EXCLUSIVE EXCERPT: BEST OF…

 
What a way to end the year! The latest additions to the steamy illustrious “Best of…” anthologies will resonate with you long after you’ve finished them! In Best Women’s Erotica of the Year, Volume 4, award-winning editor Rachel Kramer Bussel has gathered the hottest sexy stories starring outspoken women who daringly pursue love and lust. Much like a fine wine the Best Gay Erotica series just keeps getting better with each passing year. Enjoy erotic stories about dominant men standing tall and powerful over their submissive, to dashing men with looks to kill for in Best Gay Erotica of the Year, Volume 4 edited by Rob Rosen! Wait, it doesn’t stop there! Best Lesbian Erotica of the Year, Volume 3 proves to be a successful addition to this body-tingling series—the gold standard for erotic lesbian fiction. Edited by award-winning editor Sacchi Green, this latest edition is sensual, inventive, and utterly breathtaking as it pushes lesbian lust and desire to new heights! So dress down and cozy up with any of these hot erotic additions! They’ll keep you warm all season long!
What makes these additions stand out from the rest? Find out from the editors themselves who sifted through piles of entries and selected the ones that truly captured the desired themes like Rachel Kramer Bussel of Best Women’s Erotica of the Year, Volume 4:
 
The first three volumes of Best Women’s Erotica of the Year didn’t have official themes, but when I was compiling Volume 4, I decided I wanted stories on the themes of Outsiders and Risk. While on the surface those may seem incongruous, both spoke to me regarding current events and seemed urgently relevant. At a time when outsiders of many kinds are being ostracized, discriminated against, and shunned, I wanted to explore what being an outsider
feels like on a deeply personal level. I always want the authors I publish to turn readers on, but this time, I also want to make you think.
 
I left it to my authors to define what exactly an outsider means to them, and their characters. All of us have likely been outsiders at one time or another, depending on the circumstances. Outsiders may be able to learn something about themselves via insiders, and in the process enjoy some hot sex…Taking risks in the face of fear has certainly cropped up in past volumes, but the risks the characters take in these stories are heightened. Sometimes these risks are erotic in nature, like trying something new for the first time, for instance posing for an erotic calendar, as the heroine of “Take the Shot,” by Mica Kennedy. Sometimes the risk itself is a turn-on, such as the illicit but utterly arousing behavior of the naughty narrator in “The Dressing Room,” by Alessandra Torre.
 
Sometimes these risks, while sexual in nature, involve confronting aspects of these characters’ core selves that require a great amount of bravery. In “Her Invisible Prison,” by Jocelyn Dex, Eden faces a battle between her desire and her agoraphobia. Her steps out of that “prison”are hard fought and all the more exciting. And lest you think a story involving mental health can’t be scorching hot, Dex will surely prove you wrong. While passion and desire are at the heart of these tales, there’s more happening than simple arousal. There’s a little something for everyone, I’d like to think, within these pages…I hope, at least in some small way, this book entertains you and gives you inspiration to take the kinds of risks these characters do.
…..
Best Women’s Erotica of the Year, Volume 4 is available for purchase at all eBook retailers. Or feel free to purchase a copy at your local bookstore!

Amazon • iTunes • Nook • Google Play • Kobo

Rob Rosen of Best Gay Erotica of the Year, Volume 4:
For those of you who are unfamiliar with my writing, I’m a romantic-comedy author by trade, frequently in the speculative genre. And so, whilst whittling—and since reading and enjoying what one is reading is oh-so subjective—I found myself choosing stories for you that fall into three categories: comedy/madcap, sci-fi/speculative, and general fiction, almost all of it of a romantic nature, a hundred percent of it of the high literary caliber that you’ve come to expect from this annual collection.
 
For comedy/madcap, there’s Clare London’s after-hours romp in a dentist’s office in “Open Up”; Nelson House’s “Dirty Tricks,” with its dirty double-crosses and sneaky Republican senator; Richard May’s naughty Hanukkah-present-filled “Eight Nights”; the farcical romp through the streets of Florence, “Renaissance Miracles,” by the superbly imaginative Michael Ampersant; and closing out the collection, Richard Michaels’s “Forward into the Past,” featuring a private dick you won’t soon forget.
 
