Contributor Profile
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| Name | Anne Tourney |
|---|---|
| Place of Birth | Macomb, Illinois |
| Residence | Colorado |
| Nationality | American |
| Websites | |
| annetourney.blogspot.com | |
| tsisnaasjini.blogspot.com | |
 | |
Bio
The place where the flesh and psyche meet – I think this is what I’ve always wanted to find. This is why I’ve been writing erotica for close to twenty years, possibly longer. I recorded my first, nascent fantasies in early diaries; I acted out erotic impulses in solitary rituals. It wasn’t until my mid-twenties, when I made a commitment to being a writer, that I found a model to contain those creative desires.I’ve always felt that the word “erotica” is an inadequate term to describe the process of translating sexual experience into words. “Erotica” sounds more like a quaint pastime, a private peccadillo, the literary version of bric-a-brac. It’s certainly not big enough to contain the desires of Walt Whitman, Henry Miller, Anaïs Nin, Pauline Réage, and it’s way too confining for the voices of Patrick Califia, Susie Bright, Angela Carter. But the fact that erotica has been traditionally marginalised as a genre gave me a certain creative freedom when I started out as a writer. I began to write about the desires and acts that fascinated me, first inspired by the Marquis de Sade and Pauline Réage in graduate school. When the tropes of BDSM began to feel artificial, I moved on to characters and scenarios that felt more real and immediate to me. Eventually I realised that what I was trying to do with erotic short stories – bringing fictional characters to the point where flesh and psyche meet – was the same place I’d tried to reach as a child, through moments when sensual pleasure became so acute that my sensory experience was transformed into something that a mystic might call “ecstasy”. In those rare, joyous moments, the union, or reunion, of matter and spirit seemed complete.
My career as a published writer began on the internet. I posted my first efforts at erotic fiction on the internet in the early 1990s, on forums like alt.sex.stories and rec.arts.erotica. Two of those short stories, “Dharma” and “Snakefruit,” were later published in print, and they remain among my favourites. I went on to publish fiction on various web journals, such as CleanSheets and Scarlet Letters, and these were later anthologised. In 2001 my first erotic novel, Hard Blue Midnight, was published as part of Virgin Books’ Black Lace line. I’ve since written three more erotica titles for Black Lace, and four romantica titles for Virgin’s Cheek line.
I’ve led a number of different lives while trying to support myself financially. I’ve worked in publishing, in software engineering, and most recently, in the medical field. I suppose that if there’s any thread connecting these careers with my writing, it’s a love of language and imagery combined with a fascination with the human body. Maybe the place I’ve really been trying to reach would be more accurately described as the meeting point of flesh, psyche, and language, the point where sensual experience, erotic imagery and words combine to transcend the ordinary. I’ve always believed that this place is accessible to all persons at all phases of life or states of health, and conventional ideals of physical beauty and sex appeal have never held much interest for me. I’m much more attracted to the quirks, idiosyncrasies, flaws and failures that make sexuality a real part of daily life, while offering a vehicle to access the sublime.
2016 “Into the Squat”, SomethingDark webmagazine, no. 3, pp. 220–7.
Short fiction (dark psycho–erotica), for SDk03.
2010 “Beautiful failures: why I write fetish fiction”, SomethingDark webmagazine, no. 1, pp. 34–5.
Article by SDk01's featured writer (Nonfiction section).
2010 “Stepsister”, SomethingDark webmagazine, no. 1, pp. 72–5.
Short story in the dark erotica genre for SDk01.
2010 “Anne Tourney: SDk interviews one of America’s most evocative writers of dark erotica” (interview), SomethingDark webmagazine, no. 1, pp. 76–9.
Interview with SDk01's featured writer, Anne Tourney (Literature section).
2009 "The Resurrection Rose". In Bitten: Dark Erotic Stories, ed. Susie Bright. San Francisco: Chronicle Books. 
Short story (dark erotica).
2009 "Director of dolls" (see listing below).
2008 "Falling dancer". In Possession. London: Virgin Books/Black Lace.
Novella (paranormal erotica), anthologised in a collection of three novellas.
2008 Kiss Between My Lines. New York: Virgin Books/Cheek.
Novel (erotic chick lit).
2007 Lying in Mid-Air. New York: Virgin Books/Cheek.
Novel (erotic chick lit).
2006 Taming Jeremy. New York: Virgin Books/Cheek.
Novel (erotic chick lit).
2005 (writing as Alaine Hood) Unnatural Selection. London: Virgin Books/Black Lace.
Novel (erotica).
2005 "Greek fever". In The Best of the Best Women's Erotica, ed. Marcy Sheiner. San Francisco: Cleis Press.
Short story (erotica).
2004 (writing as Alaine Hood) Switching Hands. London: Virgin Books/Black Lace.
Novel (erotica).
2004 "The blood virgin". In The Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica, vol. 3, ed. Maxim Jakubowski. Philadelphia: Running Press.
Short story (erotica).
2003 (writing as Alaine Hood) Hard Blue Midnight. London: Virgin Books/Black Lace.
Novel (erotica).
2003 "Come for me, dark man". In Sacred Exchange, ed. Lisabet Sarai & Seneca F. Mayfair. New York: Blue Moon Books.
Short story (erotica).
2002 "The Book of Zanah". In Shameless: Women's Intimate Erotica, ed. Hanne Blank. Berkeley, CA: Seal Press.
Short story (erotica).
2002 "Ropeburn", first published in CleanSheets.com. Anthologised in Best American Erotica, ed. Susie Bright (New York: Touchstone/Simon & Schuster, 2002).
Short story (dark erotica).
2001 "Body care", Dark Regions, no. 16 (Brentwood, CA: Dark Regions Press).
Short story (dark fantasy).
2000 "Director of dolls". In Embraces: Dark Erotica, ed. Paula Guran (San Francisco: Venus or Vixen Press). Also anthologised in Best Fetish Erotica, ed. Cara Bruce. San Francisco: Cleis Press, 2002 & 2009.
Short story (dark erotica).
1999 "How to come on a bus". In Best American Erotica, ed. Susie Bright. New York: Touchstone/Simon & Schuster.
Short story (erotica).
1996 "Sex in the pre-apocalypse", Paramour (Cambridge, MA). Anthologised in The Unmade Bed, ed. Marti Hohmann. San Francisco: Masquerade Books, 1999.
Short story (erotica).
1996 "Snakefruit", Paramour (Cambridge, MA). Anthologised in The Unmade Bed, ed. Marti Hohmann. San Francisco: Masquerade Books, 1999.
Short story (erotica).
1995 "In the coroner's closet", Asylum Annual (San Francisco).
Short story (dark fantasy).
1995 "Dharma", Paramour (Cambridge, MA).
Short story (erotica).
1993 "Full metal corset", first published in Future Sex (San Francisco). Anthologised in Best American Erotica, ed. Susie Bright. New York: Touchstone/Simon & Schuster, 1994.
Short story (dark erotica).