While I don’t always indicate that my settings are real places, usually I’ll have somewhere real in my head as I write. It helps me keep the details coherent, and gives me a sense of location. Places I’ve visited, and lived in, frequently inspire bits of story.

When I was working on ‘Dreams Come True,’ the setting in my head was Gloucester (UK). It’s a place I know well, having lived about 15 miles down the road as a child, clubbed there in my teens, and spent time visiting my father there as well. I like the city, it’s small, full of old architecture, history and atmosphere. I especially love the cathedral (which was used a lot in the Harry Potter films). My great grandmother once saw a ghost there!

The place isn’t mentioned by name in the story, and although the cathedral features, I hadn’t mentioned much that would absolutely pin it down as this location. Imagine my absolute surprise when I saw the cover Dalia designed for me! I know Gloucester cathedral well, and was sure that was a picture of it.

Startled, I emailed Dalia to check, and she said it had seemed like the right place to use!

It goes to prove that odd, psychic moments, strange insights and experiences of weird coincidence do happen in real life.

 Dreams Come True is a sweet, contemporary lesbian romance involving two buskers. It’s the first story of mine in a while not to have a paranormal element, which is some ways makes the business with the cover even funnier, I think.

Anna F reviewed Cheri Crystal’s Attractions of the Heart at http://www.justaboutwrite.com/Reviews210.htm

Title: Attractions of the Heart
Author: Cheri Crystal
ISBN-10: 1600542980 – ISBN-13: 978-1600542985
Publisher: loveyoudivine
Distributed by: www.loveyoudivine.com
Price: $20.00
Pages: 292
Genre: Romance-Erotica/Lesbian

Erotica is normally not my cup of tea, but Cheri Crystal’s Attractions of the Heart contains stories that are filled with so much more than sex-for-sex’s-sake. They are truly filled with heart…and humor…and good old-fashioned romance. These short stories are varied little vignettes that are small artistic masterpieces in themselves. Each story has its own cover and “backmatter” to get the reader “in the mood.”

The first offering is entitled “Lobster Box,” a story filled with awkward getting-to-know-you moments punctuated with humor, lust, and love. Other stories portray more hard-core sexuality. There are stories about fishing, cooking, fisting, relationships with authors, and the most touching of all, a story called “Kumquat, Did You Say?” – a story about the real meaning of love: when a butch goes the extra mile for the love of her life because cancer has stopped the dreams the femme lover in her life has of having a family.

This book would make a lovely Valentine’s gift for that someone special. Or give the gift of reading them as bedtime stories to your special woman.
_____
Reviewed by Anna F.

All kudos to Cheri for this lovely review.

On Friday the 26^th February, Dalia Craig’s  latest story – Weathering the Storm – releases from www.loveyoudivine.com

It’s the third of her tales I’ve had the pleasure of editing. Hold Me Tight introduced me to her work, with a dramatic m/m/f scenario and a woman in serious trouble. Loving Ellie is hot f/f and a beautiful expression of hunger.

 Weathering the Storm takes you into one of those erotically charged scenarios when everything just fits together. There’s barely time to think, or breathe, you just have to go with it. As in life, such encounters on paper are wild, intense things and this is a story to take your breath away. Weathering the Storm is an emotional whirlwind, with all the energy (and wetness) of a summer downpour.  It’s also an age gap story, and I have a huge weak spot for those. There’s the spice of an outdoor tryst, and the sheer delight of two women connecting with each other, both mentally and physically.

 I recently interviewed Dalia for the blog, so if you want to find out more about her, have a read here – http://blogspot.loveyoudivineinfo.com/?p=282 She’s a very interesting person (and I am envious of her badgers!)

Kissa Starling is a new arrival at lyd, and part of the To Love and To Cherish project.

Bryn: Hi Kissa! What have you got coming out with lyd?

Kissa: I have a short story, Vegas Vixens 4Ever, in the To Love and To Cherish anthology.

Bryn: It’s an intriguing title, the sort to draw you in without giving much away… can you give much away about the story without spoiling it?

Kissa: Eboni and her roommate Tami have been friends forever. They’ve never connected sexually or spiritually until one cold, winter day when they both get dumped. After too many drinks and late night television they make the impulsive decision to fly to Vegas. They say what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas but that doesn’t prove to be true with these two vixens. Wrong after wrong finally turns into something right.

