MLR Press - Gay, Erotic Fiction and Romance at its Best

Claire Thompson
Website

Claire Thompson has written erotic fiction since 1995. Much of her work focuses on the romance of erotic submission, as well as the darker exploration of BDSM. Her most recent work focuses on the romance of male/male romance and erotic submission. Claire has published numerous novels and short stories, both in print and ebook format. Says a reviewer for eCataRomance, "... Claire Thompson draws a compelling, graphic picture of a loving dominant/submissive relationship. Erotic and confronting, yet tender and intimate".

Claire's website address is www.Clairethompson.net, where you will find all of Claire’s novels, new releases and upcoming releases, as well as more detailed information about the author.

Richard Stevenson
Interview
Website

Richard Stevenson is the pseudonym of Richard Lipez, the author of nine books, including the Don Strachey private eye series. The Strachey books are being filmed by here!, the first gay television network. Lipez also co-wrote Grand Scam with Peter Stein, and contributed to Crimes of the Scene: A Mystery Novel Guide for the International Traveler. He is a mystery columnist for The Washington Post and a former editorial writer at The Berkshire Eagle. His reporting, reviews and fiction have appeared in The Boston Globe, Newsday, The Progressive, The Atlantic Monthly, Harper's and many other publications. He grew up and went to college in Pennsylvania and served in the Peace Corps in Ethiopia from 1962-64. Lipez lives in Becket, Massachusetts and is married to sculptor Joe Wheaton.

Jardonn Smith
Website

So, tough guy, think you'd like to be a character in one of my books? Fine, but please be advised you will be tested. You will deal with restraints -- ropes, leather straps, chains, whatever suits my story. You might be placed in ancient times, contemporary or future times. You will be made vulnerable, stripped and exposed, at the mercy of me and other men of my choosing, and you will suffer. But, you will never be damaged. If you prove yourself worthy you will be worshiped like all who came before you in my previous books. There are rewards for surviving my punishments, because I, Jardonn Smith, adore men of strength, defiance and virility. You, my next male lead, will be my hero. You will be immortalized in print for all to love same as I do.

Luisa Prieto
Website

Originally intending to become an artist, L.M. Prieto began writing in junior high in order to come up with a plot for her comic book, Pirate Tomatoes. After two issues, she gave up the drawing and began focusing on the writing.

Since then, Prieto has graduated from the Odyssey Writer's Workshop (http://www.sff.net/odyssey/). When she's not writing, she's thinking about writing.

Jet Mykles
Website

Jet's been writing sex stories back as far as junior high. Back then, the stories involved her favorite pop icons of the time but she soon extended beyond that realm into making up characters of her own. To this day, she hasn't stopped writing sex, although her knowledge on the subject has vastly improved.

An ardent fan of fantasy and science fiction sagas, Jet prefers to live in a world of imagination where dragons are real, elves are commonplace, vampires are just people with special diets and lycanthropes live next door. In her own mind, she's the spunky heroine who gets the best of everyone and always attracts the lean, muscular lads. She aids this fantasy with visuals created through her other obsession: 3D graphic art. In this area, as in writing, Jet's self-taught and thoroughly entranced, and now occasionally uses this art to illustrate her stories or her stories to expand upon her art.

In real life, Jet is a self-proclaimed hermit, living in southern California with her life partner. She has a bachelor's degree in acting, but her loathing of auditions has kept her out of the limelight. So she turned to computers and currently works in product management for a software company, because even in real life, she can't help but want to create something out of nothing.

Jet's Rated X-mas: Spiritual Noelle with LooseId won the coveted EPPIE Award for 2008 in the Erotic Romance Fantasy/Paranormal catagory.

Z. A. Maxfield

During Spring Break of the year 2007, working on the theory that most amazing things are accomplished by people who simply haven't been told they can't be done, Z.A. Maxfield informed her children it was the truest desire of her heart to become a writer. This may have been the result of boredom, or sunspot activity, or the earnest desire to function as some sort of role model for a change (as opposed to object lesson). It occurred to her that all those 'do your best' and 'try your hardest' and 'never too late' speeches would go better with a little active participation and the occasional visual aid. Since then, Ms. Maxfield has written several novels, three of which have been contracted for publication, and two prize-winning short stories. Ms. Maxfield currently lives in Southern California with her husband and four children, where she regularly and faithfully allows herself to be distracted by life, as well as any other shiny thing she happens to see.

Gary Martine
Website
Interview

A reclusive writer-artist-photographer-videographer, Gary Martine, in his own words, "lives and breathes" San Francisco. Kingsley and I marks Gary's introduction into the gay erotic romance genre.

William Maltese
Website
Interview

William Maltese's over four decades of writing more than 150-published novels has earned him his long-standing listing in WHO'S WHO IN AMERICA as well as foreign-language editions of his work in over twelve different countries.

While Maltese began his writing career documenting his non-fiction Inca treasure-hunting adventures and mountain-climbing exploits for men's magazines of the sixties, like Argosy, he soon capitalized upon his very same been-there-done-that-got-the-T-shirt world travels, as well as his military service (he was honorably discharged from the U.S. Army at the rank of Sergeant E-5), to become a powerhouse within the then-booming pulp-fiction industry. His simultaneously varied sexual experiences provided him fodder for expertly exploiting the, likewise, burgeoning erotica genre and resulted in his early and extensive catalogue of m/m, m/f, f/f, and variations-thereon group-sex novels. Some of his early and increasingly harder-and-harder to find books from that era now come (no pun intended) with for-collector's-only four-figure price tags.

Although Maltese has successfully ventured into mainstream on more than one occasion (even writing a children's book and three internationally best-selling SuperRomances for Harlequin), he's most recently concentrated, once again, on providing sensuous material for an adult readership. "Sex," says Maltese, "is an important part of anyone's life and should no more be literarily ignored than any other subject matter. It's part and parcel of whom and what we are, and I'm pleased to be considered a bona-fide expert in the field."

Why m/m sex novels in particular? "I just seem to have a particular knack for the genre," confesses Maltese, "and have, over the years, had publishers and readers ask me to provide them with more and more. That sees me particularly pleased, at this time, to team up with MAN LOVE ROMANCE PRESS with its primary focus on turn-on male-male literature for its discriminating clientele."

Clare London
Website

Clare took the pen name London from the city where she lives, loves, and writes. A lone, brave female in a frenetic, testosterone-fuelled family home, she juggles her writing with the weekly wash, waiting for the far distant day when she can afford to give up her day job as an accountant. She's written in many genres and across many settings, with three novels and a smattering of short stories published both online and in print. She says she likes variety in her writing while friends say she's just fickle, but as long as both theories spawn fiction, she's happy. Most of her work features male/male romance and drama with a healthy serving of physical passion, as she enjoys both reading and writing about strong, sympathetic and sexy characters.

Clare currently has several novels sulking at that tricky chapter 3 stage and plenty of other projects in mind . . . she just has to find out where she left them in that frenetic, testosterone-fuelled family home.

Josh Lanyon
Website
Interview

Josh Lanyon is the author of three Adrien English mystery novels and has been writing GLBT stories for over a decade.
THE HELL YOU SAY was nominated for a Lambda Literary Award and is the winner of the 2006 USABookNews awards for GLBT fiction. Josh lives in Los Angeles, California, and is currently at work on the fourth book in the series, DEATH OF A PIRATE KING.

J.L. Langley
Website

  JL has been talking since she was about seven months old. To those who know her it comes as no surprise, in fact, most will tell you she hasn't shut up since. At eighteen months, she was speaking in full sentences. Imagine if you will the surprise of her admirers when they complimented her mother on "what a cute little boy" she had and received a fierce glare from said little boy and a very loud correction of "I'm a girl!" Oddly enough, JL still finds herself saying that exact phrase thirty-some-odd years later.

