Self-publishing 21 years ago was still often considered "vanity publishing" as in ego-driven by writers not talented enough to merit a contract with a traditional publisher. My decision to self-publish came after years of feedback praising the compelling nature and professional quality of my submission as prefaces to rejections that included phrases like, "Will your target audience of readers relate to the level of privilege your main characters have?"
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It took me awhile to understand that since my Black characters are educated and middle class, agents and editors assumed that most readers wouldn't identify with them since (they also assumed) most Black people were poor or working class and only Black people would have any interest in reading erotic fiction written by a Black author. (Last year's American Fiction film felt like deja vu.)
My erotica is romantic, offered as sexy, fun brain candy with as much emotional intimacy as sexual explicitness for grown-ups. It's upbeat escapism.
Acoustic fiction describes my writing style of thematically linked vignettes stripped down to their essential emotional chords, leaving as much space as possible for readers' imaginations to personalize their experience with the story and the characters.
My characters love and respect themselves and each other, making mutual pleasure the ultimate priority, featuring Black and Brown people as loving, loved, and deserving of joyous HEAs.
In 2004 Seducing the Burks: Five Erotica Tales was an Independent Publisher Awards finalist in the erotica/sexuality category, which encouraged me to keep writing.
Reading The Story of O by Pauline Reage in the late 1990s led me to Carrie's Story and Safe Word by Molly Weatherfield. All three are titillating and super sexy, yet emotionally unsatisfying for me because the cynical about love and clinical regarding sex tone of chateau stories seems informed by the attitudes of privileged women who're disillusioned with the questionable rewards for meeting expectations of being sexually virtuous. Their variations on themes of pushing boundaries, consensual submission and defilement challenge and shock. Although both authors present provocative ideas about self-determination in the context of the pursuit of pleasure, their stories and characters operate from the perspective of cis-hetero hypermasculinity.
Being descended from people who were kidnapped and enslaved is probably a major reason why bondage fiction almost never works for me. (The performative elements of BDSM don't either.) My ancestors' endurance and faith laid the foundation for the opportunities and privileges in my life. It was against the law for my enslaved ancestors to learn to read and write. Now people pay to read my written words. That's a significant part of my personal HEA.
[split image of a bouquet of flowers in a short glass vase on the left and the front of a "Thanks" notecard on the right]
Many thanks to author & founder of The Write Women Network, Write Women Publish & The Write Women Book Fest, Heather Brooks (who writes as H.L. Brooks), for hosting a charming tea party in celebration of my 21st self-publishing anniversary and 20th IPPY Awards Finalist anniversary for Seducing the Burks: Five Erotic Tales. She baked, decorated, and created a lovely setting that made me feel loved and my accomplishments recognized. Thanks also to my childhood bestie (since 4th grade) for adding to the fun along with Heather's husband.
Thank you to my family, friends, readers, book clubs, librarians, Prince George's County Memorial Library System, Anne Arundel County Public Library, and every person who has supported me in any way as an independent author and as a human being.
Available to borrow from the Prince George's County Memorial Library System: https://catalog.pgcmls.info/polaris/search/searchresults.aspx?ctx=1.1033.0.0.3&type=Browse&term=Seducing%20the%20Burks:%20five%20erotic%20tales&by=TI&sort=RELEVANCE&limit=&query=MTE=%27332858%27&page=0&searchid=0
It's also available on the billionaire's site.
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