A worker named Dave came to the house for an estimate and, as he left, I handed him my card, with the Bear Bones Books logo on it. He looked at the card and said, “This is a great logo. Wait a second — I know I’ve seen this logo with the bear before.”
“Do you know about the gay and bi men’s subculture called the Bears?”
Dave replied, “No, don’t think so. But I have a photographic memory and I’m positive I’ve seen this logo before.”
BBB biz card
“Well,” I said, “I don’t post my cards on bulletin boards around town, so I can’t imagine where you might have seen it.”
He kept staring at the design on the business card. “I think I saw it on the cover of a book somewhere.”
“But the logo has only appeared on the spine, not the front cover, of our books.”
“I’m pretty sure I saw it on the front cover of something.”
“Actually, it could have been the cover of our first catalog. But we only publish writing by and for gay and bisexual guys in the Bear community. Where would you have seen the BBB catalog?”
“My daughter is a student at Towson University. I think I saw it when I was with her.”
“Oh, my friend David Bergman is an English professor there. An interview with him, and his own fiction, is in our books.”
“I don’t know if she has him for a teacher, but when we were visiting she took us to the GLBT place on campus.”
“Oh, I see — your daughter was showing you the gay student center at Towson. David might have given them one of our catalogues.” So, I showed Dave a BBB catalog.
“Oh yeah, that must have been where I saw your bear.”
After Dave left, I realized that the BBB logo bear does not have a name. So I thought we should call him:
During the Civil War, two young soldiers on opposite sides find themselves drawn together.
One man, Ian, is a war-weary but scholarly Southerner who has seen too much bloodshed, especially the tortures inflicted upon the enemy by his vicious, sadistic commanding officer, his uncle.
The other, Drew, is a Herculean Yankee captured by the ragtag Confederate band and forced to become a martyr for all the sins of General Sheridan’s fires.
When these two find themselves admiring more than one another’s spirit and demeanor, when passions erupt between captor and captive, will this new romance survive the arduous trek to Purgatory Mountain?
Lammy-winning author Jeff Mann’s first full-length novel brings two opposed war heroes together in a page-turning historical drama of homomasculine love.
You’re not afraid of wild and weird things that go Woof in the night, are you? Enter the Den, where this frightfully stimulating collection of 15 hot and hairy stories — written by and for the masculine men who call themselves bears, cubs, wolves, otters, and the critters who love them — will be sure to give you a chill up your spine and a thrill between your furry loins.
The erotomythic stories tell of bearish men who dare enter forbidden realms populated (and copulated) by mystical beings, supernatural creatures, fantastic spirits, netherworldly demons, and bizarre beasts–your typical Folsom Street Fair crowd.
This collection includes new stories from authors William Holden, Daniel M. Jaffe, Hank Edwards, ‘Nathan Burgoine, Jay Starre, and Lee Thomas, and others; classic bear tales from Jay Neal, Jeff Mann, and Nicolas Mann; plus fabulous original short fiction by fresh talents in the bear writing community.
Tales from the Den may or may not grow hair on your palms, but it’s certain to raise fur on the back of your neck!
Tales from the Den
Wild & Weird Stories for Bears
edited by R. Jackson
Bear Bones Books / Lethe Press • October 2011
Bear Bones Books / Lethe Press, October 2011 • 256 pp., 9 x 6 inches
Enveloped by the native spirits of the Pacific Northwest, Roy Wallace and David Moreau’s newfound relationship begins. David soon introduces Roy to the House of Wolves, a small intentional community of gay and bisexual men where honor, companionship, spirituality, erotic desire, and brotherhood guide their way.
Each man living in the house represents a totem from the spirit world, and each one has committed himself to creating a unique path in life. As Roy approaches the prospect of living with the group, he experiences the loving gift that each person, including himself, brings to the household.
As the mystical rituals and traditions of Roy’s new chosen family are revealed, each character is forced to confront fears and break through personal limitations in order to embrace the extraordinary loving spirit that ultimately unites them in body, mind, and spirit in the House of Wolves.
Robert B. McDiarmid is a writer and activist who lives in Palo Alto, California. The House of Wolves is his first novel.
“The House of Wolves is a vivid amalgam of elements: body hair and beards, pipe smoke and man-musk, the landscape of the Pacific Northwest, the richness of Native American culture. Robert McDiarmid’s evocative novel beautifully intertwines the erotic, the romantic, and the spiritual, and it depicts homomasculinity at its best: lusty, strong, compassionate, and kind.”
— Jeff Mann, Lambda Literary Award-winner, A History of Barbed Wire
The House of Wolves A novel by Robert B. McDiarmid
“Jeff Mann’s Fog is brutally sexy, crossing that liminal space where sensuality and cruelty meet and mingle over and over again. A breathtaking and deeply erotic tale of violence,lust, and above all, aloving passion that makes you ache in sympathy. Simply fantastic.”
