Fiona Zedde

March 2012 Newsletter

2012-03-01T12:50:00.000-05:00

I love cherries! I also love carbs. For part of January and most of February, I followed through on a 30-day no carb challenge. It was particularly rough at the Super Bowl party - chips, chocolate cake, rice and peas. The agony! But I lived through it, hopefully wiser about my carb intake. I don't HAVE to eat an entire bowl of white rice with melted butter and a side of hot coco bread. Delicious, but not necessary.

Even with my no-carb suffering, I had hoped to finish up the novella, Nightshade, and have it ready by today. But I've been having some cover issues and hope they will be resolved soon so the book can go up on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, etc. in the next couple of weeks. Look out for it!

Enjoy your March and the melting away of winter. May the spirit of Spring come to you early and often until we connect again.

- Fiona

To read the rest of the March 2012 Newsletter, including the hot short, click here.

February 2012 Newsletter

2012-02-01T16:16:00.001-05:00

Welcome to February, the month of Black History and Love. There are many good things to look forward to -- chocolates, super bowl parties, sunsets on the beach -- even as we step away from a January filled with the unimaginable -- Atlanta's Outwrite Books closing, Susan G. Komen pulling funding from Planned Parenthood.

In writing news, my new book will hit the (digital) shelves at the end of the month. That book, Nightshade, is a novella and features my favorite assassin, Wynne.Nightshade will be available as an ebook first and then in hard copy editions from your favorite bookstores in persona and online. Keep an eye on my website (www.fionazedde.com) and future newsletters for more information.

Blessings and love!
- Fiona

(art by James Loveless)

January 2012 Newsletter

2012-01-17T10:20:00.001-05:00

Welcome to 2012! A new year and a chance to be an even better you or, at very least, to pursue your happiness more fiercely and taste all the honey this life has to offer.

I spent Christmas with a set of star-shaped lights I bought in Jamaica over seven years ago, happy to see them still working after all this time. I love Christmas lights! Watching the lights wink on and off in their own particular rhythm reminded me of spending evenings in my old Atlanta apartment sipping merlot while the yellow, blue, green, and red lights bathed my otherwise dark living room in color. It's the little things.

Have a beautiful 2012. May it be as wonderful as last year but filled with even more positive changes, more love, and more happiness.

- Fiona

To see the rest of the newsletter, click here.

December 2011 Newsletter

2012-01-17T10:18:00.001-05:00

December Greetings!

First, I'd like to send out special holiday love to the soldiers serving abroad this holiday and away from their beloveds and friends. Stay safe, be strong, and come back to us soon.

Also, a big welcome to my new newsletter subscribers. Thank you for clicking that "subscribe" button or for reaching out to me with a personal email or message. I very much appreciate the time you take to read my notes and to respond.

During this season of giving and receiving, I find myself thankful for the things I already have. In the words of a tiny prayer I said as a child in Jamaica, I remain thankful for "health and strength and the food we are about to eat. Amen!" Also for the friends and family and other ships passing by in the night who have made this life more than bearable.

My body does most things I ask of it, I am thankful.
The sun is shining outside my window, I am thankful.
Strangers reach out to me in friendship and goodwill, I am thankful.

Have a beautiful December!

To read the rest of the newsletter, click here.

November 2011 Newsletter

2012-01-17T10:14:00.002-05:00

The Fall has settled firmly around my shoulders here in London. Leaves are on the ground, coats and gloves are on, caps pulled firmly down over the ears. And with that, it's time for me to head back home to the States.

It's been a fabulous two months. The readings in Birmingham and London were amazing, attended by an interested, questioning, and lively audience that I was absolutely thrilled to have. Between the readings and writing, I was able to fly off to Paris, Brighton, and Oxford as well as see most of the touristy parts of London. All in all, a good visit.

Now, with November's arrival, it's time to get cozy with my well-missed beloveds and reconnect with all things home and hearth. Enjoy your own family reconnections this month as Thanksgiving arrives. Keep warm. Give thanks and always be open to receive them.

