Lucrezia Magazine

In the last five to seven years, charity anthologies have gone the same way of charity calendars, gaining in popularity, to serve many charities. From Hurricane Katrina to War Child, Breast cancer to AIDS, charity anthologies tend to focus on certain genres, inviting writers to take part to raise social awareness and funds. Initially doubted by large publishers, charity anthologies like Girls Night In (1 and 2), Gentleman by Invitation, Big Night Out and Kids Night In, have raised substantial amounts for charities such as War Child. New Beginnings, spearheaded by UK literary agent Jonny Geller in conjunction with Bloomsbury, gathered the world's noted fiction writers to provide their first chapters, to raise money for the ACEH Tsunami.

Anthologies may not be bread and butter for large print publishers, and some literary critics may take a negative view, but the fact remains: anthologies do enable new writers to step out. The first steps to publication are rarely paved in gold. That being said, anthologies do enable new writers to step out in style and possibly reach a wider audience.

What about erotica and its place within the mainstream anthology market?

Erotica discusses many themes that are prevalent within society: love, attraction, uncertainty, infatuation, passion, lust and futility, scratch the surface. Bethanne Kelly Patrick's article in Publisher's Weekly (Publisher's Weekly July 2007) traces the evolution of erotica, from secret 'pillow book' to artsy mainstream package.

For those of us online, who have traversed online erotic fiction as writers or readers, we are familiar with the editor of a collection of erotic anthologies for various charities. Alessia Brio's upcoming anthology, Coming Together: With Pride, will focus on raising funds for international AIDS charity AVERT. It's my pleasure to introduce new readers to Alessia Brio, and shower her with questions about this upcoming volume and her Coming Together series.

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Q: Firstly, I'd like to welcome you to Lucrezia Magazine, and tell you that it's a pleasure to highlight this upcoming anthology. You have published numerous anthologies in the Coming Together series, and have stated (in other interviews) that it is a labor of love. What was the germinating seed or starting point for this series? What made you decide: Right, I'm doing this.

Alessia: Thanks. It's an honor and a pleasure to have Coming Together highlighted in Lucrezia Magazine!

Since its inception, there have been several "Right, I'm doing this" points along Coming Together's path. First, in early 2005, was the communal decision to pull our work together and publish it. The genesis group was all, at that time, amateur. Some aspired to professional publication. Others, self included, had a rather cavalier attitude about it. When the project took on a charitable focus, the enthusiasm seemed to grow exponentially. The altruistic took precedence over the egotistic, in a manner of speaking, and everyone "came together" seamlessly. All decisions were made as a group, from contents to cover art. While I was a focal point for collating the work into publishable manuscripts, I was not its editor per se.

The next such point was more personal. After we self-published the first three volumes (v1, v2, and the Special Hurricane Relief Edition), the collective energy behind the project seemed to wane. I and a few of the other participants tried to revive it, but for one reason or another, it'd lost its oomph. The next volume we published (v3) was very difficult to assemble. The workload fell to just a few dedicated individuals. A beloved colleague's untimely death brought new energy as we pulled together a collection of her work (Special Memorial Edition: Colleen Thomas) to benefit a hospice selected by her partner, but it wasn't sustained. That's when I decided to assume the mantle of editor and forge ahead. It was a bloodless coup. *wink* In other words, no one raised a fuss.

Moving forward, it was an easy decision to approach my primary publisher (Phaze) with a proposal to contract the Special Hurricane Relief Edition. Things just kind of snowballed from there. Charles River Press picked up the early volumes. Phaze has supported a host of submission calls for new editions. These days, while I still have a small cadre of the original group who are very helpful, I'm pretty much running the show. Coming Together has grown way beyond its original borders on the Literotica Authors Hangout. The next point on the "Right, I'm doing this" path involves incorporating and filing for tax exempt status with the IRS. That will open up a world of potential grants so that Coming Together can do more good for more people.

Q: HIV and AIDS have been part of our society for the last twenty-five years, and current research on vaccines has not produced any cure, so there has been a stronger focus on prevention. Some may say that erotic fiction may conflict with safe sex practices, due to absence of safe sex practices within most erotic stories. What would you say to this?

Alessia:Valid concerns, of course. Coming Together has, since its very first publication, included a statement which reads:

Please note that Coming Together contains works of fiction in which the characters may not practice safe sex. Readers are encouraged to act responsibly and to take appropriate precautions against both unwanted pregnancy and the transmission of disease. For resources and frank discussion about safe sex practices, please visit the Coalition for Positive Sexuality.
It's in each volume as well as on the website and blog.

