. Her novels are Shade, Larissa, Scorpianne, EggHeads, The Kronos Condition, GodHeads, Broken Time (which was nominated for the Philip K. Dick Award), Belarus, and Enemies. Her newest novels, The Night Shifters and Spirits of Glory, are in ebook form on Amazon, Smashwords, etc. She is currently working on a novel based on her popular novelette, “The Servant.”

Her short stories were published in Asimov’s SF Magazine, the Full Spectrum anthology, The Mammoth Book of Kaiju, Uncanny, Cicada , Science Fiction World, Clarkesworld, and Aboriginal SF, whose readers voted her a Boomerang Award (which turned out to be an actual boomerang). She blogs at www.emsjoiedeweird.com.

One day Em hopes to become a geologist. She volunteers at the Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix and works in the Heard Museum bookstore (Books & More). She is married to artist/writer Ernest Hogan, and they live in Arizona, the Geology Capital of the World.

And she really loves cake. You should send her cake. (But not pineapple upside-down cake. That’s fake cake.)

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Ernest Hogan is a six-foot tall Aztec leprechaun who was born in East LA back in the Atomic Age. His mother’s name was Garcia, and his parents weren’t aware of Ernest Hogan, the Father of Ragtime. He grew up in West Covina, considered to be one of the most boring places in California. Monster movies, comic books, and science fiction saved his life. Because he is the author of High Aztech, Smoking Mirror Blues, and Cortez on Jupiter, he is considered to be the Father of Chicano Science Fiction, though there hasn’t been any kind of DNA test. His short fiction has appeared in Amazing Stories, Analog, Science Fiction Age, and many other publications, His story “The Frankenstein Penis,” has been made into student films. He is also an artist and cartoonist. He has been recently been discovered by academia, which may bring about the end of Western Civilization. His “Chicanonautica Manifesto” appeared in Aztlan: A Journal of Chicano Studies. He is married to the writer Emily Devenport.

They live in Arizona, and enjoy exploring the Wild West. He blogs at mondoernesto.com and labloga.blogspot.com. Currently, he’s trying to finish several novels, but keeps getting distracted by all kinds of weird shit.

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Cynthia Ward has published stories in Asimov's Science Fiction, Shattered Prism, Weird Tales, Athena's Daughters (Silence in the Library Publishing), and other anthologies and magazines. Her stories "Norms" and "#rising" made the Tangent Online Recommended Reading List for 2011 and 2014. She edited the anthologies Lost Trails: Forgotten Tales of the Weird West Volumes One and Two for WolfSinger Publications, and has a pair of anthologies forthcoming in collaboration with Charles G. Waugh, the first science fiction professional she ever met. With Nisi Shawl, Cynthia co-created the groundbreaking Writing the Other fiction writers workshop and coauthored the diversity fiction-writing handbook Writing the Other: A Practical Approach (Aqueduct Press).  Her short alternate-history novel, The Adventure of the Incognita Countess, is now available from Aqueduct Press. She lives in Los Angeles, where she is not working on a screenplay.

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Five To The Future will be formally released in April, 2017. Pre-release copies for review are available now by writing M.Christian: mchristianzobop@gmail.com.

ISBN (print): 978-1544125367
PRICE: (print) $14.99/(ebook): $2.99 (free on Amazon Unlimited)
eBook and Trade Paper Editions available April, 2017

Distributed by Futures-Past Editions
https://futurespasteditions.com
Twitter: @futurespasted
Facebook: Futures-Past-Editions

Digital Parchment Services is a complete ebook and print service for literary estates and literary agents. The founders of Digital Parchment Services are pioneers in digital publishing who have collectively published over 2,500 ebooks and PoD paperbacks since 1998.

DPS clients include the estates of multiple Hugo winning author William Rotsler, and science fiction legend Jody Scott; authors such as Locus Award finalist Ernest Hogan, Hugo and Nebula nominee Arthur Byron Cover, prize winning mystery author Jerry Oster, psychologist John Tamiazzo, Ph.D., award winning nutritionist Ann Tyndall; and Best of Collections from Fate Magazine and Amazing Stories.

http://digitalparchmentservices.com
Twitter: @DigiParchment
Facebook: Digital-Parchment-Services

Saturday, January 07, 2017

Announcing The M.Christian Erotic Science Fiction Collection

(from M.Christian's Technorotica)


For the first time, M.Christian’s sexual futurist novels and short story collections are available as both ebooks and special-edition audiobooks!