- Fiona

To see the rest of the newsletter, click here.

October 2011 Newsletter

2012-01-17T10:10:00.003-05:00

I'm off and traveling! It's been a whirlwind of a time here in England. Seeing the sights. Writing. Meeting new people. Dancing until 4 a.m. Eating fish and chips. It continues with two official readings - one in Birmingham and another in London - within the next few weeks as well as a few unofficial visits to open mics around the city.

To continue the theme of travel, this month's "Hot Shorts" features my favorite assassin, Wynne (somewhat aged from her last appearance in my fiction) on holiday. Hope you enjoy that tiny peek into her life.

Hugs to you from across the seas!

- Fiona

For the complete newsletter, click here.

September 2011 Newsletter

2012-01-17T09:40:00.002-05:00

As summer draws to a close, I find myself increasingly grateful for the deep Florida warmth that lingers with beach days and moonlit, picnic nights long after Autumn wraps us all in its particular colors.

I'd wanted to go to the beach and sip rum runners while my toes curl in the warm sand. But time is not on my side. Instead, I'll be heading to Atlanta for Labor Day Weekend Events then off to Europe for two months to do writing and book signing and research. Warm Florida beach days and nights will be here for me when I get back. I hope.

Happy reading and loving until next time!

See the complete newsletter here.

Summer Greetings XOX!

2011-08-09T11:13:00.000-05:00

Summer greetings!

(AzMarie)

Where has the time gone? I feel like every time I sit down to write a letter or email or note, I'm always saying how much time has flown. Maybe that means I need to slow my own life down in order to appreciate the things that are otherwise passing by. Sunrises. Sunsets. Crepe myrtle blossoms swirling past in the rain. The smile of a pretty girl.

Winged time aside, July was a beautiful month. Filled with the fury of moving to a new place, a trip to New York for the Harlem Book Fair, and the debut of my new Young Adult book, Dreaming in Color. New York was hot and wonderful. I ate too much and too richly but plan on jumping in the pool to get rid of all the weight I'm sure I gained in those few days.

August won't be as busy as July. Only a few trips away from home - St. Louis for its annual Black Gay Pride just before I head to Atlanta for Black Pride and the Decatur Book Festival in September. Gotta love the frequent flier miles!

Those of you on the road this summer, please share your stories. I love tales of the road and travel - hot air balloon, trains, bicycles, and otherwise. Travel safe, keep cool in this heat and talk with you next time.

- Fiona

To see the rest of my August newsletter, go to the link HERE.

Juicy July!

2011-08-09T11:10:00.000-05:00

July is already shaping up to be a very busy month. Between moving, book signings, script-writing, research in New York, and friends in town, I'll be flying all month. But being busy is a good thing, I always say. Better than being bored and waiting for life to happen.

One of the big things about July is the debut of my Young Adult novel, Dreaming in Color, which I've written under the name "Fiona Lewis." To pre-order the book from amazon.com or just take a peek and see what it's all about, see the site here: http://amzn.to/lqyCDi

I'm particularly excited about the book since it's writing in a genre I've never tried before. It's a story about Jamaican youth and assimilation with a bit of queerness on the side. I'm looking forward to getting feedback on it.

Cool kisses and love to you in this, the hottest month of the year. And whether your July is hurricane busy or easy breezy, enjoy and talk with you next time!

- Fiona

See the rest of the July newsletter here: http://bit.ly/itrV9O

June Greetings!

2011-06-07T09:25:00.000-05:00

It was a beautiful May. One of the best times in Florida when the breeze has a touch of coolness to it in the mornings and evenings, when the heat is not so hot, and you can enjoy the southern sun without melting into a puddle on the sidewalk. Perfect for porch sitting.

In this lovely month, I had the pleasure of going to two wonderful conferences: Saints and Sinners Literary Festival in New Orleans and the M.A.L.I. Conference in Austin, Texas. At both I felt absolutely energized by my contact with proudly fabulous artists doing it and doing it well.