Personally, while I understand that erotic fantasy often relies on spontaneity and a somewhat kamikaze approach to passion, I think the story and its characters dictate the use (or omission) of safe sex practices. My partner & I recently finished a two-book series featuring a very sexually promiscuous protagonist. She insisted on condom use -- always. I don't believe it detracted from the story at all. In fact, I think it's hotter as a result. On the flip side, I am currently working on an urban fantasy in which my protagonist has a devil-may-care attitude about her life. She will not be practicing safe sex in any sense of the word. It's true to character. When writing a character that some readers may find admirable and seek to emulate, things could get a little fuzzier. Conversely, with "stroke" (erotica that simply intends to sexually stimulate the reader), there is little in the way of character development or story arc. Safe sex practices are not a common occurrence. It's like reading porn instead of watching it, and it definitely has its place on the playground of our imaginations.

Q: It's an interesting point you mention, the absence of safe sex practices with erotica aimed at sexual titillation. I've found that it also features in character driven erotica, where the character's issues or questions tend to dominate, and how sexual encounters or sexual situations act to resolve a situation. Which prompts me to ask how you initially approached submissions for Coming Together: With Pride. There would naturally be many lesbian/homosexual relationships that are monogamous, where the safe sex issue wouldn't be a mandatory exercise, and although HIV/AIDS is the charity the anthology focuses on, there is also a secondary message behind this anthology, that of GLBT relationships being relationships like any other, which is a positive thing. Do you feel that even now, especially during the presidential race that people still have to fight for their basic right to have relationships the way they want, based on what the few conservative nominees have said or implied about same-sex relationships?

Alessia: The approach to With Pride, as with every volume of Coming Together, has been to embrace all consenting adult relationships as equal and valid. The submission call for With Pride didn't specifically ask for GLBT content. I wouldn't condone that any more than I would send out a submission call restricted to one ethnic group. (The only volume with such an exclusive focus is the Special Memorial Edition I mentioned earlier, and that was because Colleen Thomas only wrote lesbian erotic fiction.) Although the title and cover art did attract a lot of GLBT submissions, there is heterosexual content as well. Sex is humanity's greatest equalizer, and its potential to unite is unbounded. I absolutely refuse to use it to divide – unlike some of those conservative nominees you referenced.

The waters get muddy when you speak of "basic rights" because all rights are arbitrary social/cultural constructs. Rights are bestowed by governments, some through democratic process. No matter how much we'd like to believe otherwise, there are no "God-given" rights. I mean, whose god gave them? It's rather arrogant to assume my deity of choice trumps everyone else's. That would be like someone saying that gay couple down the street was inferior because of their... Oh, wait. Nevermind.

Anyway... The closest we can come is the adoption of a set of rights that have the broadest possible scope & appeal -- such as the United Nation's Universal Declaration of Human Rights. And in spite of such things, people are still persecuted for their differences rather than celebrated for their similarities. There's a whole steaming pile of lip service being dropped in the name of equality, and no one's shoveling fast enough to keep up with it. In Coming Together's little corner of the world, we're doing our damnedest to actually practice what we preach.

Q: It has become a question of whose (God's) rights, and I personally feel that many political candidates are ignoring other issues around the world, using sexuality as a draw card because it works on the lowest common denominator: sensationalism. Most politicians refuse to acknowledge the importance of sexual health around the world, in that (for example) many western nation require healthy citizens from other countries for imports, manufacturing and so on, and they don't think ahead to discuss issues like how HIV/AIDS is affecting large continents, as well as the economic future of these continents, economies which will affect the stability of other larger economies that are reliant on trade, manufacturing and possibly primary (agriculture) industry in the current environmental climate. So, how frustrating do you find it, for example, to possibly experience discrimination due to erotic content and so on. I know, from experience, that there are many writers who won't own up to writing erotica. A recent article here in Australia (New Woman Magazine, 2007), discussing the rise of erotica as a market, had an interesting comment made by a representative of the Curtis Brown Literary Agency, who hinted of a project (as yet unnamed) being put together for a larger publisher, and that the contributors would be 'name' authors, or mainstream authors writing under pseudonyms, something that I see as a cop-out because there are plenty of writers who specialize in erotica, who are frank and open about their writings. You earlier mentioned adding a tax-exempt status for the books for the IRS, which would open the doors to grants enabling these anthologies (I'm guessing) to be marketed on a larger level. Once the tax-exempt status is done, what are the next steps. Which agencies/organizations would you approach/work with to make --what I think is a common wish for erotica writers – erotica an accepted medium? (That's not to say it's not accepted, but in light of larger literary agents using 'anonymous' big name writers to write sex, the view of sex/erotica being controversial, there is still a 'dirty' note attached to sex).