Mar 312012
 

It ain’t pretty, but it’s done. I completed a first, rough, provisional, tentative, preliminary draft of chapter one, about 6,000 words that runs from Roman mystery cults to the banning of flagellant companies in the 14th century. It’s far from complete, but it is something I’m ready to show somebody else.

One of the thing I realized was that I had big gaps in my narrative. I spent the last week on a crash study on medieval Christianity, the founding of the great monastic orders and the debates over flagellation and other forms of discipline. The church has never been entirely comfortable with flagellation and other forms of asceticism, perhaps because it makes possible a connection with Christ through the body, and not through established hierarchy of intermediaries.

What’s next is Chapter 2, roughly 1500 (Pico della Mirandola’s discussion of flagellation) to 1700 (the Abbe Boileu’s discussion), the disagreement over how the human body is to be viewed. The starting point is the disagreement over the St. Theresa of Avila and her “transverberation”, her eroticised encounter with an angel that repeatedly stabbed her with a spear. In another time, St. Theresa’s experience, and art depicting it, would have been sacred, but in this time, it could be seen as profane, the result of sexuality perverted by the unnaturalness of convent life.

I may extend it to the trial of Father Girard over his affair with Catherine Cadiere around 1730, but that may be saved for the chapter on sensibility.

I’m not sure that even with a good work habit I can make my deadline of a completed manuscript by the end of October. On the other hand, I have a lot of stuff already done and researched, I just need to put it together and fill in the gaps.

 Posted by at 20:35
Mar 162012
 

My article on the polygamy court decision’s impact on polyamorist families is finally up on the Vancouver Courier. I was fortunate enough to be allowed to interview an established poly family for this.

I’ve already received an email arguing: “You know as well as I do that in the human experience of groups there is always an alpha male and alpha female; also, children are more apt to be abused by those adults in a group who are not their biological parents.”

Personally, I’m far from convinced that enforced monogamy/nuclear family is necessarily better for people than any other family structure. What surprises me is the instinctive, visceral aversion some people apparently have to alternative family structures, expressed as anything from deflected-hostility/anxiety humour to outright contempt and hatred. In that, it is quite like homophobia.

Mar 152012
 

Adventurotica just posted a rave review of The Innocents Progress & Other Stories:

It’s been said that steampunk is more of an aesthetic than a literary genre, that aside from “machines and mad science are awesome; also, it’s brown” it has no underlying ethic, nothing to say.  I disagree, and books like this are why.  Tupper reaches for something more than atmospheric and sexy, and comes away with a handful of exceptional tales that illustrate what steampunk as an evolving genre is all about.

It is theme, not merely set dressing, that makes something steampunk.  The expected accoutrements – distant airships, strange devices, rare manuscripts, goggles – are present here, sometimes centrally and sometimes only peripherally, but what really makes these stories a part of the genre is the pervasive feel of a world on the brink of massive social and technological change.

 Posted by at 10:41
Mar 102012
 

My zombie erotica story “The Charge of the Soul” is now on sale from Forbidden Fiction. You can buy it as a single story download or as part of the Touched by Death anthology.

This was a difficult story to write, because it dealt with edgy topics like sex with dubious consent, and because it was a more personal story than I usually write. However, I think it turned out well, and has an interesting perspective on sexuality through the lens of fantasy/horror.

 Posted by at 23:46
Mar 062012
 

The “cover” illustration for my zombie erotica story, “The Charge of the Soul”, is up on Forbidden Fiction. Hopefully this will be launched later this month.

I’m pretty happy with the illustration. I’m not a strong stickler for story fidelity in story art, so long as the mood and theme of the piece are conveyed, and this works pretty well. It wasn’t an easy story to illustrate in conventionally erotic ways.

 Posted by at 13:30