There are a few projects listed on your In Press page. Do you have any others you can share with us? Or can you give us an update on one of those?
BabyShares is a novella about a hedge fund scam involving a young woman from California and the Florida security guard who loves her from afar. It's bizarre, but strangely realistic. I had a lot of fun writing it. It's due out in March from Secret Cravings.
Me Go Mango, another novella, is a romantic comedy featuring four college friends who gather in Brattleboro, Vermont, to drink and dish. Things quickly get out of hand. There's a hot chef and missing underwear and several mango recipes. It's crazy. That one's due out in May from Champagne Books.
Your recent releases seem to be mostly contemporary. Have you dabbled in any subgenres? Paranormal? Historical? Do you write any non-erotic fiction/non-fiction?
I also write non-erotic fiction, novel-length works that my agent is trying to place. One book she's trying to sell is satire, another is a literary dystopian story set on an island for people who have succumbed to a personality disorder plague.
Whoa, those sound interesting! Tell us how you came up with Reds, Whites and Blues, your contribution to the Serviced Anthology.
Soldiers are regarded as sexy these days, but they were widely scorned during and after the unpopular war in Vietnam. I thought I'd explore that a little with a hippie chick and a soldier who doesn't understand her, but likes her anyway. Peace and love. :)
And we got a little tease!
Instead, iris surprised him. She said her dad had been in the military so she was no stranger to crew cuts, pushups, Spam, and R&R. She smiled when she told him that. She had two dimples and a small pink tongue. She handed him the beer bottle and encouraged him to finish it. Her fingers were tiny, smooth shells. He liked the way her tanned fingers swept across her face, sliding the stray hairs back behind her small ears.
Graham told iris about the station on the waterfront at Mallory Square. He talked about the guys he liked, the ones he didn't. He told her how the men like him felt, the ones who didn't get assigned to Danang, Cat La, or An Thai. How helpless they all were. Squadron One, Division 13, Division 11, those guys got sent over. The rest of them were stuck on U.S. soil, while thousands of American boys were being blown to bits in rice paddies and villages with strange names. He told her he felt like a fraud, wearing his blues and sitting in an office, lounging on a beach while the seagulls flew overhead. Instead of helicopters full of injured soldiers. Bombers. The war itself a fire in the sky above him while he worked as a buoy tender, or helped with combat search and rescue. That was what he was supposed to be up to. Doing his part to bring the boys home safe.
iris listened, nodding once in a while, grimacing at the right moments. She was a good listener. Lots of women weren't. They'd think about other things, like whether you were attracted to them. You could tell they weren't paying attention. Iris was different…
"I'm pretty free with my sexuality," she said.
Graham felt his neck heat up.
"I'll fuck an enlisted man just as enthusiastically as I'll fuck a radical. But the truth is, I'd just as soon hook up with one guy and make something of it. Something that means something."
He wanted to kiss her, but he was afraid. He watched a brown pelican dive straight into the receding tide. Within milliseconds, the huge bird was soaring up in the air with a fish clamped tight in its voluminous bill.
"Am I freaking you out, Graham?"
She leaned into him and ran one of her small hands up his leg to the frayed edge of his shorts. He stiffened a little and thought, Holy cow, I wonder if I could fuck her right here, right now?
