No, I do not use a pen name. All my life, it’s been important for me to be true to myself and expressive of who I am. I’ve been an artist all of my life (long before I learned to write), and much of my art has been intense, but I’ve always put it out there in the world, even when I think that some viewers might revile it. My appearance, too, is part of who I am—for example, I’ve been wearing nothing but black since the mid-1980s—and I always said that I would never change this for anything. As a result, I ended up with a lot of bad jobs in warehouses, but to me this was better than compromising and putting on a name tag or a necktie just to fulfill some social expectations. Writing under my own name is just an extension of this principle. I’m a creative person and I make no apologies for any of my creations. In any case, there’s no point in me trying to disguise myself. I’ve been a lifelong fan of horror and metal, and I’ve had a lot of my darker art published in a variety of online and print mags, so it’s not like trying to hide my writing will let me disguise myself as one of the “regular” people in the world.

Early in life I had been a fan of BDSM; later, I experienced a phase of being troubled by it. This had more to do with where I was in life than with BDSM itself. I started coming out of that phase, and to help myself with this I wrote a book about a couple gradually exploring BDSM. The book helped me find my way out of my troubled conception of BDSM by starting again at the beginning, and slowly establishing for myself what I found to be OK, going step by step. It was therapeutic—and, I hope, also a good read for any vanilla types who might harbor their own doubts and troubles with BDSM. It’s just as much for the reader considering dipping his or her toes in the waters as it is for the seasoned veteran of BDSM.

As I mentioned, I had been bothered by BDSM for a period of my life (during this time I wrote erotica of a more vanilla sort, though exploring things like voyeurism/exhibitionism, threesomes, swinging, etc.). I think this was because of a time when I was especially vulnerable and had my heart broken a few times in a row; I kind of retreated a bit and focused my sexuality only on what was more immediately kind and compassionate, not wanting even any hint of the cruel or oppressive. There was no single event that made me get back into accepting BDSM themes. It was more of a gradual process of becoming healthy and stable and not having so many raw wounds. I’ve just known many people who have had real experience of abuse in their lives, and when I was in my dark and vulnerable place it was easy to confuse this kind of thing with the more consensual principles of sincere BDSM.

When I write erotica, I tend to start out with an overall concept that interests me and that I think will be appealing to readers. Once I get into the actual writing, it’s exploring what I find appealing; I hope that by being sincere in my exploration, truly following the erotic energy where it leads, the result will excite the reader. I don’t think it’s possible to fake really good erotica. If the writer isn’t really exploring something that he or she finds stimulating, the real energy won’t be there in the final text. One has to be turned on by what one is writing if there is any hope of arousing the readers.

I’ve been a published author of adult fiction since the mid-1990s, so there’s a lot of past work out there. However, my initial work was intended to be porn, as opposed to erotica. That is, I submitted pieces to low-budget men’s magazines and strove to write in their voice, going right to the sex with little preliminary plot. While that work might be amusing, it’s my erotica that I’d recommend to anyone who likes my BDSM work. An excellent choice would be my most recent collection, Leaves of Lust (published by Pink Flamingo Publications, 2012). The short stories in this collection feature vanilla erotica but also explore some kinky and edgy themes such as exhibitionism/voyeurism, threesomes, and swinging. A couple of the stories do also feature some light BDSM, though that’s not the main theme. Also, for a short time I wrote reviews of adult movies for a site called AdultMaven. They would mail me DVDs, and I’d watch them and write reviews. It’s been years since I did that, but as far as I know my reviews are still available online (and some of them were for BDSM movies).

I think there’s a lot that most readers of my BDSM erotica might not know about me. First, I’ve been an artist longer than I’ve been a writer, and I’m sure my artwork has an even wider audience than my books. I’ve been featured in a number of shows and have had my work published in numerous print and online magazines—mostly in the horror genre. (I do also draw a lot of erotic and BDSM images.) I have an M.A. in Philosophy and Religion (probably not on the resumes of most erotica writers), and despite this graduate degree I spent most of my 20s working in minimum-wage jobs because I refused to dress in business attire. I also have an array of old-school skills, like calligraphy or fencing, and I’ve memorized numerous poems (the longest is Coleridge’s Rime of the Ancient Mariner, which takes me 45 minutes to recite). I never liked physical activity as a kid, but in my 20s I started using weights at the gym and have been doing it ever since. After turning 30 I also took up downhill skiing, fencing, and sailing, all of which I still enjoy. I own thousands of printed books, and that’s still what I’m most likely to spend money on—especially old, out-of-print hardcovers. I don’t have an e-book reader or a cell phone, and don’t plan on ever getting either one. I still watch VHS tapes at home (we have three VCRs at our house, and still tape TV shows that air when we’re not home), and I still listen to cassettes (my car has a tape deck, as do all the stereos at our house, and my wife and I both have cassette Walkmans). I also spent 10 years working at a haunted house in an amusement park—it was a summer job that I began in high school, and I was still working there after finishing three years of grad school. Another fun fact: I work on the side as a nude model for other artists, for photographers, and for workshops and classes. I could go on, but that’s probably more than enough...

Absolutely. I’ll be writing non-BDSM erotica as well, but BDSM is such a vast and compelling world with so much to explore. Also, I feel like it can be helpful to write stories within the safe, sane, consensual framework to counter some of the negative impressions of BDSM that one encounters in society (though we’ve come quite a long way!).

My Wish Was Her Command (Pink Flamingo Publications). This is the one I wrote when readjusting my own conceptions of the BDSM world; the action takes place within the context of a happy heterosexual marriage, starting with a discussion of a spanking fantasy and progressing from there (ultimately including much more spanking, whipping, increasingly severe bondage, gagging, tickling, waxing, facesitting, domination of various kinds, and threesomes). It’s an F/m theme, and kind of meant to lead the reader through an exploration of the light/SSC BDSM realm.