pennae aquilae

BDSM for Romance Writers Class: April 29th

ceciliatan — Mon, 13 Apr 2026 06:09:00 GMT

Coming up at the end of this month, I’ll be teaching an online class that should be lots of fun: BDSM for Romance Writers. As the official description reads: “BDSM is more than just a collection of toys or a list of kinks, it’s a whole world of intense relationship dynamics. In this workshop, RT award winning author Cecilia Tan will cover key elements of BDSM and kink that can spice up a novel, as well as myths and stereotypes to avoid. We’ll leave plenty of time for Q&A, as well.”

The class is being hosted by Passionate Ink, which used to be the erotica and erotic romance chapter of the RWA, but which broke off into an independent organization a few years back.

(Aside: It’s almost amusing to think that when Sylvia Day founded the chapter, it was partly because many people in the RWA at that time didn’t feel that explicit erotic “open door” romances were worthy of support. Not too long after that, Sylvia’s own super spicy romances (i.e. Bared to You) topped the bestseller lists, paving the way for 50 Shades of Grey, and permanently turning the acceptable heat level way up on the entire romance genre.)

The class is free for members of Passionate Ink, $45 for non-members, so if you have been thinking of joining the organization, and are interested in the class… guess how much it costs to join for one year? The same $45. 🙂

I’d love it if those taking the class filled out a brief survey first, which has a slot for folks to put their questions in advance: https://forms.gle/qJhg7mwrEcetEgNt5

The class is appropriate for experienced and inexperienced writers alike, at all levels of career. Whether you’ve published dozens of novels or zero, whether you write for fun or for publication, if you’re looking to expand your palette to paint with the BDSM colors, that’s what this class is for.

The folks at Passionate Ink made a lovely graphic:

Mirrored from Cecilia Tan.

Romantasy as a social phenomenon, academics get me hot, and more

ceciliatan — Fri, 27 Mar 2026 07:44:49 GMT

Welcome to another monthly newsletter post, which I’m mirroring here because not everyone is either signed up to my email newsletter list or my Patreon.

Thinky Thoughts: Academics Turn Me On

I’m such a nerd. I just finished taking a 10-week long college class about Romance and it was great.

It all started when I saw my on social media that Dr. Sam Hirst was offering an online class via University of Liverpool: “Falling in Love with Love: A History of Popular Romance.” She had posted that the class needed some more signups to be a go, and I jumped right in without really thinking about whether I truly had the time for it.

In fact, I somehow messed up up the time zone conversion and so I couldn’t even attend the live portion of the class for the first few weeks! But the online lectures, the reading material, and the films kept me quite busy.

I don’t think every writer needs to be steeped in the history of a genre in order to create that genre. Just like you don’t need a degree in English to speak English. But!

But I always find it stimulating and inspiring to slurp down some scholarship. Yum. For the class, we read Jane Austen and Jane Eyre, Beverly Jenkins and Tasha Suri, as well as Olivia Waite’s recent sapphic historical novella Hen Fever — and learned from the author that there really was an 1850s chicken breeding craze in the UK. I recommend this one highly!

Toward the end of the class I also attended ICFA: an academic conference I go to every year on science fiction and fantasy, where academics and writers/editors all mingle around the pool and nerd out together.

The most eye-opening paper I saw this time was “Bat Boys, BookTok, and Broken Curses: How Romantasy Revives Reading in the Digital Age.”

In it, scholar Madeline Keitel pointed out that the people who lament the “death of reading” and blame the digital generation for having short attention spans have somehow overlooked that this demographic loves to read 600-page long romantasy tomes! Romantasy (as well as romance) is sometimes criticized for reliance on common tropes (like enemies to lovers, fated mates, and “shadow daddies”) but she convincingly argued that the tropes are a load-bearing element of romantasy’s participatory reading culture.

It feels to me like romantasy is as much a sociological phenomenon as a commercial one, driven by a community of readers/writers/commenters. This makes it akin to science fiction/fantasy, which grew into the genre we know today under the steady influence of convention fandom, the subculture which has been hosting WorldCon since 1939.

Author Justine Larbalestier has a 2002 book on this subject entitled The Battle of the Sexes in Science Fiction, where she writes that she thought she was going to study literature, and she ended up studying people—in particular, the symbiotic relationship between the community of sf/f writers/readers and the books produced.

What’s different is that the romantasy community is global and centered online instead of in person.

After hearing Madeline Keitel’s paper I went up to my room and wrote a chapter of what might become a new book. A romantasy book that plays with the fated mates and shadow daddy tropes. It’s too soon to tell you anything more, but I’ll let you know if it blossoms. (And probably post sneak peeks on Patreon…)

WIP Report

I need to finish the SABR Style Guide. Still. I know. It was supposedly due in January. I need to incorporate some feedback from other editors before I can finalize the manuscript, and I need some uninterrupted quiet time of multiple days to do that.

Lately, between travel and other work, there’s been no quiet time at all, much less multiple days of it. Right now my plan is to take a few days on retreat in April before IMsLBB to finish that book, and then get back to fiction. I did write a sample chapter of something while I was in Florida, but the clay is still quite wet and I might still lump it.

I also wrote a short story a few weeks ago that just might combine interstellar colonization with Chinese food… Once I get it out of first draft stage, I’ll send it out, but that might be several weeks given the overloaded state of my to-do list.

Meanwhile, I know some of you are curious, after all the buildup, how did it go with Bound by the Blood coming out in January? Well, we didn’t hit any bestseller lists, not even Amazon’s, but I did sell enough to make back what I spent on the launch, so I’m happy about that.

And I’m very happy with the reviews that have been coming in. Here are some favorites:

Lynne Thomas, a Hugo Award-winning editor and librarian called it an “absolute page turner” and wrote in her blog: “What drives this story is two things: the urge to save the world, and the relationship between Mira and Clive. Both of these are rendered with both urgency and tenderness.”

Lisabet Sarai, whose book The P*rn*grapher’s Apprentice you might remember, posted a review on Amazon, but expanded on it in a blog post: “Sex is magic. I won’t be able to start this way in my Amazon review or I’ll be censored, but on my own blog I can speak the truth, a truth I’ve known personally for as long as I can remember.”

Author T.C. Mill, really got into the femdom aspects in an extensive write-up, that included this: “I found it not just refreshing to read about an unapologetically, fully dominant woman, I found it soothing.”

Another writer who appreciates femdom is I.G. Frederick, who compared the book to a gourmet meal. (I.G. and I have sat down together for several culinary experiences over the years.) “[Tan is] an expert at combining ingredients to create dishes that tantalize all the senses. Writing fiction requires a similar ability to stir together elements that stimulate all a reader’s sensory faculties.”

Intimacy coach, podcaster, and clinical psychologist Lori Beth Bisbey writes, “Cecilia has a way of getting the reader to place themselves in roles they might not usually take so that you find yourself turned on by scenarios that don’t match your usual erotica map.”

There are 26 reviews on Goodreads now, and over a dozen on Amazon.

As I somewhat expected, some reviewers just “could not get into a female dominant” and DNF’d it. That’s fine: they’re being honest about their feelings. But it’s a little like when people leave one-star reviews for my favorite Italian restaurant (Giulia, which just garnered a Michelin recommendation) because they don’t serve pizza or lasagna.

Help Me Do Stuff: Hugo Nominations!
If you attended the Seattle Worldcon or if you registered to attend LACon V this coming August, you are eligible to nominate stories for the Hugo Awards. Nominations close this Saturday, March 28th! So this is your last chance to nominate stories, novels, etc! My story “Large Emotional Models” is eligible (which you can read free at Sunday Morning Transport: https://www.sundaymorningtransport.com/p/large-emotional-models ) and of course I’d be honored if you felt it was worthy of nomination. But honestly go and nominate any sf/f from 2025 you’ve enjoyed!

While we’re talking about awards, have you recommended anything yet for the Otherwise Award? (formerly known as the Tiptree) Works of sf/fantasy that explore or expand our understanding of gender published in *2026* are eligible, including short stories, novels, comics, etc. If you’ve read something that you feel fits that bill, add to the recommendation list for the jury here: https://otherwiseaward.org/award/2026-otherwise-awards/2026-otherwise-awards-recommendations

Tour Dates & Upcoming Appearances

2026:

April 23-26: IMsLBB: Int’l Ms. Leather, Pisc. NJ

April 29 8pm: BDSM for Romance Writers, online workshop presented by Passionate Ink

May 22-25: Balticon, Baltimore, MD – confirmed!

June 2-7: SFWA Nebulas Conference, Chicago IL

June 16: Brooklyn Books & Booze!

July 9-12: Readercon, Burlington, MA

July 29-Aug 2: SABR Convention, Cleveland, OH

August 27-31: Worldcon in Anaheim, CA

Upcoming Classes

I’ll be teaching the latest iteration of my Submissive Self Safety class at International Ms. Leather in New Jersey at the end of April.

And I’ll be teaching an online class on BDSM for Writers for Passionate Ink. PI members get it free, but non-members can take the class for a fee. The idea behind this class is to do a kind of BDSM 101, but instead of emphasizing safety for players, emphasizing relationship dynamics and kinks that work well in fiction. There will be ample time for Q&A as well!

Parting Thoughts

I better get this post up or we’ll all miss the Hugo nomination deadline…! Thanks again for being here and being part of my wacky writing journey.

Until next month!

-ctan

Mirrored from Cecilia Tan.

Feeling very knife-y today

ceciliatan — Fri, 09 Jan 2026 23:02:43 GMT

Feeling very knife-y today. Not stabby, exactly, but man, the news has just been unrelenting war, death, and aggression lately, and although things have been relatively calm where I live (compared to Minneapolis, Portland, or Chicago) I can’t help but feel like we’re next.

I had an Uber driver a couple of weeks ago — white guy, trucker hat, flannel shirt, came in a big SUV, and I really wasn’t sure if I should talk politics since he very well *might* have been a MAGA sort — but we’re not in the car two minutes before we passed a bumper sticker or a sign or something that made him say, “dang, I just don’t know what to do with this country… do you think we’re going to have to fend off an invasion by the National Guard?”

Turns out he only looks like a lumberjack: he’s got a PhD in political science. He was thinking of taking a course in field medicine first aid, figuring that would be the most useful thing he could do on the front lines. “I can’t believe I’m even talking about this,” he said. “But here we are.” I encouraged him to take the course. More healers can only be a good thing.

Speaking of which, a list of “things you can do besides protest or vote” is going around, and one of the suggestions is get trained in “PFA” which is “psychological first aid.” The Canadian Red Cross offers online courses, one in PFA self-care, and one in helping others. Red Cross/Red Crescent has a whole curriculum built around the recognition that mental health is crucial for any kind of help providers as well as those being helped.

I’m thinking of doing at least the self care course…? It’s only $20 (Canadian!).

Meanwhile, you can see my mood reflected in the swag I just designed for my book launch next week. Photo below. (Skip the rest of this post if you want to skip the book biz stuff. I know it’s a weird-ass time to be trying to launch a book… )

I designed these as a pre-order and launch party swag piece, so probably shoulda just done the ebook cover and maybe some character art. Buuuuuut I decided to give everyone an assortment of pretty knives and daggers — purely for metaphorical use! — and attach a pair of slogans:

Lace up your corset, it’s time to fight evil
Lace up your boots, it’s time to fight evil

These slogans are of course purely meant as a comment on the content of the book, in which our heroes discover that modern BDSM can be a gateway to magical power and end up in a battle against evildoers who want to use this ritual sex magic for nefarious purposes. I would never use my fictional fantasy world as a way to comment on our contemporary political reality, nooooooo…

Ways you can get the stickers for yourself:
1) Pre-order the book from any retailer before January 15th
2) Show up to one of my launch parties in person
3) Review the book on Amazon, Goodreads, and/or your blog or social media before January 22

PREORDER details:
Send me your shipping address and a copy of your receipt, either upload at this google form (https://forms.gle/R9GQaGiZNbizohnb6) or just email me at ctan.writer AT gmail DOT com. You have to do it before the book goes live on the 15th, though!

REVIEWS TEAM:
Technically I closed the reviews team already, but if you want to jump on the bandwagon, the form is still up, so if you review the book anywhere before Jan 22nd, fill it out here: https://forms.gle/DR2HF9P95bPyLCot8 (upload a screencap of the review or email it to me at ctan.writer AT gmail DOT com).

LAUNCH PARTIES:

January 15: Bound by the Blood Release Day
- Livestream Hangout: 7:30 – 9:30 pm (RSVP to get link)

January 16-19: Arisia, Cambridge, MA
- Bound by the Blood Launch Party: Friday night, 8-9 pm erotica reading, 9pm – midnight party (room number TBA)
- Queer Books Tea Party: Saturday afternoon 4pm – 6pm (room number TBA)
January 25: Bound by the Blood Book Launch Party at Pandemonium Books! 6:30pm. (RSVP here)

February 5-8, Capricon, Chicago, IL – Bound by the Blood Launch Party Friday Night (exact time TBA)

RSVPs are required for the livestream (so Zoom will send you the access link) and for the Pandemonium Party because Pandemonium has a limited amount of space! They take five bucks when you register and then you get to apply it to any purchase in the store. Seems like a good deal to me to support a longtime local bookseller in the sf/f community and that support of not just me but other local authors is why they were my top choice for a launch event.

Part of me still feels like I shouldn’t be trying to launch a book in the middle of everything going on, but if I wait, there’s no guarantee things won’t be even worse…? And I keep reminding myself that people need joy and distraction, too, to get through tough times. So if you think you’d enjoy reading about my kinky heroes fighting evil through sex magic… well, here we go…

Mirrored from Cecilia Tan.

Chapter 4 from THE HOT STREAK!

ceciliatan — Sat, 04 Oct 2025 07:02:19 GMT

In honor of my publisher putting a new cover on my baseball romance and moving it into Kindle Unlimited for a while, I figured I would publish a sample chapter for you all to enjoy. Here is Chapter Four of THE HOT STREAK!

Casey works at a design bureau in Boston, and finds herself somewhat unexpectedly in fling with Tyler Hammond, the star pitcher for Boston’s new major league baseball team, the Robins. They’ve bee on a couple of dates and had some of the hottest sex in Casey’s life when Tyler asks if she wants to come to New York City when he has a rare day free before the next game he pitches. Casey says yes, and packs her bag for New York:

Chapter Four

Casey arrived at the hotel around lunchtime. She’d had a nice ride on the Amtrak train into the city, and Tyler was standing in the lobby waiting for her when she came in. He had his sunglasses on, and was wearing a sport coat, which she didn’t expect.

“There you are,” he said, tucking his cell phone away and twirling her into a hug. “Right on time. Want to go grab something to eat? There’s everything here, of course. Oh, wait, let’s put your bag away first.”

“All right.” She would have been content to carry it if he’d wanted to go right then; it was just a backpack with one change of clothes and some toiletries. But she figured she might as well leave it off. They rode the elevator up to a small but nice-looking suite, the bedroom separated from the sitting room by a set of French doors. She plopped the bag on the couch. “Where do you want to go?’

“Everywhere!” he said, throwing his arms wide. “Off days are so rare, and off days that aren’t spent packing to go somewhere are even rarer. I’m glad this worked out.” He held out his arm for her and she took it as they went back to the elevator. “Today I get to pretend to be a normal person. Let’s go to Times Square, eh?”

“Sure.” It wasn’t Casey’s first trip to the city, or Tyler’s either, but there was something about New York that made each visit new, and yet the same. They ate in a Thai restaurant they stumbled across on one of the side streets a few blocks from the hotel, then wandered through the throngs of spring tourists in Times Square. Tyler haggled with a street vendor over buying an “I Love New York” T-shirt, and Casey wasn’t quite sure how it happened, but it ended up with him buying an entire case of the shirts for about fifty bucks, and some kid on a bicycle trundling off to the hotel with the box strapped on the back with bungee cords.

“That was totally like…something you’d see in China or Uganda or something,” she said, watching the kid struggle to pedal away.

“Yeah, wasn’t it?” he said, putting his sunglasses back on. “I went on this goodwill baseball tour to China when I was in college, saw a lot of stuff like that.”

The question was out of her mouth before she had a chance to wonder whether she cared about the answer. “Oh? Where’d you go to school?” Stupid. Asking him about the trip to China would probably be better.

“Oh, University of Texas, for the baseball program, of course. Couple of places tried to recruit me. I picked the one with the warmest weather.”

They moved on through the crowd, past a giant toy store with a small Ferris wheel inside it. “I never finished. Once I got drafted, I didn’t go back. They say I still could when my career’s over, but can you imagine me at forty years old, sitting in a classroom with a pencil behind my ear trying to do algebra or something? Doesn’t seem likely. And it’s not like I need a college degree or I’ll end up scrubbing floors somewhere. Or selling T-shirts and electronics on the street.”

She nodded, wondering if she should be avoiding the subject of salaries and money, or if those rules didn’t really apply, when she’d read in The New York Times online that he was making $10.5 million this year. “So where to now?”

“You want to see if we can get tickets to a show or something? Phantom of the Opera? Man, it’s so weird not to have a game.”

Casey hooked her arm through his as they walked. “Don’t you get a couple of months off, though, in the winter?”

“Yeah, but once the season starts…you just have to be in the mentality that there’s a game every night. If you wish you had days off, you won’t be mentally ready to play. But then it feels weird when you don’t have a game, like you’re skipping school or something.”

“But I thought you only played every fifth day anyway.”

“Yeah.” He shrugged. “But there are things I do on each day between starts, part of my program to get ready for the next start. Kind of like how football teams have stuff they do all week between games, except I’m just one guy. The rest of the team has to go out and play every night. You just…you get kind of addicted to it, almost, and then you miss it when it’s not there, even just for one night.”

He stopped walking then and turned to face her. “But don’t get me wrong. Having an evening out with you is…I’ve been thinking about it all week. So what do you think? Broadway show?”

“Do you think we can still get tickets this late?”

“Hang on.” He took his cell phone out of his pocket and dialed. “Hi, yes, this is Tyler Hammond in room 1253. Heh, yeah, thanks. I was wondering, what are the chances you could get me two tickets to…uh…” He motioned to Casey to say something.

Casey racked her brains trying to think of a show she wanted to see. “Chicago?”

“Chicago,” he said into the phone. “For tonight. Oh, that would be awesome. Great. Call me back if there are any problems. Yeah.” He gave his number and hung up. “God, concierges are great.”

She grinned. “I wish I had one in everyday life.”

He laughed nervously. “Uh, yeah.”

“Tyler, what’s wrong?”

“I’m embarrassed to admit I do actually have one. A concierge desk, I mean. I’d never have stuff from the dry cleaners in time or anything without them.” He was actually blushing.

“Is that a bad thing?”

“I just didn’t want you to think I was lazy.”

She punched him in the arm and they went back to walking. “So the show’s not until later. What should we do until then?”

“We could take a boat tour to see the Statue of Liberty, we could go up the Empire State Building, we could go to a museum. They have dinosaurs at one of them, don’t they? Or the planetarium. There’s supposedly fun shopping in Greenwich Village…”

Casey laughed. “You sound like you’d rather see the dinosaurs than shop.”

“Well, that’s true…”

“Can we just hail a cab and say ‘Take us to the dinosaurs?'”

“Probably.”

* * * *

Four hours later ,they had seen the dinosaurs at the Museum of Natural History and ridden a horse cart through Central Park, during which ride the carriage driver had told Tyler he needed to come play for the Yankees. He outlined all his points, including how the Yankees were surely going to be the ones to offer him the most in free agency, had the most players in the Hall of Fame, and so on. Tyler had demurred, saying that was all in the future and right now, he wasn’t even in the American League.

That prompted Casey to finally ask what was up with the leagues. She understood there were two separate leagues, the American League and the National League, going way back to the dawn of the 20th century. “But I looked at the schedule and you play some of the American League teams.”

“Yeah, they’ve been doing that for years now. Inter-league play. It means we’ll get to play the Red Sox later in the summer. That’ll be fun, won’t it? Boston is such a sports-crazed town. They’ll have to declare martial law to keep people from rioting.” Even though the Robins had only moved into Boston a short time ago, they already had quite a following. “What do you say, buddy? If I sign with the Red Sox, I won’t even have to move.”

“Man, the Red Sox suck,” is all the driver would say to that.

They then rode the subway down to Soho and Casey convinced Tyler to come with her into some art galleries, and he even seemed to like some of the cool modern art she showed him. “Yeah, when I think art, I think of paintings of vases of flowers and fat women,” he said, without any trace of meanness. “But this stuff is cool. I think I like the sculptures the best.”