“Future technology’s ability to alter the very nature of our humanity—and the ways those changes interact with sex—shapes this solid collection of futuristic stories from erotica author M.Christian”
Publisher’s Weekly on Skin Effect

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Since his appearance in the 1994 edition of Best American Erotica, M.Christian has proven himself to be the premier erotic chameleon: being able to seamlessly write for practically any genre and orientation, fetish and interest.  

But it is in the field of erotic science fiction that M.Christian has shown his mastery of both: combining a vivid style, haunting and evocative characters, and carefully crafted structures to not just sexually charge the reader he also examines how human sexuality may evolve in the coming decades—or centuries.

For the first time his premier short story collections and novels are now available as not just as ebooks but—through a special arrangement with Wordwooze Publishing—as audiobooks!

M.Christian’s Erotic Science Fiction Short Story Collections:

Bachelor Machine: Science Fiction Erotica (with an introduction by Cecilia Tan).  
The book that established M.Christian as a voice in the genre.  Received positive reviews from many, including Locus Online.  
Ebook (Renaissance E Books/Sizzler Editions): http://tinyurl.com/gp8cpkt
Audiobook (Wordwooze Publishing): http://tinyurl.com/zw25f7o

Skin Effect: More Science Fiction Erotica (with an introduction by Ernest Hogan).  
The positive-future sequel to Bachelor Machine.  Received positive reviews from the likes of Publisher’s Weekly.  
Ebook (Renaissance E Books/Sizzler Editions): http://tinyurl.com/j9moky8
Audiobook (Wordwooze Publishing): http://tinyurl.com/jzmct5u

M.Christian’s Erotic Science Fiction Novels:

Bionic Lover
A mesmerizing tale of bittersweet desire, lesbian romance, and all-too human frailty
Ebook Print-on-demand (Wordwooze Publishing): http://tinyurl.com/jz54uxr
Audiobook (Wordwooze Publishing): http://tinyurl.com/jsdbzgu

Painted Doll
"A non-stop ride of precise prose and unexpected imagery. Painted Doll is another M. Christian gem; a seamless blend of the erotic with the darkly fantastic. Unpredictable, engaging, and an often startling read."—Marilyn Jaye Lewis, author of Freak Parade
Ebook (Renaissance E Books/Sizzler Editions): http://tinyurl.com/hzx3xyx
Audiobook (Wordwooze Publishing): http://tinyurl.com/j5bvavs

Finger's Breadth
“Finger’s Breadth may well rank as one of the most psychologically astute erotic novels since Leopold von Sacher-Masoch’s Venus in Furs, and it deserves to be just as widely read.”—Circlet Press
Ebook (Renaissance E Books/Sizzler Editions): http://tinyurl.com/go8m62p
Audiobook (Wordwooze Publishing): http://tinyurl.com/zufwvav

All books are available for review.  Interested?  Write M.Christian at mchristianzobop@gmail.com

M.Christian’s Sexual Futurism In Fact As Well As Fiction:

In addition to writing erotic science fiction, M.Christian is a contributor to the well-respected Future Of Sex (“insights into the fascinating topic of the future of human sex and sexuality”): a publication of the Advanced Human Technologies Group!

M.Christian has written on a staggering array of subjects -- from covering state-of-the-art breakthroughs in sexual technology to speculations on the future of human eroticism -- in over 60 popular articles and essays.

Here’s a link to M.Christian’s work for Future Of Sex: http://futureofsex.net/author/m-christian.

About M.Christian:

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 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 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 Finger's Breadth and Me2.

M.Christian is also the Associate Publisher for Renaissance eBooks, 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.

M.Christian’s Social Media:

Twitter: @mchristianzobop

Sunday, December 04, 2016

Roxy Katt Likes Finger's Breadth!

(from M.Christian's Technortica)

Check out this really touching review of my queer/horror/erotic/SF/thriller Finger's Breadth by the one and only Roxy Katt.

And don't forget that Finger's Breath is available as both an ebook as well as an audiobook!

    


I love noir. I love noir movies. And I was pleasantly surprised by M. Christian’s Finger’s Breadth. Not that I was surprised that it was good, having already read and positively reviewed his Bionic Lover. But I did not think it would be this good. I was surprised to see a complex noir plot so deftly handled. Finger’s Breadth has a great many characters and different story lines in it, and it is difficult to write such a novel without putting the reader off. The risk is that just as one story line gets interesting, another one is picked up and the first line is awkwardly interrupted.

