Latest somethingdark news
Developing a website such as SDk and the magazine it hosts takes time. That's why we think contributors and others interested in what we are doing deserve to be kept informed on our progress. This page has been designed to do exactly that: to keep you up-to-date as to where we are. We're pleased to have you with us.
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SDk03 is well on the way, and will drop jaws when it arrivesSDk Updates 
Sat 14 Apr, 2012.
Chris and Daryl held their final SDk03 planning meeting on Thursday 12 April, and issue number 3 is taking shape in no uncertain terms.
As at the end of this week we have most of our contributors’ work in our hands; there are still a few pieces of writing still to come in, but we of all people know what it takes to produce quality. That’s our raison d’être.
More than having most SDk03 material together in one place, at last, is the news that puts this fact in perspective: our plan is showing an issue that’s much larger and more diverse than we imagined when we first set SDk03’s theme more than three years ago. And when we say “much larger and more diverse”, we really do mean much larger and more diverse. The range of sheer talent we’ve managed to assemble, and the work we’ve curated to treat a broad and exciting theme in a comprehensive and innovative way, is going to attract attention.
We hope you will be intrigued, and will also appreciate the time it takes for us to create such an issue.
To say we’re looking forward to it is an understatement.
Eroticon asserts the right to write erotica (and to read it)Latest News
Mon 05 Mar, 2012.
Eroticon 2012, a one-day conference held in Bristol on Saturday 3 March, was billed as the UK’s first conference for erotica writers and sex bloggers. Five blocks of sessions, panels and workshops ran from 09:30 to 17:00.
The highlights for us were the first and last panel sessions, “Identity, ethics and sex blogging”, and “Sex and the media”. Zoe Margolis, founder of the personal sex blog Girl With a One Track Mind (2004) and author of the book of the same title (2006), stood out in both panels as a passionate and committed advocate of a concerted, coordinated effort to counter regressive – and sometimes oppressive – social attitudes and those institutions, such as mainstream media, that support and promote them. ...Read more
Barbara Nitke carries the torch for controversial photography yet againLatest News
Thurs 16 Feb, 2012.
There’s more to Barbara Nitke than a fine art photographer – she’s the woman who, with the support of the US National Coalition for Sexual Freedom (NCSF), in 2001 filed a lawsuit against the US attorney general, John Ashcroft, to overturn the Communications Decency Act (CDA). The CDA allowed the most conservative communities in the United States to precipitate legal proceedings against any internet content they deemed “obscene”, regardless of where in the country it was hosted.
Nitke v. Gonzales, as the case became known when President George Bush appointed Alberto Gonzales as Ashcroft’s replacement, went all the way to the Supreme Court in 2006. Nitke and the NCSF lost, and Nitke was “appalled” by the decision: “It’s vitally important to keep the internet free for education, the arts and open discussion on sexual topics. This law is a form of unfair censorship that must be stopped” (Barbara Nitke, cited by Susan Wright, “I know it when I see it”, Skin Two no. 58, Autumn 2007, p. 55).
Fortunately for those who appreciate Nitke’s photography, losing an important legal battle on behalf of Americans who produce creative material at the edgier end of the spectrum did not deter her from her own work. If it had, she would not now be seeking to publish American Ecstasy, her “memoir” from years working as a photographer on the sets of some 300 professional hardcore porn films in New York City in the 1980s and early ’90s....Read more
Contributor relations reviewed and overhauledSDk Updates
Thurs 16 Feb, 2012.
We live at a time in which most publications’ insatiable need for content, especially in the age of web publishing, has jaded just about everyone, publishers and creatives alike: this is why we are consciously doing things differently with SomethingDark webMagazine.
Each issue is a carefully constructed work of art in its own right, the philosophy driving it being that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, and in this we eschew what has apparently become the standard modus operandi in publishing. In other words, we have not created a content-churning machine that sucks in creative material and spits it out on (virtual) pages as fast as we can turn it over....Read more
Eroticon 2012: the UK’s first conference for writer’s of eroticaLatest News
Sat 04 Feb, 2012.
A conference for sex bloggers and erotica writers, billed as the first of its type in the United Kingdom, will be held in Bristol on Saturday 3 March.
More than one hundred bloggers and writers have signed up to attend thus far and conference organiser, the erotic author Ruby Kiddell, is expecting many more to participate....Read more
First Art Erotica exhibition ends with promise of more to comeLatest News
Sat 28 Jan, 2012.
Art Erotica, the exhibition that caused the odd stir in Mayfair’s gallery precinct, closed yesterday, Friday 27 January, after a memorable ten days that included more than just the exhibition itself....Read more
Art Erotica raises brows in MayfairLatest News
Fri 20 Jan, 2012.
Passers-by often stopped to look; sometimes amused, they smiled, usually sheepishly. Sometimes a jaw visibly dropped, even if just a little. Sometimes a phone or camera emerged from a pocket and snaps were taken through the front windows. Occasionally, an offended pedestrian on this most prestigious of streets in Mayfair’s gallery district would march through the doors of The Gallery in Cork Street and complain about the outrageous and offensive objects that, apparently, had ravaged the innocence of an unsuspecting outside world.
Complaints focused on the sculpture by Jas Davidson, Orc 3, and the occasion was the setting up of the first Art Erotica exhibition. This was during the day on Tuesday and Wednesday, 17 and 18 January, and the exhibition wasn’t even open; the private view was scheduled for 19:00 on the evening of 18 January....Read more
Better than ever: second-generation SDk:Mob tweakedSDk Updates
Tues 22 Nov, 2011.
In December last year we announced the release of a mobile version of SomethingDark webMagazine, SDk:Mob (see the item below for Thur 02 Dec, 2010). A second generation of SDk:Mob was developed for release soon after SDk02, and we are now pleased to announce that this latest incarnation of our dedicated format for smartphones has just been polished. We are confident it will, at the very least, do its job, and will compare well with the best that’s “out there”.
For the full SDk experience, however, nothing beats the big screen of your home or laptop or tablet computer – SomethingDark webMagazine is fully compatible with iPad, as we announced in February this year (see the item for Thurs 24 Feb, 2011, below)....Read more
Eroticism in art and life knows no bordersLatest News
Tues 08 Nov, 2011.
Ruth Bircham is an exuberant woman full of a passion for life and art. Her own art, of course, is a specific focus of this passion. But, like the human body and the sex she so joyously celebrates, she believes art – and especially erotic art – should be shared, and that means exhibiting.
Besides pinning her heart on her blouse as much as she hangs her bold paintings on gallery walls, London-based Bircham is a determined woman who has shown some initiative in organising an exhibition of mostly black artists who work in the erotic genre, and Forbidden Fruit is the result....Read more
What is SDk?SDk Updates
Sat 05 Nov, 2011.
The world around us is not suspended in time or trapped in a vacuum, and neither is SomethingDark. That is, apart from constant development, we are always evolving. This means we’re not quite the same now as we were when we produced SDk01.
To reflect our evolution, we have just revised our “about” information, which in our terminology is the “What is SDk?” page on the SomethingDark website. The changes are subtle but significant.
In keeping with our orientation and direction, we have also updated our contributor information packs (CIPs), which prospective contributors can download as PDF documents from the “Want to Contribute?” page.