Running Dry on Chroma

Just wanted to share the coolness that Kathleen Bradean's wonderful review for Running Dry is now up on the Chroma queer literary and arts journal site. Check it out!

Very Bloody Marys: News, Updates, and More!

Howdy, folks! M.Christian here with news, updates and fun about my newest, funniest, scariest novel: The Very Bloody Marys, just out from Haworth Positronic Press.

Check out the what people might be saying about this funny, scary, gay, vampire, detective story:

“A magnificent literary achievement!”
- Stephen King (if he'd actually read the book)

“Funny, scary – a wonderful thrill ride!”
- Kurt Vonnegut (if he were still alive)

“You HAVE to read this book!”
- Alberto Perez, Novel Prize Winner for Literature (if I hadn't made him up)

For rave reviews that didn't come from my own imagination, follow this link to them on my site at www.mchristian.com. If you also want to review The Very Bloody Marys - and receive a free “I sucked up to a vampire book author” T-shirt - just drop me a line at zobop@aol.com.

In the meantime, if you’re lucky enough to live in or just be visiting San Francisco, you’ll have a chance to enjoy a couple of fantastic Very Bloody Marys experiences:

Take Mina Harker’s famous San Francisco Vampire Tour and you’ll have a chance to win a free copy of The Very Bloody Marys. Mina’s almost as fantastic as my book – yes, she’s THAT good!

On August 11th at 3:00PM you’ll have the rare opportunity to meet and greet me, a reclusive author who shuns sunlight, at a special *daytime* event at Borderlands Books:

Borderlands Books
866 Valencia St.
San Francisco CA 94110

(415) 824.8203
Toll-Free Phone Number: (888) 893.4008
Email: webmail@borderlands-books.com

Come for the reading, stay for basking in my literary glow (caution: only visible at night)!

#

“M. Christian has created a character with an unforgettable, if unceasing, narrative voice, an amusing and cliche-busting antidote to the overpopulated literary ranks of hardboiled vampire detectives. The world of Le Conseil Carmin, where vampires literally work for Blood Money and protect humanity from creatures much worse than themselves, is well-wrought; the plot twists, although initially baffling, all get satisfactorily straightened out; and Valentino, a less-than-enthusiastic member of Le Corps Policier Contre, has a self-conscious charm that will appeal to a broad spectrum of readers.

“Fresh, quirky, and irreverent, The Very Blood Marys is a vampire novel for readers who've become bored with vampires.”
-- Dru Pagliassotti, The Harrow

Great Post from Sage Vivant

A bad week for Republican sex

I'd like to take a non-partisan view toward sex but wow -- these guys really don't make it easy. What a week it was for unbridled hypocrisy!

1. On July 9, the "D.C. Madam" released her little black book of clients, and in a preemptive move designed to ward off the wave of public derision and marital strife, Senator David Vitter (R-La.) confessed to having availed himself of the madam's services. He's since disappeared, probably because his wife was once quoted as "being more like Lorena Bobbitt than Hilary Clinton" on such matters. I can only wonder whether Vitter escaped before she reached for her knife.

Vitter was a typical Southern Republican, espousing the sanctity of marriage while getting his kicks from the professionals. In 2005, Vitter attacked "the Hollywood left" for "redefining the most basic institution in human history." Uh huh.

2. Republican Strategist John ("Jack") M. Burkman's name was also in the revealing black book. (You may recall that Burkman picked up some teenage girls last year -- and was dumb enough to give them his business card -- and offered to pay them for sex. He likes really big tits, by the way.) Burkman is a real doll: following on the comments of Ann Coulter's vile hate rants on the widows of 9/11, he declared that “within hours of those [World Trade Center] towers going down,” the wives of victims of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks “were ready to make money and exploit this tragedy!” Once a sleazeball asshole, always a sleazeball asshole, I guess.

3. Florida State Representative (and Co-chair of Senator John McCain's Florida campaign) Bob Allen got into a sticky little mess this week, too, but at least his name wasn't in the D.C. Madam's book. Instead, he was arrested Wednesday afternoon at a local park after offering to perform a sex act on an undercover officer in exchange for $20. The Orlando Sentinel story says Allen was arrested for "offering to perform a sex act," but TV reports out of Florida say Allen was to have the sex act performed on him. Either way, I think we all agree that Florida is clearly the place to get a blowjob, as they can be had for the bargain price of $20!