Casey was tempted by a sculpture that looked a bit like a giant crescent moon, only it was iridescent colors, made of metal with a pitted and scarred surface. On its chest-high pedestal it stood as tall as Tyler, a grand almost-circle almost like the horns of a great ox. She looked at the price tag. Not only would the piece be totally out of place in her rundown apartment, it cost easily a third of her annual salary after taxes.

The gallery owner chatted with her about the piece anyway. “God, it’s really beautiful. I really like it, but I don’t have room for something like this in my tiny apartment,” she said, trying not to mention that it was priced light years out of her reach.

Tyler came up behind her, steering her aside from the owner. “But it’d look great in my ultra-modern place, wouldn’t it?”

“Yeah, with those huge ceiling you have and the…wait, you’re not thinking of buying it, are you?”

“I want to buy it for you, but you can keep it at my place, and you know, visit it there. Until you move somewhere bigger, eventually. Right? After you learn to play golf and get into management?”

She groaned. “You can’t buy me something that expensive.”

“Why not? I bought my mother an entire house and two cars. It’s not like I’m going hungry, right? What’s money for?”

She looked up at him and he looked really earnest, like if she said no, he might actually be hurt. “Are you sure?”

“Are you sure?” he asked back. “If you really like it, it’s yours.”

Her palms were starting to sweat. “Yeah. I really like it.”

“Awesome. It’s going to look so cool in the sitting room. I’ll have to invite people over on the next off day at home for cocktails to look at it.” He grinned like a boy getting a new puppy. “Uh, miss? Ma’am?” He flagged down the gallery owner and set about buying it and having it delivered.

Casey didn’t listen to most of the details, just stared at the piece with a hand on her cheek, feeling it burn. But it was a pleasant burn.

When they went back out onto the street, Tyler was holding her hand. “You okay?”

“Yeah. I’m just kind of stunned.”

He smiled. “Look. Whatever guy you go out with, each one has something different about him, right? One guy’s maybe really handy with the fix-up stuff. One guy’s maybe really smart and can, like, do your taxes for you, right? Well, you happen to be going out with a jock who makes more money than he knows what to do with, so, you know, this kind of thing happens.”

She laughed at that. “Okay.”

“So, what do you think it was a sculpture of?”

“Of? Well, I think it’s supposed to be abstract. You interpret it how you want to. But I saw it as a kind of crescent moon. You know how sometimes it almost looks like it could go all the way around but it doesn’t? That’s what it made me think of.”

“That’s really cool. Now I really think we should grab a snack before the show, and just have a late dinner after. Maybe room service. Got to love the twenty-four-hour room service. It’s half the reason the team stays where it does.”

“Sounds good to me.”

* * * *

They were walking back to the hotel from the theater when Casey put her arm around Tyler’s waist, pulling him close as they walked in step with each other. He smelled more like aftershave than she usually preferred, but under it she could still tell it was him, just a hint of something that reminded her body of how his skin tasted. It was a nice feeling, wanting him, and not feeling either guilty or pressured about it. It just felt, well, nice.

“Are you having a good time?” he asked as they turned the corner into a stiff Manhattan wind.

“A terrific time.”

“I’m not just an excuse to get away from the office?” He grinned.

“And what if you are? Going to kick me out of bed?” She grinned right back.

“No, ma’am,” he said with a raised eyebrow. “So I guess I know what we’re doing when we get back to the room?”

“Unless you have a better idea,” Casey said, half daring him to suggest something.

But that was the end of the jokes. He pulled her into a hug, and she could hear the satin lining of his sport coat hissing against his other clothes as he enveloped her in his arms. “I’m glad.”

“About what?” she asked, looking up at him.

“Mm, just, you know, some girls wouldn’t be so nice to me.”

Casey didn’t really understand that comment, but she wasn’t about to start trying to pick it apart now. Maybe she could ask Missy a bit about Tyler’s previous girlfriends next time she saw her. Nice to him? What was the point of going out with a man who was the epitome of sex on wheels, then holding out on him? Maybe some of them really only wanted him for his money? That seemed quite possible.

She slipped her hands into his trouser pockets and felt not very subtly for his erection. He was only half hard, but as her fingertips brushed him, she felt him stiffening. She kept touching him until it seemed he was fully hard and he groaned.

“Soooo nice to me,” he said.

“Just be nice back,” she said and stepped back and tapped him on the nose. “Come on.”

* * * *

In the lobby, they ran into Mad Dog and a few of Tyler’s other teammates. He introduced her to Madison, and Casey shook his hand, finding it huge and rough. “I’ve met your wife,” she said. “In the stands. She’s great.”

“Isn’t she, though?” Mad Dog said. He glanced at Tyler, seemed to read something there, before adding, “If you come on more road trips, I’ll try to get her to come along, too. You guys can hang out.”

“Sure.” She gently pulled at Tyler’s hand then, trying to be obvious without being too obvious about wanting to go upstairs now.

“Don’t stay up too late,” Mad Dog said to Tyler as they were walking away. “Big start tomorrow.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Tyler said, and pulled Casey into an open elevator. “Ignore him. Catchers always think it’s their job to nursemaid pitchers.”

Casey looked at him. “Should we not stay up too late, though?”

He snorted. “The early bus to the park doesn’t leave here until two thirty in the afternoon. I think we’ll manage. It’s not even eleven now, is it?”

“Nope.”

In the room, they discovered a cheese plate, a bottle of champagne, and note from the reservations manager saying, “Go Robins!” Tyler eyed it suspiciously. “Okay, now, see, if it were the night after I pitched, and I won, then it might be okay. But it might all be a ploy on the part of some Mets fan to put me off my game tomorrow.”

She sniffed the cheese. “Well, why don’t we just save it for tomorrow? If we keep it in the ice bucket, they won’t throw it away. We can stick the cheese plate in the mini bar and test it for contamination later.”

He laughed. “All right.”

Casey put the plate away, tucking it into the mini bar on top of the jarred peanuts. Then she drifted into the bathroom and brushed her hair, which had gotten a bit tangled in the wind. She knew Tyler was watching her as he went to hang up his sport coat and take off his shoes.

She was suddenly nervous, butterflies in her stomach. How was it going to go this time? Was it going to be as good as before? She was really, really starting to like him.

He came up behind her then, lifting her hair to press a kiss against her neck. “Now if I remember right, you have a spot,” he said, his lips brushing her skin as he talked, “somewhere, right about…here…”

She pressed back against him with a gasp as his tongue found that place that seemed connected directly to her clit. She wondered what that warm velvet would feel like down there and she moaned aloud.

“Bed now,” she said.

“You sure?” He moved to the other side, lips and tongue searching for the matching spot there, his hands on his hips and the firm press of his erection against her backside. “You sure I shouldn’t just lift you up on the bathroom counter here and slip it in you?”

She moaned again, not knowing whether he meant to do it or just use the idea to arouse. His hand slipped around to the front of her, grazing over her mound with light pressure.

“I can make you come just as many times in here, you know…”

“Bed,” she said more firmly, then squealed with laughter as he lifted her up with another “yes, ma’am” and carried her through the French doors to the enormous bed. He half-tossed her onto it so she bounced a little, then started dragging her pants and panties down. He got one leg free of her clothes and then put his shoulder under the bend of her knee, pushing her onto her back and spreading her legs.

One of his hands spread her lips gently and then she felt a long, slow swipe of his tongue up one side of her labia. It was too deliberate for him to have just accidentally missed her clit. Then he did the other side and she groaned, grinding her hips toward his face.

“Now now,” he scolded. “You know it’ll be better if you let me take my time.” He bent his head again, this time flicking his tongue butterfly light all around her clit, but still not touching it directly except for the occasional brush.

She chuckled inwardly. Sex, and maybe Tyler, too, was a pile of contradictions. He was in such a hurry to go slowly that he hadn’t even taken her pants all the way off, or even touched her shirt. Just went straight for the “good part.” And yet it didn’t feel like he was rushing or neglecting her at all, the way it might have with another guy.

His tongue snaked over her clit and she gave a long moan. That was the funny thing, she thought. The guys who were in the biggest hurry were the ones who really didn’t know how to turn her on like this. She was completely ready for Tyler to fuck the living daylights out of her after just that little bit—she was ready even back in the bathroom. But when was the last time she’d spent all day with a guy thinking about, and knowing, they were going to have sex that night?

He brought her all the way to the edge of orgasm with his tongue, then eased her back down to a lower plateau of pleasure before lifting his head, his chin glistening. “So, you want to come now? Or you want me in you like last time?”

“Um…”

“Or there’s this…” he said, waggling his eyebrows as he slipped a finger into her and tickled her g-spot.

“Hey!”

“Too much? Don’t like it?” He continued to touch it, but with a lighter pressure.

“N-no, I love it, I just…oh….” He did something else inside her then, with two fingers it felt like, and her eyes rolled back in her head and she arched her back. “Oh fuck, you could pretty much make me come just from that.”

“Really? That would be so awesome. I’ve never made a girl come just from, you know, being in her. Well, I might have once or twice, but I’m pretty sure they were faking.”

“Well, I’ve never come just from something in me, but…” She bore down on his fingers again. “But God, it feels good when you lick me, too.”

“That sounds like a hint,” he said, and went back to licking her while doing what he was doing with his fingers.

Casey came within seconds, crying out loudly and clawing at the pillows. When she had fallen limp and panting, he lifted his head again. “That’s what I’m talking about.”

“What?”

“It’s just a catch phrase. You are awesome.”

She laughed. “I think I’m supposed to be the one saying that now.”

“Here, say it to this.” He slipped his pants off finally and reared up on his knees, his cock riding high and full.

She put a hand under his balls the way you would the chin of a big dog before talking to it. “Hmm, I dunno. Your cock’s awesomeness has yet to be proven tonight.”

He made an affronted noise. “Well, then! I guess I better get to proving it. Which way do you want it? Front, back, upside down, or all of the above?”

“Just come here,” she said, kicking off her pants and pulling him between her legs. While she was at it, she stripped off her shirt and went to work on his. He finished it for her, then bent to leave kisses across the tops of her breasts.

“You ready now?” he asked. “I think you’re forgetting something.”

She blinked up at him. “Holy shit, you’re right.”

“It’s okay, darling. I’ve got it.” He had to get off the bed to retrieve the condom, but he returned quickly with it already in place. “There you go.”

Casey just nodded. She was on the pill, so it wasn’t like she was worried about pregnancy. But this was only their second date, and if Tyler’s reputation was what it was, then it was better to be safe. She was grateful. Most guys would have just plunged in if she’d pulled at them like that, she thought.

“Impatient,” she said, raising her eyebrow.

“Okay.” His eyes were open and looking into hers as he entered her, a flicker of amazement in them as he slipped all the way in, his mouth slightly open as if in surprise.

Her own expression mirrored his. She felt like she should say something, something that would capture the moment and burn it in her memory, but there were no words. Well, maybe one. “Good.”

“Yes,” he agreed, and he began to move inside her.

* * *
The Hot Streak is now in Kindle Unlimited, or for purchase & download at Amazon: https://amzn.to/4n7RoVP

Mirrored from Cecilia Tan.

New story at Sunday Morning Transport! rocket emoji

ceciliatan — Mon, 08 Sep 2025 18:43:39 GMT

I’m still riding the creative high and queer community solidarity feeling that came from reading at Writers With Drinks in Seattle. Charlie Jane Anders was an incandescent host, Charlie’s Queer Books put so many books into people’s hands, all the readers were fire!

The story I read from, “Large Emotional Models,” is now live on the Sunday Morning Transport!

I’ve just spent the past five minutes trying to write a sentence describing the story, but the story is itself the best expression of the underlying ideas, so I keep throwing them away. The official description is “a story about fitting into one’s skin and the universe.”

I was motivated to write it when I was on my way to an academic conference, and I got ad-targeted on Instagram by a university in Europe offering positions to American academics fleeing the country. I started writing a story on the airplane to the conference, balling up all my feelings about the moment we are living through right now, with AI and LLMs and attacks on academia and science and the tidal wave of transphobia, and out came a story that is about Prince and David Bowie and grief?

It is their free story this month, so everyone can read it, but if you’d like to try getting a really great sf/f story from Sunday Morning Transport every week, here’s a signup link for friends and family to get two months free: https://www.sundaymorningtransport.com/smt2024

Collage of photos from Writers with Drinks (photos by Jo Sisodia/Charlie’s Queer Books):

Mirrored from Cecilia Tan.

Seattle Worldcon Report

ceciliatan — Fri, 22 Aug 2025 07:52:01 GMT

There is not just one Worldcon. In Seattle this year, there were 5500 registered attendees plus another 2000 or so bought single-day memberships, meaning there were ~7500 different Worldcons this year.

Worldcon is many things to many people, but the one thing it always is, is an intentional community. It’s an event that happens because people give their time, their energy, their skills, and their care to make it happen.

In this way, Worldcon is, and always has been, what we make of it. It is simultaneously the home of one of our genre’s most important awards, a premiere costuming event, a professional development incubator, a social structure, an important economic opportunity for some, a schmoozefest, and a celebration of all that the science fiction/fantasy genres have to offer. It’s also a microcosm of all the stresses and problems of our society, and really, how could it not be?

For most of Worldcon’s existence, science fiction as a genre and science fiction fandom were marginalized, minimized, and discriminated against. But in the 21st century, science fiction (and fantasy) have become big capitalist business in movies, television, and merchanidizing, and we’ve had two generations now who have grown up with sf/f being mainstream. These days it’s just as normal to see people wearing a T-shirt with Iron Man or Yoda or Hogwarts on it as the Dallas Cowboys or Real Madrid, or Taylor Swift or Kendrick Lamar.

This mainstreaming represents a sea change in the larger society, but it has not actually changed the Worldcon very much. Compare and contrast San Diego Comic Con, which was of similar size to Worldcon in the 1980s, and now tops out at 130,000 attendees because that’s the max attendance their convention center can handle. (See this graph.) As comics and their Hollywood tie-ins have grown to dominate moviemaking, SDCC has been growing more commercial for the past 50 years.

At Worldcon, although there is costuming and gaming and anime, the heart of it is still the literature, the short stories and novels of science fiction and fantasy and the people who write them and publish them, and the people who like to read them. Love of literature is not sufficient to define a community, though: that has taken generations of people defining the con fandom subculture and its traditions, and creating the space for all the sub-sub-subcultures within fandom to meet and co-exist.

I bring this all up as a preamble to my con report, because I think it’s very important for us not to take for granted the communities and institutions like Worldcon, that are built by people for people, and not by corporations for profit, or by governments for politics. This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t ask for things to be better when we feel it’s needed; quite the opposite, an intentional community demands its attendees not be mere passive consumers.

And make no mistake, Worldcon is not a perfect utopia (and if you’ve studied utopian fiction you know that no utopia is perfect, and also one person’s utopia is another person’s dystopia). Someone said to me this year, “Can’t we ever have a Worldcon without a scandal or disaster?” This year there was the ChatGPT programming kerfuffle. Last year the Hugo voting/dossier compiling news broke. In San Diego a guy who got mad about being banned arranged a pro-gun “freedom rally” outside the convention center. The Sad Puppies. The Rabid Puppies. Et cetera.

Which got me thinking… maybe the answer is no, we can’t ever have a Worldcon without some kind of kerfuffle… but maybe that’s not entirely a bad thing? Because Worldcon is ever in the process of becoming itself. Like democracy, it demands participation and it demands argument. And unlike American democracy at the moment, it has proven itself resilient in the face of these challenges. The Puppies were roundly rejected by the voting membership to the Hugos. The gun rally was a complete dud. Unlike the major awards in some other genres (looking at you RWA Ritas), the Hugos still exist and carry on. (There have been other schisms, fights, resignations, and dismissals: do not take the previous list as complete. It is merely a sampling from recent memory.)

But despite the ChatGPT kerfuffle and a few highly questionable panel topics and/or slates, the overall program in Seattle came out looking quite intriguing, thought-provoking, and generally reflective of the sf/f genre’s leanings toward liberal thinking. At least two Hugo award finalists who had inexplicably not been given any programming did get added at the last minute. I do not know whether the programming department proactively took steps to remedy the oversight or if it took various folks prodding and yelling to make it happen. I suppose one of the points I’m making here is that no, it shouldn’t be necessary for folks to prod and yell to get the finalists included in the program, but given that humans are fallible and putting on a Worldcon is a huge group effort, sometimes some prodding or yelling is the only way.

The demographics of Worldcon have changed over the 35+ years I’ve been attending. There are many more visible queer folk than there used to be. Remember when Tor Books ran a “Women of Fantasy” advertising and book tour campaign back in the early 1990s, because it was notable that they had multiple women coming out with fantasy books at the same time? Now that’s simply the norm. Women writing science fiction & fantasy have gone from being a rarity (fewer than 15% of SFWA in 1965) to 35% in 1999 to being slightly more than half of SFWA members right now.

It’s no longer notable if all five panelists on a topic happen to be women, and it’s no longer notable if multiple queer, nonbinary, or trans folk are on a panel that is not about being queer or trans. The genre is no longer as White as it once was, either, with writers of color having pretty well stormed the gates of the award lists. (The whole Sad Puppies campaign was in fact in response to avowed right wing white male writers’ perception that the awards were not being dominated by white male writers anymore. And I kinda think that the Puppies’ attempts to game the nominations not only didn’t work, they accelerated the diversity, because they spurred a lot of folks in the Worldcon community to branch out their reading just to spite them… and people liked what they read.)

However, even with greater diversity among attendees, that doesn’t mean that a Worldcon automatically feels welcoming to everyone. As we know, even some of the most self-proclaimed liberal spaces can still be rife with microaggressions and/or fraught with systemic inequity. But with an intentional community, there is a lot of elasticity for people to make the event what they want of it.

Party!

It’s why for years my preferred method of promoting and selling Circlet Press’s books was to throw parties rather than take a dealer table. It might not have been the most effective way to sell the most books, but it was always the best way for me to bring queer, kinky, and trans erotic sf/f writers together to actually talk with each other. Those are my people, and I made a space for them to gather. This year I threw a Worldcon party for the first time since before COVID. Since I don’t run Circlet Press anymore, I just billed it as Queer Book Party, threw a bunch of pride flags onto the flyers and signs, and threw open my door to see who showed up.

Shortly after the party started, the significant person who showed up was a security guard who told us the hotel would shut us down if they got a second noise complaint about us. I pointed out that it was not yet 10pm, which was when the hotel supposedly would begin enforcing “quiet hours.” The designated party hotel, the Sheraton, had apparently decided the week before the con to decide unilaterally that their previous agreement to allow open parties — and open elevators — every evening actually just meant open elevators from 8-10pm and then all parties should shut down. Many typical worldcon parties run well past midnight and ours couldn’t even open until 9pm because I had a reading scheduled at 8:00. Ultimately we were able to keep the noise down enough that we did not get shut down and I had to regretfully kick folks out at 1:30 AM so I could get some sleep!

This was not the worst party-hotel fail we’ve ever experienced at a Worldcon, though. That would have been Montreal, where the designated party hotel was the Delta, and it had not only our party and many others, but the official Con Suite. We opened our party around 8pm that time and for the first hour or so we had great traffic and a lively crowd. But then it slowed to nothing. We were just down the hall from the Con Suite, and no one was in there, either. I went down to the lobby to try to see what was going on, only to discover that hotel security had decided NO ONE who wasn’t a registered guest of that hotel would be allowed upstairs and they were checking keys. About a thousand people who were NOT staying there, but who all had invitations to parties there, were milling around the lobby hoping someone would talk some sense into the hotel. (I don’t think anyone ever did. Montreal 2027 conrunners, please take note.)

One thing Seattle Worldcon did extremely well was with their art, graphic design, and signage. The signage was plentiful, informative, and necessary, given the immense size of the convention center. The designs were delightful to look at as well as readable. I also really appreciated that with such an immense convention center, there were able to dedicate space for lounges and safe spaces for various groups. I availed myself of the LGBTQ one at one point to meet up with someone, and there was also a dedicated press room, which was a good, quiet place to record an interview. (Looking forward to another article on Worldcon by Chaitna Deshmuk in The UW Daily.)

Writing Workshop

My one piece of “official” Worldcon programming this year was I taught a 2.5 hour workshop on Writing A Sex Scene. Cat Rambo put together a track of writing workshops and it was great to have the time to do a deep dive on my favorite topic. The room was packed when I arrived. I’m not sure exactly how many it was, but I think the room seated 50 people? Every seat was taken, and I gave a couple of chairs from the head table to a couple of stragglers. I think it went really well overall and I’m grateful people felt comfortable enough to read some samples of the little exercises we did aloud in front of the group. Here’s hoping some of those snippets turn into some fantastic stories!