Now I'm back home delving into a new project and finishing up with another - sometimes from the porch.

Also, in the past few months, I've had several new subscribers. Thank you all and welcome. Thank you for buying the books and spreading the word about the characters and stories you love so much. Your time and support are SO very appreciated.

Have a beautiful June and be well.

- Fiona

To see the rest of the June newsletter, click HERE.

Open for Business!

2011-05-01T18:35:00.000-05:00

After months of trying to figure out the problem of adding a new shopping cart to my already new website, the miraculous happened - I was handed a beautifully simple solution. Paypal!

So now, readers and gift-givers can log onto my website to purchase signed and personalized copies of any and all of my books. To make a purchase, simply go tohttp://fionazedde.com/fiction.html and click on the book you want. Items ship the same day the order is received - if before 5 PM - and take three to five days to arrive.

Happy Shopping!

May Newsletter

2011-04-30T18:33:00.000-05:00

I can't believe May is here already! Where does the time go and why? My challenge to write a book in two months - the loss of 70 pages of Nuria's story not withstanding - was a bust. I got some marvelous page numbers in but am not at all where I envisioned myself at the end of the challenge. Ah well, on to the next thing!

Talking with a new friend this afternoon at lunch, I realized part of the problem is I was reading too much (at all?) while on my writing challenge. I finished reading two books and am tempted to start a third. But there are things to be done if I'm to have my next book in hand (or eReader) by next year this time.

My new challenge for the next few months - write, don't read. Wish me luck.

Hugs and happy reading!

- Fiona

To view the entire newsletter, click the link below.

http://www.mynewsletterbuilder.com/email/newsletter/1410847881

A kick-ass review of my new book, Dangerous Pleasures, from CherryGRRL!

2011-04-01T13:57:00.000-05:00

"In a phenomenally written novel that literally had me at the edge of my seat, Fiona Zedde blends two of the greatest genres, suspense and romance, to create a story so riveting and compelling that it renders the reader incapable of setting the book down.Dangerous Pleasures ignites the fire and passion that’s found in unbridled and wild physical encounters, soothes the soul with friendly banter and lasting love, and opens up the dangerous world of the unknown, all within the space of less than 300 pages."

Read the rest of the review here: http://cherrygrrl.com/book-review-dangerous-pleasures/

March Newsletter

2011-02-28T18:08:00.000-05:00

It's been a brisk February. Blog tours. Physical tours. Meeting new and old friends. Airplanes. Head colds. And the challenge of squeezing two weeks of clothes into a carry-on bag. All that has come to a close - except for the cold - with March being already here.

In the midst of all this, I decided to dare myself to write a new book in two months as suggested by an article in Psychology Today. The clock doesn't start ticking until I get back home March 2nd but I'm already feeling the heat. Check back with me May 1st to see how I do.

For March, enjoy and make the most of National Women's History and National Poetry Month. Celebrate the female ancestors, write the poetry of your lives.

Until next time!

- Fiona

To see the entire March 2011 newsletter, click here.

My interview with Author, Producer, and Playwright Cheril N. Clarke

2011-02-06T01:06:00.006-05:00

New Jersey based author and playwright, Cheril N. Clarke has a new book coming out this month. I invited her to share about this new project, The Beautiful People: New Orleans.

What is the The Beautiful People about—who are they?

The Beautiful People is a six-part, non-traditional short story series that I’m writing this year exclusively for ereaders. It centers on a core group of four friends who love to travel. They meet up in a different city every other month for a weekend of exploration, fun, partying and a much needed break from the daily grind of their careers.

When you say non-traditional what do you mean?

