im freaking out right now. Elisa Reviews announced the winners of the Rainbow Awards today and TWO of my books won awards.

1st Place: BEST DEBUT LESBIAN NOVEL/BOOK - Better Off Red

2nd Place: BEST LESBIAN EROTIC ROMANCE - The Fling

2nd Place (tie): BEST LESBIAN PARANORMAL/HORROR- Better Off Red

this is just amazing because so many fantastic book were nominated, books i absolutely loved. i inhaled Meghan O’Briens The Night Off.  i almost cried during Robin Silverman’s reading of Lemon Reef. to be included is such an honor.

for the complete list of winners and honorable mention recommendations check out click HERE.

mistresschloecibelle:

Sooner than later my little one will pleasure the right bull. 

so i had this idea for a menage short story…

Hope. Fear. Desire. Despair. Promises. Betrayals.

Lesbian. Gay. Bisexual. Transgender. Questioning. Intersex.

This anthology of short stories gives voice to the rising generation as they define what it means to grow up queer in the twenty-first century. What is it like to grow up in a society that embraces you in certain ways but discriminates against you in others? How do you choose a label from the alphabet soup, and should you even have to? By turns heartwarming and heartbreaking, comical and caustic, these stories, imagined and told by youth across America, provide a snapshot of queerness at the dawn of the new millennium.

—

I have ONE copy of OMGQueer to give away and I want to give it away here on tumblr. Reblog it. Like it. Reblog it again. I’ll pick a winner at random this Friday, August 10, 2012.

Note: Because I know it does matter, this anthology does include stories from and about young POC.

Hope. Fear. Desire. Despair. Promises. Betrayals.

Lesbian. Gay. Bisexual. Transgender. Questioning. Intersex.

This anthology of short stories gives voice to the rising generation as they define what it means to grow up queer in the twenty-first century. What is it like to grow up in a society that embraces you in certain ways but discriminates against you in others? How do you choose a label from the alphabet soup, and should you even have to? By turns heartwarming and heartbreaking, comical and caustic, these stories, imagined and told by youth across America, provide a snapshot of queerness at the dawn of the new millennium.

—

I have ONE copy of OMGQueer to give away and I want to give it away here on tumblr. Reblog it. Like it. Reblog it again. I’ll pick a winner at random this Friday, August 10, 2012.

Note: Because I know it does matter, this anthology does include stories from and about young POC.

lucebian:

I’m reading the whole “Honor” series, by lesbian author Radclyffe. More than reading, I’m devouring these books. Must admit I need some romance in my life right now, even if it’s fictional.

The Honor Series

• Above All, Honor
• Honor Bound
• Love & Honor
• Honor Guards
• Honor Reclaimed
• Honor Under Siege
• Word of Honor

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radclyffe

cause my boss lady knows how to throw down on the page. her books can be found here, along with her paranormal titles under LL Rand. http://www.radfic.com/

missturdle:

• So You Want to Write a Fantasy: Writing Female Characters
• So You want to Write a Fantasy: Culture
•  SYWTWAF: Writing What you Don’t know
•  A list of adjectives to describe physical attributes, Or, As it turns out, I could go to Starbucks with half this list
• Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack
•  Some primers
•  More Primers
•  RaceFail ‘09: Or where Deepad’s I didn’t dream of Dragons comes from, and why.
•  Writing characters of Color
•   Writing Outside your experience
• Media Representations Wiki - stereotypes/tropes/culture/etc
•  On A:TLA’s whitewashing - All The World’s White, the Rest of Us merely live in it
• The Face of the Other: Do Manga & Anime characters look “white”?
• Describing Characters of Color pt 1 & Describing Characters of Color (pt 2)
•  I Didn’t Dream of Dragons
•  Shame
•  So You Want to: Avoid Unfortunate Implications
•  Transracial Writing for the Sincere
•  Why Writing Colorblind is Writing White
• What a Girl Wants: Representation
•  An Equal Place at the Table
•  Avoiding LGBTQ Stereotypes
• The Problem With Colorblindness (and the Rest of Racebending.com)
•  Making Movies for White People: A Tongue in Cheek critique of Minority Representation in the Media, or lack thereof
•  From Margin to Center: Writing Characters of Color via Racialicious
•  Writing Characters of Color - a helpful community!
•  Why my Protagonists aren’t white (even though I am.)
•  The Dangers of Telling a Single Story (a helpful Video)
•  The Lack of People of Color in Historical Fictions
•  How to Read and Respond to Literature of Color
•  The Advantages of being a White Writer (in getting published)
•  Writing Characters of Colour (Now With 10% Less White Liberal Anxiety!)
•  Fic and Skin Tone (discusses Nyota Uhura, otherwise relevant)
•  On Problematic Writing
•  Writing Race in YA fiction: Debunking Myths
•  Diversity Writers: How to Write People of Color
•  The Importance of Inclusionary Writing
•  Racialicious
•  Overcoming the Noble Savage and the Sexy Squaw: Native Steampunk
•  The Intersection of Race and Steampunk: Colonialism’s After-Effects & Other Stories, from a Steampunk of Colour’s Perspective
•  Beyond Victoriana: For EVERYTHING Steampunk/1800s/Industrial Revolution that isn’t just Victorian England and the archives Tales of the Urban Adventurer
•  Can I just watch A Game of Thrones in Peace? (A brown feminist fan rant).
• Fantasy and Sci-Fi race Bingo
• Invoking Strangely Colored people
• Many Voices
• AfroFuturism, SciFi, and the History of the Future
• Some Open Thoughts on Race & Dsyutopia
• When Will White People Stop Making Movies like Avatar?
• Portraying POC in YA Fantasy: Are we There Yet?
• Debunking White Fantasy
• Racism in Fantasy
• Magical Realism is Fantasy written in Spanish.

