It's deeply rewarding to see ideas imagined and put to prose see publication, and I'm happy to be in the new media mix that's the e-book world. (This, despite a home filled with printed books and the collector's habits that go with it.)

For quite some time, I felt like my novels would never see the light of day. I couldn't find a print publisher to save my life that was interested in any romantic erotic that stepped beyond light bondage and role-playing and into authentic BDSM storytelling. (This, despite the 20-plus year popularity of Anne Rice's Beauty books.) But Carnal Desire Publishing and, later, Ravenous Romance, changed all that for me, for which I'm deeply grateful.

I'm also grateful to Lori Perkins at RR's blog where she acknowledged me as a "prominent short story and e-book author who really knows the BDSM territory. In this novel, she's written an amazingly romantic tale of a couple's visit to an S&M retreat as an anniversary present."

To top it all off, Ravenous Romance has bought my four-book fantasy series that follows a devotee to a goddess of sexual pleasure as she journeys from initiate to captive to outcast, only to return to avenge her goddess against a usurper. Lori calls it a cross between "Jacqueline Carey's Kushiel series and Anne Rice's Beauty books." I'd add "with a dash of George R. R. Martin" for those of you who like multiple characters rotating through each chapter. Regardless, it'll be exciting to see my Kith series into publication.

Before this entry threatens to turn this blog into a gratitude journal, let me wish you all a Happy and Prosperous New Year. And you can guess what my one resolution will be -- BLOG MORE!

But I'm happy to report that Ravenous Romance launched today, bringing its cache of provocative erotic romance to avid readers everywhere. You'll find a handful of initial novels and short stories there in ebook and audio formats -- with more to coming daily mid-month.

My first novel with Ravenous Romance, Blind Seduction, will drop December 20th. And I couldn't be happier. The editors I've worked with appreciate solid, exciting story-telling, dedicate the resources to copy editing necessary to make a strong book exceptional, and are remarkably, enthusiastically open to most any erotic variation you can think of.

I've also contributed to what will be a Twelve Days of Christmas selection of short stories, scheduled to debut during the holiday season. Ambitious me, but I ran with Ten Lords A'Leaping, making it a hot, M/M tale of guys getting it on. Yum.

And I've almost completed my second novel for RR as well, a fantasy tale called Desire's Pursuit that I hope will become a multi-novel series. More on that as it develops.

FYI, fellas: Yes, Ravenous Romance is primarily geared for women and, yes, you will find romantic elements in its offerings, but I can guarantee you that if you like the erotic word, you'll enjoy this publisher's titles. Personally, I haven't had to scale back any of my erotic writing with Ravenous Romance; I've only had to expand the connectedness of my principal characters, an element that existed in most of my previous erotica, just to a lesser degree.

I'm talking about Sexology, the Illustrated Magazine of Sex Science and now Craig Yoe has selected and compiled a boatload of articles from its many issues, delightfully packaged in a retro-hardcover edition that I can't help but feel would be the perfect gift to the horndog on your holiday list. Yoe introduces the collection with a "history of" recap that veers from near-camp to seriously informative, then launches you right into the most titillating offerings the magazine put forth in its forty-year existence. Topics like Homosexual Chickens, Men in Lingerie,and Sex Education on the Beach will keep you entertained and amazed. (My personal favorites? Chastising Thrills and Two Psychiatrists Analyze Obscene, Pornographic Letters.)

I won't deny that Sexology had more than a bit of an "anatomical curiosity museum" element to its contents -- a topic like Polymastia... multiple breasts isn't all that different than pickled body parts -- but the magazine also served a useful purpose. Immigrating to the U.S. in 1907, Gernsback was surprised to find a lack of sexual intelligence among Americans and began publishing the magazine during the sexual dark ages of the early 20th-century. It took courage to publish any tracts on sexuality, thanks to the suppressive affects of the Comstock Act and, indeed, Sexology would more than once come under the scrutiny of obscenity mavens, but it never faced actual conviction, perhaps because it contained enough medical language and M.D. appellations in its bylines to protect it from being labeled prurient.

Gernsback's commitment to sexual intelligence would last a lifetime. If I understand this ERBzine "reprint" of a 1963 Life magazine article that profiled Gernsback, he was still fighting the enlightenment battle.

"Gernsback is fully prepared, even anxious, to answer the slavering critic who accuses him of prurience. Sex, he feels, is a "cultural subject" and as such should not be "relegated to back rooms" but discussed openly--even its more peripheral phases. He finds the "non-scientific attitude" about it "appalling, abysmal stupidity....Let me tell you something very few people realize," he says. "Even physicians are not taught anything about sex in college! A horrifying situation!"

According to Life, Gernsback said he felt that "sex offer[ed] a last, unexplored, scientific frontier."

Gernsback was right. But I wonder if he knew how prescient that statement was. Did he know that the homesteading race of sex was about to commence? That the pill catapulted us into the sexual revolution, overthrowing the old order of moral suppression?

Ironically, Gernsback died in 1967 during the summer of love. He did not live to see the rise of sexual liberation in all its variety but he escaped having to see his creation outlive its usefulness.

But I bet he would've appreciated the fact that his little magazine had a role in its own obsolescence.