Well, there is no formal plot. There is no lead character who is trying to overcome an obstacle. Every character is important as they all drive the series. And because each installment is set in a different locale, the cities themselves become a character—adding their own uniqueness to the mix. The Beautiful People is an alluring string of titillating scenes. It’s not erotic, but it has some steamy moments. It’s not a drama, but there will be some spectacles. It’s risky, pushing the boundaries of what people consider “normal,” “good,” “bad,” and even “sexy.” It challenges stereotypes and reminds us that what appears beautiful may indeed be ugly and what we think is ugly may be deceptively stunning. It’s about character and the randomness of life¾our ascensions and our faults.

How is this difference from your previous works?

Aside from what I mentioned above, this is different in that it’s the first time I’ve committed to writing such a long series that, in fact, has the potential to go well beyond six installments if people like it. I would love to have a story set in Shanghai, Johannesburg, Dubai, or Vienna. The Beautiful Peoplereally stands apart because of the possibilities. Unlike any of my previous works, this project will allow me to draw my readers into the world of new, luxe characters as well as exotic locations around the world. It’s also more diverse in terms of gender, ethnicity and sexuality, which is…honest, I guess one could say. Its fluid and not a big deal; it just is what it is without apology.

You haven't written a novel in a while, have you abandoned them for shorter works?

I wouldn’t say that. Novels are still my first love, but at this point in my life I really just wanted to experiment and go in a different direction with my work. I wanted to do something that was challenging that could also keep up with our ever-changing pace of life. These stories are written for the reader who is using an e-reading device and/or their smart phone. It’s good entertainment for the frequent traveler, the mass transit commuter and those who are squeezed for time but miss reading a good story. The installments don’t require a large time commitment but still promises to entertain. I do plan on compiling them at the end of the year and offering them in print format, which will have a few new stories. I promise to get back to novels in 2012/2013. :)

What's next for you and when will The Beautiful People be available?

The next five installments! I actually haven’t written them yet, but I do know where they will take place: Las Vegas, South Beach, New York City, Washington DC and Atlantic City. At the same time, I’m still working on the screenplay for Losing Control, which is based on my fifth novel of the same name. I’m hoping to move into the production phase of that project this year.

The Beautiful People will be available on February 15, 2011. If one doesn’t own a Kindle, Nook, iPad, or Sony ereader, etc., they can still read the stories using Amazon.com’s free app for PCs, Blackberries and Android devices.

Thanks for taking the time to chat with me, Cheril.

Anytime, it’s been quite the pleasure! We should do this more often.

An Interview with Author and Poet, Claudia Moss

2011-02-02T15:53:00.003-05:00

Tell the readers out there about you, some key part of your personality as well as your persona as a writer.

I love the body in motion. I love my body when I am as fluid as the ocean, swaying and twirling, sashaying and spinning, high heeling it in a silky, ruffled-hemmed skirt or prancing sensually under a fan of feathers. Dance energizes me, thrills me. I come alive when my body is free to express itself electrically, so if anyone would ever want to regale me, a word to the listening would be to clear a stage for the marriage of movement, music and me!

When I sit to write or read, I flow freely in another way. As I create, I slip into imaginary worlds and inhale the setting, stand up in the conflict and deeply feel the emotions coursing through my characters. Same as I can dance for hours, I can write twice as long, my body oftentimes complaining under such stillness and mental activity, usually in the heat of the night, all night.

If You Love Me, Come is your second novel. Between your first and a flurry of short stories and poems, there was a ten year gap before this one was published. Why so long a hiatus?

Excellent question, a query I expected only from you. (thoughtful smile) I wrote the first novel while teaching high school English, during the summer months, sitting down to write daily. My baby was kicking and gurgling in his chair at my feet. Hours of quiet were mine for the taking. Consequently, I finished DOLLY: The Memoirs of a High School Graduate amid very little distractions in 1987. Though married at the time, usually, I lived a solitary existence outside of the classroom. In addition, a Sapphic butterfly, I was slowly coming out of the cocoon of my closet, and writing was a vehicle to birth that part of myself.

