ravenna_c_tan

BDSM for Romance Writers Class: April 29th

Mon, 13 Apr 2026 06:09:02 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.

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

Fri, 27 Mar 2026 07:44:51 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.

( Read the rest of this entry » )

Mirrored from Cecilia Tan.

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Party tonight! And an art reveal

Fri, 30 Jan 2026 21:04:14 GMT

Yes, it's National Shutdown Day, but when we rescheduled last week's book launch party at Pandemonium because of the two feet of snow bearing down on us... we didn't know that today would become National Shutdown Day. So the party is going forward at 6:30pm tonight, at Pandemonium Books & Games, and I hope folks come out even if they don't spend anything. :-)

The party is for the launch of Bound by the Blood, my BDSM-meets-urban-fantasy thriller novel, first in The Vanished Chronicles.

https://pandemoniumbooks.com/products/author-event-with-cecilia-tan-bound-by-the-blood-vanished-chronicles-1?start=2026-01-01T00:00&select=2026-01-30T18:00

It's been a rough couple of weeks between the ICE murders in Minnesota and other things (remember invading Venezuela? yeah, and a list of other things), making it really difficult to maintain my focus on anything but doomscrolling or really brainless phone games.

I deleted all the games (except Words with Friends and Pokemon Go!) from my phone last week and hunkered down to finish the revisions on The Mystery of the Bitten Peach, the lesbian Ancient China time-travel fantasy romance novella I shared sketches from recently. I finally solved the mystery for myself of what was missing from act III, and I'm super happy with how it hangs together now. dave ring at Neon Hemlock is giving it the final editing pass, and the paperback book is now up for pre-order on the Neon Hemlock site! Here: https://www.neonhemlock.com/books/bitten-peach

The cover in all its glory can be viewed in the Patreon post: https://www.patreon.com/posts/party-tonight-149532475

The art is by Jenn So (https://jennlso.com/), with layout and design by dave ring, the mastermind of Neon Hemlock.

I'll post an excerpt soon?

See (some of) you tonight.

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Feeling very knife-y today

Fri, 09 Jan 2026 23:02:44 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… )

( Read the rest of this entry » )

Mirrored from Cecilia Tan.

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Oooh, maybe this journal is functional again??

Sat, 20 Dec 2025 21:40:32 GMT

Hello, Dreamwidth! I've been poking along with this blog, unable to friend anyone new for years, because of a glitch in the back end, but after long last, the bug has been fixed!

I think everything's fully functional again, which means I can go and friend folks again, and trim out some of the deleted journals from my list and replace them with more active folks.

I've also still got my ceciliatan account, but it was never as active, so I'm going to keep the action over here.

I had stopped posting my monthly newsletter to my blogs in addition to putting it up on Patreon and Mailchimp, but maybe I should start again...

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New story at Sunday Morning Transport! rocket emoji

Mon, 08 Sep 2025 18:43:41 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.

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Seattle Worldcon Report

Fri, 22 Aug 2025 07:52:04 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?

( Read the rest of this entry » )

Mirrored from Cecilia Tan.

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My Worldcon Schedule AND Boston Fan Expo (formerly Boston Comic Con)

Tue, 05 Aug 2025 06:11:10 GMT

Whew~! Readercon was a whirlwind, as expected, but so much fun. I had so many great panels, and I wrote down so many inspiring thoughts and quotes from fellow panelists. Two in particular from Vandana Singh: “There is an artificial line between nature and culture.” and “Shiva was a bisexual god before he got appropriated by mainstream Hindus.”

But now it’s time to gird my loins for Worldcon in Seattle! I leave in less than a week. But guess what…?

Fan Expo Boston

I got added to the Fan Expo Boston author lineup as well, being wrangled by Lovestruck Books, the absolutely fab new romance bookstore in Harvard Square, which has a huuuuge romantasy section, nice erotica section, and lots of other squee-worthy genres.

So this Saturday, August 9 I’ll be autographing Magic University at 11am at Fan Expo, along with Elizabeth Skarpnes (To The Gallows|on Bookshop & Amazon) and I.V. Ophelia (The Poisoner | on Bookshop & Amazon).

Then at 9pm I’ll be on an 18+ panel/writing workshop on How to Write a Sex Scene with Kim Swizz and I.V. Ophelia! The three of us will be giving advice (in graphic detail if necessary) on how to wring every last bit of pleasure from writing sex scenes! Whether you’re trying to keep it as low key as possible or you want to turn up the heat, we have techniques to share!

Fan Expo Boston is held at BCEC (Boston Convention & Exhibition Center, right next to the Westin Seaport.)

THEN, it’s off to Seattle Worldcon!

My Worldcon schedule is spread out over five days and four different venues:

( Read the rest of this entry » )

Mirrored from Cecilia Tan.

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My Readercon Schedule!

Mon, 14 Jul 2025 15:48:42 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

( Read the rest of this entry » )

Mirrored from Cecilia Tan.

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

Sun, 15 Jun 2025 18:00:11 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.

( Read the rest of this entry » )

Mirrored from Cecilia Tan.