Not so with this book. M. Christian takes us through a gay San Francisco some time in the not too distant future where gay men are being tricked and attacked in an unusual way I will not discuss for fear of spoilers.

The plot is tense, the characters well drawn, and the suspense is strong. The text is certainly erotic, but for me the primary interest was in trying to decipher the mystery: what was going on, and who was doing it, and why. Also, the effects on the gay community add a deeper dimension to the book not usually present in a whodunit. A terrific read.

Sunday, July 24, 2016

Finger's Breadth the Audiobook - Out Now!

(from M.Christian's Queer Imaginings)


This is beyond cool: the great folks at WordWooze Publishing has just released a complete audiobook of my queer/horror/erotic/thriller/Scifi novel Finger’s Breadth (and the ebook version is also available from Sizzler Editions).

You can pick up the audiobook here and the ebook here.

Erotic. Terrifying. Fascinating. Disturbing. Intriguing. Haunting…. You have never listened to a book like Finger’s Breadth.

The cutter is haunting the streets of near-future San Francisco, drugging random queer men and amputating the tip of their little finger.

But so much worse than this brutality is how fear transforms the city, revealing the inescapable nature of society…and the darkest depths of human sexuality.

“It is not that hard to come up with an idea that can be turned into a horror story and that is why horror has been part of the folklore of America and why these stories are so popular on camp-outs as we sit around a campfire. To successfully do this, we need a combination of characters and plot but more important than all else is a novel way to relate the story. For me that is the definition of M.Christian. This book is unlike anything I have read before and I suspect that it will stay with me for quite a while.” (Amos Lassen)

“Finger’s Breadth may well rank as one of the most psychologically astute erotic novels since Leopold von Sacher-Masoch’s Venus in Furs, and it deserves to be just as widely read.” (Circlet Press)

Sunday, May 15, 2016

Blogcritics and I

Check out this lovely interview I just did with Jim Lofton of the wonderful Wordwooze Publishing - who just released by Bionic Lover book - for Blogcritics!

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I had an opportunity to sit down for an interview with the prolific author M. Christian, whose work encompasses a wide range of genres. What follows is an abbreviated transcript of our conversation.

At what age did you first get an inkling that you wanted to become a writer, and why?

I’ve scratched my head about this quite a bit, and I think it boils down to two things. The first is escape: growing up, my family life wasn’t exactly pleasant so it’s kind of natural that I would have retreated into books, especially science fiction. Kind of makes sense then that one day I realized I actually might be able to write my own books and stories as well.

But the second reason is even more powerful: after hammering my head against blank pages for close to a decade I actually discovered I liked writing. Not for escape but because…well, I like to say it’s like playing an instrument must be like: the world just goes away and you find yourself transported into words, language, and story.

I still get headaches from smacking my brain against blank pages but after the swelling goes down I still get that transcendental thrill. It’s really what motivates me…that and the money that comes in every now and again, of course.

During your secondary school and college years did you take any writing courses out of the norm that furthered your interest in pursuing a writing career? If so, what courses and how did they influence you?

I took a lot of classes in high school and college but, to be brutally honest, they were a waste of time. None of them were really prepared to deal with someone who really, really, really wanted to write and not just score an easy grade. I think I must have been a bit insufferable towards the teachers―mostly out of frustration: I was hammering away night after night on story after story but all I ever seemed to get were shallow comments, no real meat-and-potatoes help.

That’s why I dearly love teaching my own writing classes: giving people the kind of writing info I wish I’d received back when. The first lesson I think I teach is that―and I know it might be the wrong thing to say in the middle of an interview about myself―is never compare yourself to anyone else. Writing can be extremely challenging, so it’s understandable that we want to learn anything that’ll make it easier.

But hearing that another writer sold their very first story, or their first novel earned half a million in royalties, doesn’t help anyone except the writer. Beginners will often read that and think that’s the way things should go, or should have gone, for them―which is absolute crud. A writer might say they write ten pages a day. Beginners will then think that if they don’t they won’t be successful…whatever that means.

It might sound overly simplistic, but writers write: and the only time they ever fail is when they stop writing. There’s no trick to number of pages, agents, editors, social media, etc.―you work and work and work and work. It gets easier, if you are lucky, but it never gets easy.

