When we put our Medium publication Exceptional Erotica on hiatus last fall, a friend suggested we do some anthologies to celebrate and commemorate the wonderful work we had hosted since August 2022. That work made us the second-largest erotica publication on Medium.

I’m pleased to announce the first of those anthologies, Wicked Little Miracles, will be available June 30th – four weeks from today.

It features 18 stories from some of the best erotic and romance writers I have encountered. I am so proud of this book and grateful to be a part of it.

From the introduction:

The stories in this anthology span a wide range of moods, voices, and intensities. Some are tender and romantic; some are sharp, playful, or slyly funny. Some are wistful, some strange, some lush, some brutally direct.

All are proof that erotica can be various in tone and still unmistakable in effect, that smutty doesn’t mean shoddy, that filthy can be fancy and fanciful.

This book celebrates not just erotic possibility, but craft: writers who are funny, daring, strange, tender, filthy, and precise in their own distinct ways.

You can pre-order the book here. Can’t wait? You can sign up to be an ARC reader here.

The next collection, a paranormal/monster erotic anthology, will release in October.

On Friday, here and at the Exceptional Erotica publication on Medium, I’ll be proudly hosting “El Amor y el Flamenco,” a super steamy short story by the talented Jaimie! Make sure to check it out!

I’ve used generative AI before, to create illustrations for my Medium stories. I’m embarrassed and won’t ever use it again. Now when I see everyone from my local chamber of commerce to non-profits and authors making the same slop images over and over again, it just makes me sad.

It’s everywhere, and those images look like dandelions in a rose garden.

Make your own books covers, use stock photos, learn Canva or InDesign, hire someone who can.

Setting aside the arguments from theft and environmental damage, it tells people (including your customers and clients!) you’re lazy and couldn’t give a shit about quality.

I don’t read as widely in erotica as some people, but here are the authors I go back to again and again when I want great (sexy!) writing:

• Celia McKinley
• Paragonas Vaunt
• Posy Churchgate
• Jaimie’s Erotica
• Elena Dawne
• Megan Landon
• Olive Spencer
• Emily Antoinette
• Ryn Rehnard
• Scarlett Gale
• Pia Monroe
• Hazel Porter
• Polly Liticat

I love this article by Ryan Rousseau, which laments the lazy, assembly-line-like “business” that online erotica has become. He nails the core problem:

The problem is the shameless contempt some erotica writers show for the reader. Contempt is when you keep taking their time and money while acting like they don’t deserve effort. When spicy authors talk about erotica as an addiction or treat their own readers like marks pulling a slot machine lever, they are admitting they don’t respect their audience.

When you’re trying to hit every single trending buzzword and trend – hotwife, mafia boss, shifter – you’re not writing a story, you’re assembling a product. Your reader becomes a data point, your sentences become packaging, and the erotic charge gets flattened into formula. There are literally writers using “beat sheets” who drop in characters and narrative events like it’s paint-by-numbers. That’s painting, I guess, but it’s not art.

Go read the whole thing; it’s excellent. When Ryan writes “It’s about whether you respect the reader enough to revise, to learn, to take pride in the work, to treat explicit writing like it deserves the same standards as anything else,” I feel it in my soul.