1.) It’s not hard to figure out what to do, there are plenty of resources.

People say you have to get it right, do your research, but … what else are you supposed to research? It’s not like people with more pigment in their skin have completely different personalities than those with less, any more than any individual. It’s frustrating when I can’t even figure out what the heck people are talking about.

Bam. Research step one done for you.

2.) Writing characters of color/minorities is a good thing.

I don’t like the notion that fantasy authors are under some kind of obligation to present ethnically diverse worlds. I’m English, and a fair sized part of English history consists of unwashed beardy white people in mead halls. If I’m inspired by my own history and cultural heritage, then that’s what I’m damn well going to write about. I’m not writing about some other culture just to appease the people who think there aren’t enough black characters in fantasy, or whatever. You want it, you write it. Nothing to do with me.

You’re wrong.

3.) Your all White Fantasy Land Didn’t Exist in Real Life:

…the rather medieval one has more diversity than real medieval Germany probably had […] In a world with medieval means of transport, it just doesn’t seem natural to me to mix dark-skinned people with blue-eyed blondes in one setting. I just try to give the people a colour that fits the place where they live.

You mean like the people from Africa and the Middle east who began to take over Southern Spain, as well as the Jews who were pretty well spread out throughout Europe, the Middle Easterners they would have met on the Crusades, and the incoming Mongol Hordes who spread to the very edges of Eastern Europe before the empire finally collapsed? Don’t forget that Turkey is right there, and the silk road would have gone from Song Dynasty China, through India, and ended in Turkey before moving further westwards into places like Germany. Also the attempts at the Franco-Mongol alliance would have been pretty interesting. (That’s about the 13th century - arguably smack dab in Middle Ages Europe and definite contact between France/Christian Europe and the Mongolian Empire.)

Unless you’re writing everything in the far reaches of Denmark or something, historically speaking, I call bullshit on people who have societies that are only all white ever, because it’s just inaccurate. Consider the relative closeness of Northern Africa to Spain, or Turkey to the rest of Europe, the conquests of Alexander the Great, the Crusades, Slavery existing in Europe, including England, the slave trade, imperialism, Pax Mongolica, The Silk Road, Jewish Diaspora, the Islamic Empire vs The Holy Roman Empire, Egypt, Algeria, China’s sailing across the world, The Maruyan/Gupta Empires of India, tea trades, Columbus sailing in hopes of finding China, etc, etc, etc.

4.) I mean I just don’t believe you anymore. It’s unrealistic. Seriously guys.

You’d think I’d just denied the holocaust or something. Get a grip. All I said was that I’m going to write about my own cultural experience and anyone who thinks I should do otherwise for the sake of political correctness can bugger off.

This isn’t even about being PC this is just not being wrong about everything.

good lord.

(Source: turdlewexler)

fuckyeahlesbianliterature:

Sometimes I forget that not all of my followers follow the Lesbrary, so I decided to share some links here.

Exclusively Lesbian/Bisexual Women/Etc

• The Lesbrary: Self-promoting here. Honestly, though, I think the Lesbrary is a good place to start, because in addition to reviews by a team of reviewers, I also post a weekly Link Round Up, where I link to the latest les/bi/etc book news and reviews. All the blogs in this list would have relevant posts linked at the Lesbrary. I also have a ton of links in the sidebar.
• Good Lesbian Books: They are fantastic. In addition to reviews, they have a bunch of themed lists (lesbian pirate books, lesbian YA, etc). Definitely one of my favourites.
• The Rainbow Reader: Entertaining reviews.
• Autostraddle: Read a F*cking Book: It’s Autostraddle, c’mon now. Also, did you know you can just follow this tag if you only want the book stuff? True story!
• I don’t usually link authors’ blogs, but Malinda Lo is an exception.

Short Form Les/Bi Women/Etc Reviews

These are the reviews I usually link on twitter instead of at the Lesbrary. They are prolific, but short.

• Piercing Fiction
• Terry’s LesFic Reviews
• Lez Books

Les/Bi Women/Etc Subcategories

• Sistahs On the Shelf: Black Lesbian Fiction: I love this site, but they seem to update only about once a year, and then it’s a ton of reviews at once. They also have a promo blog that’s more frequently updated.
• Queer Women of Color Media: Not all books, but really great stuff.
• SFFIC: Lesbian sci-fi. It’s pretty new and has been a little quiet, but I have high hopes.
• Casey the Canadian Lesbrarian: Canadian lesbian books. Very new, but excellent so far. (Full disclosure: Casey and the SFFic blogger both also review for the Lesbrary, but I would love them either way.)

General Queer Book Blogs

• Lambda Literary is a requirement. Very professional, interesting stuff.
• I’m Here. I’m Queer. What the Hell Do I Read?: queer YA
• The Outer Alliance: Queer SF/F
• Elisa: Mostly gay male books are covered here, but she also posts biographies of queer writers and other interesting tidbits. Also runs the Rainbow Awards.
• Bending the Bookshelf: mostly romance and erotica, but she covers books from all over the spectrum.

There are lots more, but these are my favorites that update fairly regularly. For more, check out the sidebar at The Lesbrary.

working title: Suzy & Pilar

word count: 39,907/75,000 (most likely 80,000 when its all said and done)

so this story is coming together really well. i have about seven chapters left. my writing tends to be a little more on the erotic side of romance, but even The Fling was pretty heavy on the romance. Suzy & Pilar is turning out to be very erotic. i love writing the porny scenes. thank god the characters are showing me their personalities. i know this one will have a very specific audience with the subject matter and all, but so far im very happy with it. if it goes, it will be out with Bold Strokes Books :)

what im reading now:

When Rebecca’s boyfriend talks her into vacationing at a mountain lodge with his swing club, she quickly learns she’s not cut out for playing musical beds. Now she has nowhere to sleep. Logan, the lodge owner, finds her freezing on the porch. After hauling her inside, he warms her in his own bed, and there the experienced Dom discovers that Rebecca might not be a swinger…but she is definitely a submissive.

Rebecca knows that no one can love her plump, scarred body. To her shock, lodge owner Logan not only disagrees, but ties her up and shows her just how much he enjoys her curves. Under his skilled hands, Rebecca not only loses her inhibitions, but also her heart.

Damaged from the war, Logan considers himself too dangerous to be around the enticing little sub. He sends her away for her own safety, not realizing she believes she has once again been rejected because of her size. As Logan’s mountains echo with her voice long after she’s gone, he realizes she’s taken his heart with her. But when he arrives in the city to reclaim her, Rebecca’s phone has been disconnected and her apartment is empty… from loose id

**please be patient with me. it is one thing to spend a whole book describing the nature of something complicated and trying to flesh it all out in a single tumblr post.**

disclaimer: below is my take on one portion of the BDSM lifestyle. i repeat, my take. nothing below should be taken as my thoughts of what is considered to be the end all, be all of what any combination of people should be doing in their kink play. this is simply my take. feel free to respond to me with thoughts, questions or rants.

—

i usually post about my book stuff on my author blog and save tumblr for pictures and nonsense, but since my author blog is PG and this is not a PG subject i wanted to keep from slapping my regular blog readers in the face with this content.

OKAY! so here’s what i’m working on.

Suzy and Pilar (about 1/3 complete) is a story about a lezdom, Mommy/little girl relationship. let me clarify that i do not ever consider incest play when i think of age play. some people do and that’s totally cool, but incest play has never popped into my head so its not a part of my definition. there is also no inclusion of molestation fantasy.

when i think of Mommy(or Daddy*)/little relationships i think of the loosest definition of ageplay.

age play: the eroticization of acting or treating another person as if [they are] younger (or rarely, older) than your, her or his chronological age. - Consensual Sadomasochism. age play covers a lot from Teacher/student play to Daddy/daughter incest play to Mommy/baby diaper play. its a rainbow people. a rainbow. all the colors.

tumblr friend kinky casey has a great quote on her blog from Anais Nin that i think fleshes out this idea a little more. : “We do not grow absolutely, chronologically. We grow sometimes in one dimension, and not in another; unevenly. We grow partially. We are relative. We are mature in one realm, childish in another. The past, present, and future mingle and pull us backward, forward, or fix us in the present. We are made up of layers, cells, constellations.”

some people do not consider their M(D)/lg relationship to be age play at all, rather a state of dependance, nurturing, trust, and pleasure that defies age. some view age play strictly as a part of role play, an act within a scene and not a core piece to one’s personality. i can completely see how someone would view this as role playing, especially if their is an extreme set up to a specific scene ie, a classroom setting. i personally view role playing as singular act, not an overall mindset, so for me age play as defined above can encompass the M(D)/lg relationship. again i think it depends on the people involved and how they choose to define their relationship.

so how do i define M(D)/lg? i haven’t come up with a solid answer. it’s fluid in my mind. what might work for me and my Daddy might be something completely different than what works for me and my Mommy, but still my inner lg i think remains the same. here’s an example of the D/lg relationship that i found useful.

Kinky Casey’s Daddy discusses the Daddy/little girl dynamic: “Lil girls tend to be very obsessive about their Daddies. One might even say needy for Daddy’s attention and his body. Daddies will probably understand what I mean. She may have a successful career, be top in her field but she knows Daddy is always there for her in their private world together. She looks to Daddy for love, comfort and He is her sexual desire. She looks up to Daddy, admires him, and trusts him.” read the rest here: http://kinkycasey.tumblr.com/Daddy_little

for Suzy (Tae Heckard pictured above), who is very accomplished in her adult professional life, she finds release and satisfaction of behaving younger in her kink life. she is a natural submissive, but she finds that in her submission she acts like a younger girl, i would say between the ages of 7 and 18 depending on the situation. this is a natural age regression for her, in that with the right Mommy(Daddy) she would aim to please and demand the attention and nurturing of her Dominant. this is not the case with all D/s relationships.

not all M(D)/little relationship involve sexual intercourse, but Suzy and Pilar’s does. Suzy is looking for a Mommy who wants to spoil, pamper, teach, nurture and fuck her while allowing Suzy act like her true self. she needs someone kind and understanding. someone willing to teach her and someone who understands that she will make mistakes. she finds this in Pilar (Sara Ramirez pictured above).

without giving too much of the actual plot away, there are instances of dress up and role play with in their relationship, but Pilar wants a little girl she can guide and spoil and punish for bad behavior. she wants a pretty little pet to fuck and pamper and she will find this in Suzy.

i’ve had a blast crafting the story so far. down the line i’ll post more about it. in the meantime feel free to check out the tumblr that i have dedicated to Suzy and Pilar’s world - kinkypink.tumblr.com

*i have come across both men and women who play either Mommy or Daddy roles. all depends on the terms of the relationship and the people involved

futher reading:

A Lolita’s Life: The Difference Between a Master and a Daddy

kinkycasey’s tumblr

The Mommy Manifesto by Black Dahlia Parton

Mother’s Know Best

A Little Understanding

what im reading now:

Their sweaty, gym-hardened bodies do battle in the arena for our entertainment and admiration. They are gladiators fighting to be the best at their chosen sport, putting their muscles on the line for the cheers of the crowd. And once the battle’s done, they strip down and get down to the serious business of giving and receiving pleasure. They are modern day gods to be worshipped, admired, touched, and loved. Here are their stories—stories of desire, lust, passion, and raw, animalistic pleasure that will blow your mind and stimulate your libido. You will never look at an athlete the same way again.

eeekk i want Suzy to have this ring. #SuzyAndPilar

time for me to get back to work on Suzy&Pilar. if you want a general idea of the story —-> kinkypink.tumblr.com

(Source: littlegirllostinbig)

Click Here to read the full post

“Here’s what I am: A human being. I’m a woman.
Here are some things about me: I love cartoons. I love to draw. I can dance. I love the beach. I am a great swimmer. I suck at it, but Russian is my second language. I love folk music and pop and rap and jazz and some country and metal. I’m pretty freaking polite, especially to strangers. I’m a little obsessed with PBS. And I have three black siblings who can claim the same things. My sister’s Russian is excellent. I am not abnormal. Plenty of black kids come from great homes and have perfectly regular interests.

Here’s what I am not: A joke. A piece of entertainment. I don’t now and never want to be a nanny. I’m not that great of a cook. I’m not quick to anger. It would take you a while to realize you’ve even pissed me off. I’m a quiet storm, baby. I’m not promiscuous to other people’s detriment. I don’t dance or sing on cue. I don’t do stand up, nor do I have plans to be on a sketch comedy show. I have no idea how to break and/or enter. I have no interest in any sort of violence, at all. My diet doesn’t consist of watermelon and fried chicken. No one in my family would be a suitable spokesperson for Popeyes. With my blackness, I cannot help you win a golf tournament, get a publishing deal, out wit plotting angels, reunite you with your estranged family member, cure you of your awkwardness in dating situations (though this is something I like to play when I’m bored) and any other magical thing Hollywood would have you believe.

Here’s what I’m tired of seeing: Authors who turn to the stereotype. Authors who claim they are not in control of their characters. Authors who set characters in diverse urban areas and omit every bit of diversity. Token minority characters. We were not put on this Earth to play supporting roles. Please believe me.”