That brings up another question. There's a trend now toward erotic romance rather than erotica, although I don't always see much difference. Do you have a preference?

Delilah Devlin actually has a new anthology out for Cleis Press, and we discussed it here near Halloween: Girls Who Bite, Lesbian Vampire Erotica. She has another one coming along, She-Shifters, about, obviously, lesbien shapeshifters. I'm especially excited about that one because I got to do a story about women pirates and a shapeshifting oriental dragon. Yum. less

Sorry to be so late to this but it's great to hear which stories people liked. If you haven't read it, "Beneath My Skin" by Shanna Germain is a knife play story and really beautiful. She also wrote about it at: link less

Sorry to be so late to this but it's great to hear which stories people liked. If you haven't read it, "Beneath My Skin" by Shanna Germain is a knife play story and really beautiful. She also wrote about it at: link less

Sorry to be so late to this but it's great to hear which stories people liked. If you haven't read it, "Beneath My Skin" by Shanna Germain is a knife play story and really beautiful. She also wrote about it at: link less

Time for something edgy. Shanna Germain is one of the best writers in the business (I'm proud to say that she's written for quite a few of my anthologies, and we've been in many together. I' always in awe of her writing.) Here's what she said about "Beneath My Skin".


"Beneath My Skin" is one of those stories that is totally dangerous for me. It's taking erotica and consent and power-play and pushing it just a little farther, a little harder. Knife play is one of those slippery slopes for many people, and especially for publishers.

I've written about knife play before, a number of times, but always with the knife as the fetishized object. But this is the one of the few stories I've written where someone's skin is actually opened with a blade, where the sexual arousal comes from the power exchange that occurs when someone doesn't just hold an open blade in their hand, but actually uses it.

This story got rejected twice -- in both cases, the editors said they loved the story, but were looking for something lighter -- before it found its forever home in Women in Lust. But I knew it was saying something important, and I didn't want to lighten it or change it. To me, it's about that moment when our fears and desires are at war, that moment when we make a choice, where we gain control because we let go. less

Sorry to be so late to this but it's great to hear which stories people liked. If you haven't read it, "Beneath My Skin" by Shanna Germain is a knife play story and really beautiful. She also wrote about it at: link less

Sorry to be so late to this but it's great to hear which stories people liked. If you haven't read it, "Beneath My Skin" by Shanna Germain is a knife play story and really beautiful. She also wrote about it at: link less

As far as I can tell, erotic romance requires a romantic, HEA coupling (Happy Ever After) and erotica doesn't, but they can have just as much hot sex involved. Radclyffe edits Best Lesbian Romance for Cleis, and she reprinted one of my stories (from my Girl Crazy) that was as hot and kinky as anything I've ever written. Hot, kinky, verging-on-transgender in an Olympic figure skating setting. less

As far as I can tell, erotic romance requires a romantic, HEA coupling (Happy Ever After) and erotica doesn't, but they can have just as much hot sex involved. Radclyffe edits Best Lesbian Romance for Cleis, and she reprinted one of my stories (from my Girl Crazy) that was as hot and kinky as anything I've ever written. Hot, kinky, verging-on-transgender in an Olympic figure skating setting. less