The Art of Perversion & The Perversion of Art
A number of people have remarked on the fact that, although I write stories set in a lot of different places, there are more stories set in Japan or containing Japanese themes than on any other single culture. There are certainly a lot of stories set in Spain, where I grew up, and in London, […]
MR James – One of My Favourite Short Story Writers
Montague Rhodes James (1 August 1862 – 12 June 1936), was a Medieval Scholar and provost at Cambridge. In his spare time, he wrote ghost stories. Although his prose wasn’t terribly poetic, I always thought his sense of place and character was. He was also just a wonderful structural story plotter. All his ghost stories tend […]
Same Sex Marriage: Why Thumping Bibles at Bible Thumpers Doesn’t Work
I never really thought I needed to take a clear stance on this on my blog because I assumed that anyone reading my stories would intuitively know where I stood on the subject. It seems I was wrong. I received an email asking me to clearly state my position, so here it is: If you […]
Sleeping Beauties of the 21st Century: Anastasia, Bella and the Rise of the Vapid Heroine
Some time ago, Laura Miller of Salon.com wrote a compelling critique of the Twilight series. She had a particularly insightful comment to make of Bella: Bella is not really the point of the Twilight series; she’s more of a place holder than a character. She is purposely made as featureless and ordinary as possible in […]
What are they putting in the water?
Is it something in the water, or a secret corrosive side-effect of too much reality TV? No compulsory logic classes in first year university anymore? During the whole censorship / PayPal debate, over and over again, I read people equate and confuse real examples of illegal sexual behavior with fiction. Hyperbolic comments like “Well, I’m […]
The Women We Failed and the Ones We Left Behind
There is a hauntingly good post at the New Yorker this week. John Cassidy asks the question “Why Republican Women Vote for Santorum” and offers up an amazingly insightful and frightening response from one of his commenters: About women supporting Santorum: I too find this baffling, and can only attribute it to some form of […]
Experiences Define Us: What Writers Are and What They Do
For those of you who have read along with my journey towards getting accepted into a PhD program, I want to thank you for your sturdy company. I have been accepted into a PhD in Creative Writing program at a university in the UK. I will take a year off teaching to study starting in […]
Call For Submissions: Transgressive Erotica
This is quoted directly from the blog, by Eden Connor: Transgressive erotica is being targeted. Corporate entities seek to suppress legal content. To limit where your imagination may go, and which piece of plastic your reader may use in order to follow. The ‘Great Smut Purge of 2012′, instigated by corporate morality, has caused vendors to pull legal content from their […]
Defending the Indefensible: Bestiality in Erotica #censorship #erotica #paypal
…if you don’t stand up for the stuff you don’t like, when they come for the stuff you do like, you’ve already lost. Why defend freedom of icky speech? Neil Gaiman, 2008 This week, I’ve seen a lot of authors, publishers and others turn on their own kind. I’ve read a lot of statements that […]
Erotica Writers: Be Passionate but Be Careful with your Facts #paypal #censorship #erotica
I am overwhelmed and delighted to see the gloriously spirited and passionate response to the PayPal censorship issue. It’s good to see so many writers of all stripes blogging so eloquently about this issue. However, there is something that is disturbing me. I’m seeing a lot of understandable but er… careless wording. This is not […]