Bryn:  What made you pick Vegas? Is it a place you have a personal connection with?

Kissa: I’ve always wanted to visit Vegas but never have. I’m a night owl by nature and the idea of a place that never sleeps appeals to me. I really chose Vegas because of the mass of weddings that take place there and it seemed like a great impulse place for two characters to get married. 

Bryn: I can see how that works! Do you write mostly at night then?

Kissa: Definitely. I love the night time. I do most of my writing when everyone else is asleep and everything else in the house has been cleaned, washed and picked up! It’s the mom syndrome. I’ve learned to live with less sleep and still fit most things in that I love. Family first, then friends and writing. Sometimes I actually find time for myself too.

Bryn: Are your family supportive of your writing?

Kissa: Great question. I may have to take them one by one to answer that. My husband is very supportive in his own way. He doesn’t read my work but then again it isn’t Consumer’s Digest. He does brainstorm titles with me once in a while. My son shakes his head and walks the other way when I mention my writing. I convinced my daughter in law to write a short story and she loved doing it but my son thinks I brainwashed her! haha My mother has read a few of my stories and even asked for an autographed book. She frequently asks for updates about my writing and loves hearing about how I come up with ideas. As far as pushing for time- hmm, time is a huge factor for me. I work full time, I write full time and take care of my family full time. That equals way too many ‘full times’. Writing has become my ‘me’ time. It’s when I relax and have fun. I hope to make more time for writing in the future but for now it’s vacations and evenings.

Bryn: That sounds familiar on the time front. What are you working on at the moment?

Kissa: I just finished the first draft of Chalan’s Story. It will, hopefully, be book #4 in the Lifestyle Series at Red Rose Publishing. Each of the Lifestyle books are written from the male point of view and they all feature a couple who is married and participates in the BDSM lifestyle in one way or another. A different fetish is touched upon in each story and they run about 5-7K words. Chalan’s Story delves into the art of pony play. I think it’s important for readers to realize that lifestyle couples have relationship problems just like any other couple. 

Bryn: Yeah, I’d agree with that, the people with fetishes need to be portrayed as people, first and foremost. Do you have a homepage people can browse? Or a blog?

 Kissa: I do have a website that I’m currently working on updating or should I say getting someone else to update. I so wish I knew more about how to do some of those technical things! My website is www.kissastarling.com and my blog is on my website. I’m all over the web at different sites and love to get mail; I think it may be a fetish of mine.

If you’d asked me a year ago, I’d have said that bleeding isn’t sexy. It’s messy, makes me self conscious, moody, heavy and not interested. Or at least, that had been my experience. It’s a time a deep emotional awareness and fragility, but in a supportive, nurturing relationship with someone who understands, that ceases to be a problem, and becomes something interesting to explore.

 I gather that for some women, menstruation is a time of heightened sexual interest. That swelling of breasts, physical sensitivity, and emotionality can combine in heady ways, especially if you aren’t self conscious about the blood. It helps if your partner isn’t put off by blood either.

Red Tides of Desire began, as a story, a few months ago. I was bleeding, and the image popped into my head, of seeing my blood smeared on my lover’s skin. It struck me how intimate a thing that is, how bound up with trust. Bleeding is such a primal, female thing, and having that accepted, honoured, wanted, even, is very exciting. It makes for incredibly intimate possibilities.

I don’t write about my own life. I take moments, concepts, feelings and then mix them up with a heap of other things. Partly to avoid getting bored, partly because I LIKE making things up, partly to maintain both my own privacy and other people’s.

One or two other thoughts and influences came into play – pagan ideas about relationship with the land, spirits of place, returning blood to the soil, and blood magic. Because bleeding is a feminine thing, I wanted to write in an f/f context, but I think it’s a theme I’ll revisit in an m/f context as well.

Out of these threads and images came the story of Tabitha, a farmer who loves the land but has a lot of issues with her body and gender identity. Bleeding makes her a bit crazy, and opens the way to some wild and life changing experiences. It’s out now from www.loveyoudivine.com

Dalia Craig writes for the Femerotica line although she’s also made a forray into m/m/f with ‘Hold Me Tight’

Bryn: I gather you went all the way from Scotland to America for a book event last year. How did that work out?