The more I wrote, the more the closet door opened. Eventually, I started writing my second novel, If You Love Me, Come, and somewhere after less than 100 pages in, my pen sighed, stopped, and ached for validation. That led to me sharing the opening chapters with the librarian at the high school in which I taught. She loved the story, the characters, and she suggested that I send what I had to Marie Dutton Brown, who was highlighted in a feature story in the Atlanta Journal at the time. I took a chance and called Ms. Brown one Sunday. She answered, said she wasn’t accepting new writers. Yet I continued to talk enthusiastically and eventually she reneged, asked to see the first 75 pages. When I finally sent them to her, she loved “the flavor of the South” in the writing and accepted me as a client.

My dream was finally coming into fruition. I could see my name in lights…until a power shortage left me fumbling. Consulting with the College Board, I stopped teaching to write full-time. My marriage crumbled. The closet door creaked closed behind me. And I discovered myself in a place I’d never been before; struggling to survive, I slipped into a deep depression and the novel was no more. Writing shorter, tighter, more intimate, immediate pieces saved me, until I returned to the novel, years later, and finished it to the tune of 600 pages. I sent the work to Ms. Brown, who loved it but directed me to cut it to 300 pages. More years lapsed, what with me thinking I adored the work as it was, and wondering how I could part with words or chapters. While I wavered and procrastinated, life and Ms. Brown moved on.

Eventually when I accomplished the objective, cutting the work to 333 pages, I met with a chilly reception in Ms. Brown’s New York office and was promptly informed me she was not accepting new authors. So I shopped it around in an atmosphere in which publishers were tightening their fiscal belts and met with a stream of rejections. It was a disheartening time, until I began writing for BLACK ROMANCE magazines and interviewed new author, E. Lynn Harris. He, too, had met with rejections on his first manuscript, which led to his decision to self publish, something I didn’t want to do, although my sister Glenda had persistently encouraged me to invest in myself, like Harris did with Invisible Life. The day came when I did precisely what I’d feared, and there was nothing to fear but fear itself.

I’ve read a bit of the novel as well as the synopsis, but tell me in your own words what this new novel about?

If You Love Me, Come is the story of what happens when life takes you to the valley floor and you can make the decision to stay and wallow in your sorrows or go the only way Love beckons you to go: up.

Always when we feel lost, there is someone present, be it a stranger or a loved one, who mysterious appears, and takes us by the hand, encouraging us to follow, if we love him or her….if we love ourselves.

Free Roberts is no different, nor is her good girlfriend Sharmayne, her boyfriend, J.T., her sister Rhonda, her mother Pastoria, nor the woman who asks her father the same question for 28 years. Like all of us, each must learn to trust something greater than self.

You’ve written very sensually in your previously published stories. Can we expect more of the same in this novel?

Definitely! In this novel, a smoldering sensuality burns when Free and J.T. come together and sizzles when Sharmayne and Nzinga fall into one another’s arms, although Pinky and her lovers know a different sort of give and take, that is, until a lover of a different ilk enters her world.

Which of your characters from If You Love Me, Come is most like you, and in what way or ways?

(Soft laughter) Me gusta esa pregunta. Many of my characters are pieces of the main, me. Free fulfills one of my dreams of owning a bookstore, a community hub where people are able to come and lunch and read and socialize. She’s outgoing, positive and enigmatic. But Rhonda is an English teacher with one son and Pastoria is shrouded in mystery, while Pinky is consumed with a longing that aches to be satisfied. In the final analysis, we are all one.

Parts of the novel have a feel similar to that of Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God with the use of dialect and the strong connection of the characters to the natural world. Were you conscious of that while writing?

Although I adore the work of Zora Neale Hurston, I was conscious only of my grandmothers’ voices, especially my paternal grandmother, Sophie Mae Moss. She and my maternal grandmother, Pearlie Mae Young, made my family’s trips to the South delightful every summer we visited from Waterbury, CT. My mother passed away when I was in the ninth grade, and my grandmothers stepped in to take my siblings and me by the hand and guide us into young adulthood. Both women were amazing, enterprising, Southern matriarchs, loved and respected by many in the small towns of Tuskegee, Roba and Little Texas, Alabama.

