Yet More Philosophy

Coming Up - Magic Words: Using Erotic Writing To Explore Your Hidden Sexuality And Spirituality

(from M.Christian's Classes And Appearances)

May is gonna be a blast for classes and such: first up is Magic Words: Using Erotic Writing To Explore Your Hidden Sexuality And Spirituality for the SF Citadel (on Tuesday, May 7) and then, on Tuesday May 14th, teaching How To Create An Effective Online Profile – And Now To Write Messages That Will Get Good Responses at the Center For Sex And Culture ... and I have a special event planned for the end of the month (more on that when the details are worked out).

Here's the info on Magic Words: Using Erotic Writing To Explore Your Hidden Sexuality And Spirituality:

Magic Words: Using Erotic Writing To Explore Your Hidden Sexuality And Spirituality

SF Citadel Community Center
181 Eddy Street, San Francisco, CA

8:00 PM –10:00 PM


$20 at door

There are many ways to reach your inner sexual and spiritual self -but one of the most surprisingly powerful paths is through the written word. In this lecture/workshop, participants will hear how erotic writing (fiction as well non-fiction) can reach hidden places that often lay unexposed, help make personal discoveries and to assist in a personal journey of self and sensuality. Participants will learn how to free their erotic writing voices, how to develop their writing towards discovering their erotic spirits within, and when to silence -- and when to listen -- to the inner critic.

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

What Lives On My Desk, Part 2

(from M.Christian's Technorotica)

It Was A Fantastic Weekend!

(from M.Christian's Classes And Appearances)

Thanks so all the great folks who came out for my classes last weekend (Sex Sells: How To Write And Sell Erotica and Sensual Caning: How To Use The Rod In New And Exciting Ways)!

It was a real treat to teach both these classes ... cool folks, fun times, a fantastic time! Can't wait to do it again!

Special thanks to the wonderful folks at Center For Sex And Culture and FantasyMakers Academy for such amazing venues!

Confessions Of A Literary Streetwalker: Thinking Outside Your Box

Check this out: a new "Confessions Of A Literary Streetwalker" piece for the always-great Erotica Readers and Writers site just went up.  This one originally appeared on the fantastic K.D. Grace's site.

All my previous columns, of course, have been collected in How To Write And Sell Erotica by Renaissance E Books.

Here's a tease:

 

Thinking Outside Your Box...

Or Writing Isn't Always About Writing

Sure, we may all want to just cuddle in our little garrets, a purring pile of fur in our laps, leather patches on our sleeves, a pipe at the ready, and do nothing but write masterpieces all day and night – with periodic breaks for binge-drinking and soon-to-be legendary sexual escapades – but the fact of the matter is that being a writer has totally, completely, changed.

I'm not just talking about the need to be a marketing genius and a publicity guru – spending, it feels too often, more time tweeting about Facebook, or Facebooking about tweeting, than actually writing – but that authors really need to be creative when it comes to not just getting the word out about their work but actually making money.

A lot of people who claim to be marketing geniuses and publicity gurus will say that talking about you and your work as loud as possible, as often as possible, is the trick ... but have you heard the joke about how to make money with marketing and PR? Punchline: get people to pay you to be a marketing genius and/or a publicity guru. In short: just screaming at the top of the tweety lungs or burying everyone under Facebook posts just won't do it.

Not that having some form of presence online isn't essential – far from it: if people can't find you, after all, then they can't buy your books. But there's a big difference between being known and making everyone run for the hills – or at least stop up their9 ears – anytime you say or do anything online.

Balance is the key: don't just talk about your books or your writing – because, honesty, very few people care about that ... even your readers – instead fine a subject that interests you and write about that as well. Give yourself some dimension, some personality, some vulnerability, something ... interesting, and not that you are not just an arrogant scream-engine of me-me-me-me. Food, travel, art, history, politics ... you pick it, but most of all have fun with it. Forced sincerity is just about as bad as incessant narcissism.

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Wisdom

It’s a M.Christian Weekend!

(from M.Christian's Classes And Appearances)

If you're in the Bay Area this weekend (the 13th and 14th) then you're got an opportunity to check out not one but two - almost-back-to-back - classes taught by little ol' me.

First up is my celebrated (kinda infamous) Sex Sells: How To Write & Sell Erotica class on Saturday, for the Center For Sex And Culture.

Then, on Sunday, I'm teaching Sensual Caning: How To Use The Rod In New And Exciting Ways for the fantastic folks at FantasyMakers Academy.

