Q: Danny in the Dark is your first erotic romance. How was this different from other genres you’ve written in?
A: I like romance because I know a lot of readers come to it wanting to feel loved or comforted, and I like providing that comfort. There is an enormous degree of catharsis, I think, in a well-deserved happy ending, of taking a character who is hurting and broken and helping him to heal. If the character works, there’s a bit of healing there for the reader and writer as well. That was my experience writing Danny, so I was pleased with the way it turned out. I hope you will be, too.
Q: What are some of your favorite romance narratives?
A: I’m a huge fan of Classical Hollywood, and everything I ever needed to know about romance, I learned from Douglas Sirk’s All That Heaven Allows. Seriously. Will you all please go out and rent it right now? Buy tissues first. You’ll need them.
Q: How long have you wanted to be a writer?
A: Pretty much since I could write coherent sentences. I distinctly remember getting a C on an essay when I was twelve and being sent to the guidance counselor because I wouldn’t stop crying afterward. When he asked me whether I wasn’t being a little overdramatic, I replied, “I don’t care about the stupid grade. It’s just that I take my writing very seriously.” At the time, I was working on a young adult novella titled The Gym Class That Changed My Life that I fully intended to publish before I completed the seventh grade. I did not succeed in completing this goal. It was a very depressing summer.
Q: Your Dreamcatcher books reflect an interest in the sciences, particularly psychology and the nature of dreaming. What’s the attraction?
A: I’ve had fairly frequent nightmares for most of my life. At one point, I had as many as four or five a week, and I tried to conquer these fears by reading as much as I could about the nature and function of dreaming. When I had the idea for the Dreamcatcher series, I think part of me just wanted to put all that knowledge to good use. So there’s that. But I’m also just a really big nerd.
Q: Are you a fan of Allen Ginsberg’s poetry?
A: Oh, very much so. “Howl” is a lovely, lovely poem, and I’ve been reading Allen’s work since I was about fifteen. Beyond his writing, though, Allen is an enormous inspiration to me in the way he lived his life. He just seemed so at peace with himself and the world around him. There’s a video on YouTube of him singing “Father Death Blues” not too long before his death. We should all be so content with our lives when we reach the end of them.
Q: As far as erotic romance goes, who are some of your favorite authors?
A: I’ve been a Sophie Oak fan since Small Town Siren, and she just keeps getting better and better. I am continually impressed by the depth of her characters and the worlds she creates. For M/M, I like Scarlet Hyacinth and Stormy Glenn. Also, a resounding brava! to my writing partner, Rayna Bradbury, whose musically inspired M/M fantasy world is soon to rock your faces off.
Q: Where do you do most of your writing?
A: Like Virginia Woolf, I require a room of my own to write. Unfortunately, my starving artist husband and I currently occupy a studio apartment. As a compromise, we turned our walk-in bedroom closet into my “writing cave,” which includes my desk, printer, and laptop, a very comfy office chair, and dozens and dozens of 8x11” portraits of literary geniuses that I’ve taped to the walls. I like staring at Ernest Hemingway when I write. He intimidates me into keeping my easily distractible self off the Internet and away from Facebook.
Q: Where do you draw inspiration for your characters?
A: My friend Christian is probably at least a minor influence on every male character I’ve ever written. If you think I’m embarrassing him by saying so, you are deeply mistaken. If anything, he’s probably miffed that I didn’t mention his last name. Apart from that, Brian Kinney from Queer as Folk was definitely on my mind when I created Jasper Craven. Let’s all stop a moment and remember Queer as Folk and precisely how many times Brian got naked over the course of the show’s five-season run. *Sighs* Okay. Now, who’s ready to read some erotica?