Outside an isolated cabin, winter fog caresses spruce trees. Inside, two men, lovers, have enacted a plan of revenge, kidnapping the handsome son of the man who wronged one of them.
Al, the accomplice, has stalked Rob for weeks, and his infatuation for the young man has grown deeper than he ever anticipated. So much so that he finds himself drawn to protect Rob from the rage and vengeance burning away his partner Jay’s insides.
Caring for their bound and gagged captive, with each passing day Al finds his power over Rob a potent and irresistible aphrodisiac and his heart dangerously moved. But Jay has no intention of ever allowing the young man to escape.
Fog
A novel by Jeff Mann
Bear Bones Books / Lethe Press • August 15, 2011 • 226 pp., 5.5 x 8.5 inches
A provocative, Lambda Literary Award-winning story collection — now back in print!
A History of Barbed Wire
by Jeff Mann
“Jeff Mann’s stories are snapshots of dark desire caught at the blurry intersection of fantasy and reality. A heady combination of literary introspection and sweat-drenched lust, they celebrate the achingly beautiful power of domination and submission.” —Michael Thomas Ford, author, Full Circle
A History of Barbed Wire, front cover
In intense, lyrical language, Jeff Mann’s short stories give us an array of tormented characters: adulterous lovers, a kidnapper and his handsome victim, the sadistic ghost of a Confederate soldier, a yearning forestry student, an eager masochist, and a hairy biker. These tales explore the sex and psychology of BDSM and of bear culture, and most are set in Mann’s native Appalachia, an area often mythologized as a place where the wilderness within converges with the wilderness without.
In A History of Barbed Wire, his first collection of short fiction, Mann offers readers another tour of his insight and experience. This volume includes essays previously published in several anthologies. Contents: Snowed in with Sam • A History of Barbed Wire • Dionysus Redux • Everett’s Boy • Balsam Poplar Buds • Captive • Not For Long • Daddy Dave • Raspberry Moonshine • Fireflies • The Quality Of Mercy
In addition to A History of Barbed Wire, Bear Bones Books, an imprint of GLBTQ publisher Lethe Press, has published two collections of personal essays from Mann, Edge: Travels of Appalachian Leather Bear(2008), and Binding the God(2010).
Jeff Mann teaches English at Virginia Tech. His other books include three acclaimed volumes of poetry, Bones Washed with Wine, On the Tongue, and Ash; a novella, Devoured, in Masters of Midnight: Erotic Tales of the Vampire; and a collection of memoir and poetry, Loving Mountains, Loving Men.
“An unfettered beast stalks through these stories — shameless, irresistible, alive.” —Paul Lisicky, author, Lawnboy
“A History of Barbed Wire is a collection of ten short stories that crackle with subcutaneous sexual energy and a novella that delves straight into dark obsession on its opening pages. . . . this is hyper-masculine erotica so deftly written that it will appeal to both bear fetishists and to literary aesthetes simultaneously. . . . a satisfying combination of both brain and brawn whose Southern drawl is so seductive that readers will find it hard to resist and even harder to put down.” — Christian Wright, Velvet Mafia
“Poet and creative writing teacher Jeff Mann’s new collection of highly erotic fiction orbits around all things rough and hairy. . . . Mann’s novella “The Quality of Mercy” is the most affecting, and closes out the collection with 22 chapters of raw, unadulterated, masculine sexuality. Not for the soft-hearted.” —Jim Piechota, Bay Area Reporter
“Many of these stories . . . are brutal, absolutely dripping with masculine power, raw with scent and ferociously wild, almost beyond the point of comfort, and yet they’re too compelling to turn away from.” —Kathleen Bradean, Erotica Revealed
“The range of Mann’s prose (like his poetry) is exceptional: by turns a tender, attentive lover, or a hot, quick trick.” —Thomas Lawrence Long, Editor-in-chief, HGMLQ
June 27th, 2011, 5:30 pm Giovanni’s Room, 345 So. 12th St., Philadelphia, PA 19107-5907
Jeff Mann is a Lambda Literary Award-winning author and instructor at Virgina Tech. In his book Binding the God: Ursine Essays from the Mountain South (Bear Bones Books), he writes of the passion and pain of being a Southern gentleman who happens to be invested in many worlds: the hungers of gay Bear culture; the propensities of leather and bondage; the frustrations of academia; and the perspectives of an Appalachian who has traveled the world.
He is also the author of Edge: Travels of an Appalachian Leather Bear (Bear Bones) and a new poetry book, Ash: Poems from Norse Mythology (Rebel Satori).
“It looks really familiar,” said Dave.