Dalia: Last month actually.

It was a spur of the moment thing that actually started out as a bit of a joke…

When Cheri Crystal first publicized her Fresh Start reading at Bluestockings bookstore in New York I said something like “I would if I could but…” There’s this small pond called the Atlantic Ocean in the way.

Then the more I thought about it the more the idea grew on me. So I found a flight and a hotel and off I went. I’m a bit crazy like that.

Poor Cheri got such a shock; she didn’t know a thing about my plans until I arrived in New York.

I had a great time on my first visit to New York; walked miles, did all the touristy things and attended the reading. Sadly, my short stay ended all too quickly but I’m sure I’ll go back. I’m definitely going to Ptown in October and possibly to something else before that.

It was good to meet up with Cheri again; she’s a lot of fun.

The readings with Cheri Crystal, JD Glass and Rachel Kramer Bussel on Saturday were well attended despite the bitterly cold weather. Cheri, in particular, gave a show stopping performance with her excerpt from “Does The Butch Come With The Recipe?” I’ll never tire of hearing her read from that story; the humor comes over so well when read aloud–maybe she ought to think of doing an audio version.

 Bryn: That is a wonderful thing to do. I can see how that willingness to just go for it comes through in your characters too. What’s the wildest thing a character of yours has done on impulse?

Dalia: That’s a difficult question.

Possibly Bryana, in Taming Bryana.

Bryana meets Cassie, a total stranger, in the middle of nowhere and is persuaded to mount a horse and ride to Cassie’s home. However, when Bryana steps inside Auchtercairn, Cassie’s seventeenth-century castle, she soon finds there’s more to this sexy, rugged, butch than meets the eye. They share a common interest: a mutual love of bondage. This discovery leads Bryana to risk everything for one night of erotic pleasure at the hands of Cassie.

I want to write a sequel to Taming Bryana, when I have the time. I’m sure these two women have more to tell than just a one night stand. Who knows; they may be soul mates.

Bryn: That sounds well worth re-visiting. It’s always interesting to see how a relationship pans out over time. What defines a soul-mate relationship for you?

Dalia: You do ask some difficult questions.

I’ve yet to meet mine… I’ll try to answer as best I can. I believe it goes way above sex or being in love.

More a true meeting of minds where no words are needed and the couple are tuned into each other on a higher level.

Bryn: Let’s head in an easier direction then! Are you structured about your writing, or do you just work when the mood is upon you?

Dalia: I try to structure my days; I really do but too often life gets in the way.

My ideal day would be writing from 8am – 4pm then again from around 10pm ‘til midnight. Often, despite promising myself I’ll start writing first thing in the morning, it’s mid afternoon before I get anywhere near the computer.

As to setting myself targets–I do have a spreadsheet that calculates the words per day required to write a specific story length in x days. If you don’t meet your target for a particular day it recalculates the shortfall over the remaining days.

I suspect I’m not alone in having off days when everything I write reads like garbage. Thankfully I usually have several stories in various stages of production so if I’m struggling with one story I’ll put it aside for a day or so and work on something else. Also, I’m not a fast typist; my fingers rarely keep pace with my brain and by the time I catch up the perfect word, expression or whatever has evaporated.

 Bryn: I find hopping around helps, although these days I hop to other people’s stories and edit. Is there anything you particularly like to do when you aren’t writing?

Dalia: Yes, even working on other genres can help free the cogs. I for one find critting very stimulating, although these days I only work with one author on a regular basis.

Online, I help moderate both a busy crit group and a romance writing list where I also post a weekly talk prompt. I’m moderately active on various lists and social networking sites.

My spare time is pretty full though not particularly exciting…

Aside from being a carer; I love to both cook and garden. I grow a lot of fruit and vegetables for my own use. During the fruit season I also make jam (100 pounds last summer) to help feed a family of badgers, and five pine martens who’ve adopted me as their primary food source. They come to my patio each evening to eat homemade bread & jam, cake and biscuits.

If I could make a wish I would like to have more time to read but something has to give.

