1. Jeremy Edwards, let’s talk about being a guy in the erotica field — there aren’t a ton of you. Is there a secret club for male erotica authors, or do you get to slip on heels and sit at the girls’ table?  

I sit *on* the girls’ table. They like to eat sushi off my body.

2. Your erotica has been described as sweetly and humorously sexy, which seems like a rarity. Did you choose that tone, or did it choose you? 

My tastes, both as a reader and as a writer, have always been in that vein. So maybe it’s a chicken-and-egg question. I love chicken-and-egg questions, don’t you? (And *that’s* a chicken-and-egg-question question.)

3. Define erotocomic. Did you make that word up or does it have a history? 

I began using “erotocomedic” when my first novel was published, because the book truly was both a comic novel and an erotic novel. Wit and humor have always played an important role in my erotic short stories, but Rock My Socks Off (and then The Pleasure Dial) went beyond that in the sense that the plot, dialogue, and dramatis personae largely hinged on comedic devices.

Did I coin the term? Well, yes, in the sense that I hadn’t encountered it before; and though a Web search will occasionally bring up a non-Jeremy Edwards reference (for example, someone reviewing a movie and alluding to one scene that has an “eroto-comedic” effect), the hits overwhelmingly link the term to my work. So I may not have been the first to use this term, but it’s likely I’ve been the first to give the word sustained use and employ it to label a subgenre of literature. Of course, that doesn’t mean no one’s ever written an erotocomedic novel before–just that it wasn’t described that way.

4. Your new book is “The Pleasure Dial.” What is your pleasure dial? 

Though the “pleasure dial” in my book is an image that draws on radio hardware, my personal pleasure dial is more like a thermostat. In fact, just the word “Honeywell” prompts a rise in my… temperature.

5. What are your four tips for writing hot sex?

1. Establish the chemistry first. This can mean many pages of showing the characters developing a bond or seducing each other… or it can be just a paragraph in which we see something spark.

2. Keep your ear on the rhythm of your prose. All writers are poets, in a sense; and rhythm is of course a vital part of what gives good sexual interactions their magic.

3. Stay in the driver’s seat as far as vocabulary is concerned: don’t automatically go with the first word that comes to mind. Is there a better word to plug into a particular sentence? A more evocative one? A less overused one? The erotic impact of your scene will be greater if your words surprise and delight the reader with the fresh, sensual imagery they convey, rather than plodding along predictable paths.

4. Make your details count. Some great sex scenes have a rich carpet of precise detail, and other great sex scenes play out in a sparser or more impressionistic style. If you’re doing the former, make sure your narratorial voice clearly guides the reader through from foreplay to climaxes, so that the lushness points somewhere rather than becoming a jungle to get bogged down in. If the latter, make sure those choice few details pull their weight in terms of their effectiveness.

6.  What are your four tips for -having- hot sex?

1. Communicate.

2. Relax.

3. Be spontaneous.

4. But don’t be afraid to plan sexual adventures with your partner(s), to help make them really happen.

7. It’s winter. What’s the perfect hat for an erotic author? 

Hmm… something with a feather could come in handy.

8. Are yum-yum trails in this season? Or do you sport one despite the current fashion? 

Fashion, be damned! It took me nearly a half century to grow that, so I’m clinging to it for all I’m worth. (Who knows, in another twenty-five years, I may be able to raise a mustache. And, of course, lower it again.)

9. If someone was going to buy just one e-book of yours, which one would you recommend? Why? Can you give us a short, tantalizing excerpt of said
book?

At the moment I’m very excited about The Pleasure Dial: An Erotocomedic Novel of Old-Time Radio, because it combines my love of erotocomedy with a vicarious experience of the life of witty radio writers in Hollywood’s golden age. Here’s a taste:

At the end of the show, the front-of-stage curtain closed. While the audience applauded with vigor, the cast dispersed for the intershow break; only Elyse remained onstage.

“I wonder what she’s doing,” said Artie. The cast and crew had vacated the wings as well for the time being, leaving Artie and Mariel alone there.

Elyse, script still in hand, was backing toward the rear-of-stage curtain. She glanced behind her momentarily when she reached the wall, verifying that she was aligned with the invisible boundary where the two halves of the curtain met. Then she dropped the script and faced forward again, putting her hands on her knees and pointing her ass backward.

“Sexy,” mumbled Artie.

Mariel’s hand had entered his trousers at the waist. Now she hooked her fingers down into his briefs, and his cock, making its initial curve toward his latest erection, swept up to meet them, playing host to the guests in his underwear.

“Look!” Mariel said suddenly.

A figure was emerging from behind the curtain—Mickey.

As had clearly been arranged beforehand, he seated himself under Elyse, who widened her stance to make room for him. While Artie and Mariel looked on with interest, Mickey reached up to finger the star’s pussy—a pussy that they knew, courtesy of the fragrant evidence still in Artie’s pocket, to be gloriously naked beneath the skirt.

