We're Going To SIN IN THE CITY!

(From R.Greco And M.Christian Presents)

This is going to be a BLAST!  We're not only going to be attending and teaching for the upcoming Sin In The City (Las Vegas), February 2nd to the 4th, but M.Christian is a judge for their International Person Of Leather contest!

The schedule is still being worked out but we will be teaching our fan-favorite classes, Sex Sells: How To Write and Sell Erotica and Alternative Bondage: Beyond Rope And Restraints.

Info on Sin In The City is here - and below are the descriptions of the classes.  

SEE YOU THERE!

Sex Sells: How To Write and Sell Erotica

The market for erotic fiction and nonfiction is booming! There actually is a secret to writing great erotica - and you'll discover just what that is in this fun, hands-on workshop with well-known erotica writers and teachers R.Greco and M.Christian. For the beginning writer, erotica can be the ideal place to begin writing, getting published, and - best of all - earning money. And for the experienced writer, erotica can be an excellent way to beef up your resume and hone your writing skills. M. Christian and R.Greco will review the varieties of personal and literary expression possible in this exciting and expanding field. He'll also teach you techniques for creating love and sex scenes that sizzle. Plus: current pay rates, how to write for a wide variety of erotic genres, where and how to submit your erotic writing, and more.

Alternative Bondage: Beyond Rope And Restraints

While immensely popular among beginning BDSM aficionados – as well as long-time players – restraining a person always carries with it the possibility of serious injury. But that doesn’t have to be: in this special class participants will not just learn how to use rope, restraints and many other traditional bondage devices and techniques effectively and safely but also that there is an entire universe of new and exciting ways of making someone stay put ... in a very erotic and sensual way.

SEE, HEAR And Now FEEL My Stories!

Welcome to the World Of Tomorrow! 

For the first time you can not only read my stories (in print or ebook) through Renaissance E Books/Sizzler Editions but also hear them through Audible.com ... and now you can also feel them via the b.sensory system: where their Little Bird vibratory interacts with my stories to give you an extra sensory wheeeee!

Here's a bit about each format as well as links to all my books and stories that are currently available:

Renaissance E Books/Sizzler Editions

The Best In Erotica And Hot Romance

Print and ebooks

Here are all my books available

Audible.com

WordWooze Publishing

Here are all my audiobooks available

b.sensory

Interactive ebooks

Here are all my stories and books available

Two Very Special Films YOU MUST SEE

Sometimes you just have to blink, and maybe blink again, and think to yourself Did I really just see that?

There’s been a lot of talk lately about the importance of representation: how crucial it is for people to be able to see themselves in the arts ... to know that they aren’t alone.

While there’s been some truly memorable films lately that have worked hard to be inclusive of sexual identity, orientation, gender preference, cultural identity, ethnicity, and neurodiversity we in the kink community have remained unseen and, even worse, humiliated by mainstream cinema.

Until now -- and not just in one film but in two, and not just in limited run arthouse productions but in a pair of productions that are playing in many major multiplexes.

Let’s begin with a hearty and sincere yell: if you are queer, if you are bi, if you are poly, if you are kinky … or if you simply want to see two really magnificent films you have to go see Professor Marston and the Wonder Women and Tom Of Finland.

Ironically, both of these films also deal with the arts.  In the case of Professor Marston and the Wonder Women it’s a fictionalized depiction of William Moulton Marston’s creation of Wonder Woman -- and for Tom Of Finland it’s the life story of the iconic queer artist.

It’s actually hard to write a totally unbiased review of either of these productions, mostly because both of them were seen through a blur of joyous tears.  “I know this, I’ve felt this, I know this … these are my people, this is my life …” kept going through my mind.  

With both, I didn’t have to shoehorn myself into the narrative--to have the emotional pain of having to leave most of my life on the cutting room floor to fit into the worlds being projected onto the screen.

Both films have their faults---in fact both films have the same one: being biographies there is much that has been streamlined, compressed, or even outright changed to make the drama, especially fitting it into a movie’s run-time.  But this is true of any film of this type: it’s just part of the territory.

Accuracy is not important.  What is important is that both films depict, with skill and sensitivity, the pain and joy of being bi, being queer, being poly, being creative … and, especially, being kinky.  

In both we see a hostile and abusive world, punishing with emotional and physical violence those who simply want to love who they want to love.  

In both we see happiness in personal acceptance, in making a home, creating a family ... finding a tribe.  

For Professor Marston and the Wonder Women, the story is about two psychologists, William Moulton Marston (Luke Evans) and Elizabeth Holloway Marston (Rebecca Hall) who at first struggle but then come to beautifully accept their mutual love for one of their students, Olive Byrne (Bella Heathcote).  

Eventually, they create a beautiful queer/bi/poly/kinky family--and even raise 5 children together.  When faced with hard times, mainly due to William and Elizabeth losing their teaching positions because of the scandal, William pitches the idea of a brand new kind of superhero to a comic book publisher, the Amazon we all know and love: Wonder Woman.

The performances are perfectly nuanced: never once did I feel “kicked out” of the film because of a clumsy moment.  The direction, by Angela Robinson, is simple and smooth.  Reminiscing about the experience of watching it, I can’t remember it as being dramatically--and annoyingly--cinematic but rather as a series of emotionally powerful moments.  

Tom Of Finland, meanwhile directly addresses the institutionalized homophobia that far too many experienced, especially in Europe after the Second World War.

The film is painful to watch, especially through contemporary eyes--but that is its strength.  It is a reminder that for so many, for so long, even being suspected of being homosexual meant loss of job, imprisonment, or even “corrective” therapy.  

For Touko Laaksonen (played beautifully by Pekka Strang) being queer is a terrifying spy drama: where one wrong action, one wrong word, could mean the end of everything.  But instead of succumbing, denying who he is, he finds a way to reach out.

At first his sketches are illicit, done for his own pleasure, but then he makes the decision to try and find a sympathetic audience--which leads to not just his personal liberation but the creation a true artistic icon.

And, for the most part, the leather community itself.  

One of the most striking things about Tom Of FInland is that, even though it does feature English speaking actors and the latter half does take place in America, it is a Finnish production.  The director, Dome Karukoski, has created a perfect capsule of what life was like for Touko, and how he must deal with his queer identity in his suppressive homeland as well as when he discovers that the impact his artwork has had on gay men like himself.

Both of these films are currently in theaters--and you should go out and see both of them as soon as possible: not just because they are both excellently crafted, full of beautiful performances, and directed with consummate skill, but because THEY ARE IMPORTANT.  

We need to be in those seats, to show the people involved in their production that we appreciate their work and thoughtful representation of our own lives.  But we also need to demonstrate to the entertainment industry that films like this can be both be responsibly inclusive of our communities as well as profitable.  

If there’s a single message that both Tom Of Finland and Professor Marston and the Wonder Women embraces it is the one that all of us --queer, bi, poly, kinky, and more--know so well: that all of us should be proud of who and what we are--and that love will always trump hate.

Future Of Sex

CHECK IT OUT: a link to every article I've written for the AMAZING Future Of Sex: https://tinyurl.com/yd22sm3p

FIVE TO THE FUTURE - Only .99 for a limited time!

(from M.Christian's Technorotica)

Here's your chance to read the very fun (if I do say so myself) anthology I put together with Ernest Hogan, Emily Devenport, Cynthia Ward, and Arthur Byron Cover - especially as, for a short time, it is now just 99 cents ... and FREE if you have Amazon Unlimited.

TOP 100 IN SF ANTHOLOGIES AMAZON KINDLE -5 THRILLING PEEKS INTO THE FUTURE FROM 5 VISIONARY WRITERS!

What will tomorrow look like? Here are five speculative answers from top science fiction authors.

Another outrageous act of science fiction by self-described “recombocultural Chicano mutant” 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 M.Christian’s standout novelette about the Soviet-era practice of smuggling Western music impressed onto discarded X-rays.

The contributors:

M.Christian‘s published fiction includes science fiction, fantasy, horror, thrillers, erotica and even non-fiction. His fantasy and science fiction have appeared in Talebones, Space & Time Magazine, Skull Full of Spurs, Graven Images, Horror Garage, Song of Cthulhu, and other science fantasy publications. The best of his short SF/H/F has been published in the collection Love Without Gun Control. Multiple Hugo and Nebula winner Mike Resnick has hailed M.Christian’s sf as "unique and truly fascinating." In addition to writing, he is a prolific and respected anthologist whose credits include The Mammoth Book of Future Cops and The Mammoth Book of Tales of the Road (with Maxim Jakubowksi), and many more.

Arthur Byron Cover is the author of the Nebula-nominee novel Autumn Angels, part of his Great Mystery trilogy, a saga of godlike men—which also includes An East Wind Coming, a novel pitting Sherlock Holmes against Jack the Ripper. His short stories have been widely anthologized, and often selected for The Year’s Best Horror Stories and other collections. He has also written works set in the Buffyverse and in Asimov’s Foundation Universe.

Emily Devenport is the author of 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, and more. She is currently working on a novel based on her popular novelette, “The Servant.” Her short stories were published in Asimov’s Science Fiction, Full Spectrum, 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).

Ernest Hogan is a six-foot tall Aztec leprechaun who was born in East LA back in the Atomic Age. 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. His short fiction has appeared in Amazing Stories, Analog, Science Fiction Age, and many other publications.

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. Her short alternate-history novel, The Adventure of the Incognita Countess, is now available from Aqueduct Press.

These prescient and creative minds join forces to offer you a don't-miss anthology of the year!