Elaine Miller’s Leather Community Bio
In 450 words…
Elaine Miller is a Vancouver leatherdyke who has been passionately involved in the leather/queer/sexuality community for 18 years. Her public involvement has taken three main tracks; publication, education, and creating spaces both online and via events, parties, and conferences.
As a professional writer of both fictional and non-fictional queer BDSM, Elaine has been anthologized in book format over a dozen times, has had numerous magazine sales, and spent four years as the regular kinky sex columnist for Xtra West, Vancouver’s gay newspaper with a circulation of over 60,000. In the 90s, she acted as submissions editor for Lezzie SMUT! Magazine, and published the North American magazine Diversity (pansexual pornography for perverts)
As an educator, Elaine strives for a humourous, informative and sexy take on kink, and has done demos, seminars, workshops and related performances in most of the major cities on the west side of Canada and the US, for such events as Pacific Friction, Wicked Womyn, Desire, Lupercalia, Allies in Diversity (Canada’s first leatherwomen’s weekend conference), The Other Side, Purgatory, Mack McKinnon Memorial Weekend, Powersurge, MVK, WorkshopPlayshop, BIO Events, panel discussions Out On Screen, Queer History Project, and Diva’s Den.
Elaine believes that community is formed by making real-people connections, and so approaches community-building by creating safe and fun leather-themed spaces, in real life and also online. Her best results come from collaboration, and so over the years she has joined with other crazy community-builders in various ongoing ways.
Online, she built and co-manages the non-commercial online space: Leatherdyke.com and assisted TransDude.com in launching and running.
In real life, in the late 90s, Elaine, aiding SD Holman, started Studio Q queersexual play parties at Holman’s eponymous studio space in Vancouver’s historic Chinatown. With Jade Marsella, she has been the co-organizer of Queerotica (as part of the Pride in Art festival) for the last three years. For the last ten years, she has opened her home to a succession of free, open-to-all-women skill-sharing events, such as Bondage 101. With Lady Kona, she co-organizes for many NubianImp events, such as the Lee Harrington D/s Intensive weekend, and the bi-annual women’s SM Sauna parties.
Over the last several years, Elaine has been proud to be an integral part of the Canadian Mayhem organizing team, which presents 3 – 4 large women’s leather play parties per year. In 2009, Canadian Mayhem’s first ever weekend conference sold out with 250 attendees, making it the largest event of its kind in Canada ever. The next weekend conference is slated for Mayhem 2012, and active planning is underway.
Elaine Miller is a Vancouver leatherdyke who has been passionately involved in the leather/queer/sexuality community for 18 years. Her public involvement has taken three main tracks; publication, education, and creating spaces both online and via events, parties, and conferences.
As a professional writer of both fictional and non-fictional queer BDSM, Elaine has been anthologized in book format over a dozen times, has had numerous magazine sales, and spent four years as the regular kinky sex columnist for Xtra West, Vancouver’s gay newspaper with a circulation of over 60,000. In the 90s, she acted as submissions editor for Lezzie SMUT! Magazine, and published the North American magazine Diversity (pansexual pornography for perverts)
As an educator, Elaine strives for a humourous, informative and sexy take on kink, and has done demos, seminars, workshops and related performances in most of the major cities on the west side of Canada and the US, for such events as Pacific Friction, Wicked Womyn, Desire, Lupercalia, Allies in Diversity (Canada’s first leatherwomen’s weekend conference), The Other Side, Purgatory, Mack McKinnon Memorial Weekend, Powersurge, MVK, WorkshopPlayshop, BIO Events, panel discussions Out On Screen, Queer History Project, and Diva’s Den.
Elaine believes that community is formed by making real-people connections, and so approaches community-building by creating safe and fun leather-themed spaces, in real life and also online. Her best results come from collaboration, and so over the years she has joined with other crazy community-builders in various ongoing ways.
Online, she built and co-manages the non-commercial online space: Leatherdyke.com and assisted TransDude.com in launching and running.
In real life, in the late 90s, Elaine, aiding SD Holman, started Studio Q queersexual play parties at Holman’s eponymous studio space in Vancouver’s historic Chinatown. With Jade Marsella, she has been the co-organizer of Queerotica (as part of the Pride in Art festival) for the last three years. For the last ten years, she has opened her home to a succession of free, open-to-all-women skill-sharing events, such as Bondage 101. With Lady Kona, she co-organizes for many NubianImp events, such as the Lee Harrington D/s Intensive weekend, and the bi-annual women’s SM Sauna parties.
Over the last several years, Elaine has been proud to be an integral part of the Canadian Mayhem organizing team, which presents 3 – 4 large women’s leather play parties per year. In 2009, Canadian Mayhem’s first ever weekend conference sold out with 250 attendees, making it the largest event of its kind in Canada ever. The next weekend conference is slated for Mayhem 2012, and active planning is underway.