This year the two biggest highlights of my con were both “fringe” events, events created by people who saw a need and made them happen adjacent to the Worldcon.

ConCurrent

The first was ConCurrent, the brainchild of Mia Tsai, who was in a group of authors online griping with one another about the apparent mess in the Worldcon programming department that had led them to disastrously use ChatGPT to vet program participants (and by disastrously I mean it prompted some award finalists to withdraw from consideration, some conrunners to resign in disgust, some attendees to boycott, and a massive social media outcry). ChatGPT is notoriously biased against BIPOC and queer people, which led Mia, egged on by several of us in the online gripe session, to do something concrete to counteract the possibility of that bias and make a statement against AI by programming an alternative event.

ConCurrent took over the ACT Theater, located closer to the main con hotel (the Sheraton) than the convention center itself, and put on a full day of panels featuring almost exclusively BIPOC panelists, with a few exceptions.

Here’s a photo of the panel on the movie Sinners, since I didn’t manage to get a photo of my own panel, which was on Erotica & Horror. Pictured are LD Lewis (Moderator), Christopher Caldwell, LP Kindred, Rebecca Roanhorse, Erin Roberts, and Nicole Glover.

Update! Here’s a photo of the Erotica & Horror panel from the ConCurrent instagram:

Moderator ML Krishnan, Coral Alejandra Moore, Cecilia Tan (me), Diana Pho, Sumiko Saulson.

Also in this photo, Lauren Ring (with camera) who took many photos for ConCurrent and I will include more of them below.

I was the one who proposed the Erotica & Horror topic, and some might note it’s the same topic as a Readercon panel I did, but the conversation came out so completely different with a different set of panelists! ML Krishnan was a terrific moderator who herded us cats into some interesting directions.

At ConCurrent, we dug down into how there are different subgenres of horror and how various subgenres might allow you to fulfill both the requirements of horror and of erotica within the same story. For example, if you’re writing body horror, can you use the contrast between the parts of the story that are erotic and the horrific to magnify the horror rather than conflating the two? Back in the 90s there was a kind of moment for erotic horror that most of us felt was very sex negative — where the sex WAS the horror, and there was still a lot of shame and revulsion built in.

There’s also redemptive horror, which often opens the door for a romance-style happy ending, since some of the characters do defeat evil and survive in the end (just not everyone…) There was universal agreement that we’d like to do away with the old horror trope that anyone who has sex gets killed and instead have the sexy-times remain as a positive force in the story. This panel left me hopeful that we can use horror as a narrative tool — dark days require dark fiction sometimes — and yet still include positive sexual experiences for our characters and readers, especially when portraying queer, trans, or kinky characters.

Writers with Drinks

Then that evening came Writers with Drinks.

Charlie Jane Anders has been curating a reading series called Writers With Drinks for over 20 years now, and I’ve read at WWD both in Cambridge and San Francisco. Usually WWD is in a bar or nightclub (hence the “drinks” portion of the theme), but in Seattle the venue was a gorgeous theater called Town Hall that was formerly a Christian Science church. I mean, look how gorgeous:

Photo by Jo Sisodia/Charlie’s Queer Books

That’s me, captured by photographer @jo.goeswandering in the Great Hall, reading to an audience of over 700 attendees. A completely RAPT audience, I must add. They hung on every word. And all the readings were so terrific! The evening was billed as “Superstars of Queer SF”. Charlie Jane’s new book, Lessons in Magic and Disaster, just launched, and Annalee Newitz is also on book tour for Automatic Noodle. They both read from those books.

I had seen Annalee earlier in the week at Third Place Books in Lake Forest, Washington, and after hearing them speak about robot civil rights and noodles, I bought the book and had already finished reading it two days later. (They also gave a great recommendation for biang biang noodles in Seattle, Taste of Xi’an in the U District, and corwin and I ate there one night.) Automatic Noodle follows the principle of take everything you love and jam-pack it into a book. Every page is delightful.

Also on the slate were Andrea Hairston, Darcie Little Badger, and Becky Chambers. Andrea is a longtime theater person who is always a dynamic reader, and Darcie read from an absolutely entrancing story that had appeared in Sunday Morning Transport: “Those Hitchhiking Kids.”

Coincidentally, the story I read an excerpt from at WWD, “Large Emotional Models,” will be coming up in Sunday Morning Transport in just a few weeks! If you’d like to read my story, you can subscribe to SMT for free to get one free story per month, or use this “friends and family” link to get a 60 day free trial for the tier that gets you a story every week: https://www.sundaymorningtransport.com/smt2024

It’s a story about academia, and Prince, and David Bowie, and broken hearts, and AI, and encounters with the ineffable. Oh, and self-acceptance.

Becky Chambers closed the evening with a novel excerpt that was also an extended meditation on love and connection and how important they are to human life.

Connection and community is ultimately what a Worldcon is all about. I’m planning to be in LA next year. Probably will throw a party, maybe two? How about you?

—

(And now the promised picspam)

My Readercon Schedule!

ceciliatan — Mon, 14 Jul 2025 15:48:41 GMT

Whew! I’ll be making my Guest of Honor run at Readercon this coming weekend in Burlington, MA! It’s me and P. Djeli Clark in the GoH seats, with legions of super-smart sf/f writers and editors on the program, including Max Gladstone, Rob Cameron, Catherine Lundoff, John Chu, Laura Antoniou, Erin Roberts, Sarah Pinsker, Shariann Lewitt and many many more.

As expected, my schedule will be PACKED. Of note: I added a second autographing slot because of concerns that the first one happens soooo early. I will not have a table selling books: you can get them in the bookshop from Sally at Larry Smith Booksellers and some will also be on the Broad Universe table.

And yes, there will be some copies of the new shiny beautiful Magic University Collectors Edition hardcover. (And if you ordered a copy via Kickstarter, check your email for an update about picking up the book in person if you want to! Or just come to a party!)

FRIDAY
2:00 PM Bisexuals in Science Fiction: Still Hip After All These Years?
3:00 PM Autograph Session #1
4:00 PM Cecilia Tan GOH Reading
7:00 PM Moving from Traditional Publishing to Self-Publishing
9:00 PM Levels of Interiority (in Narrative)

SATURDAY
12:00 Noon The Works of Cecilia Tan (I’m not on this, I’ll just be listening!)
1:00 PM Divination in the Writing Process
4:00 PM Guest of Honor Interview: Cecilia Tan by Charlie Jane Anders
6:00 PM Erotica, Horror, and the Fear of Visceral Fiction
9:00 PM Patrons & Kickstarter Supporters Get-Together

SUNDAY
12:00 PM Noon Beyond the Bio: Weird Jobs & the Worlds They Inspired
1:00 PM Harry Potter and the Undeath of the Author
2:00 PM Autographing Session #2

See the full descriptions in my personalized schedule on the readercon site.

Some descriptions:

Bisexuals in Science Fiction: Still Hip After All These Years?
with Andrea Hairston (M), Charlie Jane Anders, Vandana Singh, RWW Greene, Cecilia Tan
Bisexuality has been associated with futurism in both the U.S. and U.K. for over a 100 years, with each generation since the 1920s going through a phase where bisexuality was considered the “new, hip” sexual identity—and bis were accused of only doing it to be avant garde. Bi characters have been an SF trope since at least the 1940s, so is bisexuality still “trendy,” or can we finally lay that idea to rest and have representation for its own sake, not to indicate society “moving forward”? Who’s doing that best?

Levels of Interiority
Cecilia Tan, Erin Roberts, Max Gladstone, T.X. Watson, Will McMahon (M)
There’s been a discussion lately about bad books being written so “cinematicallly” that they have no interiority at all, giving the reader no more understanding of character motivations than if they were viewed on a screen. Is it possible to write a good book with no character interiority, such as a deeply withholding first person narrator? How have expected levels of interiority, or ways of signaling interiority, changed over time or across genres? And what stories could be improved by less interiority?

Divination in the Writing Process
Cecilia Tan, Jedediah Berry, Mur Lafferty, Stephanie Feldman (M),Stephanie Wytovich
Tarot, dice, tea leaves—regardless of your feelings about divination in the non-fictional world, they’re always as applicable as you want them to be in worlds you control. How do authors use divination tools or other forms of mysticism to guide or inform their writing practices? What kinds of effects do you get from different methods?

Harry Potter and the Undeath of the Author
Cecilia Tan, Gillian Daniels (M), Natalie Luhrs, Rob Cameron, William Alexander
“The death of the author” is a well-worn concept about who, author or audience, owns the meaning of an author’s work. Such arguments take on a different valance, however, when the author is not only alive and well but using the funds and power accumulated by their creation as leverage to take extremely public and reactionary political action. When the price of engagement with a work is empowering its living author to publicly abuse others, how can we plausibly claim that the author is dead and our engagement is ours alone?

Mirrored from Cecilia Tan.

Disney, my Dad, and the Very Bisexual T-Shirt

ceciliatan — Sun, 15 Jun 2025 18:00:08 GMT

So, between Pride being yesterday here in Boston, and Father’s Day being today, I thought I’d tell you a story today of what Being Queer in the Nineties was like, and also (another) story about Dad.

To be clear, being queer in the 1990s was definitely not always a joy. But in this case… well, you’ll see.

When I was in my early 20s, my parents decided to take me and my brother on a cruise vacation. This was exciting for a number of reasons, not least because my parents were awesome to hang out with. It was always fun to spend time with them and my brother, who was then 16 and had at that point gotten into the Grateful Dead. (Jerry Garcia was still alive, then.)

If you’re new here, my Dad was a Chinese-filipino immigrant who came to the States to be a doctor (and send money home to support his 9 younger siblings). Mom, meanwhile, was born in rural upstate New York, spent her teens in Florida, and then moved to NYC after college. Mom was the one who raised my brother and me to be the progressive humanists we are, while Dad often seemed a little bit baffled by “American” attitudes.

Also, it was our first time on a cruise ship.

Everything my brother and I knew about cruises at that point we had learned from watching The Love Boat. We’d spend 4 days on a ship nicknamed “The Big Red Boat,” then 3 days in Disney World. (This was before Disney started their own cruise line.)

We didn’t know that on a cruise ship they feed you 12 times a day. Nor that it would be so much like summer camp, with social activities making you mingle with the other campers, I mean, cruisers. The four of us went to the Welcome Buffet. A couple there were wearing matching T-shirts that said “Ask Me About My Schnauzer.” (Actually I don’t remember which breed of dog was on the shirt, but let’s pretend I did.)

My father was enchanted by this. “What a smart idea! Those people wear a shirt looking for other people who like schnauzers, too! They show who they are. It’s brilliant.” Dad plucked at my brother’s tie-dyed shirt sleeve. “You must meet other Deader Headers when you wear this one!” (sic)

My brother and I agreed it was brilliant, and we were amused that Dad seemed to think wearing T-shirts that declared something about one’s self was a new idea…? As I mentioned, Dad was often a bit out of synch with American culture, but he mostly didn’t sweat it.

Anyway. Fast forward to the Disney part of the vacation. The package deal had us in some hotel off-property and Dad got up early in the morning to play golf somewhere. (Dad was obsessed with golf.) My brother and I were sharing a room. After sleeping in a bit, we got dressed to go out for breakfast with my mother.

I put on a shirt that said BISEXUAL PRIDE on it, with the overlapping pink-purple-blue triangle on it…

“Dad’s going to have a conniption when he sees that shirt,” my brother said.

The shirt. I had all my pride and kink event T-shirts made into a quilt last year.

“Why?” I replied. “Doesn’t he know?” My brother shrugged.

My freshman year at college, I had come out as bi to my mother very explicitly because Mom was the parent we actually TALKED to. But we expected Dad to pick stuff up by osmosis, I guess…? He was really not a talker.

Mom also took one look at me and said, “Dad’s going to have a conniption when he sees that shirt.” I again replied, “Why? Doesn’t he know?” She also shrugged, and slightly changed the subject. “Do you think it’s a good idea to wear that to breakfast?”

“Mom, homophobic gangs are not roaming the IHOP at 10 in the morning.”

Well, point of fact, there was a non-zero chance we might run into some homophobic attitudes, but I wasn’t actively concerned for our safety. And I was confident my family would quickly be convinced it was a good idea to wear it. Because that T-shirt was like a “cheat code” to get a top-notch Disney experience.

At the time, the Disney corporation was not openly supportive of LGBTQ rights. A few years earlier (1991), self-organizing park-goers had started having unofficial “Gay Days” in Orlando and Anaheim, but Disney didn’t have an official “Pride Nite” until 2023 (if you’re counting, that’s 32 years later). At the time of our story, 1993, no one at Disney was officially “out,” but many many MANY queerfolk worked there.

To quote a friend who had worked at the Magic Kingdom: “Every ‘theater gay’ in Florida ends up working for The Mouse.” The word was, wear your rainbow rings or other Pride-related festoonments. Okay, granted, rainbow rings would have been more subtle. I had chosen a shirt that said BISEXUAL PRIDE on it in large letters. I was not subtle. Maybe it would backfire.

But especially after the whole speech Dad gave about how brilliant an idea it was to wear T-shirts so you could find people like you? It seemed the perfect time to wear it.

Now, one of the things that is magical about Disney is they work so damn hard to make you—yes, you—feel like you are special, like everything is being done especially for you. Which is amazing considering that they create that experience for 48 million people a year in Orlando alone.

But my experience of going as a “marked queer” in 1993? Unmatched. Cheat code unlocked. We would be in line for a restaurant with an hour-long wait. And then a cast member would waltz up to us and beckon us over… and tell me a table for 4 had magically appeared for us.

Magically, I tell you.

Or we would be lining up to see a parade. And a cast member would sidle over and say, hey, are you interested in a better view? And take us to a roped off area.

This happened over and over that day.

Eventually my brother was like, “this is because of your shirt, isn’t it?” Yep. It was solidarity, it was fraternity. Because taking care of each other was the only way for queerfolk to make up for the times in life when we got treated worse.

Dad never did have that conniption, by the way.

He never said a word. But as I mentioned, Dad was not a talker. It’s possible he was oblivious and missed the whole thing. But Dad could also pretend to be oblivious when he felt nothing needed to be said. Maybe we didn’t give him enough credit? Years later he would tell me he was fine with it. At the time, we just let it ride.

I do not miss the days when queers had to operate in stealth to make each other’s lives better. What I know is if the right wing worldwide rolls back what rights we’ve clawed for ourselves, we will always be in the business of taking care of each other.

Happy Pride everyone, and take care of each other out there.

Mirrored from Cecilia Tan.

MAGIC UNIVERSITY is launched!! Read an excerpt…

ceciliatan — Wed, 26 Mar 2025 19:13:47 GMT

It’s here!!!! The digital edition just launched, and paperback to come.

And “it” is MAGIC UNIVERSITY, the erotic fantasy novel I have been talking about forever! The one I was writing every single night between midnight and 3 a.m. because that was the only time in my schedule I could find to write!

I worked so hard on this book. It’s the first of a four book series, so a lot of things had to be planned out, considered, and weighed, but like just about everything I’ve written, part of the magic was in how things I hadn’t realized were important took important turns in bringing it all together.

I had lots of support from my friends in HP fandom. It’s no secret that this book is, in many ways, my take on a Harry-Potter-ish scenario. J. K. Rowling didn’t invent the trope of the neglected orphan who suddenly discovers previously unknown magic either in himself, in his heritage, or in the world (thank you Cinderella, Frodo, et. al.), nor did she invent magic wands, spells, flying brooms, or even the concept of a magic school (precedents too many to name, but I’ll give a nod here to Wizard’s Hall by Jane Yolen) or learning magic as a metaphor for coming of age (tip of the hat to A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. LeGuin, which was one of my favorite childhood books).

MAGIC UNIVERSITY is the book (series) I’ve been wanting to write to satisfy the cravings that the Harry Potter books brought up in this adult reader, but which couldn’t be satisfied in a “book for kids.” So I get have my openly gay characters, my sex magic, and my moral ambiguity. Magic does not come as easy in my universe, either; wands cannot be used like guns.

As the marketing copy goes: “Kyle Wadsworth arrives at Harvard eager to start his new life as a college student away from the cold and distant great-aunt who has raised him. But he walks into a building that only magical people can see, confusing both himself and the administrators of Veritas, the secret magical university hidden inside Harvard. There he first sees a beautiful girl who seems magical to him in every way.

Soon Jess is tutoring Kyle in the ways of magic, sex, and love. But trouble is afoot at Veritas. Rumors abound that a siren is haunting the library, and when Kyle’s best friend is attacked, Kyle is determined to use his newly learned skills in erotic magic to catch the culprit. But which is more important, his quest for justice or his search for true love?”

Without further ado, here’s the first chapter, for your reading enjoyment! And I sincerely hope that you do enjoy it!

Magic University: Book One
The Siren and the Sword
by Cecilia Tan
September
Kyle looked at the map in his hand, then at the red brick buildings in front of him, standing like sentinels all around a grassy courtyard crisscrossed with pedestrian paths. The map was artfully done in cheery colors, with helpful tips and descriptions in word bubbles, as if each building were a cartoon character describing itself to the visitor. But the buildings he was looking at didn’t match the map. For one thing, there were too many of them.
Maybe every building isn’t actually shown on the map? he wondered. Or maybe I’m in the wrong quadrangle? Or maybe this is all a test to see if you’re REALLY smart enough to be allowed in to Harvard.

He quashed that thought quickly. Kyle Wadsworth hadn’t exactly always led a privileged or easy life, but the scholarship he was slated to receive proved he was good enough for Harvard. Well, at least, they’d said he was slated. The interview was just a formality, they said. The scholarship was as good as his, and with it, a new life could begin. He shifted his tie nervously. Now if only he could arrive on time, he might be getting somewhere. He’d been looking forward to this weekend desperately. Once the interview was out of the way, he would have the whole weekend to explore the city and the campus and—and whatever. Kyle didn’t even know what exactly he wanted to do, only that his blood had sung when he’d realized it meant a chance to get away from the house, away from Great-Aunt Agatha, away from the life he couldn’t wait to leave behind.

He was already eighteen, a high school senior, and desperately ready to start his adult life. Or, at least, college student life.

But adults and students alike were supposed to be able to read maps.

Perhaps the map was just an artist’s rendition and not to scale. He checked the printed e-mail he had folded in his jacket pocket. Enter through the gate and then third building on your right, it said.

One, two, three. This building looked a little older than the one next to it, its archway made of solid stone and the double doors of heavy wood. But when he pulled on the brass handle, it swung inward easily.

Kyle found himself in a carpeted hallway, which was a good sign. Jove had told him once that at universities the administrative buildings had carpets, and classroom buildings didn’t, so he must be on the right track. At the very least, there was bound to be a secretary somewhere in here who could tell him if he was in the right place. The first door on the left was open, and he was about to step through it when a raised voice stopped him.

“Miss Torralva! You know perfectly well I do not believe these vile rumors, which are clearly nothing more than an attempt to undermine our authority and create hysteria.”

It was a man’s voice, speaking in clipped tones. He didn’t have an accent, but the way he spoke reminded Kyle of British actors on TV.

A woman answered him. “Come now, Quilian, there’s no need to be so harsh on the girl.”

“Mistress Finch, I would appreciate if you would stay out of these matters…”

“And I would appreciate if you would not shout at my students.”

Then a younger woman’s voice. “I’m sorry to have disturbed you, Dean Bell. Never mind, Ms. Finch. It was a waste of time to come here.”

“See that you don’t do it again,” the man said, and strode forcefully from the room, colliding with Kyle outside the door. Kyle found himself on his ass, looking up at a blond man in graduation robes, then scrambling out of the way as if the man were about to kick him.

Instead the man frowned and demanded, “Who are you?”

“Er, Kyle Wadsworth,” he said, climbing to his feet and straightening his jacket. “I’m here for an admission interview?”

The two women he had heard were now standing in the doorway, too, looking at him curiously. “Interview?” said the older of the two, who looked to be perhaps forty. She’s a librarian, Kyle thought, taking in a quick impression of her hair in a bun and glasses perched on her nose.

The librarian called behind her, “Helena, was there a prospective student scheduled to come in today?”

Kyle looked back and forth between the imposing, angry man and the younger woman in the door, who was presumably a student. She had wavy black hair, pinned back with barrettes, and eyes such a dark brown, they were almost black. No, maybe they were black, but her expression was warm. She was looking at him with a mix of sympathy and curiosity, stifling a smile.

