Sleeping Beauties of the 21st Century: Anastasia, Bella and the Rise of the Vapid Heroine
Some time ago, Laura Miller of Salon.com wrote a compelling critique of the Twilight series. She had a particularly insightful comment to make of Bella: Bella is not really the point of the Twilight series; she’s more of a place holder than a character. She is purposely made as featureless and ordinary as possible in […]
Kinky States of Mind: An Erotica Writing Challenge
On my last post, Selena Kitt made a particularly insightful comment about the sex writing in Fifty Shades of Grey: “For me, the sex was incredibly vanilla for a BDSM novel.” I had to agree with her and then I went on to wonder why. It’s not that all the sex in the story was, […]
Fifty Shades of Twilight: a Fifty Shades of Grey Review
Over on the ERWA Blog, Donna George Storey commented that perhaps one positive aspect of the massive popularity of Fifty Shades of Grey was that women who liked it might then go and seek out books that actually fess up to being erotic fiction. My worry is that they’ll read Fifty Shades of Grey, identify […]
Quietude & Brewing Stuff
I’m sorry the blog has been quiet for a while. I have some projects on the boil I can’t tell you about yet, but will announce soon. In the meantime, my monthly post at the ERWA blog is up. This one is on The Voices of Others: Genders, Sexualities and Beyond
Experiences Define Us: What Writers Are and What They Do
For those of you who have read along with my journey towards getting accepted into a PhD program, I want to thank you for your sturdy company. I have been accepted into a PhD in Creative Writing program at a university in the UK. I will take a year off teaching to study starting in […]
Just Doing Business: Why PayPal’s Ban is Unethical and Bad Business #censorship #paypal #erotica
With the evolution of the whole furor over PayPal’s move to pressure e-Book sellers into culling their virtual shelves of erotica books containing what PayPal considers to be offensive material, I have noticed the same simplistic defense appear over and over again. Let me quote a commenter on Mercy Pilkington’s blog post on the Good […]
First they came for the erotica writers : PayPal as censor | Remittance Girl | Blog Post | Red Room
First they came for the erotica writers : PayPal as censor | Remittance Girl | Blog Post | Red Room.
Call For Submissions: Transgressive Erotica
This is quoted directly from the blog, by Eden Connor: Transgressive erotica is being targeted. Corporate entities seek to suppress legal content. To limit where your imagination may go, and which piece of plastic your reader may use in order to follow. The ‘Great Smut Purge of 2012′, instigated by corporate morality, has caused vendors to pull legal content from their […]
Eden Connor’s Dirty Mind vs Debit Card Series #censorship #paypal #erotica
In March, Eden Connor began an creative and eloquent response to the PayPal book banning issue. She has invited a number of writers, affected by the ban, to talk about who they are, what they write and why they write it. Although none of us feel that a writer should have to justify why they […]
Defending the Indefensible: Bestiality in Erotica #censorship #erotica #paypal
…if you don’t stand up for the stuff you don’t like, when they come for the stuff you do like, you’ve already lost. Why defend freedom of icky speech? Neil Gaiman, 2008 This week, I’ve seen a lot of authors, publishers and others turn on their own kind. I’ve read a lot of statements that […]