Thanks, you horny Republicans, for making such asses of yourselves. But fear not, your supporters will not be thwarted. They're all praying for you and saying crap like, "If God has found it in His heart to forgive you, so can I."

A Very Bloody Mary Time In San Francisco

If you're visiting San Francisco - or are lucky enough to live here - definitely check out the delightful San Francisco vampire tour conducted by the very fun Mina Harker (aka Kitty Burns).

The Vampire Tour of San Francisco was chosen by The Bay Guardian as one of the "Best of the Bay" for 2003! Mina Harker (Kitty Burns) was also awarded the 2005 Individual Donor Diamond Award by ARTshare in San Mateo, CA for charitable contributions made by The Vampire Tour of SF.

Become a member of the Drac Pack! Explore the Gothic side of Nob Hill with your Host, Mina Harker, Vampress who was made by Count Dracula in London in 1897 and banished by him to the United States. Mina has resided on and under the streets of San Francisco for over 100 years. Hear her story, and learn how Vampires have played an important part in the shaping of San Francisco as we know it today. Don't worry. We do not go underground or to any stops that are seriously gothic or dark. This is a fun, light hearted tour for the Undead or prospective Undead with a sense of humor!

If you act quickly you might be lucky and receive a FREE (yes, I said FREE) copy of The Very Bloody Marys that Mina will be giving away on each tour.

Dark Roasted Weird

Check it out: the fantastic Dark Roasted Blend just republished my meine kleine fabrik Welcome to Weirdsville: Oooops! post.

I don't know what to say -

- except thanks to Ann Regentin for this incredibly special Very Bloody Marys review. Check out the whole thing at the always great Erotica Readers & Writers Association site, but in the meantime here's an excerpt:

I don't review books very often. In fact, it might be better to say that I don't review books at all, and the reason is that I'm very picky. I spent a few years reading them for money—yes, you can do that if you're in the right place at the right time—and as a result, nothing surprises me. I don't care what plot or character you throw at me, I've read it before somewhere else.

Murder mysteries are the worst because I used to read them obsessively, and good ones, too, like Rex Stout, Arthur Conan Doyle and Agatha Christie. Unless the characters or setting really grab me, it usually takes three chapters to figure out who the killer is. A quick check to the end, and I'm done. I also don't much care for vampire stories, mostly because I don't find cold immortality particularly sexy. I prefer my heroes warm-blooded and human.

So what the heck was I doing reading a book called The Very Bloody Marys (Harrington Park Press; May 1, 2007), a gay vampire murder mystery? Even weirder, why couldn't I put it down?

Okay, I did put it down from time to time. I had to eat, shower, sleep, take care of my kid, that kind of thing, but for the most part, I read because in spite of covering two of my least favorite genres, it was a damned good book ....

[more]

Kathleen Bradean loves The Very Bloody Marys

Thank you, Kathleen, for this wonderful review of The Very Bloody Marys!

I've been indulging in a M. Christian reading binge lately. I finished his vampire tale, Running Dry (very good), and then slipped right into The Very Bloody Marys, his newest vampire story.

Valentino is a 200-year old rookie vampire cop who is fated to spend eternity as the screw-up assistant to undead drill sergeant cop and all around bastard, Pogue. That is, until Pogue mysteriously disappears. The powers (of the night) want Valentino to find Pogue and stop a rogue band of vampires who call themselves the Very Bloody Marys. The only problem is that Valentino has no clue what he's doing. He stumbles around San Francisco, making an unholy mess of the case, while sinister otherwordly beings manipulate him into doing their bidding. Valentino isn't as hopeless as he thinks he is though, and manages to find out what happened to his mentor, figure out who the real bad guy is, and take down the Very Bloody Marys.

The Very Bloody Marys isn't a story about being a vampire (although that's part of it). It's a good-ole gumshoe novel, a mystery with enough twists to keep me guessing and page-turning action. The characters were so original that it never felt like a rehash of vampire legend (thank god!). And the best part - this book supplied enough of a taste of otherworld San Francisco to pique my interest, but left me wanting more. Hopefully, M. Christian will do me a favor write another one. Soon.