“Um, hi,” Kyle said in her direction, then turned back to the man still staring at him. “I’m the Pollock Scholarship recipient?” he ventured, hoping this might ring a bell. “I’m sure the e-mail said my interview was today, two o’clock…”

“You’re in the wrong building,” the man said, and pointed at the wall in the direction of the next building over.
“But Dean Bell,” the girl piped up, “how could he even find…?”

“Silence.” Bell’s glare was as sharp as his voice. “Mr. Wadsworth, was it?” When Kyle nodded he went on slowly, as if Kyle might be too stupid to understand if he spoke any faster. “You. Do not. Belong. Here.”

“Um, okay, sorry, I was just following the directions, third building and all,” Kyle stammered. “I guess I wasn’t supposed to count the one on the corner? Or maybe I was supposed to…”

“Mr. Wadsworth.” It was the librarian again, and she and Dean Bell glared daggers at each other for a moment. “Before you move on, would you sign our visitor register? Our department doesn’t get very many, you see, and our funding for tea and cookies will be cut if we can’t prove a certain amount of interest. Right through here.” She stepped aside and indicated the open doorway.

“Oh, sure. Anything to help…?” He dared a smile at the girl, who was watching him with that same open curiosity and a hint of a smile. She was wearing brown corduroy jeans with a flower embroidered on the pocket and he wasn’t sure why he noticed little details like that, but he tucked it away in his head for later. Maybe he’d get a chance to run into her again.

Inside the office was a large, wooden reception desk which, like much of Harvard, looked like it was either from pre-1800 or like it was made to look that old. Behind the desk sat a pretty blond woman whose lipstick was rather bright. She set a large, leatherbound book on the desk, facing Kyle. The leather creaked as she opened it and she pointed to a cup of pens next to it.

They were all watching quite closely while Kyle took a step forward. Maybe this was the psychology department and this was all some kind of experiment on him? He reached into the pens and pulled one out, hissing sharply as he felt something prick his finger. Great. Now I’ve cut myself and I’ll be bleeding all through the interview. Way to make an impression. He decided he had best just sign his name and get out of there as soon as possible. Maybe he could hurry next door and stop the bleeding in the men’s room or something.

He touched the pen to the first empty line in the ledger and felt a curious shock go through his arm. This has got to be some kind of weird experiment! Or maybe a reality TV show. But he signed his name in flowing letters, hoping the reddish tinge to the ink didn’t mean he’d bled onto the page, or at least hoping they didn’t notice.
As he lifted the pen, he heard a bell tolling. Was he late? He whirled around to find they were all staring at him still. “Um, I…um…better be going…”

That bell just kept ringing though, so loud it was as if it were right in this building. What was going on? None of them moved until the bell ceased to ring, the women sighing in relief and Dean Bell crossing his arms over his chest.

“Well, thank you very much, Kyle Wadsworth,” the librarian said. “I’m Madeleine Finch.” She held out her hand to be shaken, and Kyle reluctantly set down the pen, but he didn’t seem to get any blood on her hand as he shook it. “Welcome to Veritas. It would appear there’s been a bit of a mix-up in your matriculation papers, though?”

Kyle stared at her. “Wait a second. That’s it? I’m in? I only just sent the application. I thought I wouldn’t hear until March…”

Dean Bell made a disgusted noise. “He’s your stray puppy to deal with now, Mistress Finch. If anyone needs me, I shall be in my office.” His tone of voice made it clear that anyone who needed him had best take a leap into the Charles River. He stalked out, robes fluttering behind him.

The receptionist immediately began digging in a file cabinet behind her, while the other two women kept looking at him with growing curiosity.

Kyle tried again. “Look, I’m supposed to have this interview today. I guess maybe I’m already pre-approved because I had to apply early in order to qualify for the scholarship, except I’m supposed to have this interview to, um, make sure I’m not an idiot in person, I guess, because Harvard doesn’t admit idiots, or at least, that’s the theory…uh…” He trailed off, realizing just how much like an idiot he sounded. The student hid her smile behind her hand.

“Mr. Wadsworth, may I ask you a personal question?” Mistress Finch folded her hands in front of her.

“Um, sure, please.”

“Are you, by any chance, an orphan?”

He blinked. “Yes, I am, actually.”

“But is Wadsworth your family name?”

How did she know these things? “Yes, yes, it is.”

She paused. “Helena, did you find anything?”

The receptionist sighed. “Nothing, Ms. Finch.”

Okay, and why do the women call her Ms. Finch, but the dean call her Mistress Finch? He knew university society was supposedly different from everywhere else, but he’d never heard of that. Which one should he use? “Um, find what?”

“A record of your birth,” Ms. Finch answered. “Well, you are a mystery but hardly the first one, Mr. Wadsworth. I’ll just spell it out for you and see if it makes sense to you. The building you’re standing in right now is not a part of Harvard. Well, it is, but it isn’t. There’s a secret university inside Harvard, known as Veritas.”

Kyle blinked. “But isn’t that what’s on the signs outside? Harvard’s motto…”

“The two institutions have an intertwined history,” she went on. “Harvard is for the elite scholars, the future leaders of the world. Veritas is for, well, those with more arcane talents.”

“Arcane?”

“Magical.”

“Magical?” Kyle could still hear the bell ringing in his head. “You mean like wizards?”

The student snorted behind her hand. “We prefer the term ‘magic users.’ ‘Wizards’ is so patriarchal and un-PC.”
Kyle shook his head, but although everything was as weird as some dream, it still seemed to be real. “So, sorry to be skeptical, but…you’re saying I’m magical?”

“You wouldn’t have even been able to see this building if you weren’t at least a little Sighted,” Ms. Finch said, “and you certainly wouldn’t have been able to sign the matriculation register if you didn’t have the power in your blood.”

He checked his finger reflexively, but the bleeding had stopped and he couldn’t even see where the pen had pricked him. “Um, the Dean didn’t seem as convinced…”

“Yes, well, that was another test. He has the power of Voice. If you’d been a non-magical person, you’d have just turned and walked out as soon as he told you to.” Ms. Finch sighed. “We’re already two weeks into the semester, you haven’t registered for any classes, and we need to find you a place to live.”

Kyle looked back and forth between them. “You mean, start now? I, um, I’m supposed to, um…” Supposed to go back to a house where they didn’t want him, a school where he didn’t fit in, and count the days until he could leave. Maybe this was just the chance he had been waiting for. Hadn’t he felt like this weekend was going to be the first step into a new life? Maybe it was just a bigger step than he’d thought. His skepticism shredded in the face of what felt like a real chance to change his life in a drastic way. “I mean, I’d love to start now.”

“You had better. If you were completely unaware of the magical world until now, you have a lot of catching up to do. Helena, could you call up Admissions and see if you can get his file? It’s hardly the first time we’ve had a mix-up between our office and theirs. Mr. Wadsworth, please make an appointment to see me, let’s see, tomorrow at four o’clock. My office is on the second floor here in Peyntree Hall, and we can figure out your schedule then, after I check with the professors on what kind of openings we have.” She paused and tapped her finger against her lips while she thought.

“I can take him over to Camella House,” the student offered then. “We’ve got that foldout couch in our suite. And actually, come to think of it, Alex doesn’t have a roommate and he’s in a double…”

Ms. Finch debated for a moment. “Just for a few days, that sounds fine. He can draw cards later. Yes, Miss Torralva, I’d appreciate it if you could give Mr. Wadsworth here a bit of orientation.”

“No problem, Ms. Finch.” She stuck out her hand to shake Kyle’s as Ms. Finch left the room. “I’m Jess Torralva. I’m a sophomore. You hungry? We could grab some pizza out in the Square, or do you have a suitcase somewhere that we ought to move up to the dorm?”

“Oh, um, yeah, it’s at the bed and breakfast I stayed in last night.” He followed her out the heavy doors and back down the stone steps. “So…’magic users’ eat pizza?”

“Oh yeah. With newt’s eyes and toadstools, though,” she said, completely deadpan for a moment. Then she burst out laughing. “My God, the look on your face!”

He grinned. “Anchovy and mushroom okay? Yeah? Okay, I’ll buy.” This day was getting better and better. First he thought he was going to go to Harvard. Then he found out he was somehow magical. And now he was going to have lunch with a pretty girl who seemed really nice and down to earth and didn’t treat him like he was some kind of pond scum. Yes, a whole new world seemed to be opening up before his eyes.

* * * *

They made their way back to the suite where Jess lived in Camella House, another red brick building not that different from the others all around Harvard, Kyle noticed, though perhaps a bit smaller than some. It was three stories tall, with about fifty students in residence. The suite was a central room on the third floor with two beat-up couches, a coffee table, and a large TV screen. There were doors to what Kyle took to be several bedrooms. Just down the hall was a very small kitchen. Students had decorated their doors in various ways; some had notepads or white boards for people to leave messages, and it all looked, well, completely normal.

He and Jess had bought two pizzas and brought them back to the suite to eat. As they walked in, a shaggy-headed student was just closing his door. “Ho, Jess, is that for sharing?”

“Yes, Alex, it is,” she said as she put the boxes down on the coffee table.

“Did you hear the bell ringing? Any clue what that’s about?” Alex said as he eagerly tossed himself into an armchair, whatever errand he had been on forgotten. Kyle quietly remembered the bell that tolled when he signed the ledger. “I’ve never heard it ring so many times in a row,” Alex added.

Jess didn’t say anything about the bell right away. “Alex, this is Kyle. As of today, I guess, he’s a freshman.” She sat down on the couch and opened the box on top. Steam rose from the pizza and Kyle’s stomach growled as he sat down next to her.

“Yeah, hi, Kyle Wadsworth,” he said, holding out his hand for Alex to shake, and they both reached for a slice. “Um…”

Jess grinned. “He thought he was going to Harvard.”

Alex’s eyes went up at that. “A foundling? When did they figure out you belonged here?”

Kyle stopped with the slice partway to his mouth. “Um, just today. I walked into the Veritas admissions office by mistake.”

Alex looked back at Jess. “The bell was ringing for him?”

Jess just nodded, nibbling carefully at the tip of her slice of pizza.

“The bell rang like…fourteen times.”

“Is that bad?” Kyle asked, unable to contain his anxiety any longer. “I signed my name in this book and…”

Alex waved him off. “No, it’s not bad. Just…unusual. When it rings, it means you’ve been accepted. It only rang twice for me. Although for Jess here, I think it rang six or seven?”

Jess shrugged, as if it was of no consequence.

Kyle forced himself to take a bite before getting sucked deeper into the conversation. “What’s a foundling?”

Alex drew a long string of cheese from his slice with his mouth as two more students came in and Jess waved them over. When he’d snapped it off and devoured it, he went on. “Foundlings are usually magical children who get raised by non-magical families, oftentimes ones who have no clue about the kid. It’s pretty common, actually. History’s full of them. It’s a problem, because fertility among magic users isn’t great to begin with…” He shrugged. “I guessed foundling and not prodigy because of your name. There were some magical Wadsworths a couple generations back.”

Kyle had managed to wolf down the rest of the piece while Alex was talking. “Prodigy?”

Alex investigated the second box and grunted with approval at finding the black olives. “Prodigy. Like Lindy here.”
A girl with chestnut brown hair, suddenly sitting cross-legged at the end of the table and had a bite of pizza in her mouth so she couldn’t answer, waved with her free hand.

“Lindy’s from a non-magical family, and far as anyone knows she’s the natural daughter of her mother and father, but she’s got the Sight, among other talents.” Alex turned to Jess. “Did you get anything to drink?”

“There’s soda in the fridge,” Jess said, nudging him in the direction of the small refrigerator in one corner of the room. “Anyway, Kyle, it doesn’t matter how you got your magic. Just what you do with it.”

Kyle got the feeling Jess was arguing a point she’d had to make many times before, and he wondered if she was a prodigy, too, and if there was some kind of stigma attached to that.

Lindy wiped her hands on her jeans. “Nice to meet you, I’m Lindy Carmichael. And this is Jeanie,” she said, indicating the Asian-looking girl standing behind her. “And that’s Randall, going into his room there.”

A heavyset student in a polo shirt waved over his shoulder as he went into his room and put his books down. When he emerged, Kyle was surprised to see he was black, but with his hair bleached completely blond. “Hello. Randall.” His hand was large and warm as he shook Kyle’s. “And no, it’s not my natural color. You can blame Alex for this.”

Alex chuckled. “Yeah, horrible spellcasting accident.”

“Really?” Kyle’s eyes widened.

Randall snorted and took a seat, and a slice of pizza. “No. But let us just say that hydrogen peroxide and ethanol do not mix.”

“That’s Randall’s way of saying don’t get drunk if you have a bottle of hair bleach,” Alex said with a sly shrug. “It seemed like a good idea at the time…”

“You could dye it back, you know,” Jess pointed out.

Randall answered with a shrug of his own. “Why pretend it didn’t happen? It will grow out, anyway. We’re here to learn, right? Let’s call it a learning experience and move on.”

Kyle couldn’t quite place Randall’s accent. Something Caribbean, he guessed, but he wasn’t sure. It wasn’t like Rastafarian, and he didn’t really have much experience with people from that part of the world.

They ate for a while after that, the various suitemates catching up with each other, but eventually the topic came back around to Kyle and the bell.

“So, wait,” Lindy said. “You had no idea at all? Just walked in?”

“And got trampled by Dean Bell,” Jess added. “Fortunately Madeleine was there to rescue him.”

“Mwahaha,” Alex laughed maniacally. “And a good thing, too, or Master Bell might have made a snack out of you.”

Kyle laughed too, but blinking in confusion, still not sure where the jokes ended and real things started.

“Pffft. Dean Bell’s bark is worse than his bite,” Jeanie said, prompting more laughs from the others.

“So what house is he going to be in?” Randall asked.

“Ours, obviously,” Alex said, now drinking from an open can of cola, his bare feet up on his chair.

“Well, temporarily,” Jess said. “I told Madeleine he could crash here until she figures out where he’s going. She said he would have to pull cards later.”

“Cards?” Kyle said, feeling like most of what he’d said in the past hour had been one-word questions.

“Cards! There’s an idea.” Alex climbed out of his chair, going directly over the arm toward the door to his room, and then coming back with a pack of cards. “Has anyone ever done a Tarot reading for you?”

“An old lady read my palm once, on the boardwalk in Santa Cruz…”

Alex waved him quiet. “No, no. I mean with Tarot cards.”

Jess moved the pizza boxes aside and Alex spread his deck out on the low table, face up. Kyle peered at the pictures, which were more colorful and varied than typical playing cards, and yet still resembled them somewhat. Alex gathered them back up and shuffled the deck.

The others all watched, a sense of anticipation filling the room. “This isn’t going to hurt or anything, is it?” Kyle asked.

“The truth always hurts,” Jeanie quipped, and they all laughed, but it wasn’t a cruel laugh.

Alex held out the deck. “Cut the cards, then pull one out.”

“Okay.” Kyle took the pack, cut it in the middle and set it down on the table, pulling the top card and looking at it. “Am I supposed to show it to you?”

Alex grinned. “Yes, you’re supposed to show it to me. What do you think this is, a magic trick? Oh, duh.” More laughter. “Go on.”

Kyle slapped it down on the table like a blackjack dealer and Jess and Lindy gasped.

“The Ace of Swords,” Alex said solemnly. Kyle waited for him to break into a grin, but his face remained serious.
Kyle finally turned to Jess. “What’s that mean?”

Lindy made a scornful noise. “It doesn’t mean anything. Alex isn’t a soothsayer and probably neither are you. But the swords are the suit of Gladius House. Here in Camella, we’re the cups. The Ace does usually refer to someone on the start of a journey…”

Jeanie snorted. “No wonder you only got a B on that exam. The Ace of Swords, without any other context, usually means The Hero. Think Prince Charming with his sword drawn, going off to slay a dragon.”

Randall made a skeptical noise. “It can also signify the beginning of a great intellectual journey, though. The blade is Occam’s Razor, and the light you see shining in the card is the light of reason.”

Alex rubbed his hands together gleefully. “Draw two more cards, Kyle. Let’s have one that’s past and one that’s future.”

Kyle nodded, but hesitated with his hand over the deck. “Should I cut again? Or shuffle again?”

“You should do whatever you feel is right,” Jess said seriously.

Her dark, dark eyes seemed to be telling him everything would be all right if he just went with the flow. Kyle let out a breath. “Okay.”

He turned up two more cards. An appreciative murmur went around the table. “Your past, three of pentacles. Your future, three of cups.”

“Cups, that’s you guys, right?” The card showed three young women, dancing and drinking, looking very happy and festive.

Alex grinned. “Could be. The three of cups tends to mean good luck. Everything’s going to work out. There’ll be abundance and plenty.”

“Three is the magic number?” Kyle tried.

Alex nodded. “You catch on quick. The three of coins here means hard work. You worked hard to get here.”

Randall pointed to the cards. “It’s usually meant as a pinnacle of craft, though. Given that you don’t know anything at all about magic, yes, I guess Alex is right. You worked hard to get to Harvard, I guess.”

Alex tapped the deck of cards. “And now for a prediction on what will happen to you…tonight.” Kyle could practically hear a drum roll in the background. Alex tapped the deck again. “Go on, pull one more, Kyle.”

Kyle put his hand on the top card, then turned it over slowly. The card showed two people, naked, in a close embrace. A very close embrace.

“The Lovers,” Alex said, solemn again, then gave a sly look to Jess. “Perhaps you won’t be sleeping on the couch after all…?”

Jess was blushing a deep red, but wasn’t making any protestations. Kyle’s eyes were probably as big as saucers. “Um, I, Jess…”

Jeanie got to her feet and made a disgusted sound. “Really, Alex, sleight of hand? Why don’t you show him the other card you have up your sleeve?”

Kyle looked back and forth between them. “That was a trick?”

Jeanie wrinkled her nose. “He’s also got the Three of Swords. Go on, show him.”

Alex sheepishly pulled the card from his sleeve, handing it to Kyle. It showed a red heart, pierced through by three swords. “It means heartbreak, obviously,” Alex said.

Jess got to her feet. “Come on, Kyle. Let me show you the library and some of the other campus buildings. We’ll leave the card tricks to the jokers.”

Kyle followed her, wondering what exactly had just happened.

* * * *

Jess was the perfect hostess for the next few hours: polite, friendly, but a little distant as she took him around the campus, showing him some facilities shared between the magical students and the normal ones, like the bookstore and the swimming pool; and the ones for magical students only, like Mormallor Hall, where the Alchemy labs were, and the Sassamon Ritual Arts building, which housed many magical artifacts, museum-style, and had a large underground chamber that reminded Kyle of a cathedral, except it was perfectly round and the colorful stained glass ‘windows’ were illuminated from behind by some light source that was not the sun.

As they made the rounds, Kyle learned a little more about Jess herself. She was a sophomore, and she hadn’t declared her major yet, but she was thinking about Healing Arts, even though most people thought Esoteric Arts was more her style. He gathered that there were various departments, just like in a normal university, including Alchemy, Soothsaying, and Ritual Arts.

She also filled him in on the need for secrecy, and the history of Veritas, which went “underground” in 1692 because of the Salem Witch Trials. Technically, to the “real world,” they were Harvard students, and if Kyle went on to a normal life as something like a banker or whatever, he’d be considered a Harvard alumnus. “But who would become a banker or something boring if they could do something magical?” Kyle had asked, which had made her laugh and admit that not many did.

They were having a look through the Elwyn Library collection of magical texts when Kyle lost her for a few moments. The labyrinthine shelves were packed with fascinating books with names like Battle of Wills: When the Geas Becomes a Curse and Man is a Flightless Bird: Keys to Levitation. At one point he turned to whisper to her, and found she was not behind him as he’d thought.

“Jess?”

He had the feeling someone was watching him, though. Was she playing hide and seek? He went further down the row, where the lights were not on. Each shelf had a timer switch at the end so that an absent-minded scholar could not leave the lights on in a given section of the stacks, nor could one pore over the books too long before being reminded to keep moving. Kyle did not bother to go back to the end of the shelf to turn the switch, instead pressing deeper into the shadows. “Jess?” he whispered again.

“—es,” he thought he heard an answering whisper. Yes? Did she say yes?

He felt a hand brush over the back of his bare neck and goose bumps rose. He froze, then felt a soft finger trace the shape of his ear. “Jess?” he said a little louder.

The lights came on suddenly and there she was at the end of the row, her hands on her hips. “There you are. Didn’t I tell you how these lights worked?”

“Oh, um, yeah.” Kyle looked around him but there was no sign of whoever had been teasing him. It had to be her, but she had gotten to the end really quickly. He thought about how deeply she had blushed when Alex had slipped The Lovers onto the pile. He hurried to meet her. “Sorry about that. Um, hey, so…your friends are great and everything, but…but what do you say to having dinner together? I mean, just you and me.”

Jess’s black eyes seemed to deepen under the fluorescent lights as she looked up at him. “Are you sure?”

Kyle blinked. “Why wouldn’t I be? Jess, you’re a…a great girl. I really like you. It…it doesn’t have to mean more than just dinner if you don’t want it to.”

She motioned him to follow her and as they were going down the stone stairs of the library, she answered. “I’d like that.”

“For it to be just dinner?”

“For us to have dinner together. Without any expectations, I mean. It might be just dinner…it might not.” Her face was angled toward the sunset, hidden by the buildings, the sky between the dark shapes of the trees in the courtyard turning purple.

“That’s what I mean,” Kyle said. “You know, a date, but the find-out-whether-there-will-be-a-second-date kind of date, rather than the already-committed-to-giving-a-relationship-a-try kind of date.”

That made her laugh. “Okay. I can go along with that.”

“Good. Just, um, not too expensive a place. I’m kind of on a budget…” He grinned at her sheepishly.

“All right.” She linked her arm with his. “I really don’t care where we go. In fact, let’s go somewhere we don’t have to put on nicer clothes. You like Mexican?”

“Mexican is good. Or what about Spanish? I walked past a Spanish place on the way to campus this morning?”

She made a face, then looked at him curiously. “I’m really picky about Spanish food,” she said.

“Oh, is that place no good?”

She stopped walking and faced him. “You really don’t know anything about the magical world, do you?”

He shook his head, wondering what Earth-shattering thing she was about to tell him. “Is it a faux pas to eat Spanish food because of…of the Inquisition or something?”

She burst out laughing. “No, no.” Her face was alight with mirth and he wondered what else he could say to make her laugh like that. Only, intentionally. “You don’t know much about the Inquisition, either, I’m guessing.”

“Um, beyond that it happened and that Monty Python made fun of it, not really,” he admitted. “I’m supposed to be taking European history this year—except it looks like I’m not going to, since I’ll be here.”

She smiled. “You’re cute. Okay, sure. Let’s have Spanish food. I’ll order. Come on.”

She took him by the hand, which for some reason made Kyle’s heart do happy flips in his chest, and led him toward the nearest gate into Harvard Square.

* * * *

Jess apparently did know a lot about Spanish food. Not only that, but she spoke Spanish, which led to Kyle wondering if Torralva was a Spanish name, which led to Jess finally telling him it was a very old magical family name.
“He was basically one of the most famous enchanters in Spain in the early 1500s,” she said. “He was the healer to Charles V, and reputed among his enemies to be a necromancer, while his supporters thought he talked to angels. The Inquisitors tried him for sorcery, imprisoned and tortured him for three years, and eventually they let him go to Rome…” She shrugged. “There are as many myths about him as there are truths. Let’s just say that it would be a bit like you saying you were descended directly from Merlin.”

Kyle was pushing his spoon through a kind of runny vanilla custard by then, trying to decide if it would be rude to lick the dish. “Are there descendants of Merlin?”

Jess shrugged. “If there are, they aren’t saying so, anyway. England’s had a really fucked-up history in terms of magical suppression, too, and they had some kind of internal civil war in the 1990s that came and went so fast that the other countries never even got to pick sides, from what I understand. But…yeah. People get all in a twist about my ancestry. It’s a pain.”

“Huh. I’m supposedly related to Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, but…well, now, come to think of it, Dean Bell did kind of raise an eyebrow at my name.” He gave in and picked up the little glass dish and licked at the cream.
She nodded, seemingly unperturbed by his behavior. “Seems like many of the great American magical figures have been poets, too. Well, I suppose not just American. English language. Shakespeare, Blake…”

“Blake! William Blake?”

She grinned. “Yes, and William Shakespeare.”

“Blake, who claimed to have breakfast with an angel every morning?”

“Yes, that Blake.”

“Wait, so are angels real? You said your ancestor talked to them, too…”

She held up her hands. “Slow down, slow down. The first thing you’re going to find when you explore the magical world is that a lot of what you know is true. The second thing you’ll find, though, is that nothing is as you’ve been taught. Come on, let’s walk while we talk.”

She left money on the table, and as Kyle was digging out his wallet, she waved at him to put it away, as if annoyed he’d even try to pay any of it. Kyle wondered if that meant it wasn’t as much of a date as he’d hoped after all, but he was still too fascinated by her and all she had to say to argue about it.

They walked back toward the subway station, where street musicians were playing. Across the way, in front of a bookstore, a man was juggling while riding a unicycle. “So the first thing you have to get used to, if you have pre-conceptions of magic, is that there’s no such thing as good or evil,” she said, as they walked along. The air was still warm and plenty of people were walking the streets at this hour. “There isn’t ‘black magic’ and ‘white magic’ and although there’s almost certainly a God, if there are angels or devils they don’t actually have anything to do with what we do.”

“But wouldn’t it be evil to use magic to kill?” he asked.

She shook her head. “You can get into what the definition of evil is. Is killing evil? Are animals that hunt for their food evil? Are we, for eating meat?”

He thought about it for a moment. “But animals need to eat. It’s different when one man kills another.”

“Is it? What if they are at war, or it’s self defense? What if one of them is suffering and the other one is releasing him from suffering?”

“Well, okay, but what if the only reason the one killed the other was…for power? Not to survive or defend his family or whatever, but just because it would further his ends?”

Jess turned to look at him as they walked. “Then is it the killing itself that’s evil, or the motivation behind it? Desire for power could drive a man to do many things other than kill. Rape, pillage, embezzle, lie…is there something special about death?”

“Hm, I guess not.” It had seemed so obvious a minute ago. “I guess that’s why they say ‘power corrupts’?”

“And ‘absolute power corrupts absolutely,'” she quoted. “But when it comes to magic,” and she said the word magic a little quieter than the others, “it is a power. So is physical strength, or intelligence. But fire, for example, is not good or evil. It has the power to destroy, to burn down a forest or a building, but we couldn’t live without light or heat, could we? And we harness the power of fire to run machines, light our cities, build things, et cetera. Fire itself, though, is just a power—and magic is like that. A force of nature that can’t really be judged by human morality.”

He nodded. “So…what can I do with…with magic?” He followed her lead, saying the word most quietly at the end of his sentence.

“That remains to be seen, doesn’t it? Just like you can have two equally intelligent people but one will be good at math and the other at language, we’ll have to find out where your talents lie.” She led him up past another group of street musicians. “Have you ever had prophetic dreams, or the sudden feeling like you knew what was about to happen?”

He thought about it. “Not really.”

“If you can’t think of an incident right away, you probably aren’t prophetic,” she said. “Usually, if you’ve had one of those dreams… you don’t forget it. It stays with you, almost like it haunts you until it comes true.”

Kyle walked a little faster so he could see her face as they made their way up the sidewalk. “Do you have that kind of dream?”

“I only did once,” she said, pausing in front of the window of a natural foods store, then walking a bit more slowly down a side street. “I was thirteen. I dreamed I was at a masked ball, everyone was dressed for what must have been Carnavale in Venice. There was music and wine and dancing…then this man, dressed like some kind of prince or courtier in a black-and-white mask, took my hand and kissed it, and gestured to the dance floor…” She stopped again, this time looking into the window of an art gallery, except she wasn’t seeing the glass sculptures or jewelry displayed there, Kyle thought. She was seeing the images of her dream.

She looked up at him suddenly and shook herself. “Um, yeah, so I dreamed I found my true love at Carnavale in Venice, and the next morning I woke up to find I had gotten my period for the first time.” She was blushing.

“And have you ever been to Carnavale in Venice?” Kyle asked.

She shook her head. “I figure I’ll go when I finish school. That doesn’t mean the dream will come true, of course. It could mean a lot of things that I won’t realize make sense until after they happen. I haven’t had another one like that, so I don’t think I’m prophetic, anyway. But we were talking about you.” She started walking more quickly, and Kyle was amazed to find the street they were now walking down seemed to lead right back to the campus. He wondered if that was magic, or if his sense of direction was just wrong. “Do you have a green thumb?” she went on. “Or can you tell when someone’s sick or hurt?”

He shook his head.

“Hmm. Well, Madeleine—that is, Ms. Finch to you, unless you end up in Camella House for real—will probably have some tests to help you determine your aptitudes, maybe to help you pick out classes. Although I’m betting she’s going to put you right into History of Magic and some stuff like that.”

Kyle made a face. “Sounds a bit dull.”

“And probably a class in poetry.”

“Poetry?”

“After all, you’re descended from Longfellow, right?”

“Huh. My cousin used to say I had a way with words.”

“Maybe you’ll be the next great English-language poet and word mage.” Now she looked up shyly. “They say no one’s ever perfected a love potion that really works, after ten centuries of trying, but that a love poem can be irresistible.”

Here her eyes looked like deep pools, like he’d never find what was at the bottom of their depths. He was hardly aware of having stopped walking, one hand catching hers as she faced him. “Let’s go back to your room,” he said.
Her smile was as knowing and alluring as the Mona Lisa’s. “You’re right. You know just what to say.”

They didn’t say anything as she led the way back to the dormitory, not holding Kyle’s hand this time, yet he felt as close as if she had, as if an invisible line were connecting them.

Jess didn’t speak again until she had closed the door behind them. Her room had two beds, from which Kyle supposed she had a roommate, but she latched the door behind them. He decided not to worry about it. There were other things grabbing his attention. Like her hand on his cheek. “Despite my name, I’m not very experienced,” she said, standing so close he could feel the front of her shirt brushing his.

“Name?” he asked, trying to remember where in the Torralva story there was anything about sex. Maybe he’d better study up.

“Never mind,” she said. “I really like you, Kyle. I do. I just don’t want you to be disappointed.”

He slid his arms around the small of her back, which pulled their hips together to create a center of heat between them. “Whatever you want to do is fine. I’m not very experienced either.” He held back from telling her that he’d in fact been considered a total loser in high school and that scoring a gorgeous, smart, funny, and kind girl like her would have been out of the question. There was being honest, and there was oversharing. “I mean, really.” You just met me. I, um, I wasn’t even sure we were going to go beyond the good night kiss, it being a first date and all…

He didn’t voice those thoughts either. Did he really have the power to say the right thing? He let out a slow breath and tried to imagine he did.

“Just tell me when I should stop,” he said, tilting her chin up so that he could kiss her.

“Okay,” she whispered, just before his lips touched hers.

[End of excerpt!]

Mirrored from Cecilia Tan.

“A magic school book, but make it queer”

ceciliatan — Wed, 26 Mar 2025 17:46:24 GMT

Here’s what’s keeping me super-busy this month… Can you believe it’s been 15 years since Magic University hit the (digital) shelves?

It feels like a different era of history. In 2010, Obama was president, the Kindle was still a newfangled thing, and Twitter still felt niche (at 40 million users). And the final Harry Potter book had come out only 3 years earlier, and the final movie was still to come…!

At the time I didn’t know that writing a trans-inclusive magic school book was going to become such a political statement. I mostly wanted to write a magic school series where we knew up front lots of the characters were queer and that would actually pay off a rivals-to-lovers trope/plot line. I wanted to write original fic that my fanfic-loving friends would love to read.

I didn’t include a trans mentor for my hero to spite J.K. Rowling. At the time she hadn’t yet voiced her anti-trans views. I included trans characters because trans people exist.

I also include some characters who change gender magically. While I wouldn’t call that “spite,” it did always feel like a missed opportunity to me (and many fanfic writers) that none of the many ways a wizard could change gender in the Harry Potter books (Polyjuice, animorphmagus, etc) are ever explored.

But here we are, in 2025, with JKR leading a brigade of anti-trans voices in the UK, and the USA devolving fast into a book-banning fascist nation trying to legislate trans people out of existence.

It’s why now seems the right time for me to produce a hardcover omnibus edition of Magic University. So I’m running a Kickstarter to do just that.

I launched last week and it took off like a rocket! The more people who back it, the fancier I can make the hardcover edition, too, so if I can nerd out about books for a minute: it’s already slated to have a really nifty fore-edge design on the pages, a Wibalin buckram binding, and a foil-stamped or debossed title on the cover. If the campaign continues to do well, well reach the custom designed endpapers goal next, and at $10,000 we can add a ribbon bookmark! (I really really want to get to the ribbon bookmark…!)

The link, if you want to read more about it or become a backer:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ceciliatan/magic-university-collectors-edition-hardcover-omnibus?ref=depv7q

(Mock-ups of the hardcover design and such below the cut…)

Artwork and design by Painted Wings Publishing

I got one sample hardcover, without any of the fancy bits, printed just as proof of concept and it’s massive! 700 pages! As soon as I’m done proofreading it, I’ll get a sample WITH all the fancy bits made up.

The campaign is lated to close right after my birthday, on April 11. Many thanks if you are jumping in to support! You are supporting the efforts of me, an independent author, and I really appreciate it!

Link to: Kickstarter.

Mirrored from Cecilia Tan.

Arisia 2025 and Capricon 45 Schedules

ceciliatan — Sun, 05 Jan 2025 06:52:37 GMT

I can hardly believe 2025 is already here, which means we are only a few weeks away from Arisia, the “big tent” science fiction/fantasy fan convention in Boston. Well, this year in Cambridge! And in early February I’ll be in Chicago for Capricon, as well.

Arisia has relocated from their longtime home on the Boston waterfront to a hotel on the Charles River, the Cambridge Hyatt Regency (sometimes nicknamed “the ziggurat”). The author Guest of Honor is Moniquill Blackgoose, and if I haven’t already gushed at you to read her book To Shape a Dragon’s Breath, consider this your exhortation to do so (buy it at Bookshop or Amazon or your local bookstore).

It’s basically… what if there was an anti-colonialist, feminist “magic school” book but with dragons?

The worldbuilding is so great, and the characters are sharp, and smart, and caring. I’ve been beating this book’s drum for a while, partly because I published some books of hers back in the day with Circlet Press, but also because it’s so damn good. Awards seem to agree: I’ve lost track of all the ones it has won, but they include the Nebula and the Lodestar, and it made the Locus Awards, BFAs, and Astounding finalist lists.

The new Arisia hotel is smaller, and VERY close to my house, so I decided not to get a room this year and let folks coming from farther away have the rooms. This means I’m not throwing a party this year (unless someone with a party suite wants to lend it to me for a tea party on Saturday afternoon?)

Here’s my schedule of panels, as well. As of right now, it does not appear that I’ll be doing a Friday night erotica reading. (I’ll make up for it at Readercon this summer, where I’ll be GoH.)

Saturday 8pm Invented Languages

Anne E.G. Nydam, Cecilia Tan (moderator), James Willis, Rob Cameron, Sarena Straus

Time for me to put that undergrad degree to good use! From the website: “Snippets of invented languages add depth and interest to speculative fiction, but when is it too much of a good thing? Get tips about language creation with results that even an expert would believe.”

Sunday 3pm Publication: Sorting out the Confusion

Cecilia Tan (moderator), K. H. Vaughan, Meredith Schwartz, Rachel A. Brune, Rebecca Matte

Yeah, I don’t know if the confusion that is book publishing can ever truly be “sorted out,” but at least we’ll have some actionable advice for writers and aspiring authors. “In a publishing environment that’s rapidly changing, get up-to-date guidance on getting your work into readers’ hands.”

Sunday 8pm What About Elevenses?

Cecilia Tan, Clara Ward, Greer Gilman, Rachel L Silber (moderator), Rebecca Fraimow

And a panel on food! Hm, I wonder if I still have any of those butterbeer recipe cards sitting around… “From George RR Martin’s many memorable meals to the periodic mention of crottled greep, works of SFF have often brought readers to a very different table. What are some of the most significant and appetizing meals described in speculative literature? Panelists will address the role of food in SFF as well as mentioning their own favorite recipes.”

Then, on the weekend of February 6-9 I’ll be in Chicago for Capricon 45. Capricon, like most cons, is still trying to regain its footing post-COVID. I’m offering my one-hour workshop on Kickstarter, so if you’ve been thinking about doing a crowdfund, come pick my brain!

Queer Eye for Sci-Fi

Streeterville • Fan Interest • Panel • Fri 1:00 PM–2:00 PM

“Queer Eye for Sci-Fi returns! There is a long and complex history of queerness in fiction, from queer-coded villains in pulp novels to the more diverse spectrum of characterization in the last decade or so. Join panelists as they discuss the recent state of genre queerness.”

Kickstarter for Authors and Small Presses

Columbus • Writing • Single Speaker/Lecture • Fri 7:00 PM–8:00 PM

“Cecilia Tan offers guidance for publishing via Kickstarter. Learn about pros and cons, pitfalls, best practices, and Kickstarter’s latest tools so you can have a successful and profitable campaign.”

Reading: Cecilia Tan (18+)

Bridgeport • Reading • Reading • Fri 8:30 PM–9:00 PM

“Cecilia Tan reads something very, very sexy.”

Writing FanFiction as a Professional Writer

Columbus • Writing • Panel • Sat 11:30 AM–12:30 PM

“What is the difference between fanfiction and writing for profit? Can you bring readers from one to the other, or should you keep your identity secret? How do you balance your ideas and writing time?”

Professional Organizations for Writers

Columbus • Writing • Panel • Sun 11:30 AM–12:30 PM

“Let’s talk about professional organizations out there that support writers, such as the Speculative Literature Foundation, SFWA, and even Writers Guild of America (for film and television). How are they like and unlike traditional unions, and what kind of support do they offer professionals in the field?”

Mirrored from Cecilia Tan.

Writing and career news

ceciliatan — Fri, 06 Dec 2024 19:43:35 GMT

Finally getting around to posting this update. I’ve been so busy with so much writing-related stuff, but not much actual writing… !

The biggest writing news this month is that I finally launched the Vanished Chronicles via Patreon. That’s right, after nearly 10 years of hearing me talk about it, and after the whole saga of Tor Books putting me through endless delays and reversals (and in the end having to give me the rights back…) you can finally start to READ the dang thing.

I’m so pleased with how it reads now. I was worried that I wouldn’t like it anymore, but I really love the characters and the story, there’s so much great going on in it… and it’s only gotten more relevant, not less, with time.

What was once entitled “Initiates of the Blood” is now “Bound by the Blood,” it’s book one, and the first two posts are up (the prologue and chapter one). New chapters appear every Friday. Here: https://www.patreon.com/collection/886649?view=condensed

If you’re not already a paying patron, you can also read chapter one for FREE over on my blog: https://www.ceciliatan.com/archives/4849

I know one post per week is going to feel slow to some folks… especially since this is romantic suspense, with a lot of cliffhangers. So I have pledged that if the patreon monthly pledge amount climbs to $500 a month, I’ll double the number of chapters per week to two. So if you’re intrigued, want more, and want to jump on the bandwagon, you can join the patreon for as little as $2 a month. (You can also “follow” for free, but patreon doesn’t let us show any of the naughty bits — they have to go behind the paywall.)

I’ll also give patrons some chances to “earn” an extra post sometimes, because I’m generous like that. 🙂

DGC VOLS 1-10 ARE IN KU

Another month, another new edition! And book 11 is going through a final proofread before I upload that one, but it’s imminent. Cover art is also done for books 11 and 12, and sketches have been approved for the 13th and final book. Just waiting on the final art to come in! Can’t believe this massive project of re-releasing and re-doing will finally be finished!

Book 11 will be the first one that never had a book edition of any kind before, not even an ebook. So I’m eager to get that one out. Another couple of weeks.

WIP Report

Confession time: I have not written a single new word of fiction since election night.

The dragon book is looming in the background, waiting for me to get my braincells back together enough to get back to it. I discovered a few days after the election that I’m B12 deficient, so that might also explain the recent lack of energy. And here I was, blaming politics?

Politics is still awful, but it’s especially difficult to face pronouncements like Project 2025 which (as I ranted about last month) literally states that anyone who creates or distributes “pornography” should be jailed. Pornography by their definition includes not only explicit erotica, but anything that includes queer or trans characters, gay relationships, or poly relationships (for example). And guess what I write? All of the above.

As I may have mentioned, I’m waiting to see if Patreon will hold the line if new anti-porn measures are enacted, and whether I’ll literally have to leave the country if they’re serious about jailing pornographers. It’s a little challenging to face into those headwinds and make any progress.

But I will be trying to re-establish my writing rhythm next week. Now that I have finished physical therapy for my knee, I should turn that into writing time, right? Instead of having to haul my ass to the PT gym, I’ll just haul my laptop into my lap without even getting out of bed, and try to put down a thousand words before I even put socks on.

Also, now that most of the production work on the DGC relaunch and the serial set-up are done. I do need to remind myself that those things were taking up the same creative hours that I would have spent on Windmark.

Dragons, I’ll get back to you shortly!

Tour Dates & Upcoming Appearances

2025:

January 17-20: Arisia, Cambridge, MA (new hotel: Hyatt Cambridge)
January 30, 8pm “How to Write a Sex Scene” Class: online for Passionate Ink
February 2, 2-4pm: Lovestruck Books, Cambridge, MA
February 6-9: Capricon, Chicago, IL
March 19-23: ICFA, Orlando, FL
June 2025: Daron’s Guitar Chronicles Pride Release Tour (details TBA)
June 25-29: SABR 54 in Dallas, TX
July 17-20: Readercon, Burlington, MA (Guest of Honor)
August 13-17: Worldcon in Seattle, WA
September 25: Writing Bisexual Erotica: online for Passionate Ink
NOTE: ICFA and Capricon are back on the 2025 schedule!
Also: the new romance bookstore in Harvard Square will be opening soon! Lovestruck Books has been building out a gorgeous space where Church St. intersects Brattle St. They’d been hoping to have an event with me and some other local writers in mid-December, but the construction isn’t quite done yet. So we’re looking to reschedule to February 2. Check their website for updates!

Let’s End with a Book Recommendation

I get sent a lot of books to “blurb.” Publishers and authors really rely on the testimonials of praise from other authors to say things about a book they can’t say themselves. After all, if the publisher just prints “This book is effin great, just buy it,” on the back cover, the reader is going to think well, sure you would say that, you’re the publisher.

But if they see a quote from an author they like saying “No really, this is great!” it carries a lot more weight.

Usually the art of crafting a blurb means you have to come up with a way to say “this is great” that is unique and punchy and clever. You want to say something truthful and specific, but not give away spoilers. Doing blurbs also means getting a sneak peek at not-yet-published books.

But a lot of the time I don’t actually have time to give a blurb. I want to actually read the book, you know?

Well, I got sent a book to blurb recently and I’m now at something of a loss for what to say because what I think is “THIS BOOK IS EFFIN GREAT, JUST BUY IT.”

The book is Lee Mandelo’s latest anthology, AMPLITUDES: STORIES OF QUEER AND TRANS FUTURITY and it it just packed with awesome. I haven’t even read every story in the book, yet, because now that I tore through about half of them I’ve been slowing down to savor them.

There are 22 stories in the book, nearly 100K words, and my intention when I sat down to give a blurb was to cherry-pick the stories by authors I know (Sam J. Miller, Meg Elison, Sunny Moraine and others …) but I found myself just starting at the beginning and then being unable to put it down.

These stories are science fiction so sharp you could cut yourself. The strength of the collection showcases not only what a terrific editor and anthologist Lee is, but how much trans, queer, and nonbinary talent there is in the genre, and what vital stories these voices bring. There’s a LOT of resistance and revolution and joy in this book, and seems like we’re going to need it.

I know it’s a bit unfair to tell you how great a book is when it’s not even going to be published for months, but you can pre-order it (Amazon, Bookshop).

Okay, that’s enough of my blather. Next newsletter we’ll be in 2025. I’m sure there’ll be things to say about it then.

Until then, take care, if you have loved ones in reach, hug em, and I’ll see ya in the new year.

-ctan

Mirrored from Cecilia Tan.

Not my usual monthly update… (got married)

ceciliatan — Thu, 05 Dec 2024 10:41:00 GMT

Yeah, so… biggest news of the week is that corwin and I got married.

You might be surprised to find that, given all the romance I’ve written, I considered myself “anti-marriage.”

I’ve never been anti-love, of course. I’ve always been a fan of soulmates finding each other. It was just “marriage” that made me itch.

When I was a teenager I rebelled against most things that required me to perform femininity. So I never fantasized about wedding dresses or diamond rings or being a bride. (I fantasized about swordfighting and bonding with dragons and piloting a starship.) By my twenties, I didn’t want to participate in any institution that my same-sex coupled friends were barred from.

By my thirties, gay weddings were becoming fashionable but not yet legal, and I was against the state having a say in my relationships.

But then same-sex marriage was legalized here in Massachusetts, the first state to do so, in 2004, thanks to a decision by our supreme court. My city, Cambridge, flung open the doors to City Hall at midnight, sat a marriage clerk right in the lobby, and started welcoming couples in. Hundreds of people gathered outside to cheer every time a newly married couple emerged from the building.

That’s the City Hall where corwin and I got married this week.

Because this year was the 20th anniversary, the lobby and hallways are decorated with photos from that historic night in 2004, with accompanying text.

We booked a 15 minute ceremony and were allowed to bring 10 guests. We brought nine. Two of them were longtime friends who were among that crowd who cheered outside. They told me that night was when they first talked about getting married. Years later, I was at their wedding. Their wedding (which took place at a local science fiction convention, Arisia) and mine were not historic in the same sense as those that took place on May 17, 2004, but the threads of connection are there.

corwin and I considered ourselves married after a public scene we did at a BDSM play party where we exchanged vows of a sort and I flogged him with tails of leather I had braided into his own hair. (This was also at Arisia, either 1992 or 1993?) A few years later we bought a house, and we put on the invitations to our housewarming party “this is as close to married as we’re going to get, so bring the gifts now.” (We were quite broke after buying the house so the housewares were quite needed at that point!)

Over the years, I mellowed my stance on marriage. Lots of friends have had lovely weddings, and when our financial guy recently suggested that we should get married when we turn 64 for the Social Security benefits, I found I kind of liked the idea. But some folks are probably wondering… why did we do it now? Well, after election day, when I literally spent a day in bed crying, the only thing that made me happy all week was when corwin suggested we get married. Every time I thought about it, I felt a little less sad and despondent.

And now here we are, married. We decided to order our rings from a company that makes chef’s knives (but who have a little section of their website about their damascus steel wedding rings). Since they wouldn’t be ready in time for our City Hall ceremony, I decided it was time for a callback to a joke I made around 1996.

A typical interaction between the two of us involves me doing something baffling like a silly dance move or hand gesture, and then he asks what it means, and I reply with something like “the dance celebrating the swapping in of fresh kitchen sponges” (or whatever other nonsense I have dreamed up). Sometimes there is a pun involved. Other times it’s just surrealist hilarity.

So we were in the kitchen cooking, and I took the bands off of two bundles of banshu somen (noodles). I put one on corwin’s finger and one on mine and he asked, “what’s that mean?” And I replied, “now we’re noodle married.”

And then we laughed our fool heads off so hard we couldn’t even explain to our house guest why we were laughing. So, when we needed temporary rings, I went and got them off of two bunches of noodles to bring to city hall. We didn’t write special vows: we let the city’s Justice of the Peace read the ones she had, which, it being Cambridge, were non-denominational and mostly non-gendered. I had given all our guests heart-shaped chimes and they rang them celebratorily. (Partly an obscure Babylon 5 reference…)

And then it was over. The whole ceremony took less than 5 minutes, but you know, the buildup took 33 years. 🙂

Speaking of rings, I know I said I didn’t dream about having a wedding ring as a little girl. But I do love symbols and symbolism—especially in writing. I think the first character I can remember writing who really wanted that gold ring on their finger was—don’t laugh—Draco Malfoy.

I wrote a Harry/Draco fanfic in 2006, and there was a magical plot device involving a ring in the story… and next thing you know I was like, oh, and of course, it has to end up on his finger at the end. (No, I am not linking to it…. IYKYK.)

Those of you who read Daron’s Guitar Chronicles also know there is a very extended plot arc (more than two whole books long…) that ends up at a jewelry store. I’m sure I can come up with other examples in my books and stories.

I really don’t think these were me trying to express my subconscious desire for a ring of my own. But now that I’m going to have one, I’m so happy. Not because of the ring per se, but because of what it represents. We already have each other, we already had our bond and our partnership, but now it’s official in a way it wasn’t before, with a visible marker. It’s a partnership that has withstood a lot of changes in us and our lives. I don’t know what the year 2025 will bring exactly, but I know we’ll be weathering it together.

Hmm. Maybe I’ll include an actual marriage in a romance novel one of these days…?

“And by the power vested in me by the state of Massachusetts, but more importantly, by your own love, I now pronounce you married.”

Voila!

The wedding party

Mirrored from Cecilia Tan.

New erotic fantasy / paranormal serial coming to Patreon... as soon as I reach goal

ceciliatan — Sun, 10 Nov 2024 07:56:15 GMT

So, in my big rant about the Project 2025 Porn Ban, I had mentioned that I'll start serializing the Vanished Chronicles in my patreon as soon as I get my subscriber level up to $300 per month. Well, less than 48 hours later and it's rocketed up to $249! With only $51 to go, I better get off my ass and proofread those opening chapters again!

If you want to help out, link is below. Book one, Bound by the Blood, is a paranormal romance/urban fantasy where there are not vampires, but there are practitioners of an ancient ritual magic that involves sex and blood...? And modern BDSM players in New York City may have stumbled upon some of the arcane secrets...

Cecilia Tan | creating passionate fiction | Patreon

creating passionate fiction

www.patreon.com

A black and white photo of a spiral staircase in shadow, with a quote from the Vanished Chronicles that reads "For some of us, sex and attraction and lust are wrapped up in power, an invoking that power through pain or pleasure is what we do."

Announcing: new Cecilia Tan paranormal series to Tor Books

ceciliatan — Fri, 25 Oct 2024 07:03:15 GMT

Whew! At last I can tell you all the news! We’ve been working on a project for quite a while now and I can finally officially announce that my upcoming new paranormal series, THE VANISHED CHRONICLES, will published by Tor Books!

I’ve long admired Tor as a publishing house. When I founded Circlet Press back in 1992, Tor founder Tom Doherty gave me some of my first and best advice about book publishing. Over the years I’ve only remained impressed with the quality of Tor’s list and if you look on my shelves you’ll see many of my favorite books bear the Tor logo, like Jacqueline Carey’s Kushiel’s Dart and Steven Brust’s The Phoenix Guards. To be joining them is beyond exciting.

THE VANISHED CHRONICLES will be a paranormal/urban fantasy series where I play with two of my favorite things: 1) BDSM, and 2) the idea that magical world co-exists with our own but non-magical folks have gotten the details wrong. In THE VANISHED CHRONICLES I’ll explain where all those myths about vampires come from. “Vampires” may not be real, but an ancient cult of blood magic? Yes, please!

If you read my Magic University books you know I like to mix ancient prophecy with modern sexuality. So there will be passion, power, eroticism, magic, love, et cetera. The first book is tentatively scheduled to come out in Spring 2017, so you’ve got a while to anticipate it.
If you’d like to keep up to date on my progress, and maybe even get sneak peeks of some sexy scenes, there’s always my monthly email newsletter. Sign up here:
Cecilia’s Mailchimp List

(P.S. Note about the term “paranormal” — I’m using it somewhat interchangeably here with “urban fantasy.” The series will have a romantic pairing in each book, but will have an overarching plot, so some might count that as paranormal romance, some might count that as urban fantasy. I count it as both, basically…)

Mirrored from Cecilia Tan.

Book news: Initiates of the Blood publication delayed

ceciliatan — Fri, 25 Oct 2024 07:00:29 GMT

Oh, the ups and downs of publishing. I figured I better post about this since some of you are starting to wonder… hey, weren’t you supposed to have a book come out around now?

If you’ve been following me any time since 2013, you might have heard me mention The Vanished Chronicles, my sex magic urban fantasy series, that Tor Books bought back then. At one point the first book was slated for release in 2016, but that turned out to not be a realistic target. However, I really didn’t expect it to take an additional three years for it to see the light of day. But that seems to be what’s happening.

A bit of background: I turned in the manuscript in September 2015. A few months after that, David Hartwell (rest in peace) died of a brain bleed, and all of Tor Books was thrown a-kilter as other editors had to try to pick up his workload while simultaneously grieving. I didn’t hear back from my own editor for nine months. (That’s considered a long time by Big 5 publishing standards.)

By the time I did hear back, I had written two other books for other publishers and Trump was on the verge of being elected. I wasn’t the only person who found it difficult to work during the noisy, anxiety ridden months leading up to the election or in the months afterward. The rewrite took longer for me to do than the first draft. I eventually finished it and turned it back in… and it was slated for May 2018 release… and then it mysteriously slipped to September 2018… and then came another long wait for me to hear back on the rewrite.

Notes came back on the revised manuscript asking for just a few last changes to clean it up. I did those. Book two was due on her desk by that point, in September 2017, but by that date my editor still hadn’t signed off on the final rewrite of book one, and I felt I couldn’t write book two until I knew we weren’t making any more changes in book one. Maybe other authors could, but with a complex magic system and an overarching plot to the series, I just stalled.

The old cover, which supposedly we’re ditching now.

Meanwhile we had been promoting book one. Many of you have seen the black cover with the ceremonial knife on it. I handed out swag of it at RT and other conventions throughout 2016 and 2017. I started a Thunderclap for it. Et cetera.

In December of 2017, we finally got acceptance of book one with no more changes, and I felt I could finally START really writing book two. At that point though, after two years of delays, my editor’s feeling was that the cover we had been using was rather dated, and honestly she never loved it anyway. I thought it was okay and at least not objectionable, but I would be happy to see a more eye-catching cover put on it. She also felt that this type of series will die on the vine these days if they only market one book at a time without a firm date for the next release. So she said they would like to push back release of book one again until we actually have book two in hand.

If I’d been almost ready to turn book two in, I would have fought and said look, this book is already two years late launching. But the truth is I’ve barely started book two. And I would like to see this series have its best chance to survive. So in December we said let’s go back to square one on the series design, do all three covers at once, and move forward from there.

Of course now in a few days it will be June, and I have seen no sign of new cover designs. And I have not made as much progress on book two as I should have over the winter, but some extenuating circumstances hit me, as well: I took over the Fetish Fair Fleamarket on a temporary basis when NELA’s leadership had a #MeToo era implosion. The good news is that a few days ago I handed over the bank accounts and everything to newly installed board members, the FFF is in good shape, and I can now get back to my life!

Including writing this book. To that end, I’ve also turned down some speaking engagements and cancelled plans to attend some conventions this summer. I won’t be at RWA in Denver.
I *will* be at Worldcon in San Jose in August, however. Hopefully with some shiny brand new cover designs to show you! And maybe even a future release date…? We’ll see how much I write in June and July.

Mirrored from Cecilia Tan.

Let’s Talk About Fear (and erotica)

ceciliatan — Sun, 13 Oct 2024 21:36:50 GMT

Thinky Thoughts: Let’s Talk About Fear

Welcome to the spookiest month of the year! I figure this is a great time for some thinky thoughts about fear—specifically how crucial fear is in erotic fiction. For me, at least.

I was a fraidy cat as a child. I was one of those kids who would see Godzilla on television and then not be able to get to sleep for weeks, because I was convinced that Godzilla was definitely coming out of the sea that very night to step on our house. Or that space aliens were coming to kidnap me. Or whatever other horrible thing I could imagine.

What was extra-confusing to my parents is that things other kids were afraid of—like talking to adults, or jumping into the deep end of swimming pool, or snakes—didn’t bother me at all. My mom talked to the school psychologist about it and was told that “gifted” kids with vivid imaginations were prone to such terrors.

Tell her it’s just her imagination, they said. That went okay, I guess, when the reason I couldn’t sleep was my fear of “giant germs that could come through walls.” (No idea where I got that idea from…Star Trek, maybe? Or Space 1999?)

The “just your imagination” strategy failed, though, when …

…my kindergarten class had Fire Safety Week. Although it was super cool to meet the firefighters and all—they gave us hats!—after that I was afraid the house would burn down.

When I say I “couldn’t sleep,” it wasn’t just that I lay there “worrying” about the giant germs/alien abduction/fire/etc… I would be trembling, heart racing, feeling almost ill from the fear.

Experiencing fear throughout my whole body, from threats that were only present in my thoughts, was a nightly occurrence from about age 5 to 12, and then it got progressively less frequent until some time when I was probably 18.

It didn’t occur to me until recently that the dropoff in my experience of full-body fear probably maps exactly to the rise in my experience of full-body lustful erotic longing.

Instead of lying there unable to sleep because I was terrified of Godzilla, I would lie there rapt in hormone-soaked fantasies of my latest crush.

Erotic fantasies, especially ones that made all the skin on my body tingle and the deep center of my chest feel hollow, were far more pleasant than detailed imaginings of how the house would be crushed under Godzilla’s giant foot. But there was a lot of trepidation associated with sex in my upbringing, ranging from fearmongering stories that were told about teen pregnancy, to internalized homophobia and kinkphobia that kept my desires secret, to AIDS hysteria, to just plain fear of the unknown. Would it hurt? Would I ever find what I really wanted? Would sex change me? Would everything be OK?

One type of fantasy replaced the other, not as opposites, but as similar or kindred phenomena. It’s not like fear was dark and erotic fantasies were light. Given how kinky my sexual fantasies were (and still are), perhaps it should be obvious they were a function of the same obsessive imagination that would paralyze me with effervescent terror.

And so perhaps it is no surprise that although I rarely write horror, fear is part of what I like to flavor my erotic writing with. Telepaths Don’t Need Safewords has a kidnapping in it, after all.

Much of the time it’s simple fear of the unknown at play: our protagonist maybe hasn’t had sex before. Or hasn’t had this kind of sex. Or with this person (or creature).

I’ve always thought of myself as a “sex-positive” writer, and one reason I steered away from erotic horror in the 1990s is there was a bit too much of what felt to me like throwing in graphic sex stuff for shock value—to make the horror more horrific. Whereas I wanted the opposite, to use whatever means possible to make the erotica more erotic.

And if that meant adding a dash of fear, a sprinkle of dread, well, so be it. I write often from the submissive or bottom’s point of view, and, well, not to get too deeply into the kind of BDSM play I personally enjoy, but… if I’m not at least a little bit afraid of what my top might do to me while I’m tied up, then what’s the point?

The theme of fear in sex is on my mind right now because it seems to be cropping up a lot as I’m writing Windmark, and it definitely runs through The Vanished Chronicles—which none of you have seen yet, but you will soon. Fear and rapture go hand in hand to make the vampire mythos so erotic, right?

Overcoming fear (and trauma associated with it) to find sexual fulfillment has always been my idea of a happy ending. Now that I look over my shelf, that theme is in every one of my books. The vanilla ones like Daron’s Guitar Chronicles, and the kinky ones like Watch Point and Slow Surrender.

I guess it’s just that now I finally noticed it! Time, I guess, to embrace it.

-ctan

As you may have gathered by now, every month I post some thinky thoughts followed by various forms of updates. Here are the bits of news that follow:

“Freelance Heroes” Swag!
DGC Volumes 1-8 now live in KU
DGC Volumes 1-4 live everywhere else
WIP Report: Windmark at 76,000 words
Where I’ve Been Lately
My Schedule for World Fantasy in Niagara Falls
2025 Tour Dates
Book recs, reversed
Parting thoughts

“Freelance Heroes”

So, last summer I gave a keynote speech at the Editorial Freelancers Association on the theme of “Freelance Heroes,” complete with a powerpoint slideshow of funny and silly superheroes (and supervillains like “Sticklerman and Stetboy.”) The EFA has decided to run with it and sell some freelance heroes T-shirts, tote bags, etc, via Teepublic! Proceeds go to support the EFA’s mission! See all their fun designs here:

https://www.teepublic.com/stores/efashop

DGC Vols 1-8 are live in KU!

I’ve been steadily plugging along with adding volumes of DGC to Kindle Unlimited, and adding the fancier product listings that KU allows. Book 9 will release in November. (If you’re a KU reader, please give the series a look. *hearts*) If you’re not in KU, but do use Amazon to buy ebooks, Book 1 is A FREE DOWNLOAD right now. (Shutting off at midnight pacific time, I think?) Grab it for $0.00: https://amzn.to/4dNIzeO

There’s a Goodreads giveaway going on for Book 1 right now as well: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/209814488-daron-s-guitar-chronicles-vol-1

And I’m waiting on the LAST piece of cover art, for book 13, and then I’l finish up the production and layout for the ones that were never previously in book form, vols 11-13! Coming soon!

Meanwhile, volumes 1-4 are live everywhere, with vol 5 coming in the first week of November. Whew. I knew republishing the series would be a heavy lift, but I’m so glad it’s getting done.

WIP Report

Windmark (aka “the unexpected dragon book”) passed the 77K word mark and continues to get more and more twisted. I’ve been adding to it a bit more slowly the past 1-2 months because various editing deadlines have been sucking up my writing time, but I hope to wrap up a first draft before Christmas? Maybe? (Reminder I am still signing up beta readers.)