Sci-fi/speculative takes center stage in Jordan Castillo Price’s vampiric-virus tour de force, “Appetite.” Kyle E. Miller chooses humanity over the divine in “The Temptation of the Gargoyle.” Vincent Meis’s “Blade of Grass” takes us on an unexpected journey into Turkey. And Michael Roberts has us howling with his cloning mishap tale, “Reflections.” But, of course, there’re even more stories to follow, all of them expertly written and deeply erotic, all by some of today’s best and brightest M/M writers, hailing from all over the United States, plus Canada, the United Kingdom, and France. So, sit back and relax—perhaps spread-eagle or on your knees, just as a suggestion—and enjoy Best Gay Erotica of the Year, Volume 4!
 …..

Best Gay Erotica of the Year, Volume 4 is available for purchase at all eBook retailers. Or feel free to purchase a copy at your local bookstore!

Amazon • iTunes • Nook • Google Play • Kobo

Sacchi Green of Best Lesbian Erotica of the Year, Volume 3:
We open a book hoping to be taken somewhere—to faraway places, into the lives and inner thoughts of intriguing characters, or into times past or even unexplored depths of ourselves. If the book is classed as erotica, we also expect to be intensely stirred both sensually and emotionally. The beauty of an anthology is that we can expect to be taken in multiple directions, and meet an assortment of characters with a wide range of viewpoints.”
 
“Here are some hints as to where the stories I chose will take you, and what you may find there. Could there be a better start than the fantasy-fulfillment story, “Ninjutsu,” set on a plane high above the Pacific en route from Tokyo to Honolulu? And what could feel more real than longtime lovers waking in the “Morning Fog” of San Francisco? How about touring the South of France in “Perfume,” a massage in a Moroccan public bath in “Fuck Me Like a Canadian,” a cabin “Where There’s Smoke” in the snowy North Country, and the surveillance area above the ceiling of a Las Vegas casino where “Oliver: Twisted” begins?”
 
While most of the stories have contemporary settings, two more are set, at least partially, in the past. If you’re old enough to have been swept up in the rock and blues bands frenzy of the ’60s and ’70s, you may catch the significance of September 1970, and even if you aren’t that old, you’ll find out in “Jani-Lyn’s Dragon.” On another tack, “The Night Shift” proves to be just the right time for accidental phone sex. Then the familiar professor/ former student theme of “Rules” travels in unexpected directions and gets as steamily entertaining as they come, while the queer bookstore in “Rainbow’s End” provides an ideal place for a hesitant would-be writer to find just what she hardly dared hope for…Yes, all of these stories include hot, intense sex, in its many splendored manifestations… A word of caution: you may not get jet lag from this journey, but a suitable recovery period between stories is highly recommended. Trust me.
 …..

Best Lesbian Erotica of the Year, Volume 4 is available for purchase at all eBook retailers. Or feel free to purchase a copy at your local bookstore!

Amazon • iTunes • Nook • Google Play • Kobo

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January’s Exclusive Excerpt

 

This month Cleis Press is excited to announce the official publication of our newest book, The Big Book of Submission, Volume 2: 69 Kinky Tales edited by the erotica maven herself, Rachel Kramer Bussel. Rachel is hardly ever one to steal the spotlight, but we felt it was her time to shine as a writer, as well as an editor. To show our appreciation to our devoted fans and voracious readers, we invite you, nay, we ORDER you to enjoy this luscious excerpt from one of her own short stories in this collection, “Choker.” You liked that didn’t you? Well… don’t change your panties just yet…

When I thought I’d just about collapse with my need, my pussy clenched so tight I wasn’t even sure if his cock could t there should he change course, he guided me up for a deep kiss, his lips bruising mine before he gave me a slap across the face that made tears and a smile leap to my face.

Raul untied my wrists, and then made me crawl ahead of him up the stairs, until I was once again kneeling, this time on the bed, blindfolded. Having won back the use of my hands, I wrapped them around his shaft, guiding them up and down. But within a few minutes, he’d instructed me to squeeze his balls, and was slamming his dick in and out of my mouth, the way we both like it.

That’s when I felt it—fingers probing my pussy. I held back my startled reaction, because an even more urgent one was rushing on its heels—sheer arousal. The other times we’d played with other people, it had always been prearranged by both of us. Clearly, this was a special treat for me. “I didn’t tell you to stop,” Raul growled, giving my hair an extra-hard tug as he pulled me up, while the unknown person’s fingers not only plunged deeper, but also played with my clit.

 

 

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Are you a writer? A lady who loves the ladies?

 

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS!

Best Lesbian Erotica of the Year, Volume 3

Editor: Sacchi Green

Deadline: February 15 2018 (earlier encouraged)

Payment: $100 and 1 copy 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.

