the desert and becoming a her-
mit, but that wasn’t practical. Instead, I went offline and wrote almost nothing; I started taking a lot of photos as a crea-
tive outlet, because my ego wasn’t invested in creating images. I stopped reading fiction and began reading poetry. Over the past year or so, I’ve pub-
lished one erotic fiction piece, a vampire story for an anthology by Susie Bright. Other than that, if I’ve written at all, it’s mostly material that won’t see the light of day.

I recently read a wonderful line by the poet William Stafford, in his book Crossing Unmarked Snow: “Somewhere deep where we have no program – our next dis-
covery lies.” I want to go back to that deep place again, and find that sense of anticipation and joy that comes from writing without a public agenda. My muse (whoever or whatever it is) has a problem with programs of any kind. As soon as I announce that we have a Program or a Plan, my muse hides under a rock.

You stated in another interview some years ago that you think “contemporary erotica has reached a new level of literary quality, thanks to the efforts of publishers and writers who wanted to open up the genre for

mainstream readers and make it a place where artists could push the limits of their creativity”. Where do you think we are today in this process: do you think “mainstream readers” have embraced “literary erot-
ica”? Are there still the forums for talented creative writers in this genre to continue pushing the limits, and are these writers, in fact, doing so?

I do believe that mainstream readers have embraced literary erotica, as evidenced by the pop-
ularity of anthologies such as the Best American Erotica and Best Women’s Erotica series. Unfortun-
ately, the market for those coll-
ections seems to have become over-saturated. Best American Erotica recently published its final edition. The print publishing ind-
ustry has capitalised on the new acceptance of frankly erotic writ-
ing and blended it with romance fiction to create “romantica”, which is now hugely popular.

I have to admit that I’ve been reading more poetry and non-
fiction than fiction these days, so I’m not up to date on the latest trends in fiction. My belief, and I will cling to this through trends in the publishing industry that affect literary erotica positively or neg-
atively, is that there will always be forums for new voices and

ideas in erotic writing. Those who believe that writing honestly about sexuality in all of its facets is a worthwhile creative pursuit will find those forums – if they can’t find them, they will invent them. I think the web still offers some of the best opportunities for writers to publish honest, explicit fiction and poetry about sex. This has been true ever since the text-only days of the internet; I posted some of my first erotic short stories on rec.arts.erotica, in the belief that the web gave me more freedom to write what I wanted to write, using my most authentic voice. Some of those early, early stories are still among the best pieces I’ve ever written. Self-publishing in print is also more accessible than ever, and no longer has the stigma of being an expression of personal vanity.

Let’s go back so some other foundations and revisit some of your formative literary influ-
ences. You studied French lit-
erature at graduate school, inc-
luding the Marquis de Sade and Pauline Réage – were they standard reading, or was it a direction you elected to pursue? Do you think French literature has something unique to offer in this genre?

Sade was standard reading in

some of the seminars on 18th-
century literature or philosophy. I still remember reading Philosophy in the Bedroom on a bus on the way to campus and feeling like I’d been plunged into some kind of nihilistic cavern by the Marquis’ interpretation of moral behaviour. I was surprised, when I looked up from the book, to see that the California sunshine was still as relentlessly mellow as ever. I read Réage on my own, but a dis-
cussion of The Story of O would have been welcomed by some of my professors, who were very creative and open-minded intell-
ectuals. In its bravery, creativity, naturalism, beauty and ingenious perversity, French erotic literature deserves its classic status.