Introducing Molly Weatherfield

By Kate Pearce

Sometimes writing is a solitary business and then sometimes you get coaxed into a group blog like this and realize there are other people out there who are just as crazy as you are! About the same time Lust Bites was created, I was asked to join another group blog, The Spiced Tea Party, for writers of erotic historical romance. (I don't just write about cowboys, you know) Suddenly my two blog-worlds collided when I realized that the great Molly Weatherfield, erotica writer extraordinaire, was none other than my 'Crumpet Strumpet' friend, Pam Rosenthal who writes historical erotic romance for Signet Eclipse. So, of course, I had to ask her to talk about her writing!

1. What made you decide to write erotica?
It began after my interest in reading erotica had undergone a welcome revival.. Because during the 80s I was fortunate enough to get wind of the smart, sensible stuff that sex-positive feminists like Susie Bright and Carol Queen were saying—and suddenly it became clear to me that I could have my politics and my bent fantasy life too.

Which hardly made me a writer of erotica, of course. At that that, point, in fact, I hadn’t written any fiction since high school, though I did publish occasional reviews and essays. Actually I was in complete clueless awe of anybody who could actually make up a story—even though this was during that happy, energetic period when I was getting my erotic fantasy life back. You’d think I might have dimly intuited that there was a connection between story and fantasy. But I didn’t.

Until one sexy Sunday morning, when I had a very vivid fantasy about a guy who has a strange hobby of helping people get in touch with their strange inner sexual desires. And that very simple fantasy made me so mysteriously, unreasoningly happy I couldn’t believe it. (It’s pretty clear to me now that “helper” figures are perhaps the primo wish-gratification element in stories—think of fairy tales; hell, think of just about any story—no wonder I made one up).

But at that time all I knew was that I wanted to stay in the fantasy. Perhaps, I thought, if I could give all the needs and desires I was feeling names and voices, and if I could write it all down… which was when the earth moved for me. Because as passionate a reader and as energetic a fantasist as I was, it was clear that I’d never truly understood what fiction writing was about until that moment.

Have I made it clear how huge this was for me? Because, see, it wasn’t like I was a fiction writer who’d decided to give erotica a whirl. The truth was that I was a frustrated non-writing writer who’d kind of blasted my way through to fiction writing through my erotic imagination. What I learned from this experience was to write about what I find mysterious and compelling, so I can understand what makes it so hot for me. And I’m committed to using every bit of “literary” form I figure out how to use, in order to say what I want to say as precisely as I can. I don’t see a conflict between “popular” and “literary” writing—from where I sit, all narrative writing has its roots in the paradoxes of satisfied and unsatisfied desire.

2. How was your path to publication? Rocky or a smooth glide to instant fame?
It was easy to get Carrie’s Story published. Susie Bright told me about Richard Kasak and Masquerade Books – which was kind of a factory for intelligent porn writing until the web changed everything in the 90s. Well, intelligent and not so intelligent both – Richard’s output and energy were huge. There wasn’t much in the way of rules or market guidelines—you were in if Richard thought your stuff was hot. Which was great – there was none of this “make your guy more alpha” or “the market loves m/m” stuff.

I’m totally grateful to Richard, who’s now, btw, publishing erotic romance at Magic Carpet Books. Check him out, and definitely check out my friend Marilyn Jaye Lewis, who publishes with him.

Masquerade went under in the late 90s, I guess, and I moped around for a couple of years while I was getting rejected by romance publishers. And just about the same time that I made my first romance sale, I sold the rights to the Carrie books to Cleis Press. Check them out if you haven’t—they publish Alison Tyler, Stephen Elliott, and many other good writers.

As for the instant fame part, I’m still waiting for that to happen.


3. Many people mention Carrie's Story as one of their all-time favorite erotica stories. Can you talk about where the idea for this piece came from?
I find it thrilling, you know, that bit about “all-time favorite.” Thrilling and pretty astonishing, because I think of myself as a nerdy type, and my fantasy life as sort of weird and bent—but maybe a lot of people think of themselves that way.

As for the idea behind it—well, parts of it were already in that first short story. As amateurish and primitive as it was, it included an attempt at Jonathan from Carrie’s Story; and three minor characters—Annie, Andrew, and Jane—from Safe Word). And it began to explore the fantasy of being forced to do what you most wanted to do, and also the whole helper thing. But it was also missing a whole lot.

What was most egregiously missing was Carrie herself and what she makes it possible for me to do. Which came to me in a flash a couple of months later when I was reading a very nice fantasy novel called Beauty, by Sherri Tepper.

I don’t actually remember much about that book—but I absolutely remember its narrative voice. It was the voice that meant reading and fiction and everything I’d always loved about reading and fiction; it was the brave, adventurous, smart girl voice, of Jo March and Jane Eyre and I suppose even Nancy Drew. And it suddenly became clear to me that I wanted to explore the mysteries of power and desire through the twists and turns of that voice. Power and desire and youth and bravery: because I also knew that the erotic S/M fantasies that I’d once thought I’d had to give up as a feminist were some of the bravest and most honest things about the young person I’d once been.

I wanted to think about, to work through how libido and intellect, the urge to tell stories and the need to be ravished by narrative, are parts of the same wonderful, mysterious thing. And I thought I could try to do this through the voice of this fearless, funny, brainy character—who seemed on the one hand like an idealized fantasy view of my younger reading self and on the other hand as Generic Girl Character. The name “Carrie,” actually started out as a sort of private joke on “character.” After the fact I wondered if people would think I’d named her after Stephen King’s Carrie. But I decided that would be ok too, because when I used to stay up until 4 am reading early Stephen King, my husband had dubbed me “the slave of narrative.” And that had sort of fit in with all the themes I was exploring anyway. (And no, it had nothing to do with Carrie Bradshaw, who I hadn’t even heard of at the time.)


Oh, and let me take this opportunity to add that I actually prefer Safe Word (Carrie’s Story’s sequel). Because I think I go a little further in working out the themes and ideas there. So I do hope people will check it out.


4. How did your alter-ego Pam Rosenthal emerge and how does she get along with Molly?
Well, Pam’s the name I actually go by, and Pam writes everything that isn’t S/M erotica. She’d been publishing the occasional book or movie review all the way along, and when my romance novels were sold, I was happy to publish them under a name my Mom could point to.

So they get along fine, though in truth I’m not quite sure where one leaves off and the other begins. The romances are by Pam, who I guess is the grownup married lady of the duo.

5. We've been talking about whether our families know what we write. How do your family feel about your split personalities and are they supportive?
My family is absolutely supportive of everything I write, and most of them read the Pam stuff and avoid the Molly stuff. Which I understand perfectly well. Actually I prefer it that way, though it’s hard to explain why I’m willing to share that part of myself with the anonymous reading public but not the people who knew me as a little child or as a mother. Just say that for me, family and fiction go by different sets of rules.

But of course this doesn’t include my husband—who is by far my deepest and most astute reader. And who has contributed to everything I’ve written in so many ways I can’t begin to list them.

Thank you so much for gracing our blog with your presence, Pam. It's been a real pleasure!
Pam's Website is here go take a look!