Are you really a woman?

This one is sometimes phrased politely (“I felt deeply with the male Moon Mage in your last story, which made me briefly wonder if your nom-de-plume was a disguise for your sex as well as your identity,”) and sometimes very rudely indeed (“I wonder if Janine Ashbless is really a man using a female pseudonym … Divine Torment isn’t erotic fiction written by and for a woman – more like erotic fiction written for a women’s imprint but targeted toward randy college boys.”).

For the record: yes I am female (and always have been).

On the other hand, after watching TV or reading the press there are days when even I wonder. My idea of a good chick-flick is Troy. I don’t wear make-up, I hate shopping for shoes and clothes, I dislike babies and have no desire to breed but I can use a chainsaw, I play Dungeons and Dragons (oh the shame!) and read graphic novels and have far more male friends than female ones. By media standards this makes me a bloke…

Do you write with women readers in mind?

No: emphatically not – despite what the Black Lace strapline says. I write what I enjoy, not for any artificial audience. Many of my keenest readers are male. In fact, because I write conflict-riddled fantasy in which there are fights and the occasional death, and because I often write from the perspective of a male character, my authorial ‘voice’ can often sound more masculine than feminine. I have no problem with this at all, and get very shirty with people who think I should be writing chick-lit.

I am very aware how lucky I am to live in a Western society where my social role isn’t prescribed by my gender. I absolutely reject the notion that what I write, or the style in which I write it, or what I’m allowed to enjoy (sexually or otherwise), should be defined by my being female.

Describe yourself in five words…

Geek. Green. Liberal. Pagan. Middle-class.

Describe your fiction in five words…

Erotic. Heartfelt. Dark. Idealistic. Middle-brow.

Some of your subject-matter is, uh, a bit extreme, isn’t it?

It constantly surprises me the way people who are looking for erotic fiction can be prudish about tropes that in other genres would be considered very middle-of-the road. Certainly, I tend to stake my territory somewhere toward the ‘dark fiction’ or ‘horror’ end of the spectrum. But I do wonder, why is a fantasy about sex with a dragon any more perverse than one about, say, sex with a Klingon? Neither is a human being, but both are intelligent, sentient, self-willed creatures perfectly capable of sensuality and empathy.

And by the standards of the horror genre even Montague’s Last Ride is extremely mild!

I have quite firm boundaries about what I will and will not write about: it’s just that everybody sets their boundaries in a different place. Some of mine have to do with personal taste: I have no interest in enemas, for example, or vibrators. They don’t revolt me, they just don’t mean anything to me.

Some boundaries are moral ones. I don’t like anything that smacks of paedophilia, so school-uniform fantasies, for example, really put the wind up me. I don’t like anything genuinely misogynistic. I don’t believe that women get a kick out of being abused or treated with contempt. Surrendering one’s self-determination and power can be very erotic, but having it taken away by force is not. I’m very wary of any non-consensual power-play and try to treat it carefully. Rape and slavery certainly exist in my fantasy worlds: they are not fun. They are acts of evil. (Okay, so that sounds pretty old-fashioned, but that’s my view). Characters who perpetrate them will get punished – often fatally.

Are any of your characters based on real people?

This one was asked a lot by my friends when I first started writing. I’m not sure whether they have an over-inflated idea of their own attractiveness, or are just nervous…

The answer is no: to take someone’s private persona and write a public story about it would be unethical, and I’m not just referring to erotic fiction here. If I’m looking for a model for a character’s physical appearance I’ll usually take a mental trawl through fictional characters in films.

I do borrow people’s names, though: I like euphonic names … Arzu, Mahendra, Yashwant …

Why do you write Erotica?

Because it’s fun! Fun to write and fun to read. And it can make your readers very very happy. It’s a generous genre that gives something back.

How do you go about writing?

My ideas usually come to me either as I wake up, or when I’m in the shower: mornings are the times for new ideas. I go over plots and conversations whilst walking the dogs. I mostly write sat up in bed with my antediluvian laptop, and two greyhounds snoring quietly next to me: afternoons are the time for actual work. Desks give me backache.

What else do you write?

Under another name I write ghost stories and supernatural thrillers. This is another genre with a high degree of interaction between the written text and the reader, though the aim is to invoke a thrill of terror, not sexual pleasure. It’s considerably harder!

Why don’t you write straight fantasy?

The short answer is that I don’t like fantasy.

That needs some qualification. I loved The Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien, and the Gormenghast books by Mervyn Peake, when I read them as a teenager. I still do. No other-world fantasy since them has been up to that standard so I’ve given up looking. I still enjoy fantasy short stories (e.g. the annual collections by Datlow and Windling) because they’re based around strong ideas. I still read some children’s fantasy novels because they’re based on strong plots and situations.

But I don’t like adult fantasy epics which take 500 pages to build a world and then another four volumes to explore it because, when you boil it down, they are all about politics. I’m not apolitical in real life; I’m just not interested in intrigue, or the pursuit of power. I care if Frodo manages to destroy the Ring: I couldn’t give a monkey’s if Aragorn reclaims his rightful throne.

There are thousands and thousands of fantasy novels out there and they all seem to be competent and completely interchangeable. So as far as my writing is concerned, a fantasy world is best kept as a setting for hot, hot sex.

So why does your erotica always involve fantasy and/or the supernatural?

That’s got to do with the ‘suspension of disbelief’ thing that’s so important to achieve. I like my fantasy sex to be life-changing; earth-shattering; important. I write about crisis points in people’s lives, where the act of sex is a pivot that might throw them one way or another. It has to be something that they will remember forever, that will somehow change them permanently even if it’s just a swift and nameless interaction. If there’s love involved I want to believe that that passion will be eternal. If someone is trapped in a terrible situation I want to imagine that that sexual encounter will save them.

I find it hard to do that in a completely realistic setting. This is a personal thing, and possibly a failing, but I struggle to suspend disbelief. In real life sex is often grubby or disappointing rather than glorious and life-affirming. In real life the man who gropes you in the elevator isn’t being dominant and masculine and flattering: he’s a creep and a potential rapist. In real life even really good sex is fraught with complications: a fantastic session with the boss you’ve always secretly fancied is followed by the realisation that you will never regain independence or control in that workplace, and that it is you, the woman, who will lose status in the eyes of your sniggering colleagues, not him. A red-hot, tear-the-clothes-off quickie will be entangled with fears about STDs and pregnancy. The handsome stranger will turn out to have a crap job in data-entry which he hates. The rough stud will turn out to be a slob whose idea of true fulfilment is sitting on the sofa with a six-pack of lager watching the World Cup. Sex doesn’t save or redeem or damn you; it’s just another experience that, good or bad, you have to assimilate while getting on with your life.

Real life is much bigger than sex. In erotic fiction, sex is central; sex is everything.

So I use fantasy settings in order to create characters who are Better Than Life. People who don’t have to worry about filling in tax returns or finding a new dentist or collecting the kids from school. I use the supernatural as a flag to signal “Believe – Just for a Moment.” Believe that love will conquer all. Believe that you will achieve the true object of your every desire. Believe in perfect, uncomplicated, uncontaminated ecstasy.

“Worlds like this are worlds of the human imagination: their reality, or lack of reality, is not important. What is important is that they are there.”