Emily Veinglory likes Running Dry

What with all the hullaballoo (and, yes, that is a technical term) over The Very Bloody Marys I've almost forgotten I have another novel out there. The wonderful Emily Veinglory has a very flattering review of Running Dry. Check it out:

I am a somewhat disillusioned fan of vampire fiction. I have a few hundred vampire books and have read a few hundred more than that. The days when I would buy a book just because it was vampire fiction are long gone given the sheer quantity of them out there and the average quality, which seems to sink every year. In the last week I just happen to have read three vampire books over the last week or so and this one, 'Running Dry' by M. Christian, made me think: Oh, right. This is what I loved about vampire fiction all along.

And I should probably make clear is that we are not talking about bats, tuxedos and mock-European-accent type vampire cliches here. The very essence of the vampire mythos is having to take something from someone else to live, take so much that they die. That is the monster inside the man, that is the dilemma. Modern vampires who have immortality, angst and superpowers but no real down side to their state pale in comparison to this.

The basic story is about Doud, a conflicted man trying to reconcile what he needs to do to live his long life with his respect for human life. Shelly is his friend, a middle-age gallery owner who has to confront a few of her own personal demons when she finds out what Doud really is. And finally the story starts with the return of Doud's old lover Sergio who had every reason to want Doud dead. The kind of creature Doud really is would take a little long to explain. He needs to feed off others but his nature springs from the author's unique vision and has none of the surface features of the stock blood-sucking monster.

There really is very little to complain about in this book. I do think some of the events in the last third of the book could have been described at more length to help us setting into the twists and turns and to add pathos to the ending which could (should?) have had more emotional impact. But this is a quibble. The characters are likeable without being particularly heroic or virtuous (like real people). The story pulls you along with something new unfolding in every chapter. More than anything the writing is effortless to read, so it is more like watching the story through a window than wading through a swamp of words (this being the greatest difference between this book and the others I read this week). Based on my experience of M. Christian's writing so far (this book and his anthology 'Filthy') my main advice is this, if a book has his name on it you should buy it.

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.

Welcome to Weirdsville!

If you haven't checked out meine kleine fabrik, check it out now: I've been posting some of my classic Welcome to Weirdsville columns up there. So far I've talked about the Hellfire Club, nuclear weapon boo-boos, kudzu, The Bucklands, and many more strange and bizarre things.

This week, for instance, I've posted a little piece about the fartist: Le Petomane.

Enjoy!

The Only Thing It Could Be Called: The Pussyfoot

As this was a bit too risque for meine kleine fabrik I decided to post it here rather than there.

From JT's Stockroom:

The SiFeet Pussy Foot is the ultimate fantasy sex toy for foot fetishists. This size 6, 100% silicone foot is cast in pure silicone from a real life actual, beautiful female foot. In the sole of this lovely foot is a fully functional and totally fuck-able silicone vagina.

This pure silicone foot is soft, smooth, and incredibly sexy. The toes are decorated with acrylic toenails painted glossy pink, making the Pussy Foot seem even more real.

From the toes to the heel and ankle, great time and effort has been taken to insure that the Pussy Foot seems real.

From Wikipedia:

Like other paraphilias, foot fetishism encompasses a wide range of predilections; one foot fetishist may be aroused by scenarios that another fetishist finds unerotic or even repulsive. Websites exist that cater to a number of specialized scenarios, including: women walking barefoot in the street with dirty soles or on uncomfortable surfaces such as hot pavement, feet pushing down on gas or brake pedals, feet crushing objects like balloons or toy cars, feet being pushed into mud or food, female foot torture (i.e. having the soles of their feet tortured or punished by whippings, hot wax, burnt with cigarettes, etc. see bastinado and falaka.

More ebay fun!

Here's your chance to pick up some great anthologies (many of which being out of print and/or rare) that just happen to have stories in them by yours truly. Check them out here. Keep going back, by the way, as I'll be posting even more in the next few weeks.

Thanks so much, Aaron!

The great Aaron of Aaron's Lavender Levithan has posted a couple of very sweet mentions for The Very Bloody Marys and Running Dry:

I just finished reading author, M. Christian's first novel RUNNING DRY and loved it! There have been many versions of what traits constitute a vimpire and M. Christian adds another cool, updated version to the list. My only negative comment is that the book wasn't long enough because, I didn't want to stop reading it.

I have since aquired M. Christian's newest novel, THE VERY BLOODY MARYS and it is currently waiting for me on my nightstand.

And here's the piece he put on his prints page - which are gorgeous:

I'm notorious?

Just had to share this little thing I stumbled on while (blush) googling Very Bloody Marys:

From the Lambda Rising Bookstore:

"I would highly recommend The Very Bloody Marys by a very famous and notorious writer."