After a minute, Mickey scooted down further, pulling Elyse downward with him so that she straddled his face in a close thigh hug.

“See,” whispered Mariel, “I told you he was keeping a low profile.”

The face of Elyse Heffernan being tongued to orgasm by the head-giving head writer had to be the most compelling thing that had ever appeared on this stage, thought Artie. Elyse, one could tell, approached every climax with the control and self-assurance with which a painter approached a blank canvas. The artistic mastery expressed in her face was overlaid with sensory pleasure, burgeoning arousal, and erotic anticipation—hers was the fiery-eyed face of a genius watching her creation come to life, exactly as she had envisioned it.

As Artie watched the star’s tongue glide over her lipstick and her nostrils flare with stately sensuality and her cheeks flush the prettiest nipple pink, his cock danced in Mariel’s grip. And though the portrait of ecstatic womanhood he was studying was a portrait of Elyse, the aroma of aroused womanhood enveloping him was the aroma of Mariel. And when he and Elyse came, together but separately, his orgasm pointed toward one thing: making Mariel come just as hard.

She withdrew her hand from Artie’s shorts and wiped it dry on the fabric.

“Come on,” he said, wrapping his own hand around the still-slightly-sticky feminine fingers.

He led her into the corridor and toward a small office that Mickey had shown him earlier, which, though unoccupied after business hours, was left unlocked in case anyone needed pads, pencils, and the like.

“Need any pads or pencils?” asked Artie, after they’d locked the door.

“I need a pencil, all right,” said Mariel. “A big, fat, jumbo pencil right up my—”

Before she could even finish the line, he had her bent over a desk. “Hold that thought—and that position,” he said. Then he crouched down to slide her panties off, kissing her liberally on her stockinged calves while he lifted one Mariel foot, then the other, to remove her pussy-painted underpants.

“’Lyse left, Marry right,” he said to himself mnemonically, situating Mariel’s panties in the jacket pocket not occupied by those of their friend. Then he moved on to the trouser pocket that held the nearest rubber.

She wiggled her derriere; he lifted her skirt and stroked her pouting lips, feeling how ready she was. She turned her head to watch him, her mouth open with want, as he outfitted himself with the condom. Then he braced himself on her hip and plunged in, letting her feel every bit of him sinking into her tunnel. He groped her adorable ass while they fucked.

“I . . . love . . . you,” he chanted, riding the rhythm of his own thrusts.

“Ohhhhhhhh,” was all Mariel could manage. But he knew what she meant.

He bounced against her bottom. He fingered her lips where they ringed his cock, then spread her juices to her clit. The stiff little button became his entire focus, and he swirled the honey onto, over, under, and around it until he felt her cunt clenching in what could only be the uncontrolled spasms of climaxing woman. He danced with Mariel, pelvis to ass-cheeks, to wallow along with her, his modest dose of second-round spunk stuttering into the rubber deep inside her.

Their breathing filled the soundscape of the little office for several minutes as they recovered from the romp.

“What do you say we get a bite to eat?” Mariel suggested after a while. “We still have a couple of hours before the West Coast broadcast. I can’t wait to do everything all over again!”

“Every bit of it?” grinned Artie.

“Every bit of it,” answered Mariel.

10. How would you describe yourself in six words?

Lover of wit, beauty, playfulness, kindness.

11. What is the question no one’s ever asked, but you wish they would?

Q. Jeremy, you describe yourself as a feminist. How do you, personally, define feminism?

A. Yes, you could say I’ve long been a “card-carrying feminist.” (Boy feminists get blue cards rather than pink ones. Kidding.) In my view, a feminist is someone who (a) believes that women should have rights, opportunities, access, compensation, and respect fully equal to those of men, not only in theory but in reality, and not only in the eyes of the law but in the purview of society at large; and (b) recognizes that “a” has not yet been achieved, and that consequently advocacy and activism are not only appropriate but vital in this area.

12. If you could ask any erotic writer a question, who would it be and what would you ask? 

To Whom It May Concern: Shall I get dressed now, or did you want more sushi?

 ~

ABOUT JEREMY EDWARDS

Jeremy Edwards is the author of the erotocomedic novel Rock My Socks Off and the erotic story collection Spark My Moment (both published by Xcite Books). His short stories have been widely published online, as well as in over fifty anthologies, including three volumes in the Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica series.

Jeremy’s work explores sex in its sunniest form. His explicit, quirky fiction celebrates joyful sensuality, libidinous urgency, offbeat romanticism, and the pleasures of language and laughter, with the focus on cerebral, sexually self-aware women and the men and women who adore them. His greatest goal in life is to be sexy and witty at the same moment—ideally in lighting that flatters his profile. Readers can drop in on him unannounced (and thereby catch him in his underwear) at www.jeremyedwardserotica.com