What they all have in common is that they’re exhilarating and they’re taking a lot of doing but I feel pretty firmly like my feet are pointed in the right direction.  It’s a good way to feel going in to a new year, honestly.

I don’t know the half of what the new year will hold for me.  But one thing I can tell you for absolute sure is that 2012 is not going to be just another year like any other, at least not around here.  I mentioned this morning on Twitter that I am limbering up… because I’ll be burning hotter and brighter and fiercer than ever before.

I know, I know.  Don’t you go rolling your eyes at me, Missy.  I realize it sounds like the kind of thing that people are supposed to say at this time of year, and perhaps like I’ve been hitting the sweet sweet New Age “abundance mentality” crackpipe a little too hard.

So what I’m going to say instead is: watch this space.   Take your vitamins.  And fasten your seat belts.

And while you’re at it, three things you need to know:

January 18 at 7 pm, New York City
We have a date, you and I, at the bar at the Museum of Sex in New York City.  C’mon out.  I promise I’ll wear cute shoes, fantastic lipstick, I’ll make you laugh, and maybe I’ll let you buy me a drink.

January 27 from 9-10:30 am, Baltimore
Join me for Let’s Get Some Things Straight, a workshop on the history of heterosexuality that I’ve created especially for LGBT activists, debuting at the Creating Change conference here in Baltimore.   It’s where I’m launching my exciting new book! Here’s the scoop:

Far from being an eternal human constant, heterosexual is only as old as the typewriter and the light bulb. When it comes to giving queer community new tools for activist thinking, this is a good thing. Author and historian Hanne Blank, author of the new book Straight: The Surprisingly Short History of Heterosexuality, provides an overview of the history of straightness  geared toward helping LGBTIQ activists speak deeper and better- informed truths to power.

If you’ll be at Creating Change you will find the location listed in your program book.  Let me know if you’ll be there!

Name Your Place, Name Your Time
I am booking talks and campus visits about Straight: The Surprisingly Short History of Heterosexuality as well as Big Big Love, Virgin, and my other work.     I’m especially excited to offer a talk I debuted at Harvard University last spring, called “Virgins and Other Indefinite Articles: Thinking Historically about Sexuality, Definition, and Experience,” which builds bridges between my work on virginity, my work on heterosexuality, and the task of writing history about sex.

I’m also offering a brand new program, An Evening With Hanne Blank, an uncensored, funny, radical evening of history, storytelling, and humor about sex, bodies, and culture that runs the gamut of my work from the erotic to the erudite… and may even include a song or two.  So talk to me!

                          

Beloved editor, artist and writer Terri Windling is in need, and we are asking for your help in a fundraising auction to assist her. This auction will combine donations from professionals and fans in an online sale to help Terri through a serious financial crisis. Terri is the creator of groundbreaking fantasy and mythic art and literature over the past several decades, ranging from the influential urban fantasy series Bordertown to the online Journal of Mythic Arts. With co-editor Ellen Datlow, she changed the face of contemporary short fiction with The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror and other award-winning anthologies, including Silver Birch, Blood Moon, and The Green Man: Tales from the Mythic Forest. Her remarkable Endicott Studio blog continues to bring music, poetry, art and inspiration to people all over the world.

Terri Windling and her family have been coping with health and legal issues that have drained her financial resources at a critical time. Due to the serious nature of these issues, and privacy concerns for individual family members, we can’t be more specific than that, but Terri is in need of our support. As a friend, a colleague and an inspiration, Terri has touched many, many lives over the years. She has been supremely generous in donating her own work and art to support friends and colleagues in crisis. Now, Terri is in need of some serious help from her community. Who better than her colleagues and fans to rise up to make some magick for her?

That’s where we come in. Until December 15th, we’ll be bringing you auctions (and vice-versa!) of art, books, collectibles, music, and more amazing offers from the awesome fantasy art and literature communities.

I, too, am a fan of Terri Windling, someone who has benefited from her work, someone who has been blessed by the love and the sorcery and the delight and the insight she’s shared with so many of us.

I’m offering two items in this auction, and if you like, you may go and bid on a signed, personalized copy of Big Big Love or a signed, personalized copy of Virgin: The Untouched History.  Bid early, bid often, but most importantly, bid high if you can.

And oh, don’t neglect to look at the rest of what’s on offer.  There is some utterly astonishing stuff up for bid, and you’re really going to kick yourself if you miss this.

