I'm very happy to announce that one of my short stories "Flowering" will be appearing in this anthology by Constable and Robinson, edited by Maxim Jakubowski.
It's going to be out in April in London and in June in the United States. I'm incredibly excited about this as you can imagine.
I've been very careful to only be published by the best. To be in this book with my editors makes me beside myself. I hope that doesn't sound too gushy.
If you were to take a look at the league of writers who passed through there?
Oh, my. When I go back in June I'm going to have a copy of the book in my hands to show them. It's very hard to believe in a way? It is. The man who founded the Conference wrote this book:
I only wish Mr. Conrad were still alive. I would have loved to have shown him where "Flowering" ended up. I know he would have approved.
There is a term I came across when I began to write Erotica. "Vanilla" -- many people scoff at that term? But the reality is that most people are "vanilla."
Anybody who isn't writing about things like whips and chains?
That's "Vanilla."
Is Erotica the same as a Romance Novel?
No!
The Erotica genre spans many types of things.
What I write is the way that heterosexuals make love. I'm interested in exploring what happens between the characters in my books and all the sex scenes I write are "human."
Is it more taboo to write "Vanilla" sex?
Maybe.
Two of my favorite writers, D. H. Lawrence and James Joyce both wrote erotic novels. Heterosexual novels. They are considered classics, and at times they were banned.
These two books would be considered "Vanilla" Erotica.
You will not find sex toys in my stories. My stories are only about humans and how they touch each other.
One of the reasons I'm writing in this genre is because these two writers are part of the canon I admire.
You will find my own short stories archived at The Erotica Readers and Writers Association in the web.
Today there was an article I spied in the Library Journal, which mentions the place I'm published above.
Most of the literary writers I know? Want to be archived in libraries next door to Lawrence and Joyce.
How are you going to counteract that loneliness? That's one of the saddest things I have ever read.
Or ever looked at.
We had very little to go on in the 70's except for films and scenes in movies?
I'm working on a new short story that is going to help stop the rise of the blob and turn the tide back to humanism.
That blob is creepy.
In the writers group I'm in I see all kinds of stories roll by. Because of my training as a Depth Psychologist I think about that. A lot.
#stoptheblob
that's a hash tag for you.
Stop the blob.
Summer of 42 is about a bunch of boys coming of age.
Friends was about two young teens and the consequences they faced trying to grow up too fast.
They are good movies to watch, wish I had copies of them. I'd love to see them again.
Erotica vs the Singularity.
Humanism vs Robot.
xxoo!
Valentine
ps: I coined that word in Wordnik -- to distinguish what genre I'm writing. Heterosexual stories. Only problem is if you google the imagery for that word? You get this!
Wordnik is great. As a writer I think about words and semantics of words all the time.
I've been doing research on the area when I grew up -- the 1970's. It was a very different era to be a kid than now? I just googled advertising images of the 70's and took a look at some of the themes presented. We grew up in an America that had just experienced The Sexual Revolution of the 1960's.
When I was growing up I knew gay kids? Mostly boys. They were very flamboyant and "out."
This morning I saw a story in the Huffington Post about a coffeehouse trying to serve heterosexual Valentine's day coffee. Well? Personally? There is nothing wrong with having hetero as your sexual preference. In fact? It might even be in the minority right now.
I think it's important to get the story straight?
I do.
One of the reasons I write in the genre I do is because my dad was the biggest pornographer in Hollywood in the 1970's. He went by the name Bob Vosse (after Bob Fosse I'm sure). That wasn't his name then. It was a film nom de plume. His real name was Don Brown and he started out shooting surfing films in California.
It was years before I saw the film Boogie Nights? My mother cut off all contact with him when I was about thirteen. I never saw him again. Nor did my brother. The 70's were a permissive time when anything went. My nom de plume Valentine Bonnaire was chosen on purpose because it is the opposite of Bob Vosse. Same initials, different story.
I saw the film and I went, "Oh my god, that's Dad." Yeah it was. To this day I have never seen his films and I never will because they are not my cup of tea.
Here is the film...
The Burt Reynolds character is playing my Dad.
This is a photograph of him marrying my Mom. In the years he made surfing films. If you have grown up in a house where there was no pornography like me? When we were coming of age we were reading books.
My generation.
I can begin to write a sexual history of what that was almost as a historic document.
I have.
The people writing in the genre I do -- not all of them write heterosexuality. I do that on purpose. It's my niche in the genre. Write what you know!
xxoo!
Valentine Bonnaire
(Yes it was very tough growing up without a Dad, and now that I think of it? Everybody's Dad was probably watching my Dad's films. Geez. Tomorrow I'm going to talk about the films we watched in the 70's -- like "Friends" or "Summer of '42" -- coming of age films for heterosexuals some of us saw as teens.)
One of the most erotic films I've ever seen is "The English Patient." The love scenes in that film "flare" on the page. Even in the trailer you get a sense of that fire.
Many many people are too literary to watch pornography. I don't because there is no appeal in it for me?
I'd rather read something beautifully written and allow my own head to make the pictures for me. That is what Literary Erotica is all about.
Quality.
Because the people who are writing that can also write poetry.
The man who wrote the film "The English Patient." Listen to this poem in youtube: The Cinnamon Peeler's Wife." This is exquisite erotica.
Beautiful.
xxoo!
Valentine Bonnaire
I just made a new author website for myself -- last night. It should be up in a day or two?
If you've read any classic erotica you know it's like a candybox of text. Each story has a center and it's like a sampler. All of them have different flavors?
Not unlike this picture...
So, what is inside?
That's what the reader finds out. I like to write short stories and poetry in this genre. Erotica can contain "love" as a theme, or not. I've written both and sometimes I like to write morality tales.
Oftentimes we use a lot of metaphor on the literary end of the spectrum to convey something.
So, here is a poem I wrote once, called "candyboxes."
Most Literary Erotica is non-explicit because it is written in a poetic style. Can you call it erotic? Yes. This kind of erotica is meant to paint a picture in the reader's mind.
I'm going to be linking to some classic books and art as I go along because there are so many wonderful writers I know.
Heterotica is Literary Erotica for heterosexuals. It's not clear when heterosexual got a bad name to me? Anyway -- I write heterosexual erotica. As a writer I grew up on Erotica writers like D. H. Lawrence and Anais Nin. Last night I spent some time in Wordnik defining what that is and actually making a term for Heterotica. I believe as a writer you have to write what you know? And I do. The noms de plume I have used in this genre are Adrianna de la Rosa -- you can find my stories archived at Cleansheets.com and Valentine Bonnaire -- at both Cleansheets and The Erotica Readers and Writers Association. So, what does heterosexual mean? It means you like the opposite sex. I'm a woman and I like men as sexual partners. The same works vice-versa. Men who like women like me.
You will not find pornographic images in my blog. When you see art it will be classical like this image of Chagall's -- "The Lovers."
