I’ve been talking a lot here on the blog about Roving Pack and the scrappy bunch of characters that have consumed so much of my creative life for the past few years and are right now so incredibly close to being out in the world and in your hands, tucked into your backpacks for subway reading, or nestled onto your bookcase. While I’m pretty much as excited as I can imagine about the novel it’s far from the only thing happening creatively for me. I’m also deep into working on my third book, Leather Ever After. I’ve talked about it here on the blog a little bit, and intend to start talking about it more in the upcoming weeks and months. Leather Ever After is an anthology of BDSM retellings of classic fairy tales – that’s going to be hot, scary and a whole lot of fun (you can read the whole call for submissions here )
Coming into leather community I was so incredibly lucky because in that world I literally came out into as a baby queer. Leather was, in that world just a regular part of being queer and it wasn’t until later that I began to realize just how much stigma existed. I remember very vividly the first time I found books that actually spoke to me as a leather person. Books that were not 101 practical skill books, but books that were stories, narratives, conversations and representations of our lives.
One of the very first leather writers I ever identified with was Laura Antoniou. The worlds she created made this important part of my life feel visible on the page in a way I’d not previously experienced. I got really into her work when I worked at the leather shop in Portland. The assistant manager, as scrappy and punk as the rest of us on staff would put each of The Marketplace books on layaway slowly chipping away at them until she owned them all – then promptly “checking them out” to each of us in our own little DIY leather library (I’d be lying if I didn’t say we also read a lot –sneaking the books off the shelves when we were supposed to be selling vibrators to drunk soccer moms ). All this is a very long way of saying that Laura’s writing has been a big part of Leather writing for me, and I love thatshe’s part of my community here in NYC. I am THRILLED THRILLED THRILLED and honored to announce that Laura Antoniou will be writing the foreword / introduction to Leather Ever After!!!!!!
I’ve recently decided on the fairy tale that I’m going to be playing with for the anthology (more on that soon in a future blog post), and am so excited to hear from other writers as they stumble upon the fairy tale they are most inspired to pervert. About a month ago I posted some ‘tips on how to submit to me.’ The advice there still stands, and if you’re planning to submit to the book, I think is worth checking out, but the abbreviated version is: #1 – make sure there is BDSM content in your story. This isn’t queer fairy tales, or sexy fairy tale retellings so the presence of queered relationships or sex is not enough to make the cut and get into the book. #2 Your fairy tale can be set long long ago in a far away land, in contemporary NYC dungeon or anywhere in between, write what inspires you. #3- please please please look beyond the ‘Disney canon.’ There are so many brilliant fairytales that are just waiting for you – do a quick google search of Grimms Brothers or Hans Christian Anderson, take a look at the titles for some of those stories, aren’t you feeling more inspired already? Put it this way, the likelihood that I will include more than one kinky retelling of a fairytale is pretty slim, you’re significantly increasing your odds of getting into the anthology if you pick a less common fairytale. I can’t wait for you to tell me a story!