One of the new books published by Haven

Some of you will know the Rachel’s Haven TG caption community, where crossdreamers meet to exchange stories.

Rachel & Co has now established their own publishing company, as well as an online bookstore for transgender fiction.

The first series of books presented by Haven Bookworks  is the end result of a call for stories that went out to members and friends of the community.

The Bookstore sells its books and stories in the epub and mobi formats. Rachel & Co add that download links for both formats will be provided with the purchase of any title:

“As we trust our customer’s intent to reward the authors who keep them turning pages, we do not place digital rights management schemes on any files on this site.”

However, the books published by Haven are also available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Google Play.

TF Media Logo

The original Trasformation Media site was set up in 2009, I believe. Its purpose: To publish all types of transformation stories, gender bending included. Then the site went down.

Well, now it is back with a new design, a new logo, a new submission process and a new forum.

You have to register to get access, but you may use a fake email account to do so.

The logo actually tells the story about what TF Media is about. TFGuy, editor and administrator, notes that its has four symbols representing the primary components of the transformation genre:

“In order from left to right, they are: a cat, the female symbol, the male symbol, and a nipple/breast. These symbolize animal, transgender, and inanimate/other transformations, respectively.”

TF Media is looking for new stories, and authors who submitted stories to the old site is encouraged to resubmit them.

Visit TF Media here!

Rachel (yes, there is a Real Rachel!!!) says that this is part of the fund raising needed to keep the Haven alive:

“Everyone round here tends to enjoy a good story or several, and while there have been a few TF/TG novellas produced and sold, there are very, very few collections of them from a variety of authors. I see this as a challenge to us, a challenge to produce a collection or several and place them for sale with the proceeds going to the Haven whether it be sold on Amazon, Lulu, or Barnes and Noble.

“Now, what we’re looking for is stories of at least 5000 words in length, preferably something new and never before seen, however existing works will also be considered as we are going to hit a market that may never have seen them. The collection will be sold under the Haven Bookworks publishing label, with each story being sold separately as well as in a volume of collected works at a discount.”

So if you write TG stories, this may be an opportunity for you!

More info over at Rachel’s Haven.

In the meantime Cheryl Sussex of Tranisa and I have set up a new open Facebook page on transgender fiction and media called Transgender Fantasy.

We are adding comments on new and old sites, blogs, movies and books of a TG character. Please do not hesitate to add suggestions to that page (or you may add a comment to this post)!

Visit Transgender Fantasy now!

The female to male crossdreamers have their yaoi subculture, producing comics about gay male relationships, many of which are pornographic in nature.

Their male to female counterparts look for gender bending anime (animated movies) and manga (comics). One sub-genre of manga is hentai, comics with explicit depictions of sex.

I have put up two posts on Japanese hentai over at Rebecca’s World:

Japan, the empire of transgender comics.

More Erotic Gender Bender and TG comics Made in Japan (Hentai Manga)

See also Farhad’s manga site.

The blog is particularly good at guiding you to the good commercial TG fiction you can find out there, i.e. books that are found in print or as ebooks over at — for instance — Amazon.

There are in depth reviews of books and interviews with the authors It is easy to see that the review team loves TG fiction and truly cares for the authors.

If you share their love for this kind of literature and like to write, you may consider becoming one of their reviewers yourself.

The blog is published in association with the transgender lifestyle magazine Frock.

TGStories book cover

There is actually a small TG fiction and entertainment industry out there, including sites that offer quality fiction for a reasonable price. I had a chat with TGStories, the editor of the site with the same name.

Well, generally, I do not write the stories on the site.   I hire some of the most talented writers (I think) who have a real sense of how to write a TG themed story.   

What I like about out story is that I think they are really sexy AND really great stories.   For me,  regardless of how provocative the subject matter if the storyline doesn’t make sense it is not a story I want to publish.  

Who have influenced you?

It is funny, because I didn’t really know it at the time, but I think the person who made TGstories and my LULU store possiable is Lee Brewster.   Lee died in 2000.  

Lee had two HUGE spaces in NYC that catered to crossdressers.  One store was all clothes, and the other was books and magizines.   