Here's the info on both - hope to see you there!

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Sex Sells: How To Write & Sell Erotica

Saturday, April 13th from 10:00AM - 1:00PM

Center For Sex And Culture 
1349 Mission St, San Francisco, CA

$20 per person

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 writer and teacher 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 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.

And you can pre-order tickets for the event through Brown Paper Tickets!

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Sensual Caning: How To Use The Rod In New And Exciting Ways

Sunday, April 14, 2013, from 1:00 PM - 4:00 PM

 

FantasyMakers Academy

$20 per individual guest and $15 each for additional partner.

Directions will be sent to confirmed guests by MzGrayce (MzGrayce@gmail.com)
Dress code: Discrete on the street and comfortable once you're inside.
 
The cane is one of those 'legendary' BDSM toys that is far too often used with dramatic flare - rather than erotic effectiveness. In this very special class, cane wielders will learn the difference between using a rod as a prop and, instead, how to use various types of cane (wood versus plastic, thin versus thick, etc) to send the receiver to new erotic heights. With this unique - and sensual - technique even those scared of the rod will be enticed to being on the receiving end of the not-so-scary cane.

Geek Love Looks FABULOUS!

(from M.Christian's Technorotica)

Just got my person, dead-tree, edition of the quite excellent anthology Geek Love and it looks ... well, fabulous!  Bravo to Shanna Germain who did a mind-bendingly excellent job on this project!

Geek Love. It's nerdy, wordy and a little bit dirty. It's 200 pages of geek-themed erotic stories, accompanied by full-color art and comics, all from some of the finest authors and artists in the industry.

Think of it as the comma sutra. As full-frontal nerdity at its finest. As the bestiary of geek sexuality, proving once and for all that there’s nothing hotter than geeks in their natural habitats.

Electrifying play with Tesla? We’ve got it. Hot gamers tapping that? Check. Making passes at girls – and boys – with glasses? That’s just the beginning. We’ve got sexy librarians, raid nights, geek boys in leather and lace, tentacles, sexbots, superheroes and high-tech toys galore.

With cover art by the talented Galen Dara, Geek Love is a hard-bound full-color masterpiece that’s going to look great on your gaming table or your bondage bed. But the anthology is far more than just a pretty face – it’s also got a killer body. Stuffed with savory stories and loaded with sensual full-color art, comics and photographs created by some of the industry's most talented authors and artists, Geek Love is a collection you’ll want to share with special friends and spend all your free time boning up on.

Bye-Bye Pinterest

Kiss Pinterest farewell, folks ... at least as far as I'm concerned: I'm very tired of having content I've been re-posting on my various boards yanked down for "content."  I'll still have my account up there but I won't be putting up anything new.

If you want to see the uncensored and unabashed me be sure and check out my various tumblr feeds: Rude Mechanicals, Meine Kleine Fabrik, and Lust For Glory.

Sizzler Editions Launches Exciting, New Erotic eBook Site!

I'm absolutely thrilled to be able to announce that the new - and magnificent - Sizzler site is up and running.  Huge kudos to Frankie Hill and Jean Marie Stine who made it all possible! 

Check it out: you'll be amazed:

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Sizzler Editions Launches Exciting, New Erotic eBook Site!

Sizzler Editions, a/the premier publisher of erotic eBooks since 1998, announces a new site for erotic literature junkies to access their catalog of 1500 titles, sizzlereditions.com. [http://sizzlereditions.com]

Built on a new, more flexible, platform with additional layers of subcategories, the new Sizzler Editions site features the ability to find related books by theme and series. Next to each book cover, readers will see convenient tabs featuring the book's description, direct purchase links and other information. The updated site also incorporates video trailers for featured Sizzler Edition titles, and expanded Author bio pages.

Of the new site, Publisher Jean Marie Stine says, "Perhaps the biggest change is the fact that we no longer host and sell books ourselves. Readers will instead find a links, which take them directly to a book's Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or iBooks page.

"At the redesigned Sizzler Editions site, readers can not only easily find  the book they like, but they can buy it from their preferred vendor in a new tab  – and have it downloaded instantly into their ebook reading device – without ever leaving the Sizzler Editions site.  It's a win-win for both readers and for us!"

Stine reveals that the site is continuing to add improvements above and beyond the update unveiled April 2, 2013. "The new site is still very much a work in progress. We will add audio interviews with our authors, include even more features to enhance the visitor's search experience and more titles from new erotic authors are always being added to our catalog!"

