Grand in Casa Grande

For those who might've noticed, my latest piece of fiction contains a passing reference to SSBBW Arizona native Susanne Eman, who reportedly is working toward becoming the fattest woman on record. Thought about Miz E. more than once when I was writing about my heroine Sylvie's transformaton . . .

Ye Olde Bookstore

Posted a new story for the holidays on the Dimensions online site, "The Bookstore," a tale that's meant to fit into the "Fat Magic" universe. Check it out if you're at all into fantasies about magical gain (and, if you're not, how'd you find your way here?)

Wakey, Wakey . . .

A new "Fat Magic" story has been posted on the Dimensions Online site this Labor Day Weekend: "Waking Moments." It's a fantasy that takes the Lew Baird class-based WG transformation story and puts a more uplifting spin on it. Some readers have been turned off by the somewhat darker tone of the Baird tales (as I've noted more than once, he's Richard Bachman to my Stephen King), and this is my attempt at looking through this material through a more positive lens. I'm somewhat satisfied with the results, but I can't help wondering what Lew'd think . . .

Thanksgiving Memories

This Thanksgiving I found myself recalling my one WG story with a turkey day theme, so I hit the "Fat Magic" site and reread "Lady Bountiful" to see how it held up for the holiday. Not a bad little erotic fanta-sizer romance, I ultimately decided -- if a bit unsafe for family viewing.

More Magickal Abundance

Must be close to the holidays ‘coz a new “Fat Magic” has just popped up on the Dimensions Online: “Belle, Book and Kindle.” It’s another of those tales connected to the publisher of my favorite arcane text (the last in this series was the comic-related “Fat Manga”), though it hopefully works as a stand-alone piece. In any event, I got a charge out of putting it together.

A Smallish Plug

For the record, Lew Baird (or at least someone playing him in a comic romantic novel!) has a cameo appearance in Becky Fox & Bill Sherman's Measure by Measure.

New Fat Magic Tale

The fifth (and probably final) “Lew Baird” tale has been posted on the Dimensions website this week. Like the previous entries, it’s a fantasy of magical weight gain, altered realities and class transformation. Unlike most of the FM tales that appear under my name, the Baird stories have a little bit of an edge to 'em: nothing too dark unlike some of the WG fantasies you can find on the web, but not as celebratory as I try to be in my own tales. Think of Lew as Richard Bachman to my Stephen King, then. In any event, "Sandra/Sandy" is online for your entertainment.

Facebook III

Here's another Facebook plus-size postcard photo album, this time devoted to E.L. White.

More Facebookery

Another Facebook photo album of plus-sized postcards has been posted for your edification, this 'un devoted to Walter Wellman, master of the zaftig cutey-pie.

Page Returns

For the pre-holiday weekend, I posted one of the last Wilson Barbers tales, "Lightweight," to see print in magazine form. It's an Adipost Zone s-f adventure featuring my detective hero Page Briant and, unlike all the other entries in the series, it's a fairly straightforward action tale, if you can believe that. Not a weight gain sequence to be found in this 'un, though the story is written as a set-up to our hero's actual enhancement. One of these days, I've got to write that follow-up . . .

Facebooking It

Bill Sherman, co-author of the plus-sized soap Measure by Measure, has begun the job of moving many of the postcards from my old Geocities page onto Facebook. This first album is devoted to Arthur Thiele, naturally, so if you'd like a look, why not click here?

". . .We're Gonna Get Married."

Another Thiele wedding moment:

"Goin' to the Chapel and . . . "

Looks like this Thiele BBW is indulging in some cradle robbing, doesn't it?

On the Beach II

Here's yet another amazing Arthur Thiele summer holiday card. Who sez that fat women aren't athletic?

On the Beach

Here's a second Arthur Thiele classic, featuring two plus-sized bathing beauties.

On the Pier

My old Geocities site devoted to fat themed postcards has bitten the dust, so until I find the time to put together a new set of pages devoted to 'em, I've decided to start posting some of my favorite cards here. First up, is an item by the great Belgium artist Arthur Thiele:

Adventures in Being Edited

Rearranging some boxes in the study recently, I came upon some men's mag with a few of my stories in 'em. It'd been since some time since I'd cracked the pages of one of these disreputable li'l periodicals, so I grabbed the March '95 ish of Plumpers and Big Women, which featured one of my restaurant stories, "Consuming Interests." I remembered being dissatisfied with the tale (retitled "Consuming Love" for its print appearance), though I couldn't recall what the big issue was.