The second thing I teach is that if you write hoping to make it big (again: whatever the hell that means) then you won’t: the odds are completely against you. But if you write for the love of storytelling then you’ll be happier than getting any fat royalty check, movie deal, or publishing contract. Fame, money, all of that is nightmarishly fickle: here one day, gone the next. Truly enjoying the creation of books and stories, though, that’s the real reward.

What was the first story or book that you submitted to a publisher? Was it accepted?


Oh, my…I’ve written a lot of stuff and submitted tons more. I really tried to be a pro writer in high school and must have written a story a week for close to ten years (on and off, of course) and didn’t sell a single one (though I did come close now and again). Mostly science fiction but I also dabbled in other genres as well.

It wasn’t until I tried erotica that I sold my very first work, a story to the now-defunct Future Sexmagazine. The story then got picked for Best American Erotica (in 1994) and it just sort of took off from there.

I never really wanted to be an erotica writer. I just wanted to write and sell what I wrote and erotica, back then, was new and hungry. I pitched my first anthology to (also defunct) Masquerade books, Eros Ex Machina: Eroticising The Mechanical and they took it. Six years later I sent my collection, Dirty Words, to the wonderful (and, yes, defunct) Alyson Books and they accepted that.

That may sound impressive but for each success I, like pretty much every writer, must have had ten times as many rejections.

Your writing background is fairly diverse. Did that happen by design, serendipity, or both?

While science fiction has always been a favorite I’ve enjoyed reading, and even writing, all kinds of different things. Erotica was just the door that first opened but I’d be very happy writing pretty much anything.

I’ve always felt that, again, writers write. If someone called me tomorrow and said “Hey, I want to you write a young adult werewolf romance” my first reaction isn’t ‘what the hell’ but sure, why not? Maybe I’d have a blast―and end up being the best damned young adult werewolf romance writer out there. You never know…

When I first started writing erotica, for instance, publishers were very eager for anything interesting and well thought-out, so I tried writing all kinds of stuff: fetish, romance, sexy noir and science fiction, and even gay and lesbian fiction (I’m straight).

I’m extremely touched that the LGBT community has been so accepting of my work. It always brings tears to my eyes to think of the kindness and welcoming I’ve received. I’ve recently begun to move beyond LGBT but only because I think it’s important not to stay too comfortable writing just one kind of thing…stretching your creative wings and all that … but queer fiction still holds a special place in my heart.

Looking back on your body of work, which books that you have written or edited are you the proudest? What about them stands out in your mind?

Not to be evasive but they’re all special―no matter the genre: blood, sweat, tears (other body fluids) and all that. Sure, I think some turned out better than others but I learned a long time ago that what you think is your best work others might read and go meh.

That being said, I really enjoyed the explorations I did with the novels Me2 and Finger’s Breadth―both surreal/dark/gay/thrillers. I still really enjoy writing erotic science fiction, like the recently released Skin Effect (a sequel to my previous collection, Bachelor Machine) and Bionic Lover.

It’s hard to be proud of anthologies. I mean I think many of them are excellent books but when you’re the editor it’s your job to basically pick stories you think would work best for the project―the writers that make the cut are really what makes the anthology special. I do get a thrill when writers say they enjoyed working with me or that they enjoyed writing their contribution. That does mean the world to me.

I’m also very much enjoying writing non-fiction. I’ve been penning pieces for the wonderful Future Of Sex site for many months now. I’ve also written non-fiction on all kinds of other things, and (plug) they are all in a book: Welcome to Weirdsville.

Would you mind telling us how you began gravitating to audiobooks and what your experience has been with them so far?

I’ve always incredibly enjoyed hearing a reading/performance of an author’s work. I’ve done a few myself but, to be honest, my speaking and talking voice is way different than this voice you’re hearing―my writing voice―so it’s not as fun as I’d like.

So when the fantastic folks at Wordwooze Publishing agreed to do some of my books as audiobooks I was ecstatic! So far they have done the already-mentioned Skin Effect, with the also already-mentioned Bionic Lover and Finger’s Breadth in the works.

Jazmin Kensington’s reading of Skin Effect is perfect. It’s odd, but in a lovely way, to hear your words read by someone else―and I can’t wait to hear how the other books turn out.

Thank you for taking the time to share some of the details of your writing career. I’m sure that many of our readers will find your experiences and observations to be of great interest.