The way I see it, there aren’t enough interviews with Lana Fox. Sure, you might find it strange that I’m the one to take initiative, seeing how I’m in business with her. And you could call me biased: I’m a fan, her partner, folder of her laundry and all that. But the real reason I wanted to interview Lana is because she’s doing amazing things in the realm of erotica and sexual-spiritual healing. Sometimes, she combines the two. Other times, she’s writing taboo like I’ve never seen it, and it’s this combination of aesthetics, of keeping focus on both the transformational and what most consider the “darker” parts of us, that makes her writing sexy and unique. To me, she’s a trailblazer.
Lana’s new petite novel, Confessions of a Kinky Divorcee, is available this Thursday from Mischief Books.
Hi Lana. It’s Angela. You are such a busy woman. I’d list all the projects you’re working on and books you’re writing and publishing, but I’d hate to overwhelm you. So, I’ve got to ask: what’s the first thing you do in the morning?
Aha! Well, the first thing I do in the morning (aside from kiss my angel hello) is to put on my exceptionally furry slippers. This, naturally, is a highly erotic experience. Think: naked feet slipping into furry fabric—fake fur, I will add, seeing as I’m sort of a vegetarian… “sort of” (ahem) because I also eats clams. Then I answer about 30 emails, at least ten of which usually have something to do with sex and sexuality. Not bad, eh?
Can you remember the first book of erotica that caught your eye? How come it did?
I was seventeen, I believe, when I first encountered Anais Nin’s “Delta of Venus.” I was in a bookstore in Leicester—the British city where I lived at that time—and as I was browsing the tables of books, I saw this amazing cover design. It was a boy in a peaked cap pressing a woman against a wall for a fiery, accept-no-prisoners kiss. The woman was wearing stockings, and I could see her stocking-tops. How could I not pick up that book and finger through the pages? Considering that I’d been raised with tons of sexual guilt, Nin’s descriptions of debauched barons and exotic dancers, not to mention lesbian threesomes, incest, and secrecy, were breathlessly exciting. Nin’s scenes were like those that I had imagined myself, yet always felt so guiltily alone with! I invested in the book and hid it beneath my bed. I read it from cover to cover—and often.
Why Go Deeper Press? I mean, not the name itself, but what persuaded you to tackle the business side of publishing?
I had always found it hard to find really well-written erotica. Now, I know “well-written” is subjective, but there is a particular style that I’ve always sought. Angela Carter, Anais Nin, Sarah Waters, and Steve Almond were writing about this enticing sex that was filled with imagination and heart-racing need. So I learned to write erotica. In fact, I trained under Steve Almond at Grub Street (where I now teach erotica). And the more I published, the more I read. I felt so free when I read and created erotica. In fact, it was erotic fantasy that first showed me I was queer: I saw that I was often watching the woman as I wrote my fantasies down, or imagining that I was the man in a heterosexual scene. Erotica found me. I started to talk about sex, to express myself. I found Susie Bright, Betty Dodson—heroes of mine. I started to teach erotic writing, became a sex columnist, a sex blogger, a sex-positive activist, and moved into an amazing sex-positive community. And wonder of all wonders, I met Angela, my soulmate, who is endlessly inspiring, passionate, and talented. You wait until you read Angela’s erotica—I mean, wow! Without her, Go Deeper Press would not have been born.
The long and short of it? Erotica has played a huge role in my life. It taught me to be shame-free, to be who I was, to see my sexual self as beautiful. And as anyone who has felt saved by art will know, we want so badly to help others feel that too.
Name three things that, if you didn’t have them, your days and nights would be simply miserable.
Angela, my friends, and PG Tips (that’s very strong British tea, fyi).
Courtesy of Mischief Books
Your new novella, Confessions of a Kinky Divorcee, is coming out from Mischief this Thursday. Do you want to plug it a little? If you don’t, I will.
So, I started with two ideas. I wanted to write a book about a woman who actively benefits from her husband’s infidelity! And I also wanted to write about kinky shoes and how good they can make us feel. See, because high heels are often sexy, people often treat them as if they are frivolous—sexiness, after all, isn’t always respected in our society. But. in my eyes, the notion that a pair of stilettos can transform our confidence and make us feel proud means that they can be every bit as deep as a Van Gogh painting (which, as it happens, can do the same, right?).
This is the story that I ended up with:
Debs is devastated when, by playing peeping tom, she catches her husband cheating. But as she watches his tryst from her hiding place, she finds herself lusting after the blonde he’s screwing. Amazed that she apparently isn’t heterosexual, Debs divorces her husband and sets off to find out who she really is sexually. And, my goodness, she has quite the kinky adventure! Firstly, as the manager of Pussyfoot Shoes, she uses her love of stilettos to great effect in the boudoir. And secondly, she starts having fabulous sex with women. But in spite of her liberation, she can’t help falling for her young tenant, Janey, a college student who is studying the history of the stiletto. And while Janey is delectable to peep on, Debs believes she is entirely out of bounds….
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