Debut releases at the new site include bestselling bondage author, Powerone's new Cold War spy shocker, Slave of the Kremlin, two novellas of paranormal romance by Sarah Bella, author of Bound by Blood, and a first-ever collection of Herotica editor Marcy Sheiner's stories, Love & Other Illusions. Also scheduled for release in the coming weeks are Love's Storm by Margie Church and K. B. Cutter, the second installment of their controversial trilogy about polyamory, plus a new collection of erotic science fiction stories, Skin Effect, by M. Christian. Coming soon to Sizzler Editions are the first of three books books by sexologist Amy Marsh reporting back on Love's Outer Limits, and new books by Terri Pray, David Jewell and other bestselling authors.

Bookmark sizzlereditions.com now, and start exploring the new features rolled out in the first phase of the update, and  be sure to come back for the official grand reopening on May 1^st, when there will be free eBooks, special prizes and other delights.

About Sizzler Editions:

Sizzler Editions is one of the leading ebook publishers of erotica on the internet. Sizzler issued their first ebooks in 1998, and since that time have published over 1500 ebooks books. As of 2013, Sizzler Editions has more than 1,300 erotic ebooks available for sale, and a growing list of new titles.

Sizzler Editions prides itself on presenting the finest in erotica for every sexual interest and orientation. Sizzler Editions imprints include Intoxication (Erotic Romance), Submission (Bondage and BDSM), Attraction (GLBT Erotica), Scorcher (Hot & Hetero), Hot Flash (Short & Collections), Encounter (SciFi and Fantasy), Sexerience (Nonfiction), HerSelf (Women's Erotica), Platinum (All-Time Best Sellers), Victoria (Erotic Classics), Bounty (Bargain Omnibuses), and Thrill (Mystery & Adventure).

FOR MORE INFORMATION, CONTACT:

M.Christian

Associate Publisher, Sizzler Editions

mchristian@renaissanceebooks.com

(415) 305-8742

Sizzler Editions

2930 Shattuck Ave. Suite 200-13

Berkeley CA 94705

Nicodemus, By Broomstick Out Of Dustpan By Sweeper, The Last Of The Exotic Brindle Breed

(from M.Christian's Meine Kleine Fabrik)

In honor of the 1st of April here's a fun little piece from  The Cud - that's now, of course, in my new book, Welcome To Weirdsville, about one of my all-time favorite pranksters: the legendary Brian G. Hughes!

Nicodemus, By Broomstick Out Of Dustpan By Sweeper, 

The Last Of The Exotic Brindle Breed

"A Priest, A Rabbi, and A Minister Walk Into a Bar–"

What?  You've heard that one?  How about: "There once was a man from Nantucket–"

That one too?  What about: "Yer Momma is so–"

Well, here's one who probably haven't ever heard, the one that starts: "There was this guy, named Brian G. Hughes..."

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There was this guy, named Brian G. Hughes.  He was an Einstein, a Salk, a Beethoven, a da Vinci – but he wasn't a physicist, a doctor, a composer, or a painter.  He was, according to the society pages, a rather wealthy box manufacturer and a banker.  But his genus wasn't in cardboard or playing the market.

New York around the turn of the previous century was a pretty dull berg, full of overly stuffed shirts and far-too-puffed-out egos.  It was a dull place, a humorless place, a terribly stiff place – a city, and a society, that Brian G. Hughes saw as needing to be seriously goosed.

And goose it he did: with a flare and a flamboyance that shook New York from Battery Park to Queens.  Take for instance the time he donated a plot of valuable Brooklyn real estate to the city, to be made into a public park.  Great gesture, right?  Fine civic spirit, correct?  That's what the Board of Aldermen thought – until they actually took the time to check it out.  See, the plot of land Brian G. Hughes had donated was only a two-by-six foot plot.  Hey, he never said it would make a big park ...

Then there was the time he donated a mansion to a few well-respectable historical societies, one he claimed the Marquis de Lafayette had lived in during the War of Independence.  "Wow" went the Ladies of those Historical Societies, "What a find."  Until they checked out the real estate and discovered the mansion was actually a dilapidated flophouse in the Bronx.  Seriously lacking in the giggle department, the ladies tried to have him committed.  Now there was a hearing worth attending.