Which writer has had the greatest influence in your life?

Toni Morrison has awed me from the first time I cradled The Bluest Eye and marveled at the language, the working of the mind, the depths of emotion, the snapshot of a child’s mind, one in which the gift of blue eyes would mean transformation on many levels. Friends and colleagues confided their mixed admiration towards Morrison’s work over the years, telling me she exacted too much from them. They didn’t want to stretch, to give a fictional work that much mental energy, since escape was usually their desire, not mental rigor. But me…I love Toni for all of the reasons they complained of and countless more.

Toni teaches me to love language, to fall in love with words and meaning again and again, with each novel she publishes. She’s a workshop, a beloved college course. I love Paradise, though I haven’t treated myself to her novel Love as yet, what with me being immersed now in my own writing, publishing and promoting myself. I love the way Toni captures the voice of women from different social strata, with different experiences with society and men; I admire how she places them in memorable houses and history and breathes the breath of life into them, making them as unforgettable as African-American heroines from the annals of history.

I even discussed her work on Facebook, her latest novel a mercy. Wow! I can yet feel the euphoria from the experience.

And I have always loved the work of Fiona Zedde, from that first evening I sat, spellbound, in a Charis open mic, under the music of silence and your fluted, Jamaican reading voice. Like the audience, I was whisked to another world as you read the beginning of what was to be Bliss, your first novel. Your writing holds the capacity to leave the reader breathless, much like being serenaded by a charismatic woman who leaves me sweating and struggling to utter something intelligible. The imagery in your stories is a study in itself, not to mention the palpable sensuality, the romance wed with eroticism, the dropping one off in a setting and atmosphere and mood that defies fiction. One thinks… ‘I know this is real, because I am there. I know these people. I want to “know” this woman.’ At various points, with each of your novels, from Bliss to A Taste of Sin to Hungry For It, I have read your words to enraptured listeners, who have begged me to share more and more, and preferably in the sweetness of the night.

That said, I will admit I’m looking forward to reading your latest work, DANGEROUS PLEASURES.

Where can interested readers get your book and find out more about you and your writing?

Right now I am in collaboration with Charis Bookstore and Amazon to have the novel available on their websites before its release date of February 11, 2011. Interested readers can contact me at missclaudiamoss@gmail to order the novel. My Author Website will go live this month, and on that site, www.claudiamoss.com, readers will be able to order the novel and learn more about me.

Other places readers can connect with me are as follows: www.theGolden-Goddess.blogspot.com, www.Twitter.com/theLadySiren, www.Facebook.com/claudiamoss, www.Blogtalkradio.com/theSiren, and www.YouTube.com/theLadyBestseller.

Love, Lovers, Beloveds

2011-02-02T00:54:00.002-05:00

Well, the book is finally out! It's been so long that I'd almost forgotten the mania and excitement and anxiety that come with a new release. "Will the readers like it?" "What parts should I choose to read at the signing?" "What are the reviewers going to say?" But I have definitely been reminded.

Dangerous Pleasures' arrival was a great birthday present - it came out the day after my birthday - and the book release party in Tampa was a fabulous continuation of the birthday celebrations. The party itself was a wonderful success. I can't thank enough the people who came out to share this tremendous occasion with me. Five print books in and I still feel giddy....

To fête Dangerous Pleasures, spread the word in your communities about the book, write an online review, put a fresh copy in a friend's hands. And, as always, thank you for reading my books and supporting bookstores.

Until next time, celebrate love. Celebrate Black history. Celebrate Life.

- Fiona

To read more from the February newsletter, click here.

January 26th Interview with Sippin' on Ink

2011-01-27T09:59:00.001-05:00

Check out my Blog Talk Radio interview with Kat at Sippin' on Ink chatting about my new book, Dangerous Pleasures, writing, and more.

Sweet December

2010-12-01T01:00:00.000-05:00

Author's Note

December is here once again. And it seemed only a few months ago that we were all happily sliding into summer and beautiful days of wine and laughter at the beach. Now it's time for jackets and heaters and settling indoors with hot apple cider and loved ones.

2010 has been an eventful year - but aren't they all? - with beginnings, relocations, new stories, and new ideas percolating and making the year that much more interesting. After a wonderful Thanksgiving spent in the chilly but welcoming north, I'm preparing to leave behind 2010 with no regrets, only new things: a re-vamped website, the anticipation of Dangerous Pleasures, and a chance to see more of the world.

Have a wonderful holiday season. Love, love, love!

- Fiona

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Dangerous Pleasures - Arriving Next month!

Closer and closer. January 25th is on the horizon and approaching with each new day. I've looked forward to this new book for so long that it feels like it's been a forever (insert exaggerated sigh here).

To read an excerpt from the new book, check out the Dangerous Pleasures link on my website. This novel holds a few surprises for my readers, as well as some new characters, and a whole new setting: San Diego, California.

You can pre-order now through Amazon.com or your local independent bookseller and have the book in hand by February 1st. If you want a signed copy and the possibility of getting the book sooner, send me an email at f.zedde@gmail.com.

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February Blog Tour

To get the word out about my new book, I'll be embarking on a blog tour in February 2011. For the tour, I'll visit the blogs of some wonderful authors and editors, answering questions about the new book and anything else that comes up.

If you have any questions that you want these fantastic bloggers to ask me, send an email with it/them to: f.zedde@gmail.com.

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Rumi Verse of the Month

I am in Love with Love
and Love is in love with me.

My body is in Love with the soul
and the soul is in Love with my body.

I opened my arms to Love
and Love embraced me like a lover.

~Rumi

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Hot Shorts

Temptation

“Why can’t men be more like lesbians?”

Kendra looked at Sara as if the slender lawyer held the answer to that question and more. Sara shook her head, smiling gently.

“You’re asking the wrong one. Maybe your god would know the answer to that, darling, not me.”

Sara leaned back in her chair, letting the gentle spring breeze ruffle the skirt around her calves. The honeyed scent of blossoms from the trees surrounding the coffee shop’s terrace blended with the creamed coffee smell of their drinks. Kendra sighed and propped her chin in her palm. Her straightened hair swung heavily forward, curving around one rounded cheek.

Sara’s affair with Kendra had been a brief indulgence from the previous year, a blatant rebound after she’d walked in on Rille with a student from the university. The second forgiveness, but not the second infidelity, not by any means. Sara glanced down at the clear glass cup of mochaccino steaming near her hand.

“Vic is acting like a total shit,” Kendra said. “I tell him about one damn girl on girl relationship and he gets hysterical, getting jealous of every girlfriend I see. Boys don’t even worry him anymore. And in bed it’s worse, fucking insecure but acting as if it’s my fault. It’s too bad; he used to be a great lay.”

“Before you told him about us?”

“Right.” She sucked her teeth and smiled over at Sara. “You look good though.”

Sara laughed. “I know. Martyrdom must really suit me.”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

She hadn’t come here to cry on Kendra’s shoulder about the madness with Rille. It wasn’t a coincidence that she’d finally agreed to meet up with her ex-lover after weeks of avoiding Kendra’s company. Sara needed the distraction.

Last night her lover had come to bed with kisses and revelations. After the tremors of satisfaction eased, leaving Sara’s body liquid and soft, Rille leaned over her with a different kind of attentiveness. There was a boy she’d recently met. She wanted Sara to meet him. He was beautiful. Special. Sara jumped out of the bed in shock, the air cool on her naked skin, denial of Rille’s desire for someone else rising up in her throat like bile.

No, baby. No. Don’t be like that. This is not like last time, Rille said.

No. This wasn’t like the last time. Then she hadn’t told Sara about wanting someone else. When Sara found them together in Rille’s office, the girl’s face awash in worship as she knelt before a cool-faced Rille whose legs were spread as wide as the chair would allow. That was different. This was honesty.