Once I got into it, I remember, though. Plumpers' editors were more hands-on than a lotta men's mag overseers, and they made some half-assed changes that I as the writer found maddening. First came in the story's opening. "Consuming" is about a girl, Tammy Tantalus, who inherits a bunch of Italian restaurants from her uncle after he's shot to death by a jealous husband. In the opening paragraph, the editors changed the motive behind his murder, making Uncle Dom the victim of a gangland shooting spurred by unpaid gambling debts. Problem with this revision is they didn't keep it consistent throughout the story: a later joking reference to that cuckolded killer was kept in the text.

Even more irritating, the editors cut "Consuming" off after its climactic sex scene, slicing off character details that I rather liked and a decent weight gain postscript. The basic story is about a Machiavellian maitre-d who schemes to get the health food conscious heiress addicted to her restaurants' offerings so she won't initiate any big changes in their menus. As she grows, the maitre-d's attraction for Tammy similarly grows, and as part of the reveal, I made it clear that Tammy is not the innocent her scheming feeder believes her to be.

But this little detail was left off the tale. Instead, we end with the two post-coitus, with a jowly Tammy smiling up at her lover and saying, "I guess this is a very happy ending!" Well, not really, I thought, when I received my contributor's copy of PBW in the mail. Fortunately, in the intervening years, the Internet has afforded me the opportunity to post what Paul Harvey would've called the Rest of the Story, so I guess I can't grouse too much. . .

Diva-licious

I've gotta discuss Drop Dead Diva.

This is, admittedly, a bit difficult for me because, frankly, I'm more than a little jealous of Josh Berman, who created and sold this show to Lifetime. A fantasy dramedy about a thin woman who dies and comes back to life as a brainy BBW lawyer? Heaven Can Wait meets Eli Stone in the world of "Fat Magic"? Yeah, I wish I had a piece of that action.

But now I've watched the first two eps of the show, and I've (almost) managed to get past my soul-gnawing envy. Credit a lead (Brooke Elliot) who is both appealing and skilled at conveying the warring personalities her plus-sized frame. It's the series' conceit that while slim dead ditz Deb is the primary occupant of the full-figured lawyer's bod, she possesses the previous owner's memories, knowledge and appetites. This creates some decent comic moments that may, at times, flirt with fat stereotypes without fully yielding into 'em. As one who enjoys exploring the line between type and individual character, that's fine with me.

The show's prime interest, then, rests in seeing how two very disparate women – one, a worshipper of the superficial and flashy, the other a brainy workaholic with a predilection for "sensible" clothes – learn to take the best aspects of each life and create an even stronger person. The trick is to dramatize this fusion without being too obvious or didactic about it. In the first two episodes, at least, some smart dialog coupled with Elliott's performance managed to pull it off.

The only time Diva flags for this viewer is when it focuses too much on dead Deb's equally pipe cleaner-y friend Kim (Kate Levering), who knows that her friend is trapped in another's body and cheerfully espouses fat-slapping self-help advice to her friend at every opportunity. A little of this goes a long way, though perhaps we'll see the character's attitude toward her fat-sized sisters evolve over time.

In short, a decent summer program – and the first thing I've set aside to watch on Lifetime since they stopped airing Medium reruns. Let's hope the show holds up over the rest of the summer.

Baird And Barbers Collaborate?

Another "Lew Baird" story has been recently resurrected from unfinished manuscript limbo and completed by yours truly. Featuring the reality shifting hero of Baird's earlier transformation trilogy ("Marianne/Mare," "Patricia/Pat/Patti," & "Rachel's Story") it's an admittedly unbelievable tale of one young woman's Big Change in the American Southwest. You can find this little fantasy, "Sophie/Sofia," on Dimensions Magazine Online's "Fat Magic" page.

As always, comments are welcome.

Posted Just 'Coz I Love the Image

A classic postcard from Dutch artist Arthur Thiele: