Suite news!

Today I got the news that my story "Return to the Nonchalant Inn" will be in next year's Suite Encounters: Hotel Sex Stories, edited by Rachel Kramer Bussel for Cleis Press! Needless to say, I'M THRILLED!!! Due out the middle of next year, it will be my second print publication of my erotica. There's just something about a book with paper and pages and a cover and print. I wasted no time in signing the contract and sending it back. :)

I've been reading Rachel's anthology for years and it is most definitely an honor to be chosen by her for this second anthology of hotel sex stories. I can't wait to see the TOC!

This comes on the heels of the release of Best Erotic Romance, edited by Kristina Wright for Cleis. I've got a story in that, and my next post will be an excerpt from it!

Best Erotic Romance now available!

Best Erotic Romance, edited by Kristina Wright for Cleis Press, has been released!  I'm excited because I will be able to hold the book in my hands and turn to the page my story, "Till the Storm Breaks," begins on.

It won't be the first time I've been in print, but it will be the first time my erotica has been in print. Call me old-fashioned, but I like to hold a book. The tangible object is as much of the experience for me as the words.

Don't get me wrong, I think online is great. In fact I think it's one of the best things to ever happen during my lifetime. Despite all the CRAP out there on the internet, one cannot deny the wonderfulness of being able to just go and write for all the world to see.  Even if just a miniscule fraction of the world is seeing my blog, and hence my words, there are still folks all over the globe that have. Granted, they're not looking for "me." But I'd like to think that when someone types in one of the search phrases that lands them here, that even though what I've written isn't exactly what they're looking for, they still might spend a few minutes reading and enjoying what I've written.

Granted, I find myself a bit nervous too, now that this print book is out. I've yet to have the experience of having my writing commented on, other than by friends. While I have years of critique groups under my belt, I've never had my work "reviewed." So, yeah, I'm nervous about that.

Also, there's a few folks in my life that I haven't told about my Erobintica exploits (ha!) - namely my sister. Not that I think she'd going to wander into a bookstore on the other side of the country from me and pick up this book and turn to the bios and find her baby sister listed. But it's more that I'm proud of this. I'm proud of my writing. And wow, that was a difficult sentence to type.

This has been a year of transitions for me. As it draws to a close, I'm wondering what next year will bring. I hope I'll be able to point to more publications and more events/activities that I'm doing. I hope that my fears will start to fall away, and I can start to live up to some of the things friends and loved ones have told me about my writing.

Thank you everyone who is reading this!

Women In Lust: Erotic Stories

Most of the definitions I found of the word lust were somewhat unsatisfying and bland.

Until the one at Wikipedia: "Lust is an emotional force that is directly associated with the thinking or fantasizing about one's desire, usually in a sexual way."

Lust is most definitely a force. A force to be reckoned with.

Lust is a craving so strong that reason flies out the window.

Lust makes us do and say things that make us shake our heads and say "Did I say/do that?"

For those of us who are Dante's Inferno fans, our lust can send us straight to the second circle of hell, to be endlessly tossed around by "the terrible winds of a violent storm." Yup, sounds about right.

While preparing for this stop on the virtual book tour for Women In Lust: Erotic Stories edited by Rachel Kramer Bussel for Cleis Press, I kept getting sidetracked when I'd type "lust" in the search engine. There was an awfully lot of links associating lust with sin. Thankfully, the women of Women In Lust don't tend to worry about that.

But one link led me to Valentine de Saint-Point's Futurist Manifesto of Lust, where I found my favorite definition of lust:

Lust is the expression of a being projected beyond itself. It is the painful joy of wounded flesh, the joyous pain of a flowering. And whatever secrets unite these beings, it is a union of flesh. It is the sensory and sensual synthesis that leads to the greatest liberation of spirit. It is the communion of a particle of humanity with all the sensuality of the earth. 

The women who lust–Donna George Storey's Natalie, Brandy Fox's Brooke, Elizabeth Coldwell's Barbara, all of the women in this anthology–would embrace that definition wholeheartedly.

Over the course of the day, today, I'm going to come back and post a couple of lines about each story in the comments (a comment for each story). I'd post them all at once here, but it didn't occur to me till just now to do that as I read. I never liked taking notes while I read because I like to lose myself in the story.

For more about this book, go to  http://womeninlust.wordpress.com/about/.

The full Women In Lust Virtual Blog Tour schedule is at that link, with links to past and future posts. It's running for the full lusty month of November, with a trickle over into December. Reviews, interviews, and who knows what's to come?