(giggle) Very flattering. When do I get to see my wanted poster?

Being Lusty on Lust Bites

Following right behind my partner-in-all-things, Sage Vivant, I'm also going to have an interview up at the very cool Lust Bites site on Friday, June 8th. Be sure and check in throughout the day as I'll be answering questions in the comments area.

The Harrow Loves Very Bloody Marys

Coolness! Check out this wonderful review of The Very Bloody Marys by Dru Pagliassotti on The Harrow site:

Le Conseil Carmin is concerned. People are being killed on the streets of San Francisco by a gang of Vespa-riding vampires called The Bloody Marys, and the hard-assed cop the conseil had expected to investigate the crimes, Pogue, isn't answering his doorbell.

Which means the investigation must fall to Pogue's screwup of a deputy — the insecure, disrespected, nervously chattering vampire Valentino, who's painfully aware that he's in over his head and only hopes he can keep treading water until his boss returns.

Until a faery kills Julian, his one true love.

Suddenly, Valentino's out for vengeance.

Zombie taxi drivers, golems of Abraham Lincoln, a four-star restaurant in the city morgue, vampires, warlocks, fairies, ghouls, and angelic apparitions: they're all denizens of The Castro's other night-life, and Valentino must bluster his way through them as he hunts for a murderous faery, his missing dickwad of a commanding officer, and — of course — the pretty and ruthless Very Bloody Marys.

M. Christian has created a character with an unforgettable, if unceasing, narrative voice, an amusing and cliche-busting antidote to the overpopulated literary ranks of hardboiled vampire detectives. The world of Le Conseil Carmin, where vampires literally work for Blood Money and protect humanity from creatures much worse than themselves, is well-wrought; the plot twists, although initially baffling, all get satisfactorily straightened out; and Valentino, a less-than-enthusiastic member of Le Corps Policier Contre, has a self-conscious charm that will appeal to a broad spectrum of readers.

Fresh, quirky, and irreverent, The Very Blood Marys is a vampire novel for readers who've become bored with vampires.

A Great Amazon Review

Just had to share this delightful review of Very Bloody Marys that Amos Lassen posted to Amazon. Thanks, Amos!

The homoerotic nature seems to appeal to gay people. Anne Rice had a career based upon the blood sucking creatures until she turned to Jesus. Other vampire novels and movies have won us over but "The Very Bloody Marys" is M. Christian is headed to be our new favorite. Christian is a new voice in the field and he is unique and fascinating. His arrival on the vampire scene gives us an entire new way to look at the demons. He is funny and fierce at the same time and will keep you entertained throughout the 171 pages of his new book.

Christian is not new to the gay writing scene having been responsible for over fourteen anthologies and his short fiction has appeared in over 200 books as well as one novel and several collections. "The Very Bloody Marys", however, is about to become his breakthrough novel.

Christian is not new to the supernatural and horror genre and in this book he has mustered up all of his strengths and given us a wonderful read. San Francisco is undergoing major woes with a clan of Vespa riding vampires killing citizens without seeming cause and it looks like the city is about to go through a "dry spell" as they threatened to drain the place of blood. Valentino, our hero and a gay cop is undergoing training through a supernatural law enforcement agency, "Le Counseil Carmin" and is swept up into the whole blood-sucking business. When Pogue, his mentor, becomes missing, Valentino is called upon to rid the town of the menace but the "Bloody Marys" are very clever and very thirsty and Valentino must use all he knows and do so quickly or possibly be done away with himself. He realizes that in order to dispose of the vampires, he must go into areas he never dreamed of, deal with some very strange characters and learn what the mystery of them is.

This is not only a horror book but a romp which deals with many aspects of supernatural life. Apart from the vampires, there are also fairies and the undead and ghouls. The fear evoked by the novel often gives way to comedy and the mixture of the two is a wonderful way to spend some time reading. You embark upon a journey and a ride through the dark side of San Francisco and get a view of the tow you have probably never had before.

Christian gives us a whole new way of reading and I absolutely loved it. Almost equal amounts of fear and fun make this one of the books to be read this summer.

Those Who REALLY Can do ... Make!

Just spent a fantastic weekend with my brother, s.a., at the Maker Faire. He and I will be posting more about the event very soon at Meine Kleine Fabrik but in the meantime here's a quick sample of the marvelous imagination and innovation we saw there.