Growing up, it never occured to me that there was TG themed fiction, so imagine my shock when one day when I was in my 20s I saw a title at a newspaper stand.  It was called  Teenage TV (yes I remember);  I thought I was in heaven.  

After that, I was a steady fan of Lee’s books.   I started TGstories in 1996, so I really didn’t have a sense of how much the internet would grow…I really started it because of my personal love of the stories.  

That is hard, because I think I respond to detail more than themes…  But, I think that I really like things that are feminine, so story lines that involve things like beauty parlors, and clothing stories appeal to me.  

Actually, I enjoy it much more than I thought I would, it is also much harder than I thought.   As I mentioned, quality is a big thing with me, so I really try and make sure that all the stories are special.   It is very hard to find new writers who really know how to deliver the goods…  I spend a lot of time, reading new work…

Well, all the different ways to deliver content digitally certainly is opening new doors.   I would think in the near future there would be a ebooks  for Amazon devices and other reading devices.

What makes a good story?

The best stories are the ones where the writer has the ability to create a world that I feel is real.   Since this is genre fiction, there are certain expectations.   For example, if you are have a transformation story, you know that guy is going to end up as a girl.   

But what makes a story really work is the ability of the writer to take elements that you have seen before and put them in a world that is new.  A good example of this is a recent story on TGstories called NAILED by Valerie Hope.   Valerie has an amazing way with details.  

In this story a number of husbands are transformed in a Nail Salon at the request of their Wives.   The transformation leads to a completely new dynamic of the relationship between the former men and their new girlfriends.   

Each relationship was something I had not read before, and it is, for me, what makes it a really good story…   When a writer has that kind of mind and real writing ability, you end up with great stories…  

Well, the most interesting trend for me is the way the image of what is feminine has changed.   40 years ago, MTF stories involved baby Jane shoes, white gloves, and learning how to sit like a lady.  Now you have stories where the male is transformed into female gym instructor with rock solid body and a lust for sex…  

The other trend is toward more graphics.  Certainly the internet has opened whole new worlds visually.   There are now TG themed graphic novels, which certainly did not exist 10 years ago.  In general, there is just a much wider range of stories, and characters…which is a great thing.

Click here to visit TGStories.com!

There are those who say transgender fantasies never make it into mainstream media.

Well, last year saw at least one serious, artistic, movie that reads like a crossdreamer/transgender fantasy, namely La Piel que Habito or The Skin I Live In.

By writing this I have, of course, revealed the plot’s unusual twist, which isn’t that unusual at all if you are a reader of TG fiction.

Here you will find one of the traditional TG themes: A young boy abducted by mad scientist, is being turned into a woman; he goes through upheaval and suffering before finally coming to peace with her new life.

Pedro Almodóvar has introduced many transgender persons in his movies, but not one of these movies have been this explicit.

The movie is loosely based on the French book Tarantula by Thierry Jonquet. But allthough the book deviates a bit from the plot of the movie, the novel could also have been published as a story on one of the main TG fiction portals.

The movie is presented as a thriller, and I have seen reviewers desperately look for a deeper cultural commentary, like — for instance — the violent suppression of women.

Maybe. But who are we kidding? The rest of the world, it seems

Amazon.com DVD: The Skin I Live in (Two-Disc Blu-ray/DVD Combo)

Amazon.com paperback: Tarantula: the Skin I Live in

Kindle ebook: Tarantula

She writes about the new site:

“At the moment there’s nothing new here that I haven’t posted before, and my most recent work is a minor vignette (in the 2012 Archive). So I’ll draw your attention to three substantial caption stories from last fall.

“Problem Child is a straightforward story about what happens when a mother discovers her son’s interest in TG comics. The Cross-Dresser’s Wife is an offbeat story about what happens when a wife discovers her husband’s online interest in TG captions. (Anyone sensing a theme here?) Finally, as a change of pace, Time, Considered as a Curl of Soft Hair is a mystical story about what happens when a man receives an offer of feminine transformation that he finds impossible to refuse.”

Most of the stories are accessed as PDF files.

Click here to visit the site.