Sara grasped her cup and sipped the hot drink, absently licking her lips to rid them of the foam she knew had gathered there. Across from her, Kendra followed the motion with a hungry look then blushed when she noticed Sara’s eyes on her.

There were good reasons Sara had chosen her after the short-lived breakup with Rille last year: Kendra’s commonplace good looks that were nearly opposite to Rille’s peacock-on-a-chicken-farm flamboyance. And her ability to be completely and absolutely immersed in whatever thing she was doing at the time.

Sara lightly tapped the table top with a long finger. “Honesty is overrated anyway. Maybe you shouldn’t have told him. I’ve heard that men can only handle bi-sexual girlfriends in theory.”

“You should have told me that before.” Her red mouth glistened in the sun as she pouted. ”I figure since he asked me to marry him that he deserved to know.”

“I don’t know why you think that. Have you ever thought that he hasn’t told you about everyone that he slept with?”

Kendra sighed again, this time wrinkling her nose. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore.” The hot coffee she’d ordered sat on the table untouched. She leaned back in her chair, flickering her eyelashes up to look at Sara. “Distract me.”

It would be easy. She could just reach across the table and touch her hand, slide her fingers between Kendra’s and suggest a quieter place, something wetter, saltier on her palate. But she didn’t. She never did. Still, her thoughts continued on the same route. Teasing. Familiar.

Life was simpler with Kendra: days of laughter and food and sex, the nights with more of the same. But even with the sweat drying on her skin and Kendra tugging on her body for another round, her mind was with Rille, steeped in its misery, remembering her smell and their own after-sex rituals. No, she hadn’t been happy with Kendra, she had been waiting. Sara released thoughts of Kendra’s hand and smiled.

“Come on, let’s go to the park. We can sit in the swings and eat ice cream.”

Sara thought she saw a droop of disappointment to Kendra’s mouth, but was too busy gathering up her things to pay attention.

From Language of the Broken, a new novel.

Beautiful October

2010-11-12T13:07:00.001-05:00

Author's Note

Except for that crucial touch of coolness in the early mornings and at night, early fall in southern Florida is about the same as late summer. It's still sun-dresses, picnics, warm rain, and afternoons at the beach.

With this fabulous weather it's easy for me to think that summer is still here, but the holiday season is close. Halloween, Samhain, Thanksgiving, Kwanzaa, Hanukkah, Christmas, the New Year. They’re all just around the bend.

Keeping an eye on the lightning passing of days, I’ve had to push back a few things that I’d planned for fall—like my writing and publishing workshops—while making sure that I stick to other deadlines that have less flexibility. Happily, it all goes on.

I've started something new with the "Hot Shorts" segment of the newsletter. Instead of my fiction, I'll sometimes have guest authors share some of their hot short stories. If you, or anyone you know, have a hot short you want to share, please send me an email.

Have a beautiful October! Talk with you again soon.

***

Hot Shorts

The Real Thing

by Beth Wylde

I shoved my way inside the crowded coffee shop, ignoring the complaints of the customers waiting impatiently for their caffeine fix. There was only one thing in the store I wanted, and it didn't come in a tiny, styrofoam cup.

My gaze roamed the store, a sudden shiver passing through me as my eyes landed on the curvy figure sitting at the back table all alone. My heart thudded in my chest and my panties grew wet. After six months of online foreplay my body was ready for the real thing. Judging by the look on my internet lover's face, she was entertaining the same thought.

Mandy jumped up and strode toward me, her lone coffee forgotten on the table. She leaned sideways as we embraced, her lips grazing the shell of one ear. "Remember the first fantasy you told me about? The wild one?" I could only nod my head when she grabbed my hand. "I got us a room."

I'd known where we were headed the moment I agreed to meet her in person. Half a year of celibacy was about to end. My pussy was totally on board with the plan.

I let her tug me out of the shop, our steