If you’ve ever noticed an author with a strange gap of a couple of years between publication credits and wondered what happened, it is just possible that that might be because they decided to have some kids, and found they couldn’t get anything done until all of those kids were sleeping through the night. I know that quite a few writers actually start writing for the first time while on maternity leave, but I am the opposite of that. So, that’s where I’ve been. I am glad to be back! My kids are wonderful and I’m so happy to have them in my life, but I’m also really, really happy to be able to string together more than a few coherent thoughts at a time again.

While I was away, some cool stuff happened! My story, “A Woman of Uncommon Accomplishment,” was collected in Fantastic Erotica: The Best of Circlet Press 2008-2012, along with a bunch of stories I am extremely honored to share space with. The anthology got some good reviews, including a starred review from Publisher’s Weekly, and a few even mentioned my story in particular.

From the aforementioned Publisher’s Weekly review:

Standout stories include Bernie Mojzes’s “Ink,” a strangely sweet tale of Cthulian tentacle love; Elizabeth Reeve’s hilarious “A Woman of Uncommon Accomplishment,” in which the plainest of five sisters inadvertently summons an incubus; and “Ota Discovers Fire,” a traveler’s tale that blends anthropological satire with a compelling setting and delightfully hot human-werewolf sex scenes that flow seamlessly from the plot.

Charlie Jane Anders reviewed the anthology at io9, describing it as “dangerous” because of the way the characters in most of the stories are changed and shaped by their experiences:

A lot of the hotness of these stories comes from a sense of characters stepping outside their comfort zone, and facing the possibility of becoming something different — something their original selves might not have recognized or approved of.

In Monique Poirier’s “At the Crossroads,” an angel is forced to go into the worst hole in the city and have sex with a demon… or die. In Elizabeth Reeve’s “A Woman of Uncommon Accomplishment,” a Jane Austen-esque heroine summons a supernatural creature, and finds that she’s gotten more than she bargained for. There are stories about space navigators who have to have sex to control their abilities, and men having sex with an automaton that occupies the whole top floor of a building. There are faerie revels, and werewolves, and a hard-to-explain Matrix riff, and vampires, and Snow White/Evil Queen slash. Basically, there’s everything.

Anders goes on to write, “Both speculative fiction and erotic fiction are about stepping outside of yourself, and confronting the strangeness that is both light years away, and close enough to touch. The best encounters are the ones that change you forever, and the best stories of transformation are ones which feel a little bit dangerous.”

I couldn’t agree more.

Whispers in Darkness, which contains my story, “The Dreams in the Laundromat,” has received some really nice reviews! Two of them mention my work specifically, and I’m going to quote them here.

Amanda Gannon of Adventurotica described Whispers in Darkness as “a rock-solid anthology,” and has written an in-depth review. Here’s what she said about my story:

No description of this story’s particulars can convey its appeal. It is definitely the odd story out; it’s a college story, and the setting and voice are more frankly modern than any of the others. It’s also a sweet story, not horrific at all. And it’s extremely hot.

It’s a beautiful exploration of the vulnerability of revealing yourself to another person – how we are all to some degree alien to ourselves and each other. It’s odd that a Lovecraftian erotica story should be touching, but it really was; terrible secrets, if shared, can lead to great intimacy. And, apparently, mind-blowing tentacle sex. The attention to detail in the sex scene is first-rate. It feels real, and if it doesn’t make you at least a little envious, I will mail you a dollar.

The author took a risk submitting a story that is not meant to be horrifying, and the editor took a chance including it. I am so glad they did, and enjoyed the pleasant surprise.

AncientHistory at Yog-Sothoth also wrote a review, saying of my story:

Short but brilliant, set in the modern day and reads like National Lampoon’s sequel to The Dreams in the Witch House. Actually, this is probably the only story of the bunch I would love to see a sequel to, since the eponymous Laundromat is never visited directly in the story. Reeve’s dialogue and college-think is clever and fun to read, and refreshingly honest for the brand of horny college student we all wish we’d run into. The phrase “Arkham-bad” has now entered my personal lexicon.

One of the other authors in the anthology, Annabeth Leong, described “The Dreams in the Laundromat” as “the sweetest, most romantic tentacle sex story I’ve ever read.” (She includes a nice, lengthy excerpt from her story, “The Artist’s Retreat,” in that post which is well worth checking out, by the way – I love the way she echoes Lovecraft’s writing style, and you can see a lot of that in the segment she’s chosen.)

I’m glad to see that what I was aiming at with “The Dreams in the Laundromat” – weird, sexy, sweet (and more than a little goofy) – seems to have hit the mark with more than one reader. And I’m not gonna lie…the idea of writing a continuation of “The Dreams in the Laundromat” has occurred to me. We’ll see!