But real estate wasn't the only thing Hughes used in his pranks.  For instance, he would routinely hang out in front of Tiffany's and drop boxes of fake jewels – just to watch people scramble to snatch up the supposed treasures.  Another time he left a set of burglar tools out in front of a building.  Nothing special in that, right?  Well, the building was the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which prompted the – no doubt humorless – curator to close the entire landmark to frantically search for any missing paintings.

Love cats?  Well, Mr. Hughes did – though he hated the pomposity of cat shows.  One time he entered what he claimed was a spectacularly rare species.  The whole of New York was buzzing about this feline masterpiece, and it even won a ribbon, though later on it was revealed that the cat, "Nicodemus, by Broomstick out of Dustpan by Sweeper, the last of the exotic Brindle breed," had actually been a common stray bought from a hobo.

Love horses?  Well, Mr. Hughes ... I think you know where this might be going.  His "Orphan Puldeca, out of Metropolitan by Electricity" thoroughly impressed the horse show crowd, until one sharper-than-average person figured out that "Orphan Puldeca" meant "Often Pulled the Car" and Hughes admitted that his entry was a noble example of a simple trolley horse.

Say you happened to be in a downtown establishment during, alas, a totally unexpected downpour.  Why, look over there: a lovely – and apparently unclaimed – umbrella.  It wouldn't be theft, you argue with yourself.  You'll bring it right back, you conclude.  Except that the instant you opened the umbrella, one of hundreds placed around the city, a banner would unfurl proclaiming that the bumbershoot had been STOLEN FROM BRIAN G. HUGHES.

While Mr. Hughes was, no doubt, a charming person to know it was best not to accept tickets from him as he was known to (tee-hee-hee) print up hundreds different ones to all kinds of events – which never existed.

Then, perhaps the capper to a wonderfully colorful career keeping the too-well-heeled on their toes and putting pepper up the noses of the upper-crusts, he announced that he – at considerable expense and at tremendous personal risk – would embark on an expedition to deepest and no-doubt darkest South American in pursuit of the elusive reetsa.

For weeks New York was on the edge of its manicured toes, gasping in excitement into its perfumed handkerchiefs, as word of the Hughes expedition was leaked out until, just as high society feared they could take no more, it was announced that Hughes would be returning to the island – with a living, breathing resets!

The city was aghast, the city was amazed, the city was riveted.  By the thousands they came down to the docks to watch Hughes return, triumphant, from his perilous journey.  Then, those crowds frozen in suspense, the ship arrived and Hughes made his triumphant appearance – with is captured reetsa...

There was this guy, named Brian G. Hughes, who convinced all of New York City that he'd traveled to South America to capture the mysterious reetsa – that turned out to be a simple farm animal, which he led down the gangplank backwards.  Reetsa, naturally being "a steer" spelled backwards.

Here’s to you, Brian G. Hughes: the man who made an island laugh, a whole city giggle, who brought practical jokes to a whole new, and gloriously special, level: truly the last of a very special exotic brindle breed.

Full-Metal Orgasm!

(from M.Christian's Teachnorotica)

This is exceptionally cool! I am very jazzed to be in the newest issue of Full-Metal Orgasm - with a piece on sex in science fiction. Here's a tease - and for the issue itself you can order it on amazon ... and be sure and check out Full-Metal Orgasm's tumblr!

Science Friction: 
A Slightly-Snarky Look At Sex In Science Fiction ... 
And Why It Hasn't Been Good But It'll Get Better

Heeellllooo, Future! 

Sure, we might not have jet packs or food pills but, come on, look around – go ahead, we'll wait...

You done?  Come on, admit it: this is the fuckin' future: cell phones with more computing power than (the good half) of Einstein's grey matter, access to just about every book ever written ... and, more importantly, every episode of Star Trek (including the animated one) just a finger-swipe or mouse click away; self-driving cars self-driving themselves just around the corner; actually, honestly, good Dr. Who episodes; apps than can tell us in a second what took Kepler, Galileo, Tycho, and all the rest of those wonderfully-bearded astronomers their entire lives to learn; we have robots scruttling over Mars, poing under rocks for life; little blue pills that can raise even the most flacid of bridges; plastic breasts; genital cosmetic surgery; totally outraegous porn as easily found as Star Trek ... and even - gasp - a black President.

Gay marriage is working its way to being totally legal, and - best of all - no big deal; and ganja fans will soon be able to .... what was I writing about?  Oh, that's right: before you know it weed will also be totally legal, and - best of all (again) – no big deal.

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