Monday, January 29, 2018

Lovely, thoughtful review of DESIRE

Terence Aldon Shaw of the review blog Erotica for the Big Brain, says of my collection, Desire:

Hard to say what’s more fun: discovering a fantastic new (to me) writer, or telling everyone who’ll listen about this fantastic writer they simply must read. Author Emily L. Byrne puts me in this happy conundrum with Desire, her recent collection of eleven finely-wrought f/f erotic romance tales.
Byrne offers readers a dizzying diversity of setting, vibrantly evocative, sharply-focused, and practically always unforgettable. From the tourist-choked thoroughfares of Viva Las Vegas (with its hot-to-trot Elvis drag kings) to the revolutionary Nicaragua of A Night in Estelí, the churches and art galleries of Florence in A Room with a View, and the wintry cityscape of Minneapolis in the hauntingly surreal Cherrybridge and Spoon. Nearly as dazzling and varied as her settings, Byrne seems to traverse disparate genres with the breezy nonchalance of a master, whether it be sci-fi (Diplomacy), sword and sorcery (Heart’s Thief), espionage (The Old Spies Club), realist mainstream (Summer Stock), or contemporary romance with a bit of magic thrown in for good measure (The Goddess Within)...see the rest of the review on the blog! It's marvelous!

 

Tuesday, January 23, 2018

Guest blog post by editor Jillian Boyd and excerpt from DANCING WITH MYSELF: STORIES OF SELF-LOVE EROTICA





I am nothing if not hyper-specific when it comes to the themes of my anthologies. When I’m conceptualising a pitch for an anthology, I often have a very clear idea of not just how I interpret the theme but also the kind of stories I want to see between those pages. The tone I’d like, the flow of the stories... it’s all in my mind when I send off that call for submissions to be approved. 

This... wasn’t how Dancing with Myself blossomed into being. Like, at all. Dancing with Myself is my first anthology as an editor for Sexy Little Pages, but it wasn’t the first idea that was brainstormed between publisher Anna Sky and I. I was in the process of drafting a call for a completely different anthology. The only problem was the fact that I couldn’t make it work in my head. I wrote about seven different versions of that call before binning it. 

And then I had a thought. Specifically, I thought of a title.
Yep, the concept for this whole anthology came together via a title and my own disappointment at a lack of anthologies about solo sex. I just wanted stories celebrating masturbation in all its forms. I wanted a diversity of characters, a variety of situations and catalysts, but most of all, I wanted it to be fun. The end result covers a range of sexualities, genders, desires and abilities, and it celebrates the noble art of self-pleasure in a plethora of ways. I am so very proud of this anthology, its contributors and the fact that the whole thing came together from the title of a Billy Idol track.


Blurb + buy links
Nine sizzling, sexy stories of self-love and self-discovery, edited by (and with a story from) Jillian Boyd, featuring Dena Hankins, T.C. Mill, Jordan Monroe, Leandra Vane, LN Bey, Jones, Hollis Queens and Rachel Woe.
In this sensually spellbinding collection, nine authors explore just a couple of the ways one can get themselves off – stories that don’t just hone in on the how, but explore the why, and the “oh... oh my” Dancing with Myself delves into the heads and between the sheets of a long-distance submissive and her dominant, a cam girl reminiscing, an artist entranced with her unusual subjects and many more.




Excerpt from “Obey” by Dena Hankins
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When Ella had asked if she ever did any submissive work, Maddie had answered honestly. No. The next question crossed the line of professionalism and Maddie felt no compunction about refusing to reveal whether she’d bottomed in her personal life. Her private sex life benefited in ways from her professional one, and vice versa, but she didn’t blur the lines and describing her few, playful forays into restraint and spanking would erase them.

Sex work was a sacred vocation for Maddie. Her small list of clients, most with physical impairments, provided a modest living and a wide and deep avenue for the expansion of her sexual energy. She’d grown so much since she started doing this type of body service after years as a physical therapist. Boundaries—and being invited to cross them, the power of setting or releasing them—made more sense to her than they used to. The textures and smells and the powerful reality of desire-slicked bodies fruited under her control. Her terms, her choices, put at the discretion of another’s desires.

All that sounded somewhat like soft-sided versions of dominance and submission to her. Imagining how this session would go, she’d thought that Ella would order her around and that she’d find ways of bringing sexiness to Ella’s orders. This wasn’t that. Somehow, it kept getting away from her.

Sunday, January 21, 2018

Welcome to 2018!

I just finished a new story, which I'll be sending out soon, post editing. I hear that an exciting new review of my collection, Desire, will be out soon. And I'm eyeing my science fiction erotic romance novel and starting to feel inspired to get going on edits. What are you lovely people up to?