In my collecting travels and endeavors, I sometimes snap up small pamphlets called “readers.” A close cousin to the Tijuana Bible, they were essentially dirty short stories….

As a collector of erotica and “curiosa,” an old bibliophile’s codeword for the pornographic, I come across a lot of unusual publications. Some are historical interesting — like a rare pre-Civil War erotic novel — and some are downright silly…

M/M erotic fiction, for the uninitiated, is, in its strictest terms, romantic erotica written largely by women for women and born out of the slash fiction world. But publisher ManLoveRomance Press isn’t satisfied with that definitional origin. MLR Press believes that although M/M fiction isn’t traditional gay fiction and that it is erotica [...]

Gloria Vanderbilt’s novella, Obsession, makes for a curious and stimulating read. But it’s not the kind of stimulating read you might expect from an erotic work. Rather, it’s more of an intellectual exercise in emotional intelligence in the guise of erotic read.
I’d seen all the buzz about Vanderbilt’s novel and I no doubt wanted to [...]

In May, I finally had the opportunity to attend Book Expo America, the publishing industry’s premier trade event. To say was Booklover’s Heaven is an understatement. It filled the huge Javitts Convention Center. And heaven isn’t for the idle. BEA was three days of constant walking, scouting out books and publishers, and [...]

As a card-carrying Borders aficionado (credit card, that is), I have the pleasure of letting those $5.00 Borders bucks coupons accumulate every month. Recently, I grabbed a pile of them, went to my local store, and bought Susie Bright’s new anthology, X: The Erotic Treasury. It was pricey at $35.00 dollars, but it’s not your [...]

Downstairs, in my library, sits a pile of magazines dating from the 1930s to the 1970s. I bought them in bulk sales, most often via ebay, fascinated by their existence. I’d discover they were produced by the father of science fiction, pulp publisher Hugo Gernsback, adding to my fascination. At one point, my curiosity spilled [...]

It’s no surprise to me that Armistead Maupin’s new novel, Michael Tolliver Lives, gets a June release. It’s the month for gay pride celebrations of every kind, from parades to film festivals, all to commemorate the Stonewall riots that triggered the gay rights movement. But the book and the month have special meaning for me: [...]

They come from Circlet Press, an early adopter among small press taking on niche avenues that large publishers wouldn’t.
Circlet Press shepherded many volumes of sf/f/h erotica into print, a number of which are pictured here, and over the years it garnered respect and nominations galore — Lambda Literary Awards, Firecracker Alternative Book Awards, Independent Press [...]

Once upon a time, I collected comic books. I preferred fantasy comics over superheroes, although one could question my purity — on several levels — thanks to my girl-hood crush on Thor, God of Thunder. Much of the collection didn’t survive the breakup with my college boyfriend, but I do have a stack of E.C. [...]