 Bryn: You have a badger family? That is so cool, and I’m deeply envious. Do you have any photos of them?

Dalia: I’m really lucky in addition to badgers and pine martens I’m surrounded by lots of interesting birds and small furry creatures. One night last summer the whole badger family came together, usually it’s just mom and the kids. Mr. Brock gave no quarter to his wife or children, hogging all the best food for himself even if it meant sitting on it. Sadly I didn’t have my laptop set up that night.

I do have videos of the pine martens and of Basil the female badger on MySpace. The picture quality isn’t marvelous as it’s filmed through glass on a laptop set up inside the patio doors.

http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=&release=103530073

http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=&release=103530246

The badgers aren’t very active at this time of year but when they’re out & about in the spring I’ll try to get some more footage.

Bryn: That’s so cute!  So, where can people find you online?

Dalia: You can connect with me online at…

daliacraig.com

loveyoudivine

myspace

Facebook

erotic musings

sapphicplanet.com/

amazon.com

Dalia’s latest story – Weathering the Storm – will be out on the 26th February!

Author Jean Roberta

 Jean Roberta came to lyd as part of the To Love and To Cherish project. So I didn’t know much about her when we started the interview… she’s a fascinating person…

Bryn: Hi Jean, I see from your column at http://www.erotica-readers.com that you write philisophical essays as well as erotica. Which did you embark on first, and is there common ground between the two?

Jean: I’ve had a very varied writing career! I’ve always loved writing rants, um, opinion pieces. I did this long before I worked up the nerve to write stories with explicit sex scenes in them. No one knows this, but I’ve had at least as much non-fiction published (mostly in local publications that are eventually used to line bird cages) as fiction.

In the early 1970s, when electric typewriters were the cutting edge of office technology and I had only taken a few university classes, I got a job as a kind of apprentice journalist with a local public relations company. It was a fascinating introduction to the media world.

I wrote a book review column for a monthly publication, The Credit Union Way (journal of all the credit unions in the Canadian province where I live). I reviewed several groundbreaking books of feminist theory when they were new and widely discussed. (This was the dawn of Second Wave feminism.)

Years later, in the mid-1980s, I was an unofficial regular reviewer for Briarpatch, a leftist magazine that sent me books and tickets for live performances. For two years, I had at least one review in every issue. I was thrilled when my name was mentioned in an article in the national edition of The Toronto Globe & Mail (”Canada’s national newspaper”) in a series of articles about small, grassroots publications throughout Canada. According to the G&M, there were 2 good reasons to read Briarpatch: my writing and that of another regular contributor, a male political theorist who wrote lead articles.  

I wrote “mainstream” (for lack of a clearer word) short stories and poems for years while I also wrote articles and reviews for magazines & newsletters and the occasional skit. In 1985, I wrote and performed in “The Caucus Meeting,” a political spoof with dialogue in rhymed couplets for The Funny Pages, a cabaret-style evening of local theatre. (This is probably no excuse, but I was influenced at a young age by Gilbert & Sullivan operettas.)

In 1988, a paperback collection of my lesbian stories was published between slick, hot-pink covers by a one-woman publisher in Montreal as Secrets of the Invisible World. Alas, the publisher went out of business soon after, so my book went out of print. Several lesbian friends who said they liked my stories also complained that I was a “tease” – i.e. they wanted more sexual description.

Erotica in general was gaining in popularity and becoming combined with other genres. I wrote a few explicitly sexual stories which were accepted for anthologies which never materialized (as far as I knew). In the late ’90s, I joined the on-line Erotic Readers and Writers Association, read their calls-for-submissions and began submitting stories to editors and publishers who produced actual books and magazines.

So, to draw this epic to a close, I’ve actually been writing non-fiction much longer than I’ve been writing erotica. They’re very complementary. A flaming opinion and a hot sex scene can both relieve frustration, depending what kind it is.   :)

 Bryn: Wow! that’s quite some writing history. How ‘out’ are you about writing erotica?

Jean: I’m actually very “out.” I now have a business card, featuring the photo of me that accompanies my column at ERWA (www.erotica-readers.com), which includes the words “erotica,” “fiction,” “reviews,” articles,” “workshops” in that order (top to bottom).

