Meh. I hate when that happens. I get this eerie feeling of déjà vu, this odd sense that Avon Red are stalking me – and that it’s happened before! Weird.

Roll up! Roll up! I’m reading this Friday (16th) at the Ocean Rooms in Brighton, part of a huge, glitzy, charity gig celebrating the release of Ultimate Decadence. This is the second anthology from Burlesque Against Breast Cancer, an organisation raising funds for Macmillan Cancer Support. If you’re local, please come along and buy me a large gin! If you’re not local, please wish me luck!

I’ll be reading from The Lion Tamer’s Scars, my story from Ultimate Burlesque, the first BABC anthology, released last year.

Truly, these are two super-sexy, star-studded anthologies featuring filthy fiction from (amongst others) Alison Tyler, Jeremy Edwards, Nikki Magennis, Donna George Storey, Portia Da Costa, Maxim Jakubowski, Justine Elyot, Suzanne Portnoy, Rachel Kramer Bussel … oh, and loads more fabulousness! Help! Who did I miss?

And, super news, because I was not so delighted by a burlesque line-up featuring only female performers, we’ve pushed the boat out and managed to get TWO sexy guys on the bill! TWO! They are British Heart (who is doing a PhD in Boylesque) and Count Adriano Fettucini, a unicycling stripper. No, seriously! They are both true, and they both excite me greatly!

If you’re on Facebook, more here.

Hope you can make it – in flesh or in spirit! My voice, according to Alison Tyler, everyone’s favourite spankaholic, is divine – ‘like marmalade and honeysuckle with a dash of Jack Daniels’. I think maybe you have to be American to hear it that way but hey, you could try!

KLx

PS Photo of me reading is by Sam Collins of Tight Lip, taken at the last BABC gig held at Brighton’s Komedia. Thanks Sam!

Despite a major player mothballing its erotic fiction lists, the category is on a recession-busting rise.

Yay!

You can read the whole article here in The Bookseller. I scanned the double-page spread from the mag because, oh boy, isn’t it wonderful to see a range of covers up there instead of the usual glut of half-naked chicks?

And great to hear that friends of Erotica Cover Watch, Xcite Books and Bookkake, are both thriving. It’s a thrill, too, to know that Erotica Cover Watch and our fab supporters were largely responsible for Xcite’s decision to start featuring guys on their book covers. Yup, see him in the top left? He’s mine! Oh, OK, then: ours. We can share. I’ll be taking a closer look at Xcite’s new Temptations line on ECW in the near future – and am very much looking forward to him it.

If you missed the news from earlier in the week, Adam Nevill, former Black Lace editor, will soon be joining Xcite books as editor. All in all, an excellent week for erotica (um, apart from my blacklisting)!

There’s an interview with me on this month’s ERWA where I talk about writing, fiction, feminism, submission, taking sex to extremes, and where I say things such as:

My priority is exploring sex and sexuality, in terms of both personal relationships and society. I also want people to be able to wank to my work because if it’s not hot, then I’ve failed as an erotica writer.

Thanks to the super smart Ashley Lister for his probing questions!