Coming soon! HOST CLUB ON THE PLEASURE PLANET!
Or Are They? I recently saw a post that commented on trends in the publishing industry. One of them was that readers seem to be shifting away from so-called spicy reads. (Tom Swinnen / Pexels.com) The post gave some good reasons that this shift might be happening—but I think there’s likely more to the story than meets the eye. TikTok Ramped Up and Ruined “Spice” The major reason this post gave...
Hello, reader! It’s been a while, hasn’t it? My last post, I promised that I would be back in the summertime. While that timeline is still largely true, there have been some certain changes around here in the last week or so that have me stepping things up and pushing my plans into high gear. It’s a little sooner than expected, but after ruminating on it for a little while, I don’t think it’s a...
It's been a while, hasn't it? Time for an update on the year that was, and what's coming in 2026. I think. I hope.
(Filipp Romanovski / Pexels.com) One of my fav things about June is how much queerness comes out of the woodwork. Another fav thing is seeing certain quarters of society try to push back on it. And one of my fav arguments is that queerness is a modern invention. While that’s true to some degree, the historical record shows us queer people have existed since time immemorial. They maybe didn’t call...
At this point, I feel like I’m writing one of these posts at least every year, but it remains true. We need queer books now, more than ever before. (Sharon McCutcheon / Pexels.com) Why are queer books so important in this particular epoch? Well, we can argue queer books are important for queer people so they can recognize themselves in the pages of fiction. That’s what I’ve argued before, and...
If you’re just diving into queer fiction or even fanfic, you’re probably running across new terminology. “The olds” might make fun of teens and college students for having a lot of slang they don’t understand. Truth is that you’ll find a lot of almost incomprehensible jargon in almost any niche. (Wallace Araujo / Pexels.com) So, at this point, you might be wondering what, exactly, “m/m” romance...
A book shop often fulfills similar functions, including author events (Iryna Varanovich / Pexels.com) A recent trend I’ve noticed is the sudden abundance of “author” or “reader retreats”—events designed to put authors and readers in close contact. Many of these are cropping up in the romance space, where readers might be fanatical about an author’s work. Authors, certainly, are always looking for...
Ahoy, matey! The Jolly Roger ready to set sail with a boatload of booty– I mean, books. (Mike Bird / Pexels.com) At this stage in the game, we all know book piracy is pretty rampant. Whether it’s someone in a country where the major stores don’t operate, or it’s someone who is tight on cash who still really wants to read a book, or someone is trying to stick it to “the man,” or it’s someone...
Or, Why Respectability Won’t Save You I think we can all agree we’ve entered a rather conservative era. It’s been a while coming, the first rumblings of it emerging fifteen years ago now. It gained momentum after the 2016 US election and snowballed from there. The pandemic threw fuel on the fire, and, well, here we are. Neo-fascists and alt-right parties are gaining support across the globe. We...
Scary … or sexy? (Lisa from Pexels / Pexels.com) Monsters—or otherworldly beings—have almost always been popular subjects for fiction. We can trace vampire romances back at least to the nineteenth century, when we see Carmilla and Dracula both emerge. Neither is truly a romance, but both of them feature some relatively seductive monsters. Horror and romance have always walked a fine line...
Coming January 28! Get set for more intergalactic hijinks when a monk inherits a HOST CLUB ON THE PLEASURE PLANET!