Welcome Jamaica Layne

Hooray - we've got a new author to welcome to the lineup of Lust Bites: Jamaica Layne.

And she nearly died getting here ...

In now-traditional style we thought an interview was the best way to get the low-down, so here goes:

Tell us a bit about yourself, Jamaica!

I’ve been writing professionally for about 12 years, and wrote very unprofessionally (angst-ridden teen poetry, kiddie plays, etc) for basically my entire childhood and adolescence. I majored in English Literature in college and graduate school, and for a long time saw myself as a "serious" literary author writing dark, meandering work that nobody wanted to read. It wasn’t until I realized my writing talents are far more in line with popular fiction and playwriting that I began to find success.

Before trying my hand at novels, I worked as a professional editor and financial journalist in Chicago’s fast-paced LaSalle Street financial district, and also worked for a variety of software companies as a technical writer. I also worked as a freelance journalist on the side, writing lifestyle features for the Chicago Tribune, Chicago Reader, New Art Examiner, Cat Fancy, and many other publications. I also am a successful playwright, having had my plays staged professionally all over the US and world (New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, Seattle, Boston, Atlanta, Toronto, the rural UK, and elsewhere). I did all that writing under my own name, "Jill Elaine Hughes". When I took a stab at writing erotica, it was so different from all the writing I’d ever done in the past that I thought it best to create a pseudonym---another "brand", if you will. Hence, all my erotica writing is published under my alter ego, "Jamaica Layne."

So how did you pick your pseudonym?

I chose "Jamaica Layne" because I wanted to write erotica under a sexy "literary porn star" name. I chose Jamaica after the Caribbean island, with its sexy reggae music and tropical paradise, and Layne because I wanted to work the verb "lay" in somehow.

What have you had published in the erotica field? What’s coming out next?

Market for Love is the first erotic novel I had published, and it is due out from Virgin Cheek on October 14, 2008 in both the US and UK. I also recently signed contracts to produce six new erotic novels with Ravenous Romance, a very promising new US-based epublisher of erotica that was founded by several former publishing executives at large NYC publishing houses. I also have a new literary agent, Lori Perkins of the L. Perkins Agency (having fired my former one because he didn’t understand the erotica market). Ms. Perkins and her associates are working on getting several erotic and romantic manuscripts in my "backlist" published, and are also working with me to create proposals for future works. Right now, I have proposals out for an erotic memoir, as well as an erotic "police procedural" detective novel that involves a young Chicago female vice cop infiltrating a prostitution ring----and liking all the sex that undercover work exposes her to.

How and when did you start reading erotica?

I started reading erotica at a very young age----twelve or thirteen. My first foray into the genre was with D.H. Lawrence’s classic Lady Chatterly’s Lover, and it just went from there. My father and former stepmother were very into sex, sexuality, and free love, and they had bookshelves chock full of sex manuals, erotic coffeetable books, and erotic"trash" fiction (the "dirty books" of old-time porn shops) and I sneaked those books off their shelves and read them all voraciously. In college and after I became drawn to erotic "high literature"-----works by Anais Nin, Henry Miller, James Joyce, Catherine Millet, Margaret Atwood, and also to fantasy and science fiction with sexual elements----works by authors like Marion Zimmer Bradley and Anne McCaffrey, among others. I’ve also been a fan of the romance genre since high school, from the trashiest contemporary books all the way back to Jane Austen. When romance novels started getting sexier in the late 90s, I found them very tantalizing and read them by the busheful. But I never thought of taking a stab at writing erotica myself until fairly recently.

How did you get into writing erotica? You write in other genres too, don’t you – what do enjoy about each? Is the writing experience different?

I frankly started writing erotica because the novels I was writing in other genres that I enjoyed reading and writing the most (chick lit, contemporary straight romance, some fantasy and science fiction) just weren’t selling. I had an agent who liked my work a lot but didn’t know how to sell it, because the editors he sent it to kept rejecting it and saying it wasn’t "quite right" for regular romance or chick lit or genre work. Something was always missing, but we could never quite put a finger on what. I’d been reading erotica for awhile and on a whim, took a stab at writing it. I found that I really enjoyed creating complicated plots that were driven by sex scenes, and had a great time writing the sex scenes themselves. For the first time in a long while, I was really, really excited (mentally and physically) about what I was writing. But when I completed the manuscript for Market for Love my agent declined to represent it! (he said, "erotica isn’t for me.") I then proceeded to send it to Adam Nevill at Cheek on my own, and he bought it! Adam was very enthusiastic about my erotic writing and has become a mentor of sorts.

I asked my former agent to negotiate the contract for Market for Love, which he did, but I gradually came to the realization that if I was going to pursue erotic writing as a career, I needed new agent representation---preferably with an agent who understood the erotica genre well. That’s what led me to fire my old agent and seek out my new agent, Lori Perkins, who is arguably the top agent in the world for the erotica genre----she knows it in and out and has been selling it for years.

So I discovered I had a new talent! This erotic writing work of mine has really taken off, and seems to be the genre that I write best, because it’s certainly the work of mine that is selling the most----I’ve recently landed contracts for six books to be released over the next year, likely with more to come!

What are your favourite genres within erotica?

I like contemporaries the best, since that’s what I write the most of myself. I also like paranormal historicals, especially set in the Middle Ages and general timetravel plots. I write (and read) everything from general "vanilla" hetero sex scenes to ménage to moderate BDSM, always with the woman dominating. The novel I’m writing right now for Ravenous Romance, Knight Moves, is about a 21st-century New Jersey Turnpike worker who gets kidnapped by a time-travelling knight from the 12th century, where he makes her his personal sex slave in a huge harem he keeps trapped in his castle. But the heroine learns to make the best of a bad situation by becoming a much-in-demand dominatrix, and uses her newfound power to both have a lot of hot sex with a lot of hot sexy knights, as well as to free herself from servitude and return to her own time.

What are your writing rituals? Do you have a special time of day or place to write?

I try to write every day, which is tricky sometimes because I am the mother of a toddler. My husband and I recently bought a new home, which has a huge third-floor "studio" of sorts where I’ll be writing, and also has plenty of room for a playroom where my son can occupy himself safely while I work. If I can write 1000-1500 words a day, I’m doing very well. Sometimes on good days I can surpass 2000 words. Now that I am under contract to write so many books in such a short time, I’ll probably need to up those targets.

What's the person or thing that inspires you most?

I’m inspired the most by my inner storyteller. I have an almost pathological drive to write, and that drives me more than anything external from myself.

Who do you read purely for fun?

Graphic novels and comic books, especially Elfquest. I’ve loved that comic since childhood. And it was one of the first comics/graphic novel series to depict explicit sex in a positive way. I also love the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series by Alexander McCall Smith, as well as anything else that piques my fancy. I kind of go in phases. I’m in a Nora Roberts phase right now. I’m also a big fan of Sara Gruen, who I know personally through some writing orgs I belong to.

What are you working on at the moment?

In addition to the Knight Moves novel and the proposals I mentioned above, I’m also developing a series for Ravenous Romance called Vital Signs. This will be a series of five books all taking place in and around a small community hospital in rural North Carolina. The first book is complete and will be released by Ravenous in serial form beginning December 1. The series will release new chapters every week, much like a television series. I can best describe Vital Signs as a much sexier version of Gray’s Anatomy, except it’s located in rural America instead of Seattle.

What is your relationship with the wonderful world of blogging? Are you keen on techie web stuff?

I do a lot of blogging. I have a blog under my own name, where I write about my place in the publishing world as well as life in general. I also do a little blogging as Jamaica Layne on her myspace page. I’m not a super techie but I think I need to work on that, now that I have so many books coming out, I will need a more sophisticated Web presence. I plan to contribute to Lust Bites at least once a month.

Is there any erotic theme you haven't yet written about but feel you want to?

I haven’t written a straight lesbian erotica story (though I’ve written books with one-off "experimental" w-w love scenes). A playwright friend of mine is editing a lesbian erotica anthology for Cleis Press right now and asked me to contribute something, so if I can find the time around all my other deadlines, I will write one for her book.

What makes you angry?

Social injustice, lying, and bad government policy (which we’ve had a lot of in the US over the past eight years!)

What makes you happy?

Writing, being with my husband and son, exercise, and reading.

If you were somehow to meet your romantic/erotic hero ... What would happen?

I would probably drop dead of a heart attack from too many orgasms.

Cats or dogs? Werewolves or vampires? White wine or red? Tea or coffee?

I prefer cats to dogs, werewolves to vampires. Red wine, and green tea. I hate coffee.

Thanks Jamaica, and welcome aboard!

Myspace (as Jamaica) : Blog (as Jill) : buy at Amazon US : buy at Amazon UK

"Mr Black Lace" - an interview with Adam Nevill

by Janine Ashbless

This year marks 15 years of Black Lace books, so we decided to get together as a posse and corner the Editor of the imprint, Adam Nevill, for an interview.

We should have taken nets. Adam is possibly one of the hardest-working people in publishing (I’ve had e-mails sent from his desk at 7.30 in the morning and 8.00 at night). It’s hard to believe that he manages to write his own books as well – BDSM erotica for Nexus under the name of Lindsay Gordon, and dark supernatural fiction under his own name – his novel Banquet for the Damned is out now in paperback, and a proper creepy Jamesian read it is.

But he gave us the interview. And oh what an interview…

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Hello Adam – Welcome to Lust Bites!
How did you come to be Black Lace editor?

I’d been writing for Nexus for ten years (nine erotic novels as Lindsay Gordon – by the way, the one women like best is called Angel, followed by The Bond) (Dammit – I just picked the covers I liked best – J) and the senior editor, responsible for erotica, Kerri Sharp, asked me to step up to the plate when my predecessor, Paul, moved on. I was asked to interview, take tests etc, and was then offered the job to look after Nexus. Kerri left six months later and her whole erotica empire was bequeathed to me, including Black Lace, the Wicked Words spin-off, and Cheek. A mixed blessing because I ran the entire operation alone for three months (and nearly combusted) before Donna began as assistant.

You edit Nexus and Cheek as well as Black Lace. From your point of view, are these different experiences?

Some aspects are identical. On the operational side of publishing, it’s the same – each title in each imprint has the same critical path, same amount of work dedicated to it etc, from covers, producing marketing materials like catalogues, the sales materials for the reps, cover meetings, proof stages, reading commissioning and contracting.

Editorially, each imprint has a different set of guidelines and its own creative identity and direction, but the same rules apply in terms of the quality of writing submitted. I think it’s fair to say we’re more rigorous than many publishers of erotic material, in terms of the quality control applied to what we publish. A certain standard has to be achieved for each imprint. Content-wise there are differences too - Nexus is written by male and female authors, but its focus is on fetish erotica, BDSM etc and has a predominantly male readership. It tends to require a more specialist writer in terms of their interests in adult material and fantasy. Black Lace is written by women and is a explicit fictional exploration of female fantasy, the readership is mixed but women are its focus so a female readership is catered to in terms of story and content. Cheek is aimed at a younger US female romance reader with less explicit, and mostly hetero vanilla, erotica interests.

The experience is different because each series poses different challenges in terms of completing a schedule. Nexus receives far more submissions than the other two and we could fill the schedule many times beyond what we actually publish. Even when I was publishing 36 original Nexus titles a year, it wasn’t difficult to find fiction to fill such an enormous publishing enterprise. Black Lace has only ever had 12 original titles on its schedule per year since I have been in charge, and it’s far more difficult to commission. It is actually hard to find 12 titles per year to publish under Black Lace. Cheek is also a challenge to complete, even though we only do six titles per year. Cheek has relied almost exclusively on a stable of regular, trusted authors from the US – Alison Tyler, Michelle Pillow, Anne Tourney etc. Most of them I inherited with the series or encouraged to write more/again, but I did introduce Kate Pearce as a new author to the series, and Jamaica Layne. And Kate is a very popular author.

I think there are just so many opportunities for female authors right now in erotica and romance, which has led to a decrease in the quality of submissions from new authors – too many are writing too much.

Do you ever wake up in the morning thinking "Argh! Not more porn!"?

Never. Not more bad writing, sure. Not more delusion and missives from the criminally insane, sure (you’d be amazed at what erotica publishing attracts in the post, or maybe you wouldn’t be). But human sexuality and fantasy is never dull. It’s a privilege to have so many fantasies and fetishes and ideas shared with me.

What was the first naughty book you ever read?

Delta of Venus by Anais Nin. I was eleven and knew nothing about sex at that age. In fact, I remember arguing with friends loudly in the street, that babies were born through the tummy button, and were willed into existence by a mother wanting a child. All of my friends were laughing at me. I was clueless and getting angrier with them all. It left me baffled, but my curiosity led me to the only book in our house that had a vaguely saucy cover. The house was full of books and on the shelf that contained Henry Miller, James Joyce etc, I found a hardback book with a cover featuring the photograph of a woman adjusting her stocking. I began reading it whenever my parents left the house. And I must have read it four times before actually had a sex education lesson at school, so I received the birds and bees from a French woman, who wrote bespoke erotic fantasies for male patrons in Paris. Not a bad way to learn about sex, but it set up enormous expectations. Sex had a lot to live up to. It also had the most incredible impact on my imagination – I thought of sex in Anais Nin terms from then on, and started writing erotica later because of her work.

Being an erotica editor sounds like a dream job. But tell us about the hard work involved - What does a day at HQ look like?

I’ve never had such an interesting job, nor such a demanding one. There are only ever two of us, working on between 50 – 80 titles per year, depending on what’s in the schedule. And publishing requires precision and every aspect of creating a book, is time-consuming. We’re also probably liaising with over 80 authors because of the huge backlist, let alone the current year’s work we’re publishing plus the following year’s schedule we’re trying to commission at the same time. So we’re reading for the following year’s schedule, working on proofs for books five months away from publication, writing marketing and sales materials for books ten months prior to publication, choosing covers for books somewhere else along their critical path, organising contracts for another part of the schedule, trying to keep up with author correspondence, sending out review copies every month … Stop, my chest is going tight and it’s the weekend as I’m writing this. So it is no exaggeration to state that the workload is colossal. Just colossal. It’s a vocation for me, not a career. I’m not a career-publisher/editor – I’m just in it for the books and writers. And from that, the rewards can be tremendous. To find a new author, to know a book you are publishing is bad-ass, to complete a good collection of short stories, to see all the new titles arrive in their shiny new covers each month, to read the good reviews, to work with interesting creative people … It all balances out.

