Sneak Peek at Best Lesbian Erotica of the Year (2016): Twentieth Anniversary Edition

BLE 16 is all firmed up, and I'm fired up! Here's the official list of stories and authors, and my introduction, to give you a sense of what's coming out next February for your bedtime reading delight (or stealthy commuter train pleasure.)

Readings are planned for New York City, a pre-publication event on December 17th in Kathleen Warnock's spoken-word series Drunken, Careening Writers at the KGB Bar, and a post-publication celebration on February 26th at Bluestockings Books, both in the East Village. More readings are in the planning stage.

I'll post a cover image as soon as I have an official one.

Best Lesbian Erotica of the Year, Vol. 1 (2016) Twentieth Anniversary Edition  

Contents

Introduction  Sacchi Green

Dust  Rose de Fer
Ascension  Louise Blaydon
Tomato Bondage  Teresa Noelle Roberts
The Royalty Underground  Megan McFerren
Reunion Tour  Harper Bliss
Hot Blood  D. L. King
Make Them Shine  Sossity Chiricuzio
Tears from Heaven  Jean Roberta
Luscious and Wild  Sinclair Sexsmith
Smorgasbord  R. G. Emanuelle
A Professional  Rose P. Lethe
Easy  Anna Watson
Grind House  Valerie Alexander
Give and Take  Annabeth Leong
Mirror, Mirror  Frankie Grayson
The Road to Hell  Cheyenne Blue
The Further Adventures of Miss Scarlet  Emily L. Byrne

About the Authors
About the Editor

Introduction

The Best Lesbian Erotica series has a special place in my heart. Twenty years ago, in 1996, Tristan Taormino and Cleis Press published the first volume of Best Lesbian Erotica, and in 1999, to my amazement, my own very first erotica story made it into that year's anthology. When Tristan Taormino called and said that she loved my piece because it was so different, I was hooked on the series and the entire genre for good. (Tristan also very kindly pointed out the many improvements I needed to make, of course; I had a lot to learn.) Seven more of my stories made it into further editions of Best Lesbian Erotica, although I got a bit distracted in recent years with editing ten themed anthologies of lesbian erotica myself, eight of them for Cleis Press. Editing this one feels like the greatest honor of all.

Back in 1996 there were far fewer markets for well-written lesbian erotica than there are now, but there were many majorly talented writers with the courage and the burning desire to tell the stories demanding to be told, stories that can still stir your senses and linger in your mind. There have been some changes in erotica over the years, largely in how far we dare to go and how much we think we can get away with, but I still remember stories from those earlier years as challenging as any written today.

The main difference these days is in the quantity of lesbian erotica available, and the numbers of people writing it well. For this 2016 edition (the title, Best Lesbian Erotica of the Year, has changed just a bit, but it’s still the same series) there was a superabundance of excellent work, and choosing was a harrowing as well as stimulating experience. Tastes differ, of course, especially when it comes to erotic preferences, so not every story will push every reader’s buttons, but for me the writers here make this edition outstandingly worthy of Best Lesbian Erotica’s long tradition of sexy excellence.
In the limited space of a single anthology, “best” has to take into account factors beyond any single measurement of quality. An apples and oranges comparison just won’t cut it; envision instead, say, peaches…smooth, rosy, rounded peaches…and pears…and maybe the occasional heavy melon… But don’t worry. No actual fruit metaphors are abused in this book.

Like Tristan way back then, the idea of “best” for me includes “different,” whether it’s a brand-new treatment of a familiar theme, a way with language that makes the words dance to an inspired beat, or a plot I’ve never seen before. Beyond those, each story has to contribute to a balance in the work as a whole, which should include a variety of themes, settings, voices, tone, and diversity of ages, ethnicities and physical attributes. Above all, “best” should mean original ideas, vividly drawn settings, creative imagery, fully developed, believable characters (even if occasionally that requires readers to suspend disbelief for the sake of arousal), and, of course, plenty of steamy sex, with intensely erotic scenes that flow naturally from the story as a whole, ranging from vanilla to BDSM to edgy frontiers that defy classification.

Originality takes many forms. D. L. King melds the familiar tropes of werewolves and lesbian auto mechanics into a character as likable as she is sexy. Megan McFerren’s characters take refuge in a London bomb shelter during WWII. Emily L. Byrne’s brilliant incarnation of Miss Scarlet seduces a police detective in the NYC subway system. Louise Blaydon’s “nice girl” and “bad girl” strike sparks together forming a band on the gritty side of Liverpool in 1961. There are stories with touches of humor, or moments of tenderness, or immersions in the no-holds-barred depths of bondage and the keen pleasures of pain—and now and then all three at once.