                          

What is the Commie Pinko, you ask?  Well, it’s a writing contest I dreamed up a buncha years back, on the premise that writing contests would be a lot more fun if you actually got to read what other people wrote, and if the opinions of the actual people participating in the contest counted in helping to decide who won.

Furthermore, I decided it’d be fun if the prizes — rather than being done by having people pay entry fees and then divvying up the pot or whatever — were also done by committee, with every participant sending in a prize, forming a pot of really fabulous stuff that would then be divided amongst the winners, each of whom would get a magnificent Lucky Dip box in the mail.  Along with bragging rights, and such.

So that’s the basics of the Commie Pinko.  And I decided to revive it, after several years’ hiatus, because, well, it’s fun.

There are two categories this year, short story and creative nonfiction or essay.  There will be themes, generated prior to the writing period, by our all-star Politburo.

And perhaps there will be YOU.  Check out the link, read the details, and, if you like, join me!

                          

More regular programming, including Mrs. Avoirdupois’ latest missive, will resume soon.

                          

Apropos of which I suppose I should mention them, no?

I’ll be at National Women’s Studies Association Conference in Atlanta next weekend.  I’m giving an as-yet-unwritten paper that you can read about here, if you’re so inclined.  It’s got a fabulous title so I’m sure I’ll come up with something delightful, and in any event I do have lots of things to say on the subject even if they’re currently not as organized as I’m sure they will be by Saturday morning.  I’ll also be hanging out some at the booth for my speakers’ agency, Soapbox Inc., so if you’ve ever wanted to meet me — or talk to me about booking a talk — and you’ll be at NWSA, go see if you can track me down.

On Friday night, the 11th, I’ll be doing a Big Big Love reading/signing at Charis Books in Atlanta, so if you’ll be around, c’mon out.  It’s free and I’m usually pretty funny, often intentionally.

In other news, I have been engaging in various autumnal rituals like getting the furnace replaced, rediscovering just how much I hate it when the cat not only crawls in underneath the covers but insists on snuggling up between my knees, and making sauerkraut.

I am a kraut fiend.  If I’m honest, I get kind of excited about almost any pickled or fermented vegetable, but sauerkraut has a special place in my heart.  And my stomach.  (I will happily eat an entire bowl of raw kraut fresh from the crock.  And not infrequently do.) We pulled the season’s first batch of kraut out of the crocks last week and are almost done yumming it up.  I put another three heads of cabbage into my crock on Saturday so that there will be kraut again in time for Thanksgiving or thereabouts.  Someday I will obtain one of the super-fancy-schmancy German fermenting crocks that has a little water channel that the lid sits in, thus allowing gas generated by fermentation to escape without letting air from the outside in.  But for now I do just fine with my little 3.5 gallon pickling crock (with matching drop-lid!) I commissioned from my friendly neighborhood pottery a couple of years ago.  It makes enough for my small household, although if I were smart, I’d get them to make me another one so I could stagger the batches and never run out of kraut.

A task, perhaps, for later.  After I’ve written this paper.  And done a few other things.

Oh and!  Two further tidbits of information:

Tidbit #1: There are still a handful of copies of Inappropriate Crush available via Etsy.  They’re all signed and numbered, there were only 75 copies in the edition.

Tidbit #2: If you’ve read Inappropriate Crush and would be up for writing a short (350 words or shorter) review of it that I could post on my soon-to-be-revamped website, I’d be delighted to feature it.  Send ‘em to cru...@hanneblank.com and be sure to include whatever name you want on it, and if you’ve got a website or something that you’d like me to link to, send me that URL, too.

                          

(For those of you who do not live in 200-year-old houses: the point in autumn where the nights start to get cold is also known as Mouse Season.  There are always, but always, little tiny mouse-sized ways for mice to get into old houses, and they do, and this is the secret True Reason We Keep Cats Around.  We conjecture that the BeloveDad came upon one of HRH Fez’s kills and decided to dispose of it.  The answer to the burning question of why this activity then turned into shoving said dead mouse into a snack bag and shoving the conveniently packaged mouse snack into a bureau drawer is, of course, Alzheimers.)

On a thankfully unrelated note, I wanted to thank all of you who took the time to comment with kind thoughts and wishes about my mom’s cancer diagnosis.  She underwent surgery last Thursday, where they discovered that there was more cancer in there than they thought.  No cancer diagnosis is ever a happy thing, and hers is no exception.  The good news that the surgical team did a wonderful job and that there is reason to think they may have gotten all of it out is tempered by the fact that it is a “high grade” cancer and that cancer is an unpredictable and insidious thing.  Mom will be recovering for a while yet, and as with all chronic conditions, we don’t know what the future will hold, but for now I’m taking comfort in the fact that she survived surgery, the surgery went as well as possible under the circumstances, and her doctors seem hopeful.

Onward, then, and upward!  A coupla announcements…

Announcement The First:  ATLANTA!  I will be all up in your sweet tea next month, doing a reading/signing of Big Big Love at Charis Books on the 11th at 7:30 pm.  I’ll happily sign any of my other books, as well, if you bring ‘em or buy ‘em there.

I’ll also be at the National Women’s Studies Association conference that weekend… giving a paper, hanging out with my speakers’ agency Soapbox, Inc. (taking bookings for spring!), and generally causing trouble.

Speaking of which, some of y’all need to tell me what the good date restaurants are near the downtown Sheraton.  There’s a hot butch philosopher down that way I want to make blush, so help a sister out.

 Announcement The Second:  The last copies of Inappropriate Crush are now up for sale on Etsy.  There are 15 copies left in this limited, numbered, and signed edition.   When they’re gone, they’re gone forever.  Read a sample, then go buy your copy!

                          

Not legally, but my partner and I have been together for 15 years.  Now you know.

For the people looking for porn stories about virgins, no, you won’t find those here.

For the people looking for pictures of naked real women, you won’t find them here either.

And to the person who Googled “how fat hanne blank,” fat Hanne Blank just fine, thanks for asking, how are you?

                          

This link will take you to the Random House page for the book, which provides you with ordering information as well as links to all the various ebook formats available.

This link, on the other hand, will take you to the order page for Big Big Love at Atomic Books, my neighborhood indie bookstore and one of my favorite bookstores anywhere.  If you want to order your hard copy of the book online, I very much encourage you to get it from Atomic Books.  Tell Benn and Rachel I sent you.

As for the book giveaway from the 15th, the winnah is Steven S., because I have not been able to get the “when I find myself in tons of tribbles” earworm out of my head since I read it.  Maybe sending you a book will help!  This is what I get for asking for filk… so send me your address, Steven!

                          

Saturday, September 24 at 7 pm
Baltimore Book Festival
“Diversity in Genre Fiction” panel, Maryland Romance Writers stage

Friday, September 30 at 7 pm
Atomic Books, Baltimore
Reading, Q&A, and booksigning — my hometown book launch!  I’ll be making homemade cupcakes for this one, so don’t miss your chance to get your hot little hands on my buttercream!

Sunday, October 2 at 6 pm
Sugar, Baltimore
My Big Fat Sex Workshop — a two-hour intensive that is truly one size fits all. Come talk and learn about the ins and outs of sex toys, sex aids, and positions for big folks – yes you can get on top! — as well as ways to cope with the insecurities that go along with living in a culture where “you can never be too rich or too thin.”  Bring your questions and be prepared to supersize your sex life!  $20, tickets available at Sugar or online via the link above.

Monday, October 10 at 5:30 pm
Giovanni’s Room, Philadelphia
Reading, Q&A, and booksigning

Thursday, October 13 at 7 pm
Re/Dress NYC, Brooklyn
Reading, Shenanigans, Treats, Books, and Surprises!

Saturday, October 15 at 3 pm
Good Vibrations, Brookline, MA
Reading, Q&A, and booksigning

Sunday, October 16 at 5:30 pm
Oh My! A Sensuality Shop, Northampton, MA
Reading, Q&A, and booksigning

Friday, November 11 at 7:30 pm
Charis Books and More, Atlanta
Reading, Q&A, and booksigning

Friday, November 11 – Sunday, November 13
National Women’s Studies Association Conference, Atlanta
I’ll be giving a paper about my work with both editions of Big Big Love at NWSA this year — if you’re there, c’mon down and say howdy!

NOTE: I still have a few spots of availability this fall for more events.  If you’d like to book me, please email me at events at hanneblank.com!

                          

In other news, there’s still time to order your copy of Inappropriate Crush… and there are still about 25 copies left undibsied.

And with that, I’ve gotta get back to finishing writing Inappropriate Crush.