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Hahahaha not surprised

Sat, 29 Mar 2025 17:45:33 GMT

So we reached the stage of the Magic University collectors edition hardcover Kickstarter where I have to/get to write a new story set in that universe. So I polled the backers what kind of story they want and most voted for hot-hot-hot!

Am I surprised? I am not.

Folks who know me already know what they are getting into. Grin.

As for the premise of the story... several ideas in the poll are competing, so I'll wait until more responses are in before I start thinking about it.

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“A magic school book, but make it queer”

Wed, 26 Mar 2025 17:46:25 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…)

( Read the rest of this entry » )

Mirrored from Cecilia Tan.

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I've been in low-engagement mode since the inauguration...

Sun, 26 Jan 2025 04:33:48 GMT

well, really since election night. I've been trying to stay off social media, but I've been only partly successful at it. I've been trying to get other work done and get my self-publishing business back on track after neglecting it from 2016 until recently...

but man, it's difficult. It's really difficult to concentrate on any work at all when I know horrendous things are being perpetuated.

I don't need to be convinced of the importance of telling stories, uplifting queer voices, and providing escapism and light in dark times. I know that what I do as a writer is worth doing. But it's just so difficult to concentrate.

In related news, I got email saying that the bug that was keeping me from cleaning up my massively oversubscribed friends list here on DW was supposedly fixed. But when I tried to delete some of the dead LJ accounts off my list, this time I got a 504 error. Which is at least better than just... nothing happens and the list stays the same, which is how it was before. But at least that's progress.

Once I get the list below 1000, which is the cap, I'll be able to friend new people and friend back anyone I'm not currently mutual with!

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Arisia 2025 and Capricon 45 Schedules

Sun, 05 Jan 2025 06:52:40 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.)

( Read the rest of this entry » )

Mirrored from Cecilia Tan.

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Attention smut writers :-)

Fri, 27 Dec 2024 23:05:15 GMT

Announcing the existence of a new newsletter for links to erotic fiction on the web. The WANTON WEEKLY will start this coming Wednesday, to serve up fresh links to erotic stories, smutty serials, sexy web comics, steamy fiction podcasts, etc.

Sign up to get the newsletter & read FAQ about it: https://wanton-weekly.beehiiv.com/p/sign-up-now-to-start-getting-wanton-weekly

Submit links to your fiction: https://wanton-weekly.beehiiv.com/p/now-collecting-links-for-the-wanton-weekly

The focus is on erotic fiction, created by humans, no AI-generated work, and no real life "it happened to me" podcasts, etc.

I was originally going to call it the Wednesday Wank and then someone convinced me it might be better not to use a word that might get censored on social media. (Also we might decide Wednesday isn't the best day for it.)

Please spread the word, and if you're posting erotic fiction, please submit your links!

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Writing and career news

Fri, 06 Dec 2024 19:43:36 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.

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Not my usual monthly update… (got married)

Thu, 05 Dec 2024 10:41:01 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.

( Read the rest of this entry » )

Mirrored from Cecilia Tan.

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Maybe I finally fixed my friending ability here on DW?

Sat, 23 Nov 2024 08:13:13 GMT

I have been having problems for years here on DW where I had too many friends (from back in the day when the limit was higher, I guess?) and back when LiveJournal and DW were interoperable so there was a lot of duplication, and you could import your LJ f-list to here (literally, it's the LJ accounts of people I see on my list).

But because I was way over the 1000 limit, I couldn't subscribe to anyone new here, not even communities, and this made it hard to make new friends and participate in fests.

And then there was a bug that meant any time I used the edit function to try to remove more than one friend at a time, it wouldn't work. Nothing would change. The only way to delete was to click on each one individually and then revoke access/change subscription. One at a time.

I finally chipped away at it enough that it's below the 1000 threshold, and I can friend people back, finally! Woooo!

Any fic communities or newsletters I should know about? LMK

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HP After 2020 Podcast

Mon, 18 Nov 2024 21:07:50 GMT

I'm the special guest on this past Saturday's episode of "Harry Potter After 2020", the podcast where Lorrie Kim and Emma Grant (aka JC) are re-reading the entire series with the lens of ourselves as older, wiser readers post-TERFpocalypse. They just finished PoA and this episode is our chance to pause and reflect about HP fandom, how the fandom has changed in recent years, and how we've found ourselves still committed to that community:

https://hpafter2020.libsyn.com/81-cecilia-tan

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Now only $10 short...!

Sat, 16 Nov 2024 09:01:03 GMT

Looks like I'll be launching that erotic paranormal novel serialization on my patreon very shortly after all! Very excited to finally bring this book to life. More about it later.

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

Sun, 10 Nov 2024 07:59:11 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...

https://www.patreon.com/c/ceciliatan

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The Time is Now (to support a sm*t writer in your life)

Fri, 08 Nov 2024 21:53:06 GMT

I sent out my email newsletter in the wee hours this morning, and in this post I’m going to expand on some things I said in it. (Because even 12 hours later, some things already need updating!)

“Pornography should be outlawed. The people who produce and distribute it should be imprisoned.”

These are the literal words in Project 2025, the ultra-conservative blueprint for America that the Trump administration admitted yesterday they have been planning to use all along.

There are so many things I’d rather be writing about right now. There are dozens of fights for our rights we’ll need to have in the coming year, but since I am an erotica writer, I’ll stay in my lane for the moment and concentrate on the Project 2025 Porn Ban. Yes, it’s real. As Newsweek reports, it’s “a key agenda item in Project 2025.”

You might think in the wake of 50 Shades that BDSM is just accepted everywhere, and with the success of Sarah J. Maas’s ACOTAR and fantasy/romantasy books with a lot of “spice” in them, that whether something has sex in it is no big deal now. But this is not the case. It’s already more difficult to sell and publish erotic writing than any other genre, because it’s already against the ToS to promote erotic writing on Facebook or Google Ads. B&N just did a purge of erotic ebooks. Amazon regularly figures out what the hot erotic trend is and then suppresses it in search (as they did with bigfoot erotica, dinosaur porn, stepbrothers, and so on).

With Project 2025, they won’t just shut down sites like PornHub. They want to scrub sex-related content from all American life, which means increased pressure on Amazon and Patreon and Barnes & Noble to sanitize themselves—which they’ve already been doing! These efforts will only intensify.

But if you think wellllll maybe we can live without some smut, remember, for Project 2025 folks, “banning porn” doesn’t just mean going after the explicit “X-rated” material. It also means anything with queer or trans content, because to them, any representation of queerness is obscene.

But those of us who do write explicitly erotic material (as usual) will be the first to go. They’ve said in plain words that people like me belong in jail for what we write. If you don’t agree, and you believe we have the right to write about sex, and the right to read about it as well, now is the time to support your erotica writing friends as best you can, whether that is by buying their books or supporting their crowdfunds, or in reviewing, posting, and talking about their books, or even just posting an encouraging word to them!

( Read the rest of this entry » )

Mirrored from Cecilia Tan.

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Let’s Talk About Fear (and erotica)

Sun, 13 Oct 2024 21:36:52 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 …

( Read the rest of this entry » )

Mirrored from cecilia tan.

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Thinky Thoughts: Fantasy Worldbuilding "Wrong"

Thu, 19 Sep 2024 08:54:23 GMT

So, my “unexpected dragon book,” working title “Windmark,” has just passed 70,000 words in the first draft and all hell is about to break loose, as it should when act three arrives! This is the fun part for me because, I’ll be honest, I do not actually know where this book is going.

That’s right. I do not know the plot.

It feels like a high fantasy trilogy, which means this book is setting up two more. But at this point I only have the same guesses a reader would (probably) have about what’s coming. It sounds nuts, but I’m finding out this is a far more productive, faster, and less painful way for me to write a book than plotting it out in advance.

To me, it feels more like “art” and less like “work.”

Let me explain.( Read more... )

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Sorry about the duplicate posts, Dreamwidth!

Mon, 19 Aug 2024 01:14:39 GMT

So, I finally got around to migrating my websites out of the machine in my basement and onto outside hosting. I went with Dreamhost on the advice of several other erotic art/writing creators who have been using them and have been supported by their policies rather than attacked by them.

My biggest worry with outside hosting of course is that everything will get deleted as a TOS violation, which is one reason we held onto running our own servers for so long. But at this point it's too much of a pain to deal with the upkeep and the downtime. Every time we have a thunderstorm and a power blip, we go offline. If Comcast has an outage in the neighborhood, we go offline. Etc.

And so far, moving over to Dreamhost has been very smooth! Three of our four websites migrated without a blip. Circlet.com, which I am still running until Riverdale Ave Books gets around to adding our books to their e-commerce site, failed mysteriously, and I'm going to try that one again once I get the DNS re-pointed, etc.

BUT, when I went back and edited and cleaned up some old posts... for some reason they re-cross-posted to DW? That isn't how the cross-poster is supposed to work, I don't think...?!?!

Anyway, if you're wondering why the heck a half dozen posts from 2020 just showed up, that's why.

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ravenna_c_tan

BDSM for Romance Writers Class: April 29th

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

Thinky Thoughts: Academics Turn Me On

Party tonight! And an art reveal

Feeling very knife-y today

Oooh, maybe this journal is functional again??

New story at Sunday Morning Transport! *rocket emoji*

Seattle Worldcon Report

My Worldcon Schedule AND Boston Fan Expo (formerly Boston Comic Con)

Fan Expo Boston

THEN, it’s off to Seattle Worldcon!

My Readercon Schedule!

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

Hahahaha not surprised

“A magic school book, but make it queer”

I've been in low-engagement mode since the inauguration...

Arisia 2025 and Capricon 45 Schedules

Attention smut 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)

Maybe I finally fixed my friending ability here on DW?

HP After 2020 Podcast

Now only $10 short...!

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

The Time is Now (to support a sm*t writer in your life)

“Pornography should be outlawed. The people who produce and distribute it should be imprisoned.”

Let’s Talk About Fear (and erotica)

Thinky Thoughts: Fantasy Worldbuilding "Wrong"

Sorry about the duplicate posts, Dreamwidth!

New story at Sunday Morning Transport! rocket emoji