What you get, in this anthology, is a seemingly infinite variety of lesbian erotic desires, in all the heat, beauty and power of both our darkness and our light. I’m immeasurably grateful to all these writers who crafted their stories as only each one of them could, and offered them to be included here.
From me, from the writers, and, I hope, from many of you readers; Happy Twentieth Birthday, Best Lesbian Erotica of the Year! Birthday spankings may be in order, but be gentle with your paperbacks. With e-books—well, maybe you’d better find a surrogate spankee. Just read a few of these stories with her to warm things up.

Sacchi Green
Amherst, MA

Best Lesbian Erotica of the Year (2016)

Three weeks ago I turned in the manuscript of Best Lesbian Erotica 2016--now with the title changed by the publisher to Best Lesbian Erotica of the Year, Volume 1--and it's scheduled to come out in February. It will be a while before I hear about final approval of each story, but in my opinion (obviously) they're all terrific. It's been a bit of an adventure editing this, since I'm working with new publishing staff with the new owners of Cleis Press, Start/Midnight Publications, and I don't know how their tastes may differ from those I've been accustomed to, but I'm sure the anthology will be worthy of the fantastic series that will be in its twentieth year in 2016. I got my own start in erotica in BLE 99, with quite a few more appearances along the line, so this book has a specula place in my heart.

I've responded to all submissions, as far as I know, so if anyone submitted but didn't get a final response, please let me know.

For folks in the NYC area, it looks like we'll be doing a preview reading there in December; I'll keep you posted.

Here's the link for pre-ordering (yes, I know the cover still has the photo stock markings, but I'm sure that will be dealt with in good time.)
http://www.amazon.com/Best-Lesbian-Erotica-Year-1/dp/1627781544/ref=sr_1_1_twi_1_pap?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1438874278&sr=1-1&keywords=best+lesbian+erotica+2016

Vampire Erotica to Help Nepal

Vampire erotica, and helping Doctors Without Borders with their work in Nepal? Who could resist?

Lisabet Sarai blog's today about her anthology Coming Together: In Vein. All proceeds from sales of the book will go to DWB, and to give you a taste, she's posted snippets from four of the stories, including my post-Civil-War western "Jessebel," featuring a transgender Civil War veteran whose lover, after dying  in his arms in the war, reappears years later as a stunning dance-hall girl in a Western saloon.

http://lisabetsarai.blogspot.com/2015/06/how-to-help-nepal.html

Best Lesbian Erotica '16 Call for Submissions

Best Lesbian Erotica 2016
Editor: Sacchi Green
Publisher: Cleis Press
Deadline: June 1, 2015 (earlier encouraged)
Payment: $100 and 2 copies of the book within 90 days of publication

Rights: non-exclusive right to publish the story in this anthology in print, ebook and audiobook form. Authors will retain copyright to their stories. Standard Cleis Press contributor contract.

The Best Lesbian Erotica series has a special place in my heart. My first erotica publication was in BLE, many years ago, and I’ve had stories in eight volumes altogether, so I want to make this next edition worthy of the long tradition of sexy excellence. Only you writers can make this happen.
,
Give me your best work. Is there a story inside you burning to be written, or one already published that makes you especially proud--and extremely hot? I’ll consider up to two submissions per author, between 2000-4000 words preferred length. No simultaneous submissions. I’ll consider reprints, preferably published between June 2014 and June 2015, but hope to be seeing more new, unpublished work.

I want a variety of themes, voices, and tone. Diversity in ages, ethnicities, cultures, and physical attributes and abilities is welcome. The central figures must be lesbian, believable, fully developed characters. Give me vividly drawn settings, and plots or story arcs that grip the reader and don’t let go. Originality is especially welcome; write the story that only you can write. And, of course, I want intense sex scenes that flow naturally from the story as a whole. All flavors of sensuality are welcome, from vanilla to BDSM to edgy frontiers that surprise and startle the reader. A few stories with a speculative fiction bent, science fiction or fantasy, will be considered.

Send your submission as an attachment in .doc, .docx. or .rtf format, double spaced, Times New Roman black font, with story title, legal name, pseudonym (if applicable,) and mailing and e-mail addresses on the first page, to sacchigreen@gmail.com. Queries are welcome.

 Writers, start your engines!

Dark, Delicious, and Twisted: Book Bundle Blog Tour for Alison Tyler

For years, Alison Tyler has thrilled us with her novels, as well as dozens of anthologies-on-the-edge. [Keep reading here to find out about a give-away of one these, Twisted,] Now she’s presenting the greatest gift of all: herself. This trilogy of novels based partly on her own life is written with passion, lyricism, and a profoundly kinky sensibility.

I reviewed the first in the series, Dark Secret Love, when it first came out. Here’s just a taste of what I said:

“Does the idea of submission intrigue you, but the much-discussed books you’ve sampled seem to fall flat? Or do you long for work that truly resonates with what you already know you want? Does knowing that a story has true life at it core turn you on? Maybe you appreciate fine erotic writing, no matter what its flavor, or can’t resist an author who chooses her title from the vivid, surreal, enigmatic poetry of William Blake. How can you resist a juxtaposition of ‘dark,’ ‘secret,’ and ‘love?’

Nothing can describe this book as well as Alison’s own words, and she’s given us a wonderful excerpt that I’ve posted below, but humor me for a few minutes while I discuss some of my own reactions.
As the story unfolds, I was especially struck by the way Alison’s alter-ego, Samantha, had her own personal take on submission. Her need for pain with sex had less to do with the usual endorphins or amorphous sense of guilt, and more to do with finding her own core ability to endure, “take it,” even refuse to use a safe word. For her, submission expressed a secret strength, not a weakness. And, having already known so long just what she wanted from a man, her real moment of revelation came in this passage:
‘I need this, too,’ Jack told me. And everything changed. By taking care of me, he was taking care of himself. I don’t think I’d ever tried to envision the situation from a Dom’s point of view before.’

Just one more thought before serving the main course of Alison’s own words. Very near the end there’s an image that stays in my mind, as of course it’s intended to stay in every reader’s. Into Jack’s stark, minimalist, black-and white apartment, Samantha dares to introduce a strikingly red blanket—and Jack reveals how much he needs the closeness that lets him raise that same intense glow of color on her pale, lovely asscheeks.

In the Blake poem that supplies this book’s title, the line before ‘dark secret love’ includes the phrase “crimson joy.” The sequel to Dark Secret Love, coming out very soon now, has the fine title The Delicious Torment, but I find myself hoping that someday Alison will use the title Crimson Joy for a book. It would be great for a collection or anthology of spanking stories, but even better for another Alison Tyler novel.”


You can find my complete review including Alison’s own words here: http://sacchi-green.blogspot.com/2013/10/alison-tylers-dark-secret-love-guest.html

  Then came second book, The Delicious Torment, hitting me even harder than the first. Here’s some of what I had so say about it:

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,…

You’ve seen Shakespeare’s sonnet number 116. You’ve probably heard it read. In fact, I read aloud it at my brother’s wedding. But it isn’t about weddings, as such, but about two people who match each other’s needs so perfectly that nothing can destroy their love.

Alison Tyler’s The Delicious Torment, the sequel to her Dark, Secret Love, is about two people with such intense, specific, on-the-edge needs that it seems like a miracle that they found each other.

Samantha, the heroine based on Alison Tyler herself, is “ensconced in an S/M relationship that makes everything I’ve done before turn a whiter shade of pale.” Jack is older, a high-powered lawyer, whose need to dominate through “pain and shame and utter humiliation” could only be satisfied by a woman like Samantha, as strong in her way as she is submissive. Pain and humiliation are pleasure to her, even when she dreads them, and they bring her to orgasm even when they bring her to tears. Jack gives her what she needs, and she loves him without reserve, while he needs her love as much as her submission, even though he needs her to prove that love over and over.

There are plenty of S/M books out there now, but nobody does it with as much style and skill as Alison Tyler. Nobody makes it as real, as convincing, as appealing even to people whose tastes have never run that way. And the story here is more than a series of “scenes,” even though the traditional canes and belts and crops and chains play their part. The relationship has its twists and turns and unexpected deviations, especially when it comes to involve a third person. There are adjustments and alterations that might strain a love less strong. Jack’s difficulty in trusting Samantha’s love and the lengths he goes to in testing her could have destroyed the very thing he craved. But no impediment is great enough to tear these true minds (and bodies) apart.

For more, and Alison’s own excerpts, go here:

http://sacchi-green.blogspot.com/2014/02/alison-tylers-delicious-torment-from.html

How can you resist going directly to the next book, Wrapped Around His Finger? This time I’ll let you immerse yourself in it with no preconceptions form me. Once I’ve savored it two or three more times, and caught my breath, maybe I’ll write another review.


Now for the give-away part. I’m offering two copies of Alison’s recent anthology,
Twisted: Bondage with an Edge.

My obvious reason for choosing this one is that I have a story in it myself, so I thought of posting an excerpt of that. On second thought, though, considering some reviews I’ve seen, maybe I’d better not. You might be better off not thinking my piece is representative of the book as a whole; in fact, there’s so much variety in the anthology that no single story can represent it. I’ll just quote a couple of reviews, so you can’t say you weren’t warned.

“Sacchi Green is so good at writing scary stories, and her ‘Stag Beetle’ was so well done - it'll be a cold day in hell before a story with insects in it will turn me on, but she writes the scene effortlessly - extremely evocative.”

And:

“’Stag Beetle,’ by Sacchi Green, is the most unusual story in this anthology. The one almost guaranteed to make people squirm. Would you let a big bug walk over you? How about if you were tied up? Think of those little insect feet on your bare skin. You know your safe word. Would you use it?’”

Really, my story is a rather sweet D/s romance. And hot. And with a very pretty silk kimono. What’s not to like? But all the other stories are much better. Trust me.

If you like short-short kinky stories, you’ll love the book as a whole.  If you want to win a free copy, just comment on this post,  and if somehow Blogger is uncooperative, you can comment over on my Facebook status where I discuss this post, or e-mail me at sacchigreen@gmail.com. You have until March 31 to enter.

Free E-Book! Beyond 50: An Erotic Sampler

Sample the BDSM erotic writing of 49 authors who know their way around the world of kink. Edited by DL King, free from All Romance E-Books.

https://www.allromanceebooks.com/product-beyond50-1747711-166.html

If you don't want to go to All Romance E-books for a copy, comment here and I'll send you a copy in PDF format. The whole purpose of the book is to introduce readers to the work of these excellent writers.

Why yes, I have a story excerpt in this one, involving A White Tigress in ancient China and the handmaiden who knows how to handle her while her Jade Dragon can only watch. The excerpt can stand on it's own, but you'll find the full story, White Tigress, Scarlet Stripes in my collection A Ride to Remember from Lethe Press.
http://www.amazon.com/Ride-Remember-Other-Erotic-Tales/dp/1590213203/ref=sr_1_1_twi_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1424036173&sr=1-1&keywords=a+ride+to+remember+sacchi+green

Another New CFS, for Lesbian Historical Romance

Through the Hourglass: Lesbian Historical Romance (working title)
Publisher: The Liz McMullen Show Publications
Editors: Sacchi Green and Patty G. Henderson
Deadline: May 31, 2015
Publication: Fall of 2015
Preferred Length: 3000-5000 words
Payment: $30 plus two paperback copies
Rights: The Liz McMullen Show Publications requires the right to publish the original story in the above-mentioned anthology, in print, digital and audible forms, exclusively for one year after publication (exceptions made for “year’s best” anthologies) and non-exclusively thereafter. The author retains copyright.

We have always been here, in every era and every area of society, even though we’ve been all but invisible in recorded history. Now is your chance to use your imagination, research a period of history that intrigues you, and tell us fictional stories about the lesbian women who came before us. From the 1500s to the mid-1900s, from the late Renaissance and Elizabethan times to World Wars I and II, give us characters true to their times, and true to themselves, not modern people inserted into the past. Draw us into a time and place, its customs, inhibitions, aspirations, and patterns of thought and speech, and into the lives of fully developed, complex characters.

Show us intense relationships and emotional bonds. Some degree of erotic tension is acceptable, but this is not a place for outright erotica. Happy endings are welcome if they seem plausible, and so are heart-rending encounters fated to live on only in memory. Diversity of culture will be appreciated. We want variety in scenarios and time periods, so feel free to contact us to see whether we seem to be getting too much from any era or setting, or with any other queries.

Original, unpublished stories only. Multiple submissions are okay, but no simultaneous submissions.

In keeping with our theme of lesbians throughout history, a portion of the proceeds will be donated to a charity that assists senior lesbians.

Submit your stories in .doc or .docx to historical.anthology@gmail.com

You can also query me at sacchigreen@gmail.com.