I’m a sucker for online interviews… even when they come bouncing back to me, “address unknown.” Here’s one that I filled in just recently, that was indeed returned to me by the ever vigilant Mailer Daemon….
* How did you start writing erotica?
An ex-boyfriend introduced me to the website www.eroticstories.com… I started writing when he and I broke up, primarily to exact my revenge on him – you think I’m heartbroken? Think again.
* What’s your favourite published work of yours and why?
Below Blue London – partly because it allowed me to combine my passions for erotica, history and the supernatural, but also because it required a lot of background research… a skill I developed in my dayjob, but which I’d never needed to utilize in my fiction
* What erotic authors do you enjoy reading?
I read everything that I can lay my hands on… but my favorites tend to be the anonymous creators of Victorian-era erotica. The language and imagery is so very different to anything we read today, and so much more exciting, simply because of its unfamiliarity. But one modern exception, Lady Alice McCloud’s Thrift Moncrieff stories.
Where do you draw your inspiration from?
Anything and everything… my novel Miss America was a total reaction to a bad relationship; the Cousin Tom stories came from listening to a lot of Woody Guthrie and reading classic Americana; What I Did On MY Summer Vacation is self-explanatory. Anything I see, read or do can set me off.
Who is your favourite character from one of your stories and why?
Ambrose Horne… a Victorian era detective, a rival of Sherlock Holmes, who specializes in mysteries with a sexual angle… if the Royal Family want to know who changed the speed settings on the Prince of Wales’ vibrator, they call Ambrose.
Do your nearest and dearest know what you do, and if so, what was their reaction when they found out?
Some do… and they support it; some pretend they don’t, and it never gets mentioned.
What was your ideal career when you were a child?
I’m doing it – writing and publishing
If you get writer’s block when you’re writing, how do you get around it?
I don’t even try to. I write when I want to, so if a few months pass and nothing comes… I have plenty other things to amuse myself with. I’m a Second Life junkie, I read constantly and I horde DVDs for rainy days. I keep myself busy.
If you could bring one of your characters to life, which one would it be and why?
Naughty Miranda, prime-time teenaged TV queen… not only has she brought most of my most persistent fantasies to life, she also consistently succeeds in situations where I fail abjectly.
Which author, erotic or otherwise would you love to meet and why?
Christopher Isherwood – his Berlin Trilogy (source of the movie Cabaret) was what got me interested in erotica to begin with; there were just so many undercurrents swirling in there, I think I spent the entire time I was reading it in a state of total turmoil and, when I finished, I went out to find more books that would make me feel the same way. And yes, I was young at the time.
What’s your favourite genre within erotica and why?
Oral… I guess because it’s my favorite activity anyway, but also because the scenes are simply so much fun to write.
What are you working on at the moment?
A semi-fictional, semi-biographical book about the porn movie trade in 1960s London. I collect films from that era (DVD and downloads) and was fortunate enough a couple of years ago to “meet” (online) somebody who was involved in the business at the time. We started collaborating on the book a while back and it’s been slow due to pressures of work etc, but I’m hoping it will be completed and published sometime in 2011.
What’s your biggest writing achievement? Why?
Getting a story (Pictures of Lily) accepted into “Best Women’s Erotica 2011”. I’ve been reading that series more or less since it started, and I still cannot believe that I am now a part of it
Constantly Chrissie 