How do you think that Black Lace has changed over the last 15 years, and where do you see it going in the next 15?

Good question. I look back on its golden period from 1993 – 2000, and am in awe at how huge BL really was. It was a cultural phenomena. Publishing genius. And run by some very talented people, notably the chief, Kerri Sharp. The variety, the extent, the poignancy and power of female sexual fantasy contained therein shocked and surprised a great many people. It had an impact similar to Nancy Friday’s Secret Garden. It was a liberation for female sexual fantasy. It had a certain tone and manner back then too – you could really feel the influence of classic twentieth century erotic literature like ‘O’, the subversive historical romps, of rebellious elements in taboo twentieth century fiction that pressed against the bounds and limits of what was deemed acceptable for women to read and write about. It was so far removed from the tepid bonk-buster – it produced some riotous and libidinous erotica. It was groundbreaking.

The world changed very quickly, and continues to change. The book trade changed, the internet came along, television became more racy, a zillion satellite channels appeared, hardcore was plentiful, electronic and digital media just exploded – and the whole publishing environment for erotic fiction changed. Our monopoly on what was unacceptable and illegal in other media was over. But BL kept pace with the times, had a make-over, bought a new wardrobe and had extensive cosmetic surgery. It entered the Sex and the City age and started to feel younger, and more contemporary. Historicals were published rarely, and there was pressure in-house to turn it into chick-lit. Which is how Cheek came into being. But after such an explosive and powerful start in life, Black Lace is a lovely sleek proud feline that would struggle to change its spots. Nor should it. And the trade will always throw it on to the top shelf in the UK, so why disappoint expectations? So despite the various pressures, there may have been a lessening of BDSM interests, or themes that had become tired, but it still remained edgy. I always thought of 2000 onwards as the riot girl age – Tabitha Flyte, Mathilde Madden, Anna Clare, Alaine Hood, Emma Holly etc There were fewer highwaymen, brooding masterly types in chateaus, and corsets, but lots of new voices.

Since I’ve been there (2005) my biggest and primary task was to find enough authors writing books good enough and suitable for Black Lace. A lot of authors were alienated by the change in direction a few years before. We had major drop-off in submissions, and many authors were now writing for other genres too, having cut their teeth with BL. And I also wanted to keep the series not just up-to-date, but to also anticipate new trends in female fiction. I’ve really had a shot at the cross-genre paranormal erotica, as it’s own mini-series within Black Lace, and pushed for more elements of what the US call erotic romance too, because the US is our biggest audience and women out there are enjoying a similar thrill with erotica that women experienced back in the UK in the early nineties. And erotic romance has mainly been intense vanilla, light bondage, and straight erotica with a HEA ending. The huge romance community and arbitration bodies in the US recently accepted female-authored erotica into the canon of romance and, therefore, what is sold in the romance sections of bookshops (and romance accounts for 40% of all paperback sales in North America). So it’s a massive deal for us to be hauled out of the zoology, psychology, self-help, sex and relationship sections, at the back of US bookstores, and to be shelved within the all-important romance section. And it has been really important for a while to keep BL looking a certain way, in order to break into and then maintain our presence in that side of the US business. We’ve also innovated with the covers in the last four years, to create a style palatable to both the US and UK. And if you look at the new anniversary editions, you’ll see where we’re going for the foreseeable in terms of imagery and art direction. We’re making a statement – we’re a classic brand, and we built the first wheel on this wagon that many have copied, and many have come and gone, but BL remains as the original erotic series fiction written by women.

The erotic romance direction has called in some flak over the last two years, and I completely understand the ire I may have caused, but becoming more attractive to the US market has really helped to continue our fortunes, and our foreign rights sales are better in contemporary straight erotica territory. Of course, the US market is also changing and the content is getting harder out there, and closer to what we were doing back in the nineties, and I’m also acutely aware that some of the edgier BL titles are also selling better everywhere now. So, I welcome older school elements, and darker explorations of female fantasy going forward.

In the near future, we’ll do exceptional historical and paranormal erotica – like Janine Ashbless’s brilliant new collection, Dark Enchantment (:-D And I didn’t even prompt him – J) – but will mainly concentrate on contemporary settings, with stories featuring a wide range of female sexual fantasy. And they can be just as explicit and daring and action-packed as they were in 1993. I want to do more old-school titles, in the same vein of Fredrica Alleyn’s Cassandra’s Conflict and Susie Raymond’s Forbidden Fruit. It can be confusing for authors to get so much information about alterations in direction, but markets change, and so do tastes, and editors get hit with that first. But the constants remain, whether your style tends toward the literary (see the marvellous Kristina Lloyd and Leonie Martell and Olivia Knight), or a far more commercial and mainstream style – then the writing has to be strong and the erotic content surprising and arousing.

So aim to write good, edgy, action-packed contemporary stories.

Do you think the boom in the American erotic romance market will result in increased publicity and sales for BL/Cheek in the US?

I think this has already been happening since 2006 – I’ve been out to RWA a few times to represent our books; we have a great new US distributor; and we enjoy a lot of new exposure in the US romance community now. We get so many great reviews on romance websites, and I’ve tried to encourage a US approach in the way we all market and publicise ourselves as authors. In fact, Lust Bites came into life after we did a live BL & Cheek online day with Romance B(u)y the Book.

As a result of these efforts we’ve grown Black Lace in the US. But it hasn’t happened by accident and just as a result of trends – not wanting to blow our trumpet here, but a lot of us have worked very hard to improve our profile in the US and increase sell-in.

(With both halves of Sophie Mouette)

Have you seen any changes in the more popular scenarios and fetishes in recent years? What would you say is popular now?

That’s a huge question. Worthy of PhD study. Even a book. Because the internet has shown just how diverse human sexuality is, and how increasingly partialist it is becoming. Before, this was only reflected in magazines like Skin Two, Forum and Desire, and underground presses that had large readerships, and in Nancy Friday’s groundbreaking books. But the neural networks, largely around visual media, that have erupted and evolved online have changed the sexual landscape beyond measure and even comprehension at times. How can the book keep pace? How can erotic fiction be kept both entertaining and within guidelines and be a working model of modern sexuality? A challenge – that we have met with some groundbreaking ideas. Nexus Enthusiast and Confessions have embraced these bespoke erotica trends by being more specialist. BL has branched into new cross-genre areas too. In BL I’d say female submission within the sexual act is still the mainline, regardless of the feisty preliminaries or characters, but the ménage and the greedy girl is even more popular than ever. Empowerment through surrender, really. Becoming the centre of unrestrained male desire – becoming the spark that starts the fire. Gay porn has had an impact too on women’s erotica (homo-erotica seems more popular than ever in fan-fiction). Fem dom is massive with male readers but seems to have passed female readers by. I’d say The Private Undoing of a Public Servant by Leonie Martell is one of the best erotic novels published in recent times – it’s a very vivid, intelligent and arousing story, as much as an investigation, into male submission and female dominance. But the reaction to it has underwhelmed me. I think it will endure and become a classic, but in its own time, it has had a normal reception. So group sex, and even extreme submission to the opposite sex, seem to be high on the agendas of male and female fantasy.

Are there discrepancies between what the readers are seeking and the types of material you are being sent by writers?

Our hands are often tied by what we receive – it’s not easy to write fiction well, and erotic fiction is just about the hardest field to get right. So as an editor, you will always publish the best writers, and the best submissions you receive in any period of time, and writers are at their best writing about what rings their bell, so it might not always tick every box for the widest number of readers. But this is where the anthology is king, and our short story collections are very popular. It’s the best medium for erotica – you can dip in and out and find that scene that electrifies you. With a novel, it’s good if it can cover a broad pattern of sexual fantasy within its story. Use your imagination and grow – writers and readers alike can be very self-important in terms of their own tastes. We have one writer that the critics constantly berate, or refuse to review, but he sells so well in Nexus because he does female shame so well – "I really shouldn’t be doing this, but my damn body is betraying me" – so those simple, basic fundamentals still constantly underpin erotic fiction. Don’t underrate them. Use them in different circumstances and situations, and with characters with whom their very status, and what is at stake for them if caught, ratchets up the tension and anticipation. Incongruity is vital for humour and sex in fiction.

We constantly ask readers what they want with Nexus, and with BL we’ve conducted surveys through our sexual fantasy books, upon which the guidelines are composed. They flood in from the websites every day. And fantasies tend to be very specific. So much so that it would be impossible to publish individual books about, say, medical procedures, pubic hair, special breeding farms, enforced cross-dressing by matronly aunts, corporal punishment in military academies, etc. And these are a small example of what we are asked for every week. All of the information we draw from our readers, from sexual media, and from those books that seem to get word-of-mouth and fly off the shelves, we process into a direction we hope is as representative as humanly possible. Nexus Enthusiast was a bold experiment to produce definitive books about one sole adult interest – so we did rubber, wife-swapping, CP, cross-dressing novels. We had readers writing in to say they were like their own autobiographies, or they would write in to say we’d missed things out: e.g. "the one about legs" featured a scene where a woman had sex bare-legged, which was unacceptable, and the one about bottoms didn’t describe the underside of a buttock enough, etc. So within each fetish, there are also subcultures, that are only interested in their one aspect of that kink. It could drive you mad. It was this experience that led me to encourage an author to invent a Victorian encyclopaedia of sexual perversion – Curious Pleasures: A Gentleman’s Collection of Beastliness. And it is wonderful. With BL, readers will say the titles are not hard enough, or that they go too far; others will say they don’t like two guys together, or two women together, another has written in to stress the importance of how sexy well-endowed stags are (It wasn’t me!- J) … See where I am going with this? Readers tend to be very specific about what they want at the expense of every one else. So it always tends to come down to the best writing about sex.

I’d also stress that a story and character that can become a vehicle for varied and plentiful sexual behaviour must always be a writer’s starting point. Then bring in a good broad set of experiences and fantasy. The rest is in the hands of the readers … But here is a clue: more is better than less, when it comes to sex. Writers often make the mistake of developing elaborate storylines, and huge casts of characters, into which the erotic elements feel contrived and shoe-horned in.

My local Borders has purged all the Black Lace books out of Romance and back into Erotica – apparently on head office orders. Is Black Lace ‘Erotica’ or ‘Erotic Romance’?

We moved it to romance in the UK temporarily, hoping to replicate the US model. It was a disaster. Romance readers are different here and erotica fans could not find our books in erotica, so it backfired. Black Lace is back in the erotica section to stay. Black Lace is erotica and erotic romance. Erotic Romance is as much a marketing and sales category to save Black Lace from oblivion in the wrong section of US bookshops, as it is a creative direction for some stories that follow conventional romance structure. One of the conventions in erotic romance is the HEA (happy ever after ending) and although a good Black Lace novel wouldn’t be rejected without one, it is a convenient and often appropriate way to end an erotic novel. It can really give the story a focus. When the girl and her object of desire (or objects) – irrespective of how many other lovers are encountered along the way – get together at last, it generally goes down well and achieves closure on an upbeat note. Nearly all popular female fiction is aspirational in a romantic sense, and we’d be foolish to deny that. I don’t know why this is seen as being a sell-out for erotica – it should not affect the action up until that point, nor the degree of explicitness. We can’t have ‘O’ dying under a table on a leash forever. Downbeat endings are not encouraged, unless you’re really clever. Too often, with proposals from new writers, the stories and characters are working out all kinds of self-loathing, self-harming fantasies, which is inappropriate for series fiction... and ER does not mean you can’t have hard sex on every other page.

Black Lace as an imprint empowered women to write and read about their own fantasies. It is still strictly female writers only. But here you are, a man in charge, telling us what we ought to be writing about. Any thoughts on that?

Here we go, he thinks with a smile. Yes, it’s girls only in terms of authorship in novels. I’m not sure I am telling you all what to write about either – I still use the guidelines on content that were handed to me by Kerri and I have accepted a wide range of stories and styles. I’d even say I’ve broadened the scope of BL. Though, as I’ve explained above, I have sometimes altered direction to meet market trends because this is a business. I’m not completely ignorant of female sexual fantasy either – in fact, I’ve probably read more examples of it in the last six years than most women do in a lifetime. I read it all day, every day. And I know the difference between ‘niche’ or ‘damaged’ and what’s arousing/interesting to a general reader. I also have to produce a balanced schedule (so can’t do seven titles in a row with exactly the same theme etc), and have to meet the expectations of the US, the UK, the international market, two sales forces, two sets of book trades. And every one has an opinion. If you read transcripts of some of our cover meetings in the past, you’d wonder why I never weighted myself down with bricks and slipped beneath the grey murk of the Thames.

On content, I sense a frustration on behalf of some writers. But there have been times in the past when ‘upstairs’ will step in and say, "two guys together and we could lose our place in romance in the mid-west", or "get rid of that bondage stuff, make it like …", etc so there have been episodes when we have discouraged certain themes that were at odds with where we wanted to get the books sold. But that’s mostly over now. (YAY!!!- J) I try and be inclusive without stifling creativity, and hope to stay true to BL’s legacy.

But guidelines are necessary – erotic fiction about rape under the influence of alcohol and drugs is not permissible. But I get so much of this. If a series of books that is dedicated to being about pleasure goes this route to satisfy a few writer’s personal visions, or need to shock, it’s curtains for us all. There is a difference between what is acceptable for literary writers to explore with taboos, and what erotica series fiction authors can explore with taboos. I’m not a censor, but occasionally I do have to step in. Make the books hard, daring, and action-packed, but make sure they are about pleasure too. The most common discrepancy is actually not an erotic scene or tone that contravenes guidelines, but a lack of sex in the finished delivered book. Or sometimes it’s the very same sexual fantasy over and over again in every scene (usually the mark of a straight romance writer masquerading on the dark side). Or too much wearisome chatter that goes on page after page (the blight of modern women’s popular fiction). If a writer does not have a natural affinity for pervery, kink and the erotic, the books are never as good. And often the most creative and sensitive and talented erotica authors also have the most idiosyncratic tastes. So my job isn’t easy. But some of the books I’ve published really are radical for this genre – Private Undoing and Split come to mind, let alone Enchanted.

What do you think Black Lace’s reputation/position is among readers, in the competitive international market?

We’re big in continental Europe and Scandinavia, and also throughout the Anglo-sphere. We are the market leaders. In the US, there are bigger fish that have come out of enormous romance enterprises, but we still hold our own as a British export.

In an ideal world, and if you had total control of the imprint, what would you change?

Cheeky. (Me - ask cheeky interview questions? Surely not! – J) I’d probably insist on a novel being finished before I commissioned it. I hate getting burned on the delivery of a manuscript after commissioning it from a proposal and three chapters. I’m a hands-on editor when I have time to be, and I’m a stickler with quality. Much can go wrong when an author gets a contract after writing only three chapters.

I like erotica covers to look serious and noirish and European, but am as close to that vision as I can be now with the new look.

And I’d command a huge marketing and publicity budget and your books would be advertised all over the tube.

What's the worst / funniest / most absurd proposal you've ever received? (You’re not going to answer that one, are you...)

The list is long as regards content and the madness of the writer (but I do keep a file). I tend to find the attitudes of aspiring writers more absurd – particularly those who can’t write, but tell me when I will publish their book, and what a great film it will make. They’ve never read BL and assume their work is just better than anything we have ever published.

Which part of your job do you like most and which part dislike most?

I like the writers, putting together a new series look, discovering talent, seeing a book do well, and reading something that suddenly gives me a shiver.

I dislike not having enough time. I am a perfectionist.

What's on your desk?

A blizzard of paper and piles of manuscripts around a dusty PC that gets called such names. I’ve never even had time to take down the postcards or notes left by my predecessors, or to replace the stationary. I just added one newspaper article with the headline, Down With Human Life. We get in, switch on, and then it’s heads down until we’re half blind. That’s erotica editorial.

What’s under your desk?

The Black Lace Sexual Fantasies questionnaires from the nineties and all the old samples from fetish photographers that I can’t bear to throw away. I love erotic photography. Plus all of the covers going back to the beginning – two copies of each. Beside that, dust, dried tears, and the odd paperclip.

When you do that scan-opening-of-submitted-writing thing that all busy editors do, what do you look for?

A good concise, legible covering letter, a simple outline and three chapters. It’s not rocket science, but accounts for about one in ten submissions. It’s amazing how impressive a succinct, intelligent letter can be, informing us that a writer has read our fiction and guidelines, and has written erotica before, and is a fan of erotica, and has written X to the right word limit. Self-important braying in a weird type-face, preceding 400K words of something about torture, or how an ex husband was a bastard, has the opposite effect.

What's your worst bug-bear in bad writing - the thing that really gets your goat?

Overwriting in sex scenes – a belief that if you fill a passage full of throbbings etc it’s good. It shows a total lack of respect for readers of erotica. I get it from agents too – here, your readers will love this "filth", one said to me recently. I doubt the agent had even read a word of their client’s work. I saw red.

Add a total ignorance of the craft and a failure to rewrite – ie first drafts that are dashed off and posted by big egos. It’s just a waste of everybody’s time.

And finally, a total ignorance of our imprints.

What's the thing you love most in good writing - something that thrills you when you see it?

A seamless integration of action with convincing dialogue and exposition – considered and inspired writing. To get that visceral tug inside when I know I am reading a real writer with a passion for the erotic.

What (non-erotica) do you enjoy reading in your personal time?

I read widely – lots of dark literary fiction, 20th century American fiction (Bellow, Updike, Doctorow, McCarthy etc), quality horror, classic supernatural fiction, books about writing and writers. Memoirs by soldiers and men tested by extremes of late.

Do you get horny reading our stuff? Ever? Oh come on, surely occasionally...?

There are times when I do feel a pleasing tremor run up and down my spine, after a button has been pushed. I’m only human.

Thank you Adam for giving us so much of your time - and for being so candid and informative. It's much appreciated!

Thank you for having me, and I’m sorry it’s taken me about a year to finish this interview.

Meet the author

by Olivia Knight

“You should never meet your heroes. Paul Newman... I was so excited about meeting him, but he turned up in shell suit bottoms, slippers, and a jumper.” – Alan Carr

“Reading is like the sex act - done privately, and often in bed.” – Daniel J. Boorstin

You shouldn’t believe what comedians say, they’re only doing it for effect (unless they’re Marcus Brigstocke) and anyone who says “the sex act” is automatically consigned to “advice for the previous century”. Nevertheless, reading is private, like sex – you’re allowed to talk about it, but doing it in company is frowned upon. Unless, of course, the company’s joining in. I still remember the guilty pleasure of that first evening when, instead of ripping each other’s clothes off and leaving bite marks on every fleshy body part, my new boyfriend and I lay on my bed and read together – both fervently hoping no-one would catch us in the act. With reading so private and heroes so disappointing - do we want to meet the author?

Since Roland Barthes announced the death of the author in 1977, the author’s been buried, dug up, framed, meta-framed, deframed, defamed, contextualised, deconstructed, most of which seems to me to miss Barthes’s very clear point: what we have is the book. It’s not the author. You can tell, because the book is rectangular and full of printed pages, whereas the author is fork-limbed and hairy in patches.

A book	A person

It’s not reality, it’s not the author. It’s a book. More than that, it’s my book. What the author meant hardly matters, when I have what they wrote. And in reality, you don’t want the author there while you read. Trust me on this. Because the author’s sitting there hugging her toes, eyes glued to your every passing expression, querying every frown or chuckle, saying “Where have you got to?” and “What do you think?” every time you get your flow of concentration back, then wandering into the kitchen, supposedly to make coffee, but actually to glance surreptitiously at the page number and nod knowingly.

I don’t want the author in my living room and I don’t want to see them in the book anymore than I want to see the boom swing into shot in a film. Meta- and pomo- be damned; I know this is fiction, now shove off and let me enjoy it. Authors have a duty to maintain a discreet absence, like excellent waiters. Let our anguish enrich our characters’ inner lives, let our hangups provide fuel, let our treasured anecdotes be picked at for raw materials, but the original anguish, hangup, or anecdote should remain strictly off-page. When you’re making magic, you don’t break the spell.

In erotica, you really, really don’t want the author there while you read. In fact, you don’t even want to think about them. I love Tilly (Mathilde Madden to you), but when I’m reading The Silver Werewolves I’d rather think about Alfie. Contrariwise, if I meet Tilly for coffee, I try not to think about Alfie, because my tongue would hang out. Book-readings and signings are even stranger. You stand in a queue to shake the hand that wrote the words that put your own hand firmly between your legs, and in the best British tradition, everyone pretends it’s a recipe book and nothing to do with sex at all, of course not, a-ha-ha-ha… When really, you all want to go nudge-nudge, wink wink, know what I mean, eh? Eh? Even for authors who don’t habitually make their readers masturbate, it’s a fraught encounter. Ten seconds, thirty seconds, a brief chat over the drinks at the end – how can that ever compete with the fabulous beast that is the book itself?

All of these firmly held opinions (and I know no other kind) go towards explaining why I travel for miles and queue for hours to meet my favourite authors (whether or not they inspired a quick one off the wrist, and some surprising ones do). I gaze wide-eyed, hover breathlessly, and leave – unlike Alan Carr – surprisingly satisfied. They were real. And while they’re not the books, and can’t necessarily explain the books, they’re where the books come from. It also goes towards explaining why, wide-eyed and breathlessly, I’m taking the plunge myself and appearing at Borders as part of the Oxfringe Literary Festival. Anyone who wants to shake the hand that wrote the stuff that – well, yes – you, me, 2 April, 6:30 onwards, it’s a date. Nudge nudge, wink wink.

So – apart from me, obviously – which authors do you most want to meet? Which have you met? And did you ever accidentally insult them, like I did with Wilbur Smith?

Why 69?

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It's 5 O'Clock Somewhere . . .

Hello, lovely and lusty ones! I’m delighted you could join us to kick off December with some holiday decadence. What could be more decadent than sharing cocktails with a bunch of smutwriters at five o’clock in the morning, or five o’clock wherever you are? Along with cocktails, we’ll be serving appetizers: juicy secrets about the Lustbites authors (hopefully the latter will increase as the booze begins to flow). You might even find a few cocktail recipes tucked in among the gossip. I’m Anne, your hostess, bartender, and designated driver. Anyone who needs a ride home across The Pond will need to check with the nearest dark, mysterious stranger reading alone at the back of the bar (Shanna, isn’t your vice men reading alone in bars?).

So grab a seat, order a drink, slip off your shoes -- or your inibitions, or your panties, or whatever else you might do to make yourself comfortable -- and let’s get to know each other. Whether you’re a writer or a reader or both, please share a bit about yourself, too, using our questions or some of your own. Your favorite cocktail recipes are welcome, too; your bartender could use some inspiration here.

I’d like to say thanks to Alison Tyler for passing the swizzle stick to me for this shindig – hopefully she’ll drop in to procrastinate with us for awhile and have a few drinks.

Okay, I’ll spin the empty champagne bottle. (One down already? It's going to be a wild Monday.)

~ * ~ * ~ * ~

DEANNA ASHFORD

Hi, I'm Deanna Ashford and I live in the south of England, close toLondon. I'm a full time writer when I'm not looking after everyone else in my family, including my very elderly King Charles Spaniel. I write historical, fantasy and modern erotica. My favourite are historicals and I'd write them all the time if my editor would let me!I love the research and find the past infinitely more interesting than the present.

Favourite Authors: Lots but the ones I can think of are Simon Scarrow,Bernard Cornwell and Mark Adkin.

Religion: None but Buddism does sound interesting

Turned on by: Passionate, fairly muscular men, with dark curls youwant to run your fingers through and blue/green eyes.

Would like to fuck: A certain guy who shall remain nameless but you can find his description above.

Passions other than sex: Writing of course, romantic music, historyand travel.

Major character flaw: I'm typical of my birth-sign Aries and I worry way too much about what I look like.

Drink of Choice: Mai-Tai
1 ounce Fine Jamaican Rum
1 ounce Martinique Rum (St. James)
1/2 ounce Orange Curacao
1/2 ounce Orgeat Syrup
Juice from one fresh lime (about 3/4 ounce)

Shake vigorously and serve. I chose this because it reminds me of Hawaii my most favourite place.

OLIVIA KNIGHT

Hi, I'm Olivia. I drink red wine, smoke roll-ups, listen to film scores on full blast, stay up late, walk very fast, and talk too much at parties. I'm the one standing outside with a cigarette who's just thrown her wine all over her dress. And that's why I wear black. No, I'm not drunk - I'm by nature a loud, friendly, clumsy person. And here's the Q&A lowdown...

Favorite to read: A.S. Byatt

Favorite to watch (apart from a man undressing): Farscape

Favorite food & drink: daytime, oatcakes & coffee; nightime, cheese & wine

Religion: anything featuring priestesses & ancient vaulting stone - I'm a temple-whore

Things that make me hot: words - words words words - intelligence - hipbones - strong arms - thick black hair - skin-smell

Would like to fuck: Legolas, Aragorn, Tristan

Passions other than writing and sex: candles, art, music, walking, and trees

Major character flaw: stubborn as a rock. In fact, rocks have nothing on me.

Favorite quotation: "Do I look absolutely divine and regal, yet at the same time very pretty and rather accessible?" - Queenie, from Blackadder

Philosophy: Do what you love.

Olivia's Martini Tutorial:

• Dash of vermouth

  Gin

  An olive, speared on a toothpick

Use an ice-cold glass. Roll the vermouth around a martini glass, tossing out any extra. Put the olive in on its toothpick. Fill a cocktail shaker with ice & shake two measures of gin in it, then strain it into the glass.

Note the absence of crushed ice, mixers, cherries, vodka, and nasty stuff that comes in a bottle labelled "Martini" but which isn't. It's really not so hard - so I can't work out why almost nowhere can get it right...

"Martini, martini, the drink I like most -

Two and I'm under the table,

Three and I'm under host."

- Dorothy Parker

ANNE TOURNEY

I’ve been writing erotic fiction since the early 1990’s. Most recently I’ve been writing erotica and erotic romance novels for Black Lace and Cheek. I’ve also published a bit of dark fantasy and mainstream fiction here and there. Today my latest Cheek novel Lying in Mid-Air makes its debut in the U.S. And I just typed “The End” on my 2008 Cheek release, Kiss Between My Lines.

Favorite Author: So, so hard to choose just one, but I think my all-time favorite, in terms of both the depth and breadth of her creativity and the influence she had on my writing, is Margaret Atwood.

Religion: Episcopagnostic

Things that make me hot: Intelligence, wit, creativity, and passion in anyone, male or female. Deep, long kisses that make you feel like you’re blissfully drowning. Men with strong, large, well-shaped hands. Men who tell me stories or read me poetry. Horse toys (I’ll tell you more about that after we’ve had a few).

Would like to fuck: Alexander the Great. Yeah, I know, time travel’s a bitch, but I’ll go to great lengths for a truly dominant male.

Passions other than writing or sex: Reading, photography, movies, long walks alone, contemporary poetry, my sweet six-toed Siamese cat, sushi, sweets, music (classical, jazz, alternative rock, and ambient are some of my favorites).

Drink: Cranberry juice with 7-Up and a lemon twist.

Philosophy of life: It’s not a party till somebody spills their drink.

Major character flaw: A love of excess. And more excess. And a bit more of that excess, please.

Favorite sex toy: Anything that makes me feel like I have four legs and a tail.

Secret for overcoming writer’s block: A sledgehammer.

Cocktail recipe: This is the only time of year that I can justify drinking fattening drinks. The rest of the year, I could knock 'em back anyway, but with considerably more guilt.

Peppermint Stick

1 1/2 oz. Creme de Cacao
1 oz. Peppermint Schnaps
1 oz. light cream

Shake ingredients with ice; strain into a champagne flute. Garnish with a candy cane.

And I had to add this one, just ‘cause I love anything slippery:

Slippery Nog

3/4 oz. Bailey’s Irish Cream
3/4 oz. Butterscotch Schnapps
Eggnog

Combine Bailey’s and schnapps in a highball glass, fill with eggnog. Stir well. Suck it down. Mmmmm . . . .

Holiday cocktail recipes from Drink Nation.


KATE PEARCE

Hi, I’m Kate Pearce, and you’re probably going to ask me if I write children’s books but I don’t -- really, I don’t. Despite looking like your average frumpy housewife, I write the edgy erotic romance novels that my mother is ashamed of. I’m originally from the UK and now live in California so I understand both sides of all the Lustie’s arguments which can get quite confusing sometimes. (erm not that we ever argue of course)

I write for Virgin Cheek, Ellora’s Cave and Kensington Aphrodisia so I’m busy as hell but glad to be employed. Historicals are my favorite books to write but somehow the contemporaries and futuristics sell just as well.

Favorite author: Just one? Jane Austen

Religion: Ex Roman Catholic and okay with that.

Things that make me hot: Voices, smiles, muscled arms, my hubby, Becks and Take That.

Would like to fuck: Now this minute?

Passions other than writing and sex? Riding a horse, reading, my little dog, good food and friends.

Major character flaw: I don’t have one -- erm, complacency

Philosophy: Life’s too short to waste doing something you hate.

Drink:

Strawberry Lemondrop Martini

3 oz vodka
4 oz sweet and sour mix
6 drops lemon juice
1 tsp sugar

Pour all ingredients into a cocktail shaker, and shake. Place the rim of a chilled cocktail/martini glass in a bowl of lemon juice, then transfer to a bowl of sugar in order to coat the rim. Pour the contents of the cocktail shaker into the cocktail glass, and serve. Makes 2 martinis.

TERESA NOELLE ROBERTS

Hi, Teresa Noelle Roberts here. You can call me T. Want some coffee, or maybe a glass of wine? Pull up a chair--you'll probably have to move a cat or two first--and make yourself comfortable. I'm writing from southern Massachusetts, unfortunately not right on the beautiful wintry coast, but I can pretend. I write short fiction, novels, and poetry, mostly erotic and/or mystical in nature. I also write erotic fiction as half of the fabulous two-headed monster named Sophie Mouette. I've been playing with words since before I actually knew how to write, and will probably continue to do so until they pry the keyboard out of my cold dead hands.

Favorite author: In what genre? I think I have a word limit here... I have an old-fashioned love for Jane Austen, because of the way she handles serious matters with a light touch.

Religion: Crunchy freeform pagan.

Things that make me hot: Beautiful eyes, intelligence, thinking dominance, leather, little beards, wit, cleavage (most likely not in combination with a little beard, but gender-bending is pretty hot too). And did I mention wit, intelligence, and dominance?

Would like to fuck: Possibly, if you're witty, smart, and on the toppy side, but my dance card's full these days.

Passions other than writing and sex? Food and cooking. The ocean. Belly dance. Sharing any of the above (and writing and where appropriate, sex) with those I love.

Drink: Champagne or rich red wine. Possibly a fine Scotch.

Major character flaw: Procrastination. (I should be working on a novel right now!)

Philosophy: I like being on the bisexual fence. I can see my house from here. More to the point, I can see yours . . . and the view in your bedroom window's mighty nice!


DAYLE DERMATIS

An interviewer once said of me that I have so many pseudonyms, you'd think I was a spy! Under my own name (Dayle A. Dermatis), she writes fantasy/SF. As Sophie Mouette, with coauthor Teresa Noelle Roberts, I write erotica and erotic romance. As Sarah Dale, with coauthor Sarah J. Husch, I write erotic romance. And as Andrea Dale, I write erotica and erotic romance, too... Apparently I've never seen the point in using pen names for privacy reasons.

I work full time as a writer and editor, and live in southern California within scent of the ocean. No, the recent wildfires didn't threaten me, although the sky turned the color of what I imagine the sky in hell looks like (if I believed in hell). I have impressive cleavage. Many people are surprised to learn I'm not a Virgo.

Favourite author: Guy Gavriel Kay

Politics: No, thank you

Religion: Pagan Turned on by: Full lower lips, dark blue eyes, naughty wickedness, sense of humor

Would like to fuck: Many of you

Passions other than sex: Styx, history, costuming, textile/fiber arts, music, herbalism, Wales, Celtic studies, birds of prey, cats (big and small), faeries, Pre-Raphaelites, Craftsman bunglows, travel (37 countries to date), motorcycling . . .

Major character flaw: Not admitting I have one

Favourite anecdote: The first thing William the Conqueror did when landing in Britain was trip and fall on his face. He recovered by grasping a handful of sand and announcing that it was the first part of Britain he'd conquered. No idea if it's true, but damn, I wish I had that ability to think on my feet! (Or not, as the case may be...)

Drink: Although I once wrote a story about a drink called The Witch of Venice, I prefer a nice, crisp, dry white wine. Or champagne. "It doesn't matter whether the glass is half-empty or half-full. What matters is whether there's another bottle of champagne chilling in the fridge."


SHANNA GERMAIN

Hi all - Shanna Germain hailing from Portland, Ore. where it's currently raining. Where it's always raining. Which means I get to spend a lot of time cooped up in my home office, with the cat on my lap and a soy mocha on my desk, pumping out words. I write a little bit of everything -- I'm mainly a short story writer, but I also write poetry, articles, novellas and, most recently, novels. My topics are almost always sex and death. Blame it on my hippie parents. Or my sordid past as a college student. Or the years that I worked as a paramedic. Or maybe those are just the things that interest me most. (Can I say that on Blogger?)

Favorite author: Amy Bloom.

Politics: Way too liberal to still be living in the U.S.

Religion: Naturalistic pantheist. Or heathen. Depends on the day.

Things that give me a hard-on: A good laugh, great dimples (in either set of cheeks), blue-blue eyes, snake hips, muscled calves, curly hair, boots, a woman who walks like she means it, a man reading alone in a bar.

Would like to fuck: Yes.

Passions other than sex: Writing, first and foremost. Then, sex. Oh, wait, other than sex . . . walking and hiking, playing sports, coffee, dark beer, good food, travel, great friends.

Major character flaw: Fear disguised as humor

Favourite anecdote: Dorothy Parker was once interrupted on her honeymoon by Harold Ross (her indomitable editor at The New Yorker), pressing her for a belated book review. "Too fucking busy," Parker replied, "and vice versa."

Drink: I'll have two of everything.


JANINE ASHBLESS

Hi – I’m Janine Ashbless. I live in England, and write full time. I foster dogs for a rescue charity. I’ve got chainsaw certification. I’ve been trained in shamanic journeying, though I don’t do it any more. I write paranormal, fairy-tale and fantasy erotica : "Vivid and tempestuous and dangerous, and bursting with sacrifice, death and love. " Portia says – I couldn’t ask for a better description. Imagine a bastard cross between Angela Carter and Robert E. Howard! I also write ‘straight’ ghost stories and horror – but not under this name. I write because it’s a physical addiction: if I stop for too long I start to go wappy.

Favourite author: HP Lovecraft (not as rude as he sounds!).
Politics: Green

Religion: Pagan atheist

Turned on by: Intellect, goatee beards, long hair, heroism

Would like to fuck: Gerard Butler

Passions other than sex: Travel, myth, greyhound welfare

Major character flaw: Embittered idealist

Favourite anecdote:

Niels Bohr, the quantum physicist, was asked why he had a horseshoe nailed over his door.
"For luck."
"But you don’t believe in that sort of thing, surely!"
"No I don’t. But I understand it works whether you believe it or not."

Drink: Mine’s a Bloody Mary, Anne!

Bloody Mary

4 -6 cubes (cracked) Ice
1dash Worcestershire sauce
1 dash tabasco sauce
1 measure vodka
6 measures tomato juice
1/2 a lemon worth lemon juice
1 pinch celery salt
1 pinch cayenne pepper

Put the cracked ice into a shaker. Dash the Worcestershire sauce and Tobasco sauce over the ice and pour in the vodka, tomatoe juice and lemon juice. Shake vigorously until a frost forms. Strain into a tall, chilled glass, add a pinch of celery salt and a pinch of cayenne pepper. Decorate with celery stick and/ or slice of lemon.

KRISTINA LLOYD

Hello. I’m Kristina Lloyd and you’ll always find me in the kitchen at parties. I live in Brighton on the south coast of England, and I write about women who like it on the dark, dirty and dangerous side. That’ll be me then. I’m quiet and bookish (shut up Madden, I am) and I like a nice whisky. My third Black Lace book, Split, has just been released and I seem to spend a lot of time staring into the middle distance, wondering when he’ll untie me.

Good stuff: bees, i-Pod, men swimming, me swimming, taxidermy, shingle beaches, porn, Pilot Hi-techpoint V5 pens (black ink), cartography, straitjackets, Andalusia, olives, marionettes, opium poppies and lots of other lovely, idiosyncratic nonsense like that.

Cocktail of choice: Margarita

1. For that salt-frosted rim, chill glass in freezer. Rub a lime wedge around rim. Dip in a saucer of salt. (Well, I think that’s how I did it last time. Tequila affects my memory.)

2. Follow the 3:2:1 rule. Three parts tequila, 2 parts Triple Sec, 1 part freshly squeezed lime juice. Shake in an old jam jar for that extra homemade touch. Pour over a smidgen of crushed ice. Add lime wedge.

Chin-chin!

MADELYNNE ELLIS

Hi, I'm Madelynne Ellis, Full Time Writer, Evil Goth Sorceress, Stoker of the Stove of Screaming Souls, Tender of the Bone Orchard, the Opaline Incantatrix, Fantoccini Chef, Haunter of the Dark Supermarket, Freelance Crypto-zoologist, Word-Bitch In Resident at Hobbs End Lunatic Asylum, ship's mum and harlot.

Favorite author: JRR Tolkien

Passions other than writing and sex? Theatrical make-up, dressing up in silly costumes, scaring people.

Favourite drink: Port, Goblin Cider, Cognac. Not necessarily in that order.

Major character flaw: Stubborn.

Favorite quotation: "If music be the food of love . . . Prepare for indigestion." -
Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich.

Favorite colour: Triad black

Favourite vicarious pastime: Flirting

Would like to play seduction games with: Gackt, Jonathan Rhys Meyers & Lord Wraxall. And yes, together would be fine.

Secret for overcoming writer's block: A four hour bubble bath.

MADELINE MOORE

Favorite author: I’m a voracious reader. Always have been. There are a slew of authors I faithfully read as their new books come out. Alice Munro, though she’s said she might stop writing now because her grandma once said to her, ‘Why make more misery?’ She dedicated one of her books like so: ‘To the careful reader.’ I like that very much. I recently discovered Sarah Dunant’s In the Company of the Courtesan and have been devouring her books as quickly as I can find them. In the erotica department I think I’ve read something by every member of Lustbites, at least a short story. The work is as varied as the individuals who make up our blog, but I’ve honestly enjoyed all of it.

I’ll miss Susie Bright’s Best of American Erotica anthologies, especially since I haven’t been in one. I love Alison Tyler’s “ABC” series, Cleis Press, and I will be in L is for Leather.

Favorite movie: When Apocalypse Now ended I fell to my knees in the theatre. That movie knocked me out! I enjoyed the recent expanded version. Fight Club, Adaptation, Notes On A Scandal, Elizabeth. The list is huge. I write TV and film scripts so I watch a lot of movies and a fair bit of TV and sometimes, I admit, I can get pretty excited about a nice long TV night featuring Bones, CSI Vegas, Law and Order CI, Weeds, The L Word . . .

Favorite food: A true prairie girl like me can’t get by without red meat, though I’ve tried from time to time. I like a great steak, crazy about my own beef stew, and lately, the mere mention of a Kelsey’s burger with cracked peppercorns and basil mayo makes my mouth water. I like gravy, a lot. But for a real dining out experience, oh give me Thai food! Glass noodles, papaya salad, chicken curry with coconut milk, salad rolls, and for dessert, fried bananas with coconut ice cream. Cob coon mac mac, ca!

Religion: Deist. There’s something out there, just don’t ask me what it is and do not attempt to tell me what it is, either.

Things that make me hot: Anticipation (for a few hours only, not for a few days.) Lingerie. A firm hand and a soft voice. Words, baby, lots of words, crooned in a low, rumbling male baritone. When I’m hot I get wet, and that makes me hotter, which makes me wetter…and so on. I love the way that works.

Would like to fuck: In my dreams, Vincent D’onofrio and Dennis Quaid. In real life I’m happier than I’ve ever been since Felix Baron became my lover.

Passions other than writing and sex? I lived in Thailand for 2 years when I was 14 – 16 years old, and I continue to be interested in all things Thai, especially the food, and thick, straight, black hair.

I enjoy great conversation – and I get lots of that at Lust Bites. I’m passionate about my beautiful daughters and their education.

I guess I’m pretty nuts about my huge chocolate Siamese cat, Leo. He’s incredibly affectionate, talks a lot, and loves getting presents. He knows if I’m sick or sad, and comforts me in his kitty cat way. In fact, I believe that cats are proof that there is a God, as they are such a perfect pet (they even make a pleasant rumbling sound when you stroke them, for gawd’s sake) I find it hard to believe they weren’t crafted by the Master.

Drink: Schweppe’s diet ginger ale.

Major character flaw: Moi? I have been known to lose my temper – suddenly, explosively, very verbally. I have an addictive personality so almost everything I enjoy becomes a problem, sooner or later, (see above, favourite drink, diet ginger ale, sigh.) Some exceptions to that rule are sex, writing and music.

Favorite quotation: ‘A man climbs a mountain and they call him a hero. I climb mountains that aren’t even there!’ Francis Ford Coppola

Philosophy: If you don’t like me, don’t be around me. Also, if I’m not doing it with a glad heart, then I’m not doing it at all.

Favorite sex toy: I can’t tell you my favourite sex toy. All the other sex toys might get jealous.

Secret for overcoming writer’s block: Nothing overcomes writer’s block like a good deadline. If I don’t have one and can’t make myself respect my own, I just get Felix to give me a deadline. That works.

PORTIA DA COSTA

Drink: Stella Artois

• open bottle or can


• pour into glass


• drink


• alternatively may be drunk from bottle or can

Bio: My name's Portia Da Costa [sometimes] and I live in a small town in West Yorkshire with my husband and three cats. I write mainly contemporary erotic romance, with occasional forays into paranormal. I'd love to try writing a hot historical some day, or maybe an urban fantasy, but I probably don't have sufficient plotting skills for either.

Favourite authors: Thomas Harris and Ian Fleming. Cyrian Amberlake for erotica. Currently reading Lord of Scoundrels by Loretta Chase, and just finished Claiming the Courtesan by Anna Campbell - both excellent.

Favourite fantasy heroes of the moment: Robert Goren, Professor Charles Eppes and Special Agent Don Eppes, Eisenheim the Illusionist, Captain Jack Sparrow

Favourite pastime: watching the telly

Favourite foods: fish and chips, chocolate, cake

Favourite drinks: tea, coffee, apple juice, lager

Major character flaw: all of them.

Love, WendyPortia

So that's some of us . . . have a drink (or two, or six) and tell us who you are.