Well, my friends, it's about that time.  On May 16th, it will be the one year publishing anniversary of my award winning erotic fantasy, Woman of the Mountain!

For the anniversary, I plan a couple contests for some great prizes.

The contests start and end dates will be announced later, so keep your eyes peeled here, on my Coffee Time Forum, and on the various Yahoo groups I belong to for details!

There will be two contests, plus, don't forget, you can win a copy of Woman of the Mountain from The Romance Studio on May 16th in their wonderful Book-a-Day giveaway!

The prizes for the contests will include a $10 gift certificate to eXtasy Books, a $25 gift certificate to The English Rose, and a surprise bonus prize!

So,  check back soon and join me celebrating one year of sexual divinity!


Please the Goddess or Die.
Did the Earth Move for You?

        

I know it’s not every writer’s cup of tea, but I enjoy research.  Honestly, you just never know what you might learn when you’re hunting up a factoid or the date of some historical event.  I’ve dozens of story ideas I’ve jotted down while researching, and a few of those ideas are just itching to be made into a tale.

Recently while working on my latest novel, I needed a little more information about barnacles.  Having grown up on a boat, trust me, I learned about barnacles before most kids learned that mice are mammals.   For anyone who owns a boat or lives on the ocean, the Battle of the Barnacle is ceaseless, costly and ultimately, a lost cause.  For those unfamiliar with these little marine arthropods, they attach themselves to anything in the water – dock pilings, the bottoms of ocean going vessels, rocks, hell, even whales!  Their shell is thin, but very hard, and their “mouth” is often jagged and sharp.




So, off I go, Googling my favorite marine nuisance and wow, what do I find out?

Little ole crusty barnacles are sexual GIANTS!

Yes, folks, take note.  Sometimes size can be deceiving.  Barnacles have the longest penises of any animal, proportional to their body size!

You heard me right.  These little marine bugs have penises that can be up to 8 times their body length.

8 times!

I know that little statistic sent some rather delicious thoughts flooding through my head, but oh, my word, not so much as the next little tidbit I learned!

Barnacles can change the shape of their penises to match the environment they’re living in.  Calmer water allows for a longer, thinner penis.  Rougher water needs something thicker to um, stand up against the surf.

Deep breaths.  Deep, even breaths.

Now, the idea of a human male penis that is 8 times the body size of a man is…well, grotesque and creepy, but the idea of a man being able to change the shape of his penis is VERY entertaining.

Oh, did I mention that barnacles are hermaphrodites, but copulate with their neighbors, so these little crustaceans enjoy the best of both worlds.

Talk about wet dreams…

(Source: National Geographic)

        

Everyone loves a bonfire.

Some people really love a bonfire when it's burning something -- or someone -- they don't approve of.

Who would think that, within a decade of the Nazis giving book burning a bad name, mobs of gleeful American children, lead by nuns, ministers, and other do-gooders would be burning books in American village squares?

Of course they were only burning comic books …

David Hajdu's splendid new volume, The Ten-Cent Plague: the Great Comic Book Scare and how it Changed America (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 334 pages, with another 100 pages of notes, $26), chronicles the hysteria that swirled around "crime comics" in the late 40s and early 50s. His book is fascinating, a little scary, and stunningly well-researched. Besides going back to the original source material -- Congressional records, local papers, hysterical articles and books -- Hajdu has tracked down some of the grown ups who were once book burning zealots as well as some of the comic book artists and writers whose careers were ruined by the madness.

The story he tells, in short, is one of a generational shift and the opening salvos of a war that raged for at least the next couple of decades. He draws a line between the persecution of kid culture and the radicalization of a generation, stopping well short of claiming that comics and their censorship were causes of the change, proclaiming them more of a symptom or a preview.

It's a fair claim, I think.

The hysteria over comics was somewhat understandable. They were vulgar, sexy, insanely violent, and many of them featured unsavory characters living criminal lives (though they nearly always suffered in the end). But the child psychologists (the leader of the pack was a doctor named Fredric Wertham, who is quite a fascinating character in his own right) and frothing editorial writers were fundamentally disturbed by most comics -- not just the overtly unpleasant ones. The suspiciously Aryan Superman encouraged vigilantism. Batman recruited young boys into homosexuality. Romance comics taught girls to be rebellious against their moms and dads.

              
         

At least two people were arrested for selling a comic that made fun of Santa Claus.

Although Hajdu makes his case, someone more sympathetic with the book burners might tell you that this story truly does represent the end of America's age of innocence, that the crusade to stop evil comics was a futile effort to dam the wave of filth that would soon engulf the nation's young -- rock and roll, surf movies, Ralph Bakshi's Mighty Mouse, Ice T, Grand Theft Auto … the list is ever-growing.

Still, one would think the book burners would have learned by the 1950s. You can't stop culture with bonfires.

The best culture feeds on heat.

 

 

        

Join me and my fellow eXtasy authors at Coffee Time Romances Latte Lounge.  We'll share excerpts, book covers, news and expect a few give aways!

Click here to find the Latte Lounge!

I will be there briefly early in the morning, and then in the evening after I stage my escape from the mines.

Also, while you're there, check out my own Coffee Time Forum!

I hope to see you there!

        

Censorship of literature and other forms of expression and communication because of perceived immorality or obscenity.
            -American Heritage Dictionary

This is one of those cases where the meaning preceded the word and a particular individual arose from the ranks of common men to give his name to overzealous virtue and to define American morality in a manner that still haunts us today.

Do you ever feel that America is hypocritical in its attitudes toward sex? That we as a nation are afraid and ashamed of our own bodies and appetites?

One of the men you should thank is a United States Postal Service "Special Agent" named Anthony Comstock, founder of the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice in 1873. Mr. Comstock helped pass the first laws to regulate matter that could be sent through the US Mail -- obscene matter, lascivious pictures, and anything related to birth control.

In his day, Comstock had special powers granted him by the federal government to patrol post offices and confiscate anything he found objectionable and he seems to have found plenty to offend. His pursuit and eradication of birth control information very quickly set him against the growing women's movement and he persecuted Margaret Sanger and Victoria Woodhull among others. He hated Socialists too, which puts him right in line with the bluest noses of our modern world. Comstock bragged about driving at least a dozen people to suicide and was an idol to young J. Edgar Hoover.

So who coined the word? It was playwright, worldly philosopher, and bon vivant George Bernard Shaw who said, "Comstockery is the world's standing joke at the expense of the United States. Europe likes to hear of such things. It confirms the deep-seated conviction of the Old World that America is a provincial place, a second-rate country-town civilization after all." In the manner of many vile creatures, Comstock lived a long time, practicing his unholy trade well into the 20th Century. The

Comstock Law -- forbidding the sending of lewd material through the mail -- is still on the books. Its ban on sending contraceptives or contraceptive information was repealed in 1936, but the law still forbids the spreading of information about abortion. As recently as 1996, Republican Henry Hyde amended the law to extend the ban on advertising abortion to the Internet. Comstock's legacy is alive and well at the FCC since Janet Jackson's nipple threatened a nation.

Mr. Comstock is pictured above, stripped for action at your local post office.

Honor him.

J. Edgar Hoover would.

        

My partner Drake has a passion for older comics, men's magazines, etc. and in his hunt for new acquisitions he came across this cover and shared it with me. 

Me, well...being me, looked at this cover and saw a more...colorful take on the scene presented. 


Buffalo Bill and the Old Chinaman!

Male/Male BDSM Orgy!

Ropes! Surrender!  Lust!


Don't you think a title like that would have sold a few extra copies?

        

Just had to share...


Woman of the Mountain
2008 EPPIE
BEST EROTICA

        

Join me Thursday, March 20th, 2008 at 9PM Eastern for the monthly Romance Junkies Chat with eXtasy Authors.  I will be one of the Featured Authors!

I'd love to see you all there!

You can find the chat here.

See you Thursday!

        

Don't even try to bring me down right now. Your efforts would be totally wasted!

My erotic fantasy, Woman of the Mountain, won the 2008 EPPIE Award for
best Erotica!! (Learn more about the EPPIE Awards here.)

Yes, there was champagne and lots of smiles and laughter and
back-patting, but not right away. Oh no...I had to wait this sucker
out and it's been hell on my fingernails and nerves. But that's okay!
Right now, I am too high on life to care. My manicurist can rake me
over the coals later.

So...want the scoop? Have some champagne and I'll tell you a story.

In 2006 I had this idea for a story after a late night viewing of a
rather extreme Japanese samurai movie (no, I wasn't on drugs at the
time, honest!) I started to piece together this erotic novel where sex
and pleasure were the cornerstones of a civilization. At that time,
my erotic novella, Inspiration, had just been published by eXtasy
Books so I was confident I could find a home for this unusual tale.

Long days, midnight oil, edits, more edits, etc, etc, finally Woman of
the Mountain is released by eXtasy Books in May of 2007. I was
thrilled. But two months later, an email from my publisher informed
me that WotM really wasn't doing well sales wise. Gently, my
publisher suggested that maybe my next piece should be more geared
toward what the readers were buying - erotic paranormals, vampire
stories, shifters. WotM was none of these things, and it was then I
started to understand how far out on limb eXtasy had gone with
publishing WotM.

I was, needless to say, pretty down in the dumps. My publisher liked
the story enough to put it out there to the world, but the world
didn't seem to really give a rip.