I’m very lucky to have a tenured teaching position at a local university with a history of liberalism, so my published erotic fiction counts as “publications” when I report my accomplishments every year on a Faculty Review form, or apply for funding to attend a conference or a reading in some city that I can only reach by plane.

Here is where fiction and non-fiction fit together nicely. In 2000, some anonymous person complained to the secretaries in the English Department about the stuff I was running off on the office printer. I’m sure there were rumors about what I actually did in my office when the door was closed.

So I composed a 40-minute talk on the history of erotica (a sprint through the material) and got myself added to the schedule for the “OMADs” (Orlene Murad Academic Discussions, named for a departed colleague), a series of discussions by department members that are open to the public but usually attended only by fellow department-members.

I gave my talk, quaking in my shoes, in 2001. My parents were there, even though my father hated “porn.” (Later, he said he liked my talk. I don’t think he understood it.)  I used the overhead projector to show my audience an illustration (cartoon-like naked heroine), done in 1915 by American artist Clara Tice, for an English-language edition of Mademoiselle de Maupin, a classic French erotic novel. The talk was very well received – not a single person was offended, and several scholars in the crowd (my role models!) said they learned new things.

I developed my talk into an article which was published in several places, and spun it out into a talk on the history of censorship. I gave the censorship talk (without illustrations but with a free book list and historical outline) in February 2009 at a local chain bookstore as part of the “Coffeehouse Controversies” series, a joint project of Chapters Books and the local university. My talk was videotaped and shown numerous times on Community Channel TV.

I’m scheduled to give the same talk at a public library later in February 2010 as part of Freedom to Read Week.

At all these events, I’ve been honest about writing the kind of material which has been banned in various times and places. Once I put it in a social and historical context, no one threatens to put me in the stocks! (The publisher of Fanny Hill, or Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure was threatened with this in 1749, but that is another story.)

It seems that my youthful reputation as a slut has been eclipsed by my current image as an intellectual. Life is good.  

Bryn: That’s excellent! I feel very strongly that being a slut and being an intellectual should not be deemed as incompatible anyway! Who do you like to read?

 Jean: OMG, that’s a hard question to answer because I have many favorite authors, both living and dead.

One of my favorite (relatively) non-erotic authors at the moment is the historical novelist Emma Donoghue (originally from Ireland but now living in Canada). As one of her reviewers said, “She inhabits the past.” Reading one of her novels or stories set in a past century, you feel as if you’re there.

I tend to like writers who have broken new ground. So I like Frankenstein by Mary Shelley (first published 1818) and Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice (first published 1978), which set off the current craze for vampires as complex, almost-human characters, not just Evil personified.

I like the erotic fantasies of Pat (now Patrick) Califia, who helped found the real-life BDSM community of San Francisco as well as the current popularity of erotic fiction in general.

I like the erotica of M. Christian because he boldly goes where few other writers venture – into a whole variety of genres and sexual orientations, and always (to my knowledge) with respect for communities he doesn’t personally belong to. 

I like reading (and sometimes teaching) lesser-known books by authors who are better-known for something else.

Examples: 1) Sylvie and Bruno by Lewis Caroll, 19th-century author of Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass.

2) The Third Life of Grange Copeland by contemporary U.S. author Alice Walker, who is probably best known for The Color Purple (made into a movie and then a stage musical).

I also admire a whole slew of other erotic writers, but I don’t want to start compiling a list because I’m afraid I would forget to include someone important.

 Bryn: A very interesting list. I did some anthology stuff with M Christian some years ago. A very engaging person. One final question then… where can people find you online?

Jean: I have a site that needs updating (I need help with that – I am so not a techie), but it still has a lot of information about me and my writing: www.JeanRoberta.com

My opinion pieces can be found every month in “Sex Is All Metaphors” here: www.erotica-readers.com (in the Smutters Lounge gallery).

 I am a staff reviewer here: www.eroticarevealed.com - look for my new review on the first of each month. My reviews can also be found here:  www.kissedbyvenus.ca

www.goodreads.com

www.velvetmafia.com

www.cleansheets.com 

& various other sites.

 I blog on Livejournal here:  http://lizardlez.livejournal.com. Or just type in “Jean Roberta” and see what comes up!