Keynote Speaker
Cecilia Tan
Cecilia Tan is "simply one of the most important writers, editors, and innovators in contemporary American erotic literature," according to Susie Bright. For over 30 years she has been writing kinky fiction and promoting BDSM community activism. As the author of Telepaths Don’t Need Safewords, Slow Surrender, The Prince’s Boy, and many other works of BDSM erotica and the founder of Circlet Press, in the 1990s she pioneered breaking down the barrier between erotica and science fiction/fantasy. Since then she has published over 30 novels and short story collections, some with “Big 5” publishers, some with queer literary presses, and others self-published. In addition to winning the RT Career Achievement Award in Erotica and other accolades, she was inducted into the Saints & Sinners LGBT Writers Hall of Fame in 2010.
While maintaining her career as writer and editor, Tan also served as the creator and longtime director of the Fetish Fair Fleamarkets in Boston, Houston, Atlanta, and Charlotte, and was a founder of MOB: New England (a trans-inclusive women’s leather and BDSM community group) and a founding board member of the New England Leather Alliance. She was a frequent presenter at Living in Leather, the Leather Leadership Conference, and elsewhere. Before retiring from community organizing to concentrate on her writing, she accumulated many leather community awards, including the Pantheon of Leather President's Award, NLA: International Lifetime Achievement Award, and NLA Woman of the Year.
A bigender, biracial, bisexual switch, Tan believes the brain is the body’s biggest sex organ. She lives in the Boston area with her longtime poly primary partner and one (1) cat.