The Academy: The Authors

Michael Hernandez is a rather twisted, gender variant imp. Writing credits include a sex column in the FTM Newsletter and contributions in Transliberation: Beyond Pink and Blue, edited by Leslie Feinberg  (Beacon Press), Looking Queer, edited by Dawn Atkins (Hayworth Press), Dagger: On Butch Women,  edited by Lily Burana and Roxxie Linnea Due (Cleis Press), and The Second Coming, edited by Pat Califia and Robin Sweeney (Cleis Press).  He also appears in  Transmen & FTMS: Identities, Bodies, Genders & Sexualities by Jason Cromwell (University of Illinois Press).   Mike has a penchant for polar bears and fishnet stockings, but prefers to keep these separate.

david stein has spent decades looking for a Master with a will of iron, a heart of gold, a mind like a steel trap, and the patience of a saint. In the meantime, he overworks for a living in New York City and puts his heart into his educational and erotic writing about BDSM and D/s, and his first novel, “Carried Away,” is now available. Other writing credits include guest-editing issue 14 of International Leatherman magazine (the special issue about real-life gay Master/slave relationships), six years of “Bond+Aid” safety columns in Bound & Gagged magazine, an essay on “what slaves need” in SM Classics edited by Susan Wright (Masquerade); two pieces in the anthology The Horsemen: Leathersex Short Fiction edited by Joseph Bean (Leyland), and additional fiction and nonfiction in Checkmate/Dungeon Master, Mach, Powerplay, and Drummer. Some of the work he is proudest of can be found on his Web pages at www.boybear.us. In 1980 david co-founded Gay Male S/M Activists (GMSMA), now the world’s largest gay male s/m organization, and he served GMSMA in a variety of offices through 1992.

Cecilia Tan started writing about the same age she started masturbating (about age 5). But she didn’t start finishing stories until she came out into S/M at age 23. Now in her 30s, Tan has published dozens of short stories and articles, and is the author of the book Black Feathers: Erotic Dreams. She has contributed to Best American Erotica, Best Lesbian Erotica, Ms. Magazine, Penthouse, and Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine. She is hard at work on her next erotic book, tentatively titled The Book of Want.

Karen Taylor first offered to write stories in the Marketplace universe as a courting gift, which demonstrated its success as a ploy when she and Laura were married in 1998. Other stories have appeared in No Other Tribute and Leatherwomen III both edited by Laura Antoniou (Masquerade), Friday the Rabbi Wore Lace, edited by Karen Tulchinsky (Cleis), and the 1997 Small Press award winner, First Person Sexual, edited by Joani Blank (Down There Press). The first Marketplace story she created, “The Nurse,” was written in 1996 and is dedicated to the memory of Michael Max Youngs.