15 erotica authors share their fiction inspiration

Over on the Best Women's Erotica of the Year Tumblr, I've had the pleasure of interviewing 15 (so far) of the contributors to BWE of the Year, Volume 2, about their erotica history, writing process, inspiration for their stories, favorite lines and future plans. I wanted to share those interviews and some fabulous quotes with you as I listen to the rain while waiting to take Amtrak to Baltimore for the next stop on the book tour. And more interviews are scheduled through March so keep reading our Tumblr and following us @BWEoftheyear on Twitter.

I'll conclude by giving you easy ways to read or listen to the book, and I encourage you to also ask for it at your local library (yes, it may be nerve-wracking to ask for a sexy book, but they're librarians, they've heard all sorts of requests and if they are at all good at their job, they won't judge you, but will be happy to help their users) or bookstore.

I'm starting with the authors you'll hear at our book events and including the cities where you can hear them (Abigail Ekue can't make our Baltimore reading due to weather, but you can catch her in New York and Jersey City).

Jordan Monroe, "Performance" (Baltimore)



Abigail Ekue, "Cigarro Tarde" (New York, Jersey City)



Stella Watts Kelley, "Teacher Appreciation" (New York, Jersey City)



Vierra Lai, "A Hint of Lime" (New York, Jersey City)



Annabeth Leong, "On Some Maps, But Not on Others" (New York, Jersey City)



Melina Greenport, "The House on Orchard"



Jocelyn Bringas, "Taste"



Kristy Harding, "Another Way to Start a Fire"



Kate Sebastian, "On the Calendar"



Corrine A. Silver, "Her Best"



Dorianne, "Like Lights in the Northern Sky"



Garnell Wallace, "Beautiful Broken Things"



Winter Blair, "At the End of the World"



Kay Jaybee, "Brick Dust"



Josie Jordan, "Volcano Nights"



And of course, please read or listen to Best Women's Erotica of the Year, Volume 2 for these authors' stories in all their full glory:

Amazon (print)

Kindle (ebook)

Bn.com (print)

Nook (ebook)

Powells

Books-a-Million

IndieBound (find your local independent bookstore)

Audible audiobook

Google Play

iBooks

Amazon UK (print)

Amazon UK (Kindle)

Amazon Canada (print)

Amazon Canada (Kindle)

My favorite Tumblr porn

My dirty little secret is that sometimes I'd actually rather look at lingerie than sex photos. And by sometimes, I mean most of the time. I'm trying to purge myself of all the ridiculous assumptions I've absorbed about "how to be a sex writer," because I'm not a sex writer, I'm just a writer, but still, ever since I left the road to a "respectable" career and fell into one that even I whisper about and evade (like when the doctor the other day asked what I write about and I said "dating and relationships, books, pop culture," which is true, but not, you know, the whole truth), I've had to reckon with the disparity of how not depraved I actually am, most of the time (I'm depraved when the situation warrants it). Sortof like for fun I read YA and cozy mysteries because I read smut all the time for work, though I am always on the lookout for a good juicy novel of any genre. I guess it's my own silliness that's even inspiring a disclaimer, but it's true. I packed a box of VHS and DVD porn because I was afraid to throw it away in Brooklyn. Some of the VHS tapes I actually want to watch but have no means to, so I'll just keep them as souvenirs, probably until my next move, unless I somehow come to own a VCR. My point being, I'm in now way a regular porn watcher, although the DVDs I bought at the Feminist Porn Conference I do plan to check out. But I do have a few naked photo Tumblrs I follow and I shared my favorite Tumblr porn at Salon and also my favorite non-porn but pretty photos Tumblr The Lingerie Addict, which recently featured this photo below, of a dress from Uturn Utopia.

Spanakopitza from Papa Cristos and caramel Oreo ice cream at Scoops

Yesterday I had lunch with Zach from Midtown Lunch LA (founder and former blogger of Midtown Lunch). He asked if I was up for trying Greek food, I said yes, and off we went to Papa Cristos, where I tried this delicious spanakopitza:



I'm a big spinach fan, and feta fan, so the combination all warmed up on bread with caramelized onions was delicious. I also had a big salad, and tasted Zach's gyro meat. I felt a little badly because I was mocking the signs on the homemade baklava, which looked delicious, but said "homemade" "chocolate" and "raspberry" and then I tried to explain to the very short, white-haired man helping me why those shouldn't be in quotes, but it didn't compute. I gave the baklava to the friends I'm staying with and got thumbs up. I'd definitely go back; it was spacious, much more so than you'd ever get in New York, and there were free samples of tabouli, honey halva spread and bread.

Then we hung out at Scoops in Culver City, which is run by a food blogger, where I ate this delicious caramel Oreo and chocolate almond non-dairy ice cream and tried to resolve my flight situation. It was very good, though the chocolate almond was a bit too almond-y for my taste, the caramel Oreo was perfect. Flavors change daily.



If you're in LA, follow @midtownlunchLA on Twitter for the latest and if you like music and food, see Zach's new Tumblr, Food is the New Rock.

From Lemondrop to Tumblr and back to Lemondrop: Excuses for not drinking

What I love about Tumblr is how fast you can see what people react to; it's instaneous. They can just click "like" or reblog or comment and what's interesting is what people respond to.

I posted a short response about not drinking that spawned lots of reaction and...a post on Lemondrop (very cool site owned by AOL), quoting me, Lena Chen, Maria Diaz and Amber L. Rhea. It's not that surprising since I was responding to a post on Lemondrop about a woman who had to feign excuses for not drinking, lest everyone know she was pregnant. I didn't even know about it until, ironically, last night I was out with a friend at Spuyten Duyvil in Williamsburg, and she bought me two sparkling wines (yes, I broke my no more drinking in 2010 rule but it was in the name of girl talk) and she told me that AOL is her homepage and she clicked on a headline about "social drinking" and found my name! Love the small worldness. Thanks, Lemondrop and their interesting commenters. It's a fascinating site.

Here's the entirety of my original post, titled "Maybe instead of commentary on pregnancy this is about how fucked we are around alcohol:"

I despise the "You don't drink?" question when meeting new people. It seems to come with a tinge of "What the fuck is wrong with you?" Maybe I'm projecting, but still, it definitely comes with a tinge of, "You are not like the rest of us." I mean, really - pregnant or not, can we just drink or not drink on any given night and not have it be a bfd?

From Lemondrop:

"I had my 10-year high school reunion when I was only a few months pregnant. It was at a local bar and everyone was drinking, so I ordered a club soda with lime and told people it was a vodka tonic. I also wore a babydoll shirt to cover my growing pooch."
-- Sara, 30, Roanoke, Va.

"When I was eight weeks pregnant, I went to a wedding and drank water out of a Miller Light can all night. I also avoided my best friend Shannon for six weeks because I knew I couldn't hide it from her." -- Ashley, 34, Atlanta

I don't think there's some culture war between drinkers and non-drinkers (nor do I think those two groups are totally discrete, people are often one or the other in their lifetime) but it's interesting how it's perceived and how different locations (one commenter writes from a college campus in the South) affect their treatment.