I’m at that stage of writing where I’m convinced everyone will hate the hero. Which isn’t necessarily bad, because we’re at the stage of the book where the heroine hates him, and if there’s one thing I’ve been good at, it’s making my readers feel what my main character does.

I learned somewhat the hard way that if book one of a series ends on a cliffhanger and the heroine feels betrayed and abandoned by the hero, the readers will feel betrayed and abandoned, too… by the author. So I’m aiming to avoid that, but as I mentioned last month, exactly where we’ll land, I don’t know yet.

My Schedule for World Fantasy!

In addition to the “mass autographing” (to which I’ll bring a random assortment of my books?) looks like both panels I’m doing will be on Friday. At 12 noon, one on “Fanfiction’s Impact on Fantasy & Horror,” and at 5pm “Is This The Queerest Era of Horror and Fantasy?”

Let me know if you’ll be at WFC! Or if you’re driving distance to Niagara Falls! (I might host a small get-together for patrons and subscribers…?)

Tour Dates & 2025 Appearances

Looks like the dates of ICFA were announced incorrectly, so it turns out I will be able to attend after all! And I’ll be doing Capricon in Chicago again, as well. It’s a really nice sf/f con that is still somewhat underpopulated post-pandemic, so I encourage folks to consider attending!

January 17-20: Arisia, Cambridge, MA (new hotel: Hyatt Cambridge)
January 30, 8pm “How to Write a Sex Scene” Class: online for Passionate Ink
February 6-9: Capricon, Chicago, IL
March 19-23: ICFA, Orlando, FL
June 2025: Daron’s Guitar Chronicles Pride Release Tour (details TBA)
June 25-29: SABR 54 in Dallas, TX
July 17-20: Readercon, Burlington, MA (back to the Burlington Marriott!)
August 13-17: Worldcon in Seattle, WA
September 25: Writing Bisexual Erotica class: online for Passionate Ink

Book Recommendations

Okay, so, you know if I did not like a book, I will not recommend it. So, unfortunately I have no recommendations this time around.

How about you guys recommend me some that I can pass along? Basically… what book would you recommend to someone who you know likes reading Cecilia Tan books?

Leave a comment with your suggestions!

Parting Thoughts

You might remember I saw the Northern Lights back in May. Well, there was another geomagnetic storm this week and I went and saw them again.

This time corwin and I hopped in the car together at 11pm and drove two hours northeast to get out from under the clouds and into the likely aurora zone. I dithered for about half a minute as to whether it would be worth it, and corwin reminded me the best reason to live the life we do is to be able to just hare off in the middle of the night if we feel like it. Why not spend several hours in the car together, in search of adventure?

We were successful at seeing the lights, though not as bright as last time. The incredible thing we could see with the naked eye this time was the solar wind literally blowing, with flashes and puffs of particles looking for all the world like steam being blown off a coffee cup the size of the Earth.

There is wonder in this universe, and it’s worth chasing.

Until next time,

-ctan

Mirrored from cecilia tan.

"The Bonds of Love" Erotic Romance Novella now out from Cecilia Tan

ceciliatan — Sun, 18 Aug 2024 08:30:28 GMT

At long last, SILK THREADS, my romance project with Midori and Laura Antoniou (which we Kickstarted last year) is now available to the public widely for the first time! All three erotic romance novellas, one by each of us, can be bought either as one collected book under the title SILK THREADS, or you can buy the novella(s) separately.

Jiro‘s lineage once proudly served the nobility as samurai: protectors of royalty with a legacy of sword and rope. But though rich in tradition, in the modern age the family is penniless. And after cataclysmic events, Jiro has lost everything, including everyone he ever cared about and maybe even his mind. He is kept in a hospital amnesia ward, catatonic and unspeaking until a charity visit from the Crown Princess rouses him miraculously.

Ami is the sole heir of the Emperor, fresh out of Harvard and looking to both sow her wild oats and create real change for women in her role as a public figure. But her father and his head of security want her kept safe and sound: caged like a bird for her protection.

Ami will do anything to get out from under their control. Little does she know there are true dangers waiting for their chance to strike, a chance that comes when the princess slips away from her bodyguards and disappears in disguise into the underground world of sex clubs and rope bondage performers. Will the disguise be enough to keep her safe from the assassins on her trail? And what about this mysterious stranger, this Jiro, who seems fated to meet her again? What will she receive when she surrenders herself, bound and helpless, to his rope bondage: unbearable pleasure or ultimate pain?

Silk Threads: Three Tales of Passionate Japan
by Laura Antoniou, Midori, and Cecilia Tan
$6.99 ebook
ISBN ISBN: 9781626015296
Download Silk Threads from: Smashwords | Riverdale Ave | Amazon | Apple | and more!

Three authors, three erotic romance novellas.

Bound together by a common magical thread, each novella tells a story of romance and passion unlike any other, exploring both paranormal and BDSM themes. Set in a Japan of the mythic past, the paranormal present, and a cyberpunk future, the three novellas showcase the imaginations of three pioneers of sexuality in fiction.

Focusing on women’s erotic power and desires, each story features individual quests for love, intimacy and the discovery of far-reaching potential within the central protagonists. From the legendary creatures of traditional Japanese fables to an atomic age embodiment of existential anxiety and into a cultural paradigm shift, magical silk weaves each generational story into an exploration of romantic cravings.

It was truly fun to work on this project together, and the Kickstarter was a blast, but now it’s time to have the book in the capable hands of a publisher, who can put it into many stores and outlets that we couldn’t do ourselves. They’ve also put it onto NetGalley and are publicizing throughout the trade. The joy of having a publisher means they do so many things that an indie author would either have to do themselves or pay someone to do, but they pay us!

So if you missed the Kickstarter or have just been waiting for one of the novellas to be available as a separate piece, your moment is here! Enjoy!

Mirrored from cecilia tan.

Resigning my Membership in RWA

ceciliatan — Sun, 18 Aug 2024 08:25:12 GMT

It has been a rollercoaster ride of emotions for me since December 23rd when the news broke that Courtney Milan was being censured by RWA, for reasons that were quickly revealed to be bullshit, opening a Pandora’s box of institutionalized racism, machiavellian social climbing, manipulative staffing, tails wagging the dogs, and so on. I pulled my book from the RITAs–but they later cancelled the awards and refunded all entry fees anyway. I then went to resign my membership, but realized it was up in February anyway. So I kept access to the forums and emails just in case things really turned around.

They haven’t. I was mostly happy to see the communique from the recently hired DEI consultant, Michelle Silverthorn of Inclusion Nation, but there is still so much to be done to regain my trust… I’m not sure the organization ever will at this point. And this is what I told them in my resignation letter, emailed today when a renewal notice popped up that said:

“Dear Cecilia, Thank you for another year as a member of Romance Writers of America. We know it has been a challenging one, and we appreciate you sticking with us. We have already begun building RWA 2.0, and in the year to come (and beyond) we are embracing a new chapter as an inclusive and equitable organization. We value your voice and your vision, and we hope you choose to remain a member to join us in this important work.”

I really want to believe those words. I do. But I feel burned by the ways that RWA has performed in the past.
I wrote:

Thanks for the reminder, but I’ve decided to resign my membership. I just can’t be a part of RWA any longer.

I didn’t join when I pivoted my career from erotic science fiction/fantasy into romance back in 2008-2009 because of all the garbage I had heard about racism, bigotry, and small-mindedness in the RWA. I had heard stories from other authors about how if I was writing anything erotic, kinky, queer, or featuring non-white characters (*all* of which I do) I could expect to be condescended to and that the information and contacts I would make would be of limited use.

Then Sylvia Day was elected president. Sylvia was important to me for multiple reasons, including the fact she wrote kinky erotic romances and that she, like me, is half-white/half-Asian. Talking with her at a book conference and then reading some things she had written as president convinced me to stick my head into RWA National in 2011 and attend my local conference. Shortly after that Courtney Milan–who, like me, is an outspoken advocate for diversity on Twitter and also half-white/half-Asian–joined the board, and I was convinced that things were truly changing. I joined. I entered the RITAs. I taught workshops at RWA national and for various regional chapter conferences, even keynoting a few. At the most recent conference in New York, between the diversity represented by the incoming board members and the statement made by the 2019 RITA award ceremony, I really believed the needed changes were truly taking root and that RWA was an institution that I could be invested in for a long time.

I don’t believe that anymore. That magical RITA night is forever tainted. It now feels like that ceremony used the voices of those trailblazers like Sandra Kitt and Radclyffe to paste a “politically correct” image onto a deeply racist, bigoted organization. And I don’t want to be used that way.

It’s going to take a lot to bring me back at this point. To borrow a phrase from Elizabeth Warren, it’s going to take “big, structural change.” RWA needs to be proactive on many fronts, not just regarding equity and inclusion within membership and its structure, but to be the powerful advocate for authors that it truly should be. RWA should be taking strong stances against delinquent publishers, against monopolistic practices by Amazon, against rights grabs by the Big 5, and many other issues facing romance authors today. I’ll be watching and hoping for that change to come. If it doesn’t, it’s not in the best interest of my career (or my mental health) to uphold a rotten status quo.

Thanks for listening.

-Cecilia Tan, Writer & Editor

Mirrored from cecilia tan.

Re-live the magic of the Harry Potter films with Cecilia Tan

ceciliatan — Sun, 18 Aug 2024 08:23:30 GMT

It’s no secret how much I love Harry Potter. Heck, for years I’ve been featured in many publications talking about my fandom and how after 15 years of being a professional fiction writer I started writing Harry Potter fanfic for fun. (Like this one or this podcast or this one, or this one…)

So when I heard my longtime literary agent and now publisher of Riverdale Avenue Books, Lori Perkins, was going to try to launch a line of books called The Binge Watcher’s Guides, and she was going to want to sign up many writers to each do their favorite TV and film series, I jumped on the chance to be the one to write the book on the Harry Potter movies!

To get the book and series off the ground, we’re running a Kickstarter, which will help to not only pay me a good rate, but raise the money needed for the kind of promotion and publicity necessary to compete in today’s book publishing market, which is tougher than ever. The campaign launched Wednesday, topped its first thousand dollars by Friday, and is well on the way to not only making the initial goal but hopefully reaching the all-important stretch goals, too!

To back the campaign: https://bit.ly/HPbingewatch

Among the rewards, which of course include the book, I’m also offering some virtual tarot card readings, and some other really fun stuff, like recipe cards for foods and drinks to make and serve at your Harry Potter movie marathon party!

The book includes tons of research I did, including dozens of fascinating casting stories, film-making innovations, and analysis of the place of the film series as a force in modern pop culture.
I’ve also got tips for throwing a binge-watch party, and advice on how and when to introduce the films to children for the first time. And of course recaps of each film, and a section for film fans on things you might want to know from the books.

Among the things I had forgotten until I went and looked back at it was the fact that the first film debuted right after the September 11th attacks. I think we were all ready for a little escape into a magical world at that point…

And I think during the pandemic people are looking to escape again, only this time from the safety of our own living rooms. There’s never been a better time to do a binge watch of a series, really.

So if you’d like to re-live the magic of discovering the Harry Potter films for the first time, or if you ARE discovering the films for the first time, come along with me to Hogwarts and beyond!

All backers get a discount off the regular retail price of the book and/or ebook, as well as exclusive rewards that can only be gotten through the Kickstarter.

Click to support: https://bit.ly/HPbingewatch

Mirrored from cecilia tan.

English is Weird, Man…

ceciliatan — Wed, 14 Aug 2024 03:25:14 GMT

I started drafting this entry while traveling in the UK. And while I am a “native English speaker,” I’m an American, and so hearing the English speak English always comes with some wee disconnects in my brain.

For one thing, posh British accents are so often used in Hollywood to indicate villainy. Have you noticed that? I’m not sure how much of that is the historical reliance on all those theater-trained British actors to play the heavy, and how much is a kind of Revolutionary War holdover here in the former colonies?

This was in my mind when we went to see some Shakespeare at The Globe: a production of Richard III with an all-female/AFAB cast which characterized RIII as a Trumpian womanizer. (“When you’re king, they just let you do it.”) I quite enjoyed the cognitive dissonance of the cross-gendered casting and the way it highlighted the theme of the many female characters in the story opposing him. But I had to remind myself that the British accent wasn’t one of the affectations to make Richard seem even more evil!

The other thing is that so much British English sounds, well, vaguely smutty? I think maybe that’s because so much of the British English that survives in American carries with it a kind of Victorian repression or understatement in it, where non-dirty words are used to stand in for the vulgar ones. The result is that sometimes a station announcement on the Tube produced snickers from not only me, but also, for example, drunk Australians. (“Cockfosters…! Wherezzat!”)

You could play erotic Mad Libs with the names on the National Rail. “He dropped his Hassocks to reveal Burgess Hill. Her Hayward Heath tingled.”

The third thing is that having grown up with so many British children’s books and fantasy books, actual British names just sound made up to us Americans. We took the train from Gatwick to Cambridge for the Cambridge Folk Festival, and after hearing the list of stations, corwin turned to me somewhere between Horley and Hitchin and said “These all sound fake. Those can’t be real places.”

This was not my first trip to England, but it was the first that was not for Harry-Potter-fandom purposes. Perhaps because of that, or perhaps because of how I’ve distanced myself after JKR’s anti-trans outbursts (if you missed it, she just fomented an Internet mob to attack two cis women athletes at the Olympics by accusing them of being trans), it became clear to me for the first time how many things that seemed brilliantly charming or whimsically original in the Harry Potter books are actually just … British?

That feeling struck me often, but particularly inside the Wren Library at Trinity College which is so very Hogwartian… except of course it’s the other way around, what with the Wren Library being there since 1676. I also felt it in ~~Flourish & Blotts~~ Hatchard’s Bookshop. The many nooks and crannies one goes through to find the women’s room in Harrod’s definitely could have led to the Ministry of Magic. I much preferred Fortnum and Mason, which was basically Honeydukes for adults, selling gin and tipples, tea, charcuterie, etc instead of candy.

It was also interesting to be traveling where the British belonged, rather than somewhere their colonial influence shaped, like Singapore. I came to no grand conclusion about it all, but as I’m just now releasing a Victorian erotic steampunk novella, it heightens my awareness of my portrayal of British characters. I stand by my intention in The Blossoms of Summer to both pay homage to the spirit of the adventuring naturalists of the age and also to critique colonialism and exoticization.

Yeah, another erotica piece with dual underlying purpose. I suppose the tension between love and hate just part of what drives my muse. In the end, I just hope people find it hot, though!

Speaking of The Blossoms of Summer…

It’s up for pre-order now, and I’m looking for a few more folks who want to review it? So if you think some nominally het erotic steampunk in which an adventuring botanist is sent to China to retrieve specimens and gets a far more erotic adventure than he was expecting might be your cup of tea, and you’d be willing to review it on Goodreads, Amazon, or elsewhere, drop me email at ctan.writer(at)gmail.com and I’ll send you the ebooks!

Pre-order links if you’d like to support your trusty erotica writer:

Amazon (ebook and paperback)
Bookshop (paperback only)
Goodreads (to rate and review)

Mockups of the cover, not to scale! The actual paperback is only 40 pages thick.

Mirrored from cecilia tan.

Blogging BookExpo America, Thursday night

ceciliatan — Sat, 27 Jul 2024 00:49:43 GMT

I arrived a bit late to NYC today, thanks to much traffic along the Bolt Bus route. Still, $14 one way to get me to a major trade show was too good a deal to pass up. In these tough economic times, if it weren’t for the $14 bus, I’d probably be skipping the convention completely.

For those who don’t know, BookExpo America is the annual gathering of the business side of book publishing. Years ago it was known as the ABA Convention, and was run by the American Booksellers Association, and handing out catalogs and chatting up mom & pop bookstores was the order of the day. Now that there are hardly any independent bookstores left (when I went to my first ABA convention there were about 5000 indie bookstores in the USA, and now there are about 500), the show is more about subsidiary rights, and connections between all the inter-related businesses of publishing, including printing and marketing and multimedia and on and on.

There is still much catering to booksellers and librarians, but also a lot of other stuff.
My evening started at the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund party/fundraiser at Hudson Terrace. As I Tweeted when I arrived, the venue was way swank. I had fun chats with lots of folks including my old friend Glenn Haumann, who was possibly the very first person to try to get me into ebooks like 10 years ago. He’s no longer in the ebook biz, but in comics, in a very web-presence-driven company called ComicMix. Also shook hands with Charles Brownstein, the head honcho at CBLDF. The party was lively but the main topic of conversation running through the room is the “Handley manga case“–specifically the very recent news that Handley, an Iowa man charged with child porn for owning manga, has pled guilty.

In short: the fact that the government can see fit to enter your private home, look through your private library, and declare ownership of a piece of fantasy literature you have as illegal, label you a pervert and send you to jail for it, is UTTERLY CHILLING. “Sets constitutional law back by generations,” Brownstein said.

By the way, the CBLDF takes DONATIONS.

I then caught a cab over the the Lambda Literary Awards to try to arrive in time for the after party, since I am far too poor to consider attending the actual awards reception and ceremony. While there I caught sight of Judy Grahn, whom I had never met but had spoken to on the phone back in the days when I worked at Beacon Press (twenty years ago… yeah). Caught up with Michael Lowenstein, Ron Suresha, Michele Karlsberg, and a few other folks. Ironically, Lowenstein and Suresha are New Englanders, so of course I had to come all the way to NYC to chat with them…

The actual after party was at the W Hotel nearby but by then I was pooped and wanted to get on the bus headed to the Bronx where I am couch surfing. (Did I mention we’re doing this trip on the cheap?)

I logged in to post this blog and couldn’t help but see the most recent Publishers Lunch newsletter had arrived, with coverage from today’s BEA sessions! (If you’re not subscribing to Free Lunch, you’re missing out.)

I was most annoyed to see the following from author Sherman Alexie, who spoke on a panel of top selling authors talking about the book business.

When talk turned, as it inevitably does now, to electronic reading [Lisa] Scottoline believed the effect of the Kindle and other electronic devices is additive; but Alexie was blunt in his objection: “I saw a woman in the audience with a Kindle and I wanted to hit her.” He also explained why his work is not available digitally: “I think [electronic reading] is the opposite of the Gutenberg press, and that machines promote elitism”, while adding his opinion stemmed from growing up poor with “limited access to technology.” It isn’t that Alexie is a Luddite, but that the “physical presence of book – turning pages, sitting in the bathtub, the relationship to book won’t be the same. It distances us from the book. Only a certain kind of book sells well electronically and thus limits what publishers will make available in that format. Eccentric writers will have even more difficulty getting books published. As a result the Kindle will homogenize literature even more.”

He is SO WRONG. But then again he is a heterosexual man (I think) whose issues are wholly different from mine. Ebooks are the bastion right now of all the genres that people want to read but which have been categorically and consistently excluded from the bookstores and the mainstream publishing channels. Where else is male/male fantasy erotica written by women for women thriving? Eccentric writers have a better chance than ever of finding their niches and no longer rely on being banged into the round holes that the publishing business insists the square pegs fit into or be ignored entirely.

For too long the book publishing industry’s only customer who counted was not the end reader, but the bookstore. Now that the indies are greatly reduced, and the chain stores rule the roost, what gets published is driven by the tastes (and guesses that publshers try to make about the tastes) of a small handful of individuals.

Ebook publishers cut the bookstore’s tastes and preferences out of the chain and go straight for the people who really matter, the actual readers.

More tomorrow. I will be tweeting as the show goes along from https://twitter.com/ceciliatan.

Mirrored from cecilia tan.

Starting August 1: an erotic steampunk adventure

ceciliatan — Mon, 01 Jul 2024 14:41:54 GMT

So….. I’ve been threatening to start publishing some erotic fiction over on my Patreon for a while now and I’m finally organized enough to get it going.

As a kind of test run before we do anything longer, I’m going to start with an erotic steampunk adventure entitled The Blossoms of Summer, which is an epistolary tale of an airship adventure told through a brave adventuring botanist’s letters and diary entries.

It’ll run every day for six days, starting on August 1.

Here’s the official description that will go on the book, which will launch after the serial runs:

Botanist Robert Meriweather has been tasked by the Continental Occident Company to travel beyond the known lands of Canton to search for the “the Blossoms of Summer,” secret and hidden specimens of such breathtaking beauty that the mere sight has caused men to forsake their homelands. Robert’s orders are to bring these “forbidden flowers” back to England, where all of society’s rewards—and his betrothed, Livia—await him.

Robert soon finds himself on an unexpectedly erotic adventure, in which he must abandon all his Victorian social moires to succeed in his mission. But he will never abandon Livia and his dream of marrying her as a gentleman of standing.

I actually wrote this first around 2010-2011, but never found a home for it. It’s a 10K word novella, and those were a hard sell then. But last year I got the call for submissions for the Passionate Ink “summer” fundraising anthology of erotica and erotic romance. (Passionate Ink is a writers organization dedicated to supporting erotic writers and was formerly a chapter of the RWA before disaffiliating.) The Blossoms of Summer was published as part of the Hot & Sticky anthology collection, and then the rights came back to me.

And now it’ll finally go out into the world on its own!

I’ll be posting about it a lot on my socials this month to try to build up membership of the patreon a bit more, too. I would love to get us back to my pre-pandemic level of support by the time the serial launches. If you’re not a member you can “follow” the public posts for free, but to see any of the “naughty” parts, those have to go behind the paywall, which starts at $2 a month: https://www.patreon.com/ceciliatan

And if this goes well, I’ll start preparing something longer!

Mirrored from cecilia tan.

Are we in a Golden Age of Queer & Trans SF/F?

ceciliatan — Fri, 21 Jun 2024 08:36:06 GMT

Hello and welcome to another ctan monthly updatet! It’s Pride Month, so today let’s talk about queer science fiction and fantasy.

First some housekeeping: Mailchimp has been driving me nuts, with the newsletter sometimes displaying so tiny on mobile devices it was illegible. I’m trying on a new template today, with new fonts. Please let me know if this one looks better to you (or worse!) than before so I can keep improving it.

Second, my apology this is a bit later than I intended, but I had knee surgery on Wednesday and as you can imagine it’s put a bit of a cramp into my schedule. I’ve discovered I would rather have my knee hurt and my brain work than be “pain free” but feel seasick from narcotics. Apparently opioids are not my friends! Bleah.

And now to my slightly linkbait-y topic: are we in a “Golden Age” of queer and trans SF/F? Yes, yes we are, end of essay.

Just kidding, of course I’m going to explain WHY my answer is yes.

For the SFWA Nebulas Conference this month, I had proposed this question as a panel topic and was highly gratified it got chosen—even better, they let me moderate the panel, and SFWA populated it with a terrific slate that included Jordan Kurella, Charlie Jane Anders, Zabé Ellor, and L.P. Kindred. (I had also proposed “are we in a golden age of Asian SF/F?” which I also believe has a yes answer, but that one didn’t make the slate, so I’m trying to arrange it as a Zoom panel for later this summer for Capricon’s online programming. Stay tuned.)

Jordan unfortunately had to miss the Nebs, so the other four of us soldiered on without him. One terrific thing about the slate of panelists is we had basically three generations represented. (If only we’d had a Boomer, we could have had four generations!) We each had different entry points to SF/F. So when I asked “Who was the first character in SF/F you read who you knew was queer?” we had four drastically different answers.

Illustrating how far we’ve come: I, the Gen X “elder” on the panel, was the only one whose answer was a villain. Back when, it was a common trope to make a villain “extra evil” by slapping a coating of sexual deviance on them. Baron Harkonnen in DUNE was the first “gay” character I encountered. If only I’d stumbled upon Samuel R. Delany before Frank Herbert, eh? I didn’t get to Delany until I was in college.

The first positive depiction of a gay character I could think of I read around 1990, in Ellen Kushner’s lovely book Swordspoint (Amazon, Bookshop), but the gay relationship between Alec and St. Vier is so delicately written there’s a kind of plausible deniability about it. But at least they’re both main characters—heroes, even! That book remains one of my faves to this day.

Swordspoint was published in 1987, and right after I read it, another important book was published, Uranian Worlds, a bibliography compiled by Eric Garber and Lyn Paleo. Billed as “A Guide to Alternative Sexuality in Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror,” the book had first been published in 1980, and by 1990 needed a new edition because so many examples had to be added. Uranian Worlds was a complete bibliography of EVERY short story, book, or novella that included EVERY bit of representation of LGBTQ characters in sf/f/h for nearly fifty years… and it was only 280 pages long.

Think about that. The editors of Uranian Worlds had scoured literature for every possible inclusion, small presses as well as large ones, queer lit mags as well as Asimov’s, for decades. And what they came up with just barely filled one not-that-big book.

Nowadays, we have that much queer sf/f/h being published every year. If that ain’t a Golden Age, what is?

The panel also talked about who the first SF/F writers were who we knew were queer or trans: for me it was Samuel R. Delany and Rachel Pollack (Rest in Peace, Rachel!) Now, I know more than I can count just from among my Twitter mutuals—and that’s not even counting the hundred-or-so queer writers I edited at Circlet Press!

But speaking of writers being out. We discussed whether an author “owes” it to the audience to come out. Short answer: no. If you missed the discourse a few years back about “the helicopter story,” I won’t recap it here, but suffice to say it was just one high-profile example of an author being attacked online for apparently either being insufficiently “out” or not “visibly” conforming to audience notions of queerness, resulting in the author being treated like some kind of interloper or exploitative outsider…. which they might not have been.

At this panel was the first time I felt there was consensus in the room that harm has been been done to queer and trans writers (by members of our own communities!) with the incessant questioning of “authenticity” and the demands on the public baring of identity. We’ve sharpened our knives to attack the systems that oppress us, but we can all too easily turn them on each other if/when we judge someone is “part of the problem.” As LP succinctly put it: we have to allow writers some grace. Zabé made an excellent point: you can’t treat sexual identity marginalizations exactly the same way you treat other marginalizations. Sexuality and gender are fluid, complex, and changing. There’s a huge difference between a white author pretending to be an author of color “for clout,” and an author who is in the closet or in transition writing about queer characters as a way to figure out their own sexuality or explore their identity. Charlie Jane mentioned that she and I know multiple writers who started out looking like “straight women getting off on writing about gay men” who are living as gay men now.

Give people grace. Not everyone has the same safety, opportunity, or self-awareness to be “out.”

In the late 80s and early 1990s, right after Swordspoint we had a small spate of queer flowering in SF/F, with Melissa Scott and Tanya Huff and Mercedes Lackey (Vanyel is the ultimate “bury your gays” trope, though…!) and others. Book publishing in the 1990s also went through a pro-diversity spasm, self-castigating about being too white, and SF/F being too male-dominated, as well. There was much talk about trying to diversify the writers being seen in anthologies, in best-of lists, and on award nomination slates. But the writers couldn’t just appear out of thin air. Not then.

But they can now. We literally conjure them out of the aether—the Internet. What’s different now that has led to such increased numbers of queer and trans writers, but also the vastly increased representation of authors of color? It’s the Internet. The same Internet that is problematic as described above, nonetheless allows marginalized writers a visibility we wouldn’t have otherwise. It means that, for example, Hugo awards nominators can discover writers somewhere other than on a bookstore retail shelf. Editors can find and “meet” writers somewhere other than within New York publishing’s white-dominated cocktail circuit. This time when 21st century diversity initiatives have been launched, thanks to the power of the Internet, the writers and editors who emerged have been able to network and build a privilege structure of our own. Some of that happens with the help of SFWA, with things like the AAPI or BIPOC meetups at the Nebulas, and sometimes it happens with us building our own email lists, Discords, online magazines, anthologies, you name it.

Instead of backsliding when the industry loses interest in the latest diversity “fad”, we’ve been able to keep expanding the opportunities for each other, to keep pulling each other up the ladder. It’s still not as strong or wide-reaching as some “old boy networks” out there, but SFWA itself is a far more diverse and welcoming place than it was in the 20th century, and the Nebulas conference really demonstrated that.

There was much more said on the panel, of course, including what the four of us would consider a Platinum Age to be. (Btw, if you register as a Nebulas online attendee, btw, you can see the archived videos of all the panels from this year’s conference, including ours, and also participate in SFWA online programming all year round.)

One final thought: it’s worth remembering that not only is this proliferation of queer and trans voices in the sf/f genres a massive improvement over 35, 25, or even 15 years ago, it’s also happening at the same time as a ton of book banning and book burning all across the USA.

In fact, I believe book banning is so hot right now BECAUSE there are so many books coming out that don’t conform to the heterosexual conservative norms. SF/F has always been a place to dream of being different, and the genre is finally realizing its subversive potential. In the 1980s and ’90s we used to march through the streets chanting “We’re here, we’re queer, get used to it.” It feels to me like within the SF/F world, people finally have.

DGC Vol 4 is live!

Another month, another new edition! Volume 4 (of 13) is now live in Kindle Unlimited. In book 4, Moondog 3 hits the road for a major cross country tour and Daron must contend with a homophobic opening act, a budding friendship/attraction with a rock journalist, and the inexorable magnetism of Ziggy pulling him into his orbit every night on stage.

READ IT NOW IN KU: https://amzn.to/3VuJvxN

AND DGC VOL 1 is now WIDE!

Book one is now on sale at various other outlets besides Amazon, although check out the “A+ content” I’ve added to the Amazon page, snazzy, no? Find vol one on Bookshop.org, Barnes & Noble paperback, Barnes & Noble Nook, and request the ebook to libraries through Overdrive.

OR ADD IT TO YOUR GOODREADS TBR: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9447189-daron-s-guitar-chronicles

WIP Report

I’m excited to report that one of the short stories I wrote while trying to get my brain back in gear after I had COVID in September has sold to Julia Rios for Worlds of Possibility! The title is “This Goodly Frame, The Earth,” which is a Shakespeare quote because I failed to think of anything else and Shakespeare is a good plan B. It’s about intergenerational diaspora trauma among the women of a filipina-american family, eldest daughter syndrome, and what happens when a ship full of humans that can bend space and time returns to an Earth in climate crisis far sooner than expected. It’s kind of hopepunk, I guess?

Meanwhile, Windmark, a.k.a. “the unexpected dragon book,” has passed 50,000 words, but I feel like I’ve barely gotten out of act one? But I’m notorious for misjudging how far into a book I actually am. Until I’m actually done I really can’t tell you where the act breaks or beats are. I just know when it is done, then it will be obvious.

A wisecracking nonbinary power bottom just showed up to boss around the hero (from the bottom, of course) and is in danger of taking over the story. I think I’m having the problem that both my main characters are suppressing their emotions so much because of the past trauma that made them hate each other, that they are coming across kind of flat and all the secondary characters seem much more colorful and interesting! Clearly something has to crack soon… I’m also having the problem that I’ve set up a really misogynistic culture, which means our heroine and all the female characters are very much living under a constant threat of sexual violence.

I know we’re in the post-Game of Thrones era, which was rapey as all get out, but I really did not set out to write what is essentially female body horror with this book. I sidestepped the issue in The Prince’s Boy by having no female characters… except in the end there is the body horror once the villain comes into physical contact with our heroes. I have to figure out where this one is going to land and how exactly my heroine is going to come into her power.

It’s funny, I had half convinced myself to just write another all-male cast book… and then this female-bodied character put her foot down and demanded to be written. So I just have to figure out how to do her justice.

AND NOW PHOTOS FROM THE NEBULAS CONFERENCE

Met Nghi Vo in real life for the first time! Many Circlet Press alums were at the Nebs (and Moniquill won one!)

Caught up with David D. Levine (another Circlet alum), here with Vela Roth and Amy Young-Leith (and me)

With Kate Pennington. Who knows a lot about whales!

And SB Divya. And I have way more photos than this but this is enough picspam, don’tcha think?

Tour Dates & Upcoming Appearances

2024:

July 11-14: Readercon, Boston area
August 7-11: SABR National Convention, Minneapolis
October 16-20: World Fantasy Con, Niagara Falls

2025:

January 17-20: Arisia, Cambridge, MA (new hotel: Hyatt Cambridge)
March 12-15: ICFA, Orlando, FL
August 13-17: Worldcon in Seattle, WA

Upcoming Cons

Readercon last year was a really great time, with a very good outdoor hangout area that turned into a nonstop literary green room party. I just got my schedule and it looks like tremendous fun. July 11-13 in Quincy, Massachusetts (just a few miles south of Boston proper).

My reading will be on Thursday night. Should I read from the unexpected dragon book? Or the hopepunk story? Or something smuttier? Hmmm……

Parting Thoughts

Okay, no book recs this time, but I will leave you with a link to one recipe, because it is strawberry season here in New England, and that means it is strawberry PIE season, as well. It’s also the season when fresh basil starts showing up in the farmer’s market. Some years ago I took the idea for a dessert we often see: a sort of dessert salad of strawberries served cut up with chopped basil, with a dressing made of balsamic vinegar and maple syrup, but I made it a pie instead. Find the whole recipe at my blog: https://blog.ceciliatan.com/archives/2412

By next month maybe I’ll have read some of the books in my pile and will have some recommendations… I have to finish the proofs and edits on Daron’s books 11, 12, and 13 first, though!

Until then!

-ctan

Mirrored from cecilia tan.

I went chasing the aurora… and caught it!

ceciliatan — Sat, 18 May 2024 05:01:20 GMT

Last night we went seeking the wonders of the world. And we found them.

I had read on Twitter early in the evening that a “geomagnetic storm” was going on and that there would likely be amazing auroras to be seen, but corwin and I both had to work until 9pm and I didn’t even think of going hunting for it. But after we’d finished dinner, around 11 o’clock at night, I saw a photo on Twitter taken from the bay in Salem, Massachusetts, that looked spectacular. Sure it was a long exposure photo, but Salem does not exactly have dark sky conditions and is very far south of where one normally thinks of seeing auroras.

I showed it to corwin.

“Want to go?” he asked.

“I’ll put on pants,” I replied.

By 11:30pm we were driving due north on I-93, not quite sure where we were headed other than “somewhere dark, somewhere north.” We looked at aurora prediction websites. On the scale from 1 to 9 used to measure aurora activity, it was then around 6.5 with predictions to hit 7 within an hour.

To the west, the moon was setting. At about 40% full, it looked huge as it neared the horizon, dipping into a sea of misty clouds, resembling the ragged billowing sail of a ghost ship on fire.

We blew past the first rest area in New Hampshire, a spot where we’d previous taken in the view of a wonder in the sky: the annular eclipse back in 1994. That time we’d ridden motorcycles from corwin’s house in the suburbs. We didn’t even live together yet, that’s how long ago that was.
This time we made our first stop at the next rest area further on, past Manchester. A lot of cloud cover was coming and going, but it looked like to the north it was clearer. Where could we go that was dark enough and where we could get a view of the horizon, without trees?

One thought that occurred to me was the Margate Resort, on the shores of large lake Winnipesaukee, which I knew of because it’s where MISTI-Con was just last month. But I wasn’t sure how well we could get away from lights there. “What’s the ski mountain in Laconia?” I asked corwin, who asked Google.

Gunstock. As soon as he said it I knew that’s where I wanted to go. We set the GPS for Gunstock Mountain and off we went again. And it was on a dark back road toward the ski resort that I suddenly pulled off the road and said, “That. What is making those trees backlit?”

“Isn’t that the glow from some city?” corwin asked.

“There’s no city that direction.” We jumped out of the car and looked a bit longer, but a house and lots of trees were in our way. All we could see was that the sky to the north was bright.
He was skeptical. We got back in the car. We drove not even a quarter mile when I again pulled off with no warning. “That’s it! That’s it!”

We were in front of a house with a cleared yard between it and a freestanding two-car garage. Between the house and the garage we could see in the distant sky what looked like a shimmering white curtain of light.

That was most certainly not the glow of a city. One large tree was blocking the view somewhat but there was no mistaking what we were seeing for city glow or anything else, the way the light moved, like a sheet of gossamer rippling. Then it turned more steadily bright. The aurora meter on the web said it was hitting close to 8. It was 1:30 in the morning at that point.

We decided to try to get away from the tree. Just a little further up the road we came to a genuine pull-off with gravel and what might have been a boggy area or a pond, judging by the loud croaks of bullfrogs and the mosquitos attacking me. From there we had a fairly good view due north above the tree line, but as we looked toward the glow, the clouds overhead thickened in. In just a few minutes we went from seeing a good many stars to none at all, and any view of the aurora utterly blocked.

Still, we considered it a completely successful trip. We’d gone with the intent of seeing the Northern Lights with the naked eye, and we’d succeeded, even if it was a brief view! (The one other time we’d seen them was from an airplane, on a red eye flight from Los Angeles to Boston, and they’d looked like giant green search lights glowing in the sky. We didn’t sleep, just watched the green glow for hours.)

Given that we’d gone that far, and that the aurora prediction was that it was going to go up even more in the next hour, we decided it made sense to stay out a bit longer and see if we could either figure out a clearer place to drive to, or wait to see if it might clear where we were. By that point we both had to answer the call of nature, though, so we drove back down the mountain to the Margate, which feels like home away from home by now. We used the lobby restrooms and had a nice chat with the overnight desk clerk, an elderly man from the area who suggested we might try Liberty Hill for a nearby spot where it’s very dark.

Our searches of Internet weather sites did not turn up anything helpful in the way of a cloud cover map. Far as I could tell ClearDarkSky is most useful for telling what the cloud cover is like where you *are* but not where to *go*, and is also nearly impossible to read on a mobile phone. And I swear radar weather maps used to have a cloud cover option, but nothing that we could find on our phones, it seemed.

So we went up Liberty Hill just to see, and although it was good and dark, and probably excellent for looking at meteor showers (for example), there were too many trees to get a good view of the horizon. So we drove back to the good pull off on the road to Gunstock and decided to just give it an hour to see if the clouds would clear. A small clear patch was visible in the west, and over the course of the hour it gradually moved eastward overhead, revealing the Milky Way, Arcturus setting in the west, and due north framed by the Big Dipper and Cassiopeia. But all we could really see was just a brightness, a glow, nothing distinct like it had been before.

Rainbow as seen from the car.

At 3:30 am we decided we were probably starting to see the pre-dawn glow — after all, it was just the shortest night of the year mere days ago! — and we packed it in. We Googled up a 24-hour diner on the route home, and talked about cognitive science and epistemology and baseball — the things essential to the human condition — all the way there.

By the time we left the diner, dawn was imminent, and with all the odd cloud cover around the region, were treated to an intensely colorful and three-dimensional sun rise. And then, as if the universe wasn’t done showing us the wonders of the sky, we saw a rainbow.

All in all a very successful endeavor in looking up.

Mirrored from cecilia tan.

pennae aquilae

BDSM for Romance Writers Class: April 29th

Romantasy as a social phenomenon, academics get me hot, and more

Thinky Thoughts: Academics Turn Me On

WIP Report

Tour Dates & Upcoming Appearances

Upcoming Classes

Parting Thoughts

Feeling very knife-y today

Chapter 4 from THE HOT STREAK!

New story at Sunday Morning Transport! *rocket emoji*

Seattle Worldcon Report

Party!

Writing Workshop

ConCurrent

Writers with Drinks

My Readercon Schedule!

Disney, my Dad, and the Very Bisexual T-Shirt

MAGIC UNIVERSITY is launched!! Read an excerpt…

“A magic school book, but make it queer”

Arisia 2025 and Capricon 45 Schedules

Queer Eye for Sci-Fi

Kickstarter for Authors and Small Presses

Reading: Cecilia Tan (18+)

Writing FanFiction as a Professional Writer

Professional Organizations for Writers

Writing and career news

DGC VOLS 1-10 ARE IN KU

WIP Report

Tour Dates & Upcoming Appearances

More About Readercon

Let’s End with a Book Recommendation

Not my usual monthly update… (got married)

New erotic fantasy / paranormal serial coming to Patreon... as soon as I reach goal

Cecilia Tan | creating passionate fiction | Patreon

Announcing: new Cecilia Tan paranormal series to Tor Books

Book news: Initiates of the Blood publication delayed

Let’s Talk About Fear (and erotica)

“Freelance Heroes”

DGC Vols 1-8 are live in KU!

WIP Report

My Schedule for World Fantasy!

Tour Dates & 2025 Appearances

Book Recommendations

Parting Thoughts

"The Bonds of Love" Erotic Romance Novella now out from Cecilia Tan

Resigning my Membership in RWA

Re-live the magic of the Harry Potter films with Cecilia Tan

To back the campaign: https://bit.ly/HPbingewatch

Click to support: https://bit.ly/HPbingewatch

English is Weird, Man…

Blogging BookExpo America, Thursday night

Starting August 1: an erotic steampunk adventure

Are we in a Golden Age of Queer & Trans SF/F?

Just kidding, of course I’m going to explain WHY my answer is yes.

DGC Vol 4 is live!

AND DGC VOL 1 is now WIDE!

WIP Report

Tour Dates & Upcoming Appearances

Upcoming Cons

Parting Thoughts

-ctan

I went chasing the aurora… and caught it!

New story at Sunday Morning Transport! rocket emoji