Send me stories that only you could write, the ones inside you burning to be brought to life. Surprise me with new concepts, or startle me with prose that illuminates traditional themes in new ways. I expect to use mostly original, unpublished work, but I’ll consider stories previously published in 2016-2017. New voices are especially welcome. A maximum of two submissions per author is allowed, with a preferred length of 2000-4500 words. No simultaneous submissions.

Give me a variety of themes, voices, and tones. Diversity in ages, ethnicities, cultures, and physical attributes and abilities is welcome. The central figures must be lesbians, with believable, fully developed characters. I want vividly drawn settings, and plots or story arcs that grip the reader and don’t let go. Originality is especially welcome. And, of course, I want an intensely erotic aura with sex-positive scenes that are integral to 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 science fiction or fantasy stories might fit in, as well as a well-researched historical setting or two.

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 email addresses on the first page, to sacchigreen@gmail.com. Queries are welcome.

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Writer & Editor Sacchi Green Talks About Her Newest Anthology

 

This weekend on the website Women and Words, writer and editor, Sacchi Green talked about her newest erotic lesbian collection Witches, Princesses, and Women at Arms which is coming out in a few weeks. In this guest post, she also talks about her past with writing speculative fiction and fantasy, as well as, her inspiration and drive for creating an anthology solely on lesbian centered fairy tales and fantasy stories. Below Sacchi talks about the different elements of the fantasy and erotica genres that each writer brought to the book:

For Witches, Princesses, and Woman at Arms: Erotic Lesbian Fairy Tales I wanted erotic romance and wild adventure with women who use their wits and/or weapons and come together in a blaze of passion. These twelve wonderful writers (I’m in there, too, though not necessarily wonderful) gave me all I hoped for and more. Some adapted traditional tales, and some updated old stories to contemporary times, not merely changing the gender of a character but making the female aspect essential. Some created original plots with a fairy tale sensibility, while others wrote with just a subtle aura of fantasy. Their heroines are witches, princesses, brave, resourceful women of all walks of life, and even a troll and a dryad. There are curses and spells, battles and intrigue, elements of magic and explorations of universal themes, and, yes, sex, sensuality and true love, all bound skillfully together into complex and multi-layered stories.

Now make sure you head over to Women and Words to read the rest of her post and to enter for a chance to win a free copy of Witches, Princesses, and Women at Arms!

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How to Maintain Love in the Face of Stress

 

By Keston and Andrea Ott-Dahl, authors of Saving Delaney.

love vs stress

 

The kids are fighting with each other and trying to get our attention to tell on the other, the baby is sitting on the top of the dining room table holding the salt shaker upside down (very amused and laughing as all the salt is pouring off the table and onto the floor), our big dog Joplin is freaking out as she is creating a ruckus trying to squeeze out the dog door and can’t fit because she has the kitchen trash can lid around her neck (all the kitchen trash is scattered on the floor) and our little dog Molly is in a barking match with the neighbors dog!  By the way, the TV is blaring cartoons in the background.

Meanwhile, Andrea and I have to work, cook dinner, clean house, drive carpool to school, dance and theater lessons not to mention the baby’s three therapies every week! Oh, and we have our blog deadlines that must be done by Monday.

This scene is the norm at almost any given hour at the Ott-Dahl house!  Sounds chaotic, and trust us — it is!   It would be so easy to get lost in our daily grinds and unconsciously begin neglecting our relationship – we are not perfect. There are times when we have to put ourselves and our relationship “in check.”

The bottom line is we know we have a good thing and do not want to lose what we have, but it takes commitment and work. Our established family routines, traditions and rules help.  They not only make things predictable and fun for the kids, but also ensures that we get our adult time, the coveted hours for just us.

Where do we find time for each other, for love and for sex?    The majority of our time spent is “family time” or “work time,”, but we make sure that we have the time to connect with each other.

These are some of the things we do to keep our love fresh and alive!

  1. We are committed. The first fast hard rule is that we are committed to making our relationship a priority. We never give up, we know the grass isn’t greener on the other side and we both are on the same page.

  1. We have an amazing sex life!  While fatigue wins over our moods at times, we rarely go for more than a week without sex.

I just can’t stress enough (which is why we list romantic sex as  #2, even though I believe it runs a close tie with #1) how important romantic connection is especially during sex.  You MUST make time for it and I am not talking about just going through the motions of having sex, but going through the E-motions of having sex. Connect.

While the term making love may seem corny, it’s corn that keeps the spark in relationships.

If things seem to become mundane, we mix it up – take a trip to Good Vibes (a female friendly sex toy shop), spend a weekend away, read erotica to each other or just get silly and get playful.

  1. We understand and practice the Five Languages of Love.  Andrea and I practice Gary Chapman’s Five Languages of Love.  It’s easy! We know what each other needs to feel fulfilled and loved. Whether it’s Words of Affirmation, Acts of Service, Gifts, Quality Time or Physical Touch we take steps to make sure the others “love bucket” is filled.

And guess what, it’s OK to ask, “How is your love bucket today Babe? What do you need to fill your love bucket?”  I know this sounds silly, but it can be so important for your relationship. Especially if you have gotten yourselves stuck in a rut, are having communication breakdowns or find yourselves lacking fulfillment.

  1. We are committed to having “Date Nights” or a monthly “Get-A-Way”.  We never stop “dating” each other. This is our favorite!  We typically plan a date night at least once a month when the kids spend the night with their grandparents or friends.

We are on a fixed income and extremely frugal, so Andrea scours the Internet for local deals on Yelp, Groupon or from one of our frequent member clubs.

Our favorite is our hotel getaways. We typically do not drive more than an hour away, but our nights away staying at a hotel near San Francisco or near a beach seem like we are as far away as Hawaii!  Sometimes we never even leave the hotel.

Some of our favorite dates have been: wine tasting, using buy-one-get-one free restaurant vouchers, hikes up in Tilden Park and romantic nights on our own private island on our houseboat (sounds luxurious doesn’t it?  Remember I said we are frugal? We traded an old jet ski for the houseboat, fixed it up and now we have a vacation home out on the California Delta).
Next we are planning on a painting class!

  1. We have our kids (if you have them) on routines, routines  routines!  Our time is our time and the kids know this.  After dinner the older kids have their “personal down time” which means they can watch TV for an hour and then its reading or playing on their own until bed time. They know to leave us to unwind after dinner. It’s a coveted rule in our house.

And the baby?  The baby usually falls asleep around 7:30 so that leaves plenty of time for “us,” that is if we are not too tired.

Even just spending time together; watching a movie, holding hands, cuddling on the couch while drinking a glass of wine or eating one of Andrea’s favorite desserts (she is a dessert-a-holic) just the two of us helps us stay connected.

  1. We accept each other “as is.”  It’s not possible to love everything about your partner;  they are messy – you are neat, she works too many hours, has a mullet, picks her nose in public – whatever!

As long as our actions or tendencies are not disrespectful to our relationship we embrace – unconditionally—the overall “package” that is our partner. This may mean shifting your focus away from your partner’s imperfections and towards the qualities you like and appreciate.

  1. We work on projects together.  We love accomplishing our goals!  Together we are a powerful team and one of our favorite things to do together is to work on projects. Whether it be tiling our kitchen, painting our bedroom or building a play structure (by the way we found one for FREE on Craigslist) we always have a sense of “togetherness” and team when we complete our projects.  Projects actually DO bring us closer together.

Look, relationships ebb and flow. There is a reason long term couples describe their marriages as hard work. It’s not always going to be easy, we all go through hard times but remaining committed to not just staying together but “staying in love” can be very rewarding.

Every couple goes through trials and tribulations – I call it “storming to norming”.

What matters most is how you work together to stay connected and strong.

Keston and Andrea Ott-Dahl are the authors of Saving Delaney, the true story of how they became parents “by accident” to a very special girl with Down syndrome. Saving Delaney comes out April 12th and can be pre-ordered here. 

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What do you do when bad things happen?

 

New from Viva Editions, When Bad Things Happen to Good Women is a guide to dealing with all of life’s tragedies, from losing a job, to house destruction from natural disasters, or deaths in the family. Carole Brody Fleet, an expert on grief and the author of two previous books, explains the best way to deal with over 40 common situations, and also tells you how to comfort those around you who may be experiencing these events.

when bad things happen to good women

 


Excerpt:

Beginning a book of this sort with a chapter intended for people not directly affected by a bad thing is kind of like trying to frost a cake that has not been baked—you just don’t do it that way. However, I also believe that the more urgent a message, the sooner it needs to be heard. So as I am wont to do, I am breaking from convention by beginning with a chapter dedicated to the people who surround the “warriors”; the survivors of bad things…loss, life-challenges, adversity and situations that we all dread ever having to face.

We begin with the “Don’ts”:

The Biggest “Don’t-Say”

The absolute, no-doubt-about-it, definitive, number-one thing that you should never say to anyone who has just shared any kind of bad-thing news with you is:

“I know how you feel”
(also occasionally disguised as “I know what you’re going through”)

Little does more harm to a person in need of compassion, sympathy or actual support and help than hearing “I know how you feel” or “I know what you’re going through” from the people around them. A seemingly innocuous phrase, and commonly used in an attempt to relate to the pain of another person, this sentiment has the capacity to create very hard feelings. No one knows how someone else feels, and to say otherwise is presumptuous at best and can be devastatingly hurtful at worst.

Let’s explore the reasons why this phrase needs to be immediately eliminated from our sympathy lingo and blasted off of the planet (along with phrases like, “Aren’t you over it yet?” and “Everything happens for a reason,” both of which you will see recurring many times throughout this book).

Reason # 1

It is not your turn. Leave the spotlight where it belongs.

I have spent many years in service to the bereaved. I have written about, been interviewed regarding and spoken about a wide variety of loss and life-challenge experiences at great length. The stories that I have heard are countless. Moreover, when it comes to loss and life-challenge, I unfortunately also have a great deal of personal insight and experience (that includes widowhood); far too much overall for my liking.

It might then surprise you to learn that not once have I ever looked at anyone who shares their story of loss or challenge and responded with, “I know how you feel.”

Why?

Regardless of whatever news has just been shared, whether you have been through the same or similar experience or not, the minute you say, “I know how you feel,” you will inevitably follow those words with, “because I…” and then you are then likely to fill in the blank with your own tale(s) of woe. There is then an unspoken and automatic shift in the focus of the conversation and the person who has just come to you in need of sympathy, compassion, advice or perhaps just a shoulder to lean on is now being forced to focus on your story, your feelings and how you were affected by your situation. Whether intended or not, the emphasis is now on you and at this particular moment in time, the emphasis is misplaced. It is not about you right now. The focus needs to remain on the person who has opened a conversation with bad-thing news and is looking to you for compassion and reassurance. They should not have to be in the position of consoling you. Leave the spot-light where it belongs—on the person in immediate need.

Reason #2

Most of us have experienced at least one traumatic or challenging situation in our lives. While you may think that you are compassionately empathizing with someone by letting them know that you have had what you perceive to be a similar experience, what you may be unintentionally doing is trivializing their loss experience by making impossible comparisons. For example, imagine the horror of a mother who had recently lost her young child and in the guise of consolation, was told, “I know exactly how you feel because that’s how I felt when my [105-year-old] great-aunt died.” While the loss of a 105-year-old great-aunt is sad and the loss should be mourned, this is not only a violation of the spotlight-shifting rule, you cannot and should not compare loss experiences—particularly those that are simply incomparable.

Reason #3

You are you

As stated earlier, I will never, ever look another widow in the eye and say, “I know how you feel,” even if that widow lost her husband to the same illness as the one that claimed my husband’s life. I will never look at someone who has lost their father and say, “I know how you feel,” even if they lost their father. You really can’t compare apples to oranges (…or one situation to another situation)to cancer mere months after they lost their husband, as I did. I will never look at someone who had to euthanize a beloved pet and say, “I know how you feel,” even though, like so many, I too have taken part in this very sad good- bye process with our own furry family members. I have had every single one of these experiences (and then some), yet I refuse to utter that phrase. Why?

Because I am not the other person who is sharing their life challenge or loss experience. I am me. I am individual. I am unique.

(…And the world breathes a collective sigh of relief.)

If I am unique, it then follows that everything surrounding my experiences is unique. Even if I have lost a loved one, a job, a relationship or anything else in what appears to be the exact same manner as another person, the fact is that my circumstances, the people who surround me, my reactions and my relationships to what has been lost or challenged are each unique. So how can anyone else know how I feel? How can I know how someone else feels during their time of loss, when their own loss experience is unique and individual to them?

It’s impossible.

~

Order the book here!

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April Cleis Press Book Release!

 

April showers bring May flowers…and also an inspiring new Cleis book!

Saving Delaney Cover

Saving Delaney is the heartwarming true story of a special needs baby and the unconventional family who fought for her right to live. Andrea Ott-Dahl, with support from her partner Keston Ott-Dahl and their two children, agreed to act as a pregnancy surrogate for a wealthy Silicon Valley couple. When pre-natal testing revealed the baby would be born with Down Syndrome, Andrea was urged to abort the child. Instead, the Ott-Dahls chose to adopt and raise the daughter they would call Delaney, navigating legal, medical and emotional challenges. Despite heart surgery and an array of other challenges, Delaney is alive, thriving, and an inspiration to every loving parent on the planet.

Saving Delaney comes out on April 12th!
Click here to pre-order the book. 

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