There’s some strange link between writers and cats. Oh, some writers have dogs, but many more of us have cats. Are they our muses? Or is there job to nudge us when we’ve been sitting in front of the computer so long, cobwebs are growing on us?
Check out Circlet Press’s blog for some pictures and stories about some writerly cats, including my own!
…especially when I didn’t even know about the contest!
My short story “Some Old Lover’s Ghost,” which appeared in the anthology Haunted Hearts and Sapphic Shades, is up for the Romance Erotica Connection Awards in the F/F Romance short story category!
If anyone’s a member of REC and liked my story, please vote for it! (Or if you’re not a member and you liked my story, you can join their Yahoo group and vote in the Polls section.)
I’m in amazing company, and even if I don’t win, I’m incredibly chuffed to just be on the list!
I’ve got several sales to announce, so I’ll just squee about them all in one post!
I sold “Come to My Window” to the anthology Where the Girls Are: Urban Lesbian Erotica, and Teresa and I (as Sophie, natch) also sold “On Display” to the same anthology! We wrote “On Display” back in 2004, and there’s always an added sweetness to a sale for a story we’ve stubbornly kept in the mail, sure it’ll find the perfect market.
Also, I just got word that my story “Mirror Mirror” will appear in the Do Not Disturb: Hotel Sex Stories anthology, which will be out in March 2009.
I’m delighted to announce my very first podcast publication!
Not only that, but it’s a resale (can’t call it a reprint, can I?) of my first professionally published story. “What Dragons Prefer” is a short fantasy tale with a wicked twist at the end. It first appeared in Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Fantasy Magazine in 1996.
You can listen to “What Dragons Prefer” here or download it for future audio pleasure on your computer or iPod.
Because, that’s right, it’s free! So go forth and enjoy!
It’s a reprint sale*, but still one to be delighted about! “Just Be” will appear in the Phaze Books charity anthology Coming Together: At Last. All proceeds of the Coming Together anthologies go to a charity or relief fund, including breast cancer research, the 2007 Southern California wildfires, HIV/AIDS, and more. Coming Together: At Last is a collection of interracial erotic fiction and will benefit Amnesty International. I’m proud to be a part of it!
The anthology will be out in 2009; I’ll post ordering information when I have it.
* “Sale” is something of a misnomer, as I will only receive some comp copies. Normally I don’t write for no pay, but this was for a really good cause!
Great news! The anthology Fabulous Whitby, which contains my story “Proof of Devotion” (which I wrote all the way back in 2002 at the Oregon Coast Writers Master Class!), is finally available! ::squee bouncity::
Right now, amazon doesn’t seem to be supporting it well: amazon.com doesn’t list it at all, and amazon.co.uk and amazon.ca are listing it as out of stock or whatnot.
The good news is, you can order it from a place called York Publishing Services out of the UK.
The better news is, they charge only $3.99 to deliver to the US, which is the same as what they charge to deliver in the UK (using the current exchange rate). That’s right—international shipping is the same as UK shipping!
Click on the link above to go to the Fabulous Whitby order page. I’m soooo excited about this one. I’m in an anthology with Liz Williams and Esther Friesner and Cherith Baldry and Jay Lake andandand…!
Oh, it was such a fun story to write. How can you go wrong with jewel thieves?
The Lucchese Star. Sixty carats of sapphire, as big as your fist. Makes your mouth water just looking at it. Makes you think of Caribbean seas, the summer you were ten, the eyes of the lover that got away.
Inside my turquoise doeskin gloves, my palms itched. They didn’t sweat, not a drop; I wasn’t nervous. It was all about the anticipation, baby. The lead-up. The foreplay.
The ever-wonderful editor Alison Tyler called me a “clever author” in her e-mail to let me know my story “The Heist” will appear in her anthology Frenzy (formerly titled Flash Fucking), from Cleis Press this autumn.
“The Heist” is a personal favorite of mine so I’m especially chuffed. It was inspired in part by Kate Bush and the lyric “With a kiss/I’d pass the key/And feel your tongue/Teasing and receiving.”
I was delighted to arrive home from the trip and find comp copies of Rubber Sex, containing my story “Bathing Beauty,” in my pile of mail.You know, it’s funny how easy it is to forget what I’ve written. I kicked back and read a couple of the stories, then flipped to mine. I remembered the basics (heck, part of the inspiration was a Penthouse Variations letter I read in the 1980s that somehow stuck with me), but I was surprised at what a sweet story it is. Pretty damn romantic—which most of my stories are, actually.
Another funny note: My mother actually did own the bathing cap described in the story. I had a different reaction to it, though…especially when I was once forced to wear the hideous thing!
Anyway, the anthology was edited by the cupcake-cute Rachel Kramer Bussel and I’m in fine company, as there are stories by Teresa, Shanna Germain, and Alison Tyler, among many others. Rachel has set up a blog for the anthology as well—if you’re interested, check it out!
Sale! Just got confirmation that my story “Tigress” will appear in The Mammoth Book of the Kama Sutra, edited by the inestimable Maxim Jakubowski. It’ll be out in September!
This one was a strangely fun story to write. Authors had to pick a position from the Kama Sutra and write a sexy “origin story” that explained why the position came to be known by that name.
From the book’s description, it sounds like the volume is going to be utterly gorgeous!
Haunted Hearts and Sapphic Shades: Lesbian Ghost Stories is now available to order at amazon and will be released on May 15! This one contains “Some Old Lover’s Ghost,” a story I just had a blast writing. (Plus it’s so nice to be listing some new spec fic sales and releases along with all the erotica and romance, if only for variety!)
I’m delighted to report that my story “If the Shoe Fits” will appear in the DAW anthology The Trouble With Heroes, edited by the incredible Denise Little. I wrote the story at an anthology workshop in Oregon that she co-ran with Dean Wesley Smith (with able assistance from Kristine Kathryn Rusch).
I was delighted to arrive home from the trip and find comp copies of 
Sale! Just got confirmation that my story “Tigress” will appear in 