A few weeks later, the first review came in for WotM. It was a good
review, and the one that followed was absolutely glowing. That
certainly helped my disposition considerably! I was well into working
on The Passions of Pearl when my publisher sent a mass message to all
the eXtasy authors encouraging us to enter our stories released in
2007 to the EPIC (Electronically Published Internet Connection) 2008
EPPIE Awards.

I mulled. I pondered. I entered. That was in September 2007. I
learned through an email (see blog entry below) in December, that WotM
made the cut! It was a Finalist in the Erotica Category! I was over
the moon when I got the news, especially since I was still coming to
terms with a less-than-awesome review of WotM (what can I say...I'm a
perfectionist! If it's not great, I'm obviously an utter failure!
Yeah...I'm working on that...). I was already checking out Expedia
and Travelocity, making my arrangements to travel to Portland for the
EPICon and the award ceremony. I was stoic (yeah, right...) about it.
Win or lose, EPICon would be fun!

EPICon was months away. I designed advertising, I posted on boards, I
did everything but scream from the roof of city hall (they caught me
on the stairs to the roof, dammit!) that my story was a Finalist!

Unfortunately, sometimes Fate (most times Fate?) doesn't always agree
with what we have planned. Life intervened and my plans to travel to
Portland had to be scrapped. I would have to sit back in my living
room and wait.

And wait.

March 8th came....and went.... No word. After a sleepless night, I
woke WAY too early (even with the damn hour jump ahead taken into
account!) and there in my email box, a note from my publisher. Unable
to attend herself, she'd received a note from one of the eXtasy
authors at the conference, WotM had won the EPPIE for the best
Erotica!

I was stunned, ecstatic, I think I said, "Oh my God!" about 30 times.
I raced to the EPIC group board to see it officially!

Nothing.

Nada.

Okay...they were West Coast. It was still early. I could handle this. Really.

9 hours later...

Yep, folks, it's for real! Woman of the Mountain is the winner of the
2008 EPPIE for Best Erotica!

And I am seeking a condo on Cloud 9. Anyone know a place with an ocean view?

        

Lurching through the consciousness of America, the zombie has become a mainstay of modern pop culture. The word is certainly of African origin and may have originally been the name of a god. There are similar words for ghosts or spirits in a number of African languages.

But the zombies that invaded America in the 1930s came from Haiti. In 1929, American writer William Seabrook published a book called The Magic Island, a sensational account of his experiences among the Culte des Mortes or voodoo practitioners of Haiti. The book was popular and Seabrook's stories about zombies, dead men who had allegedly been restored to life to act as mindless laborers, caught the public imagination. Believers considered these resurrections magic while rationalists believed they were caused by a drug. Although mostly forgotten today, Seabrook was a famous -- and somewhat notorious -- figure in his day. Best known as an author of exotic travelogues -- Adventures in Arabia and Jungle Ways -- he was part of the wide-ranging post-World War I literary and artistic circle that is usually called the Lost Generation. A friend and student of magician Aleister Crowley, Seabrook practiced a kind of bondage magick with a series of willing mistresses and wives. His occult enthusiasms bore fruit in his 1940 book Witchcraft, Its Power in the World Today, a stunning catalog of sorcerous practices from around the world. Seabrook's magic was based in psychology, on the innate power of the mind to exert its will over another's consciousness through the power of suggestion.

"Zombie" very quickly gave its name to a cocktail -- presumably because of its mind-numbing effect -- and the animated dead began to appear in plays and films. In 1932, a small production company in Hollywood made White Zombie, starring Bela Lugosi, fresh from Dracula, and the film was a huge success, driving the word deeper into the public psyche. A succession of zombie films followed, the word having enough currency that it appeared in the titles of films that had nothing whatsoever to do with the walking dead or Haiti.

Perhaps the best and most notable of the 30s and 40s zombie flicks is I Walked with a Zombie, produced by Val Lewton and directed by Jacques Tourneur. With a plot borrowed from Jane Eyre, a script that is almost poetic, and beautiful, moody cinematography, Tourneur's film is probably the high tide mark of the old school zombie.

Today, the meaning of "zombie" has changed considerably. After a brief resurgence of the voodoo-themed zombie in the non-fiction book, The Serpent and the Rainbow, by Wade Davis (and a wildly fictionalized film version by Wes Craven), zombies have become their own genre of horror film. Tracing a lineage from George Romero's Night of the Living Dead, through a gory smear of Italian horror spectacles, zombies have become mainstays of comic books, movies, and video games.

Trading on archetypes as old as human societies, the humble zombie has moved out of the cane field and into the shopping mall. The power of mass media has projected a creature of local folklore into the universal consciousness of the modern world.

 Willie Seabrook should be proud.