  Today JL is a full-time writer, with over ten novels to her credit. Among her hobbies she includes reading, practicing her marksmanship (she happens to be a great shot), gardening, working out (although she despises cardio), searching for the perfect chocolate dessert (so far as she can tell ALL chocolate is perfect, but it requires more research) and arguing with her husband over who the air compressor and nail gun really belongs to (they belong to JL, although she might be willing to trade him for his new chainsaw).

Wayne Gunn
Website
Interview

Wayne Gunn, a.k.a. Drewey Wayne Gunn, has been mostly in academic publishing till now. Scarecrow Press published his ground-breaking bibliography of Tennessee Williams plays (1980; 2nd edition, 1991). Most recently the same press brought out his The Gay Male Sleuth in Print and Film: A History and Annotated Bibliography (2005). Queer Horror named it the best queer nonfiction of the year. He regularly reviews gay mysteries for the Lambda Book Report and the e-journal Reviewing the Evidence.

He grew up on a tobacco farm in North Carolina. He received his B.A. from Wake Forest College and his M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is presently professor emeritus at Texas A&M University-Kingsville. He was partner for 21 years with Jacques Murat, an Air France translator, until Jacques's heart attack in 1994.

Storm Grant
Blog

After a decade of writing fanfiction, Storm Grant decided to go pro. Look for her first novel, Gym Dandy, this Christmas from MLR Press. Her writing experience includes commercial copywriting, as well as fiction. She has contracted short stories to several publishers, including Phaze, Freya's Bower, and Torquere.She is a Board member of the Toronto chapter of the RWA. Storm holds a degree in business and has spent nearly three decades working in marketing and administration. She was born and still lives in Toronto, Canada, with her husband, and a miscellany of rescued pets.

Follow Stormy's life and writing career at her blog or email her at storm.grant@gmail.com.

Kimberly Gardner
Website

Kimberly has been making up stories for as long as she can remember. As early as the seventh grade, she recalls slashing her favorite rockstars for her own and her friends' enjoyment. It was also around that time that she began a lifelong love affair with the romance genre, devouring category romances as fast as she could smuggle them into the house. So it's not all that surprising that her two passions, romance and putting pretty boys with other pretty boys, would ultimately come together in her writing.

Moliere says, "Writing is like prostitution. First you do it for love, then for a few close friends, then for money."

Kimberly is delighted at long last to be doing it for money. Her appearance in the Ties That Bind anthology is her first publication.

Angela Fiddler

Angela Fiddler lives with her wife in southern Alberta. She has four previous gay erotica vampire novels released through Loose Id, a novella in the upcoming Blood Claim anthology, and is working on several other pieces. She is always surprised her stories contain as little kneeling as they do.

Jason Edding

Jason has been writing since he was 9 or 10, he doesn't remember exactly, but his stories started out as one page epics (well, they were epics to him) and he's never looked back. Just last year, he completed his course work and graduated as a certified veterinary assistant. He loves animals. One of his favorite channels is Animal Planet.  When he's not bumming around watching TV, he writes, which usually has him wide awake at all hours of the night, and often into the next day.

Dick D.

Sex: Anytime (Male), born: September 11th 1963 in Fort Hood, Texas (Army Brat) and currently resides in San Francisco (Mecca). Dick holds a Bachelor of Computer Science Degree, served from 7/87 - 6/96 as a United States Navy Radioman Second Class (SS) with Highest Security Clearance Held: Top Secret-Specat. He's been HIV+ since 4/90, presently works as a Internet Banking Security Specialist and is an alumni with Centaur Motorcycle Club, Washington DC. He lists his hobbies as being Evil Overlord, World Domination and loves his iPod.

Kirby Crow
Website

  Kirby Crow worked as an entertainment editor and ghostwriter for several years before happily giving it up to bake more brownies, read more yaoi, play more video games, and write her own novels.Changing weather patterns, watering bans, and pesticides have unhappily forced her to give up growing roses, alas.

Her published novels are Prisoner of the Raven (historical romance, Torquere Press, 2005), Scarlet and the White Wolf: The Pedlar and the Bandit King (fantasy romance, Torquere Press, 2006), Mariner's Luck (fantasy romance, Torquere Press, 2007), and The Land of Night (fantasy romance, Torquere Press, 2007). They are available from Torquere Books, most online book retailers, and Amazon Kindle. Her next novel, Angels of the Deep, will be published by MLR Press.

Kirby is a Spectrum Book Awards nominee, and is at work on two more fantasy novels: Erisine and Swanhand.

James Buchanan
Website

James Buchanan is an award winning author of, primarily, gay erotic fiction. James grew up in a small Southwestern town, hours away from any other small Southwestern town. A stint at the State University, where he ostensibly majored in English, garnered him a degree useful for being someone's secretary. The absolute lack of employment opportunities led James to Southern California. After a stint in County Mental Health (administration not client) he ran screaming into the field of Law. James has been practicing for nine years and someday he might even get it right.

James has published several short stories and novellas as well as six novels with various publishers.

Pat Brown
Website

Born in Western Canada, which probably explains my intense dislike of all things cold, I grew up in Southern Ontario, at that time the most white-bread vanilla of places.

Southern California, where I moved in 1978 and left the day Ronald Reagan won his second term as President was everything Southern Ontario wasn't. In 1986 we moved to Hawaii where my daughter was born. Los Angeles was for me the land of dreams and lies, where illusion battled daily with reality, and reality rarely won. People ask why I write. It's simple really, I write to give the little voices inside of me an outlet. Otherwise they'd drive me crazy.

So it was probably fitting that I spent eight years there. To this day I have a love/hate relationship with L.A. I was endlessly fascinated by it, but I was repelled at the same time. That dichotomy still exists in me. L.A. Heat grew out of those sometimes dark, always fascinating days. Like nearly everyone else who makes the trip, I went to Hollywood to reinvent myself. But I quickly discovered that in Hollywood, writers have about as much cachet as what a dog leaves on your lawn. Did I stop writing? Hell no, I just stopped telling everyone I was a writer, and just kept perfecting my craft.

Eventually I dropped the idea of doing screenplays and went back to my real love: novels. It was years before I took up bragging rights again and once more told anyone crazy enough to express even the least interest that yes, I was a writer and I wrote Science Fiction - then - eventually switching my interest to mysteries which was when I was published. I wrote my first book at 17, and my first published book at 48, proving that the tortoise does sometimes does win.

J.P. Bowie
Website

J.P. Bowie was born and raised in Aberdeen, Scotland. He wrote his first (unpublished) novel at the age of 14 - a science fiction tale of brawny men and brawnier women that made him a little suspect in the eyes of his family for a while.

Leaving home at age eighteen for the bright lights of London, he found himself in the midst of a "diverse and creative crowd" that eventually led him to the performing arts. For the next twelve years he sang, danced and acted his way around the theatres of London and the provinces, appearing in shows with many famous British singers, actors and comedians. He immigrated to the US and made his home in Las Vegas, working for that illustrious duo, Siegfried and Roy.

J.P. wrote his first gay mystery in 2000, and after having it rejected by every publisher in the universe, he opted to put his money where his mouth is and self published A Portrait of Phillip. Now several books, short stories and novellas later, he is writing m/m erotica almost exclusively. J.P.'s favorite singer is Ella Fitzgerald, and his favorite man is Phil, his partner of 15 years.

Ally Blue
Website

Ally is a married mother of two, living in the mountains of North Carolina in the U.S.A. She is a registered nurse by trade and a writer of manlove by inclination. Her husband is a freelance artist, and their children have apparently inherited his artistic tendencies. Thankfully, they have also inherited his singing voice instead of Ally’s, which her family will confirm can peel the paint off the walls.

Ally wrote her first story — a slash fanfic — in the fall of 2003. She has since branched out into original character gay romance. Her short stories have been published in the e-zines Forbidden Fruit and Ruthie’s Club, and her novels are available from Loose Id and Samhain Publishing.

In addition to writing, Ally enjoys traveling, collecting dragons, and trying to scare herself. Her favorite authors include Stephen King, Clive Barker, and H.P. Lovecraft, and she is a rabid fan of horror movies.

Ally adores music, particularly Radiohead and Patrick Wolf. She plans to have her iPod surgically implanted as soon as someone invents a way to do that. Hopefully this will mean the end of playing CDs and her children can finally stop telling her to turn the volume down.

Sarah Black
Website
Interview

Sarah Black roams the Southwest in an old Ford pickup, listening to sad cowboy songs and stopping for coffee and pie at every cafe she passes. She writes stories about the men she meets, men as battered and strong as the land, reckless and wild men with tough notions of honor, justice, and love.

Sarah Black has been nominated for a 2007 Pushcart Prize for her flash fiction story A Snowball's Chance.

Alex Beecroft
Website

Born in Northern Ireland, raised in Cheshire, Alex has lived all over the UK but nowhere else. She studied English and Philosophy at Manchester University, then read for an MPhil in The Cult of the Horse in Early Anglo-Saxon England. She worked in the Lord Chancellor's Department in London, moved to Guildford to work in the Crown Court, and has hopefully finally settled near Cambridge with her husband and two children

Alex's first m/m novel, Captain's Surrender is an Age of Sail romance set in the 18th Century British Royal Navy of Hornblower fame. Her second novel, False Colors, on a similar theme, comes out in spring 2009 from New York press Perseus Books. Working with MLR has given her the chance to branch out of 'pure' historical into historical/paranormal with an 18th Century ghost story also due in 2009.

Laura Baumbach
Website
Interview

Laura Baumbach is an award-winning author of erotic romance and fiction. Named best M/M writer of 2006, she captured 3 Top Ten Preditors & Editors spots in 3 different categories for 2006 and her scifi adventure romance is nominated for an EPPIE award for best GLBT novel of 2006. Her favorite genre to work in is manlove or gay erotic romances. Manlove is not traditional gay fiction, but erotic romances written specifically for the romantic-minded reader, male or female. Author of numerous novels, screenplays, and short stoies including Alyson Books' Ultimate Gay Erotica 2007, Laura has also written erotic stories for several magazines.

Laura's action/adventure/erotic romance The Lost Temple of Karttikeya, #9 in the Collector Series with LooseId won the coveted EPPIE Award for best GLBT novel of 2008.

Jeanne Barrack
Website

Jeanne Barrack is a native New Yorker, born and bred in Brooklyn, married for thirty-odd years (and they have been odd) to her high school sweetheart. She now live on a mountain top in rural Pennsylvania. Jeanne plays guitar and studied voice privately with a Juilliard coach and has a Masters in Music Therapy. She sings everything from folk music to Grand Opera - in ten languages including Gaelic and Hebrew. Many of her stories draw inspiration from music. Her day job involves music therapy for seniors.

Jeanne writes straight erotic paranormal romance laced with historical subtext and with the publication of The Sweet Flag, can add gay erotic paranormal romance to her credits. Jeanne's goal for her m/m writing are stories set in her cultural heritage, be they historical or paranormal -- or both.

Victor J. Banis
Website

Lecturer, writing teacher and early rabble rouser for gay rights and freedom of the press, Victor J. Banis is the critically acclaimed ("the master's touch in storytelling" Publishers Weekly) author of more than 150 published books and numerous shorter pieces in a career spanning nearly 50 years. A native of Ohio and longtime Californian, he lives and writes now in West Virginia's beautiful Blue Ridge.