Sometimes the World Is Simply Wonderful

Just had to share my discovery of Theo Jansen's work. Check out my full post on meine kleine fabrik.

Special Offer to All of My Fans -

- both of you!

Since the garage has become a nightmare I've decided to start selling off some of the books I've been in. So here's your chance to pick up some mint condition, rare, out-of-print, anthologies with a story of mine in there. Oh, and I'll also sign the book.

Here's the ebay links:

Viscera (edited by Cara Bruce)
Sex Spoken Here (edited by Carol Queen)
Sex Toy Tales (edited by Anne Siemans)

Depending on how these do I'll probably be posting more.

COMING SOON: The Very Bloody Marys (reviewers wanted)

He’s the only vampire cop around—and a gang of Vespa-riding vampires threaten to drain San Francisco dry!

Big trouble at night in the city. A gang of Vespa-riding vampires are killing San Franciscans so indiscriminately they threaten to not only drain the city dry—but risk the discovery of vampires everywhere. Gay vampire cop Valentino is called upon to stop the group calling themselves The Very Bloody Marys before the situation gets worse. Unfortunately, it already has. You see, Valentino is still only a trainee who is in way over his head now that Pogue, his mentor, is missing. And this brutal gang is tough, smart, and very, very bloodthirsty. To do his job, Valentino must move quickly—and carefully—otherwise he may just get himself killed. What can a creature of the night do? The only thing he can, track the gang through the haunts of some very odd characters, unravel the mystery, and try to stay out of the sun. The Very Bloody Marys is a comic horror novel about vampires, ghouls, faeries, and the undead that move around after dark. Part chase, part gallows humor, part shivery excitement, this new story from the wildly imaginative M. Christian is funny, frightening, and very entertaining.


“M. Christian is a hybrid artist and knockout stylist on the order of Jonathan Lethem. HARD-BOILED, SHARP-EDGED, FUNNY AND FIERCE.”
—Jim Gladstone, author, The Big Book of Misunderstanding

“Combines several of M. Christian’s strengths, writing queer and supernatural/horror fiction, with only occasional touches of his other strength, erotica. Vampire protagonist Valentino is a reluctant trainee in the supernatural international law enforcement organization, Le Counseil Carmin. He half-heartedly assists his mentor, Pogue, in enforcing the rules in San Francisco that is, until Pogue goes missing and Valentino must strive to rise to the occasion to rid the City by the Bay of trouble in the form of The Very Bloody Marys and a deadly faery or two, using what he recalls of his training and the limited resources at his disposal. Readers will never view night life in San Francisco quite the same way. A WELCOME ADDITION TO THE VAMPIRE NOIR GENRE.”
—Maryelizabeth Hart, Mysterious Galaxy, San Diego

Publication Date: July 1, 2007.
Available: Available Spring 2007.
$12.95 soft. ISBN-13: 978-1-56023-535-4/ISBN-10: 1-56023-535-7
Pages: Approx. 192 pp.
LC#: 2006035688
Categories: Gay Male, Fiction and Literature; Horror
Web: http://www.HaworthPress.com/store/product.asp?sku=5329

For a pre-publication review copy contact M.Christian:

M.Christian
zobop@aol.com
www.mchristian.com

Reflection's Edge Likes Filthy

Mathilde Madden over at Reflection's Edge has a very nice review of Filthy:

What makes a good short story? Felice Picano, in his forward to Filthy offers some of the more traditional takes: a deft handling of voice, of place, of character. But really, what makes a good short story - what makes a great short story - is a truly good idea.

Luckily for Christian – and luckily for us – truly good ideas are not in short supply in this collection.

A perfect example comes in "Sunset Boulevard," one of many tales that puts a queer twist on an old story. Christian, riffing brilliantly on the campness of the original movie, recasts the central fading screen siren as an aging gay porn star. And it might seem risible to allow the gloriously queeny Norman Desmond to intone, "I am big. It's porno that got small," but Christian pulls it off.

Christian isn't shy of a little shameless genre straddling with his startlingly imaginative ideas either. In "The Hope of Cinnamon" we enter a future world in which gay men have mastered the art of time travel in order to save their queer brothers from oppressive regimens of the past. But this tale is also a good example of how the short story format can be frustrating for the reader when presented with such a dazzling concept as this one. The idea is simply too big for the form. The problem presented – that the rescued men cannot cope with a life in nirvana – isn’t so much explored as thrown at us before we are hustled away for the next story.

This is where the book wears thin. The stories in this book are short, averaging ten pages of in-out wham-bam. After a while it starts to feel like Christian is torturing his readers, deserting his unsatisfied readers for fresh thrills before they have quite achieved emotional climax. Too much is left undone and unsaid. This collection could have featured just the five best ideas – including the wonderfully disturbing quasi-religious "Friday Night at The Calvary Hotel" – and served up five wonderful novellas.

In the final story – the most enjoyable of the whole collection – Christian once again attempts a daring feat and pulls it off neatly as he spins us a tale of a young gay reader so besotted with an author of outrageous gay erotica he takes a pilgrimage to his grave. Angered by his discovery en route that his hero was in fact in a relationship with a woman, he means to urinate over the author's last resting place, but ends up recalling too many of the author's purplest passages and doing something entirely different. It is no surprise when Christian reveals the name on the headstone of this soiled grave.

While Filthy is a wonderful book, and just the thing if you are in the mood for an enjoyable quickie (or twenty), it's not the place to turn if you are more in the mood for a story that can go all night.

Kathleen Bradean loves Filthy

Here's a delightfully glowing review of Filthy from the ever-great Kathleen Bradean:

I read a guide to reviewing books recently. It said a reviewer should be impartial. I can see that point of view; the work should be judged on its own merit. However, it's impossible for me to pick up a book by M. Christian and not have expectations that are based on previous works I've read. So I guess it's only fair to begin this review with full disclosure: I'm a fan.

I'm torn over the idea of erotica as a distinct genre, and M. Christian's work is fuel for this internal debate. In The Hope of Cinnamon, a future society rescues gay victims from Nazi death camps and brings them forward in time to a sanctuary. Gen, one of the Helpers who works to integrate the Rescued into their new home finds out that few of the Rescued successfully survive the transition. He decides to travel back in time to experience the death camps for himself so that he will have a better understanding of why the Rescued fail to thrive in a society that fully accepts them. While this story does touch on sex and sexuality, it is a great example of speculative fiction that prompts further examination of our time and how current and future gay generations need to be aware of the history of gay culture and see it in proper historical perspective instead of viewing it, and judging, through hindsight.

As much as I hate the term coming-of-age tale, Utter West is a near-future story that shows a character coming of age, and more. Pony is the narrator's hero, the one who escaped their suburban hell and went beyond it to something wonderful and mystical - or so the narrator wants to believe. Unaware that he's destroying the beautiful myth that's grown around his disappearance, Pony comes back as an ordinary adult, prompting the narrator to break free and take the journey Pony failed to make into the beyond of the Utter West.

If noir is more your style, enjoy M. Christian's homage to Sunset Boulevard,
Hollywood Boulevard, or sink into the corner pocket of the night world of pool hustlers in The Hard Way. That Sweet Smell is really the scent of corruption, but keep telling yourself it's success, because in this story, that delusion is all the narrator has to cling to.

Moby is purely tall tale, told with the flair of real yarn-spinner. Could anyone stink that much, be that cussedly mean, or be that hung? It's all in the telling - joyously and outrageously over the top.

Or maybe you're in the mood for bittersweet romance and love. Flyboy is the soaring romance we all long for, crashed down to earth by the military's Don't Ask Don't Tell policy. And Love is a writer's story, about how much it means to us when our stories are wanted, and how hard it is to separate the pure love of acceptance from the physical.

And then there's horror. Friday Night at the Calvary Hotel is the hardest story to read in this collection for it's intense mix of sadism, masochism, religious imagery and sex. Stories like that cling to you long after you've put the book down. You decide if that's a good thing or a bad thing, but I like that. Suddenly, Last Thursday is horror of a different stripe - lush and gothic, where you might have to read a line several times before your brain accepts what it's telling you. That slow dawning of realization is delicious and shivery.

In the movie Sunset Boulevard, Joe Gillis says, "Sometimes it's interesting to see just how bad bad writing can be." Yes, but it's gratifying to see just how good good writing can be too. It's unfortunate that erotic writing has a reputation for bad writing, but sit down with this collection and let M. Christian change that prejudice.

Susie Bright Likes Perverse

My partner in various crimes, Sage Vivant, just sent me this nice little rave about the book we edited, Gardens of Perverse, from Susie Bright. Check it out here.

My DREAMWalker Bio

Michael Walker of the DREAMWalker Group just sent me this very cool bio page he's made for me. Thanks so much, Michael!