Picture Yourself

on a float on a river... not just any river... a spring-fed river in the Ozark Mountains.

From a distance, the Gasconade is bluish-green. Up close or in it, the water is oft-times clear, always cool and refreshing. Float the river in summertime and the air is filled with aromas. Woods thick with trees of oak and black walnut. You will pass by high bluffs of grey rock, brown rock, carpeted with moss, and when the sun hits the bluffs at certain angles, they sparkle like jewels.

These sights and aromas are part of my story, Green River, one of three manlove tales in the MLR PRESS ghost anthology, Past Shadows.

My tale is set along the Gasconade in 1938. There's a bridge carrying traffic along U.S. Route 66, and under one of its piers lives a friendly spirt... well, it is friendly to the men working for the WPA (Works Progress Administration) to rehab the highway and its river bridge. The spirit likes to play wank the weenie when those men are skinny-dipping during their free time. The link in the title of this post will take you to YouTube where you can see a three-minute slide show that tells all about Green River.

"Blah, blah, blah," you grumble. "What's the candle picture all about?"

Glad you asked. It is the creation of Candle Artist Jfay, instigated by my request for her to re-create the sights and sounds of the Gasconade I described earlier. This past Tuesday, I received my candle, and I am here to state without debate that she has succeeded. She created a scent unique, and design which depicts the very bluffs I myself have seen. Want to know how she did it? Go to her web site and find out... here:

Wick'd Reads.com

You can have one for your very own, and when winter winds howl outside your window, you can fire it up, inhale, and picture yourself on a float on the Gasconade. While you're at Jfay's site, you will also find a text excerpt from my Green River which inspired the candle.

For more excerpts, a picture of the bridge, and purchase links for the books, you can visit my web site here: http://www.jardonnserotictales.com/greenriverexc1.htm

And that, friends, should keep you occupied for awhile.

Yours truly,
Jardonn Smith

Giving It Away

Looks like a book cover, doesn't it? WRONG! It's a banner announcing two things: the launch of a new web site; and a ton of free stuff you could win as a result. Not crappy stuff, but useful items like books, clothing, and dazzling candles made by the talented mistress of wax, Jfay.

It's her web site featuring her custom-made designs of book-themed, scented candles, and to celebrate its beginnings she's lined up a ton of freebies which you could win simply by entering at the new site.

Here's the address:

http://www.wickdreads.com/

Here's the page with details for entry, dates of the drawings, and the list with pictures of prizes.

http://www.wickdreads.com/wickdgiveaway.htm

Now, I know you men would love a pair of boxers inviting those who see them to SUCK. And what woman wouldn't enjoy expressing BITE ME to her lover by way of a sexy thong? Those are just two of the items you'll find out of the 16 drawings, and they begin October 16, running through Halloween.

Jfay will begin accepting your entries tomorrow, September 15, 2009, so click on over to the Wick'd Reads site and give yourself a chance to be happy.

S&M, B&D, and C

S&M, B&D, & C

by William Maltese

Pretty much everyone knows my penchant for writing. It seems, quite without my knowing it, I’ve become one of "the" icons of m/m literature; I’m one of the very few who apparently herald back to the Golden Age of Gay Fiction to such an extent that I’m now being found in gay-studies’ reference books, including the new one due out this summer from MLR Press, entitled — what else but — THE GOLDEN AGE OF GAY FICTION by scholar Wayne Gunn.

Pretty much everyone knows my penchant for leather and whips and chains and riding crops and stocks and bonds (the latter duo having nothing to do with the presently down-the-toilet-bowl economy)… In fact, I’ve been a long time devotee of S&M, B&D even before my early days of writing a series of the genre for Greenleaf Classics under my pseudo Lambert Wilhelm.

[For anyone interested in viewing the cover art of my early Greenleaf Classics, which have such become valuable collector’s items, go to: http://www.williammaltese.com/

Not everyone, though, knows my penchant for candles. I have to confess that I’m one of these people who have them lined up along the tub (either for candle-light bathing when I’m alone, or when I’m with others) … have them everywhere in the dining room for literal candle-lit dinners … have them everywhere in the bedroom for making love a genuinely unique experience (nothing like the way a naked body, including mine, looks in candlelight).

It has only been recently, though, that I’ve been able to combine my penchants for writing and candles by teaming up with artisan candle-maker Jfay, in order to have candles specially conceived and executed by her to represent specifically each of my books and short stories as they appear on the nation’s bookshelves. Jfay’s masterful renditions in wax for my Stud Draqual Mystery Series (a column of wax riddled with bullet-holes and blood) … for my Aussie adventure novel SNAKES (a coiled serpent tattooed in blue against a bright orange backdrop) …for my Draqual Vampyre Series (a candle, complete with stake and its own miniature coffin — which can be seen at http://www.myspace.com/draqual … for my sci-fi GERUN, THE HERETIC (grey Mithric moons) … for my serialized teen-angst novel FLICKER: TEEN WARRIOR SAGA (a whole wondrous series to fit my candle-reader story-line — which can be seen at http://www.myspace.com/flickerwarriors et al … have become prized additions to my ongoing candle collection.

Naturally, when I decided to return my attention to my favorite S&M/B&D by way of two books — my heterosexual novel SS&M, and my collection of m/m short stories LOVE HURTS — I was excited to see what Jfay could do with/for them. The former, as some of you may or may not know, is a book that lingered in a deep, dark trunk of mine, for literally decades (I thought it way too hard-core for the market), before it was brought back to light, first in serialization on our very own Jardonn Smith’s erotic web-site http://www.jardonnserotictales.com/ , and then in print publication by Wildside/Borgo Press http://www.wildsidebooks.com/MALTESE-William_c_547.html LOVE HURTS is my more recent explorations into the world of torture and dungeons — and, yes, that is I, on the cover, by way of eye-candy, wearing hardly nothing but leather straps and a gas mask in my portraiture done by John U. Abrahamson — http://www.mlrbooks.com/ShowBook.php?book=LHWM0001=LHWM0001

Jfay’s wax interpretations of the former, complete with Nazi lightning-bolt SS insignias … and of the latter, by way of a black leather-like phallic-column of wax not only smelling of leather but wrapped and hung from chains … are, in my humble opinion, masterworks of the molded- wax form.

For those of you interested in what Jfay has produced for me and my work, personally, may I refer you to http://www.myspace.com/maltesecandlegallery . For those of you interested in what Jfay has produced for others, generally, and may, if you’re lucky produce especially for you, I refer you to her http://www.wickdreads.webs.com/ .

Needless to say, I’m looking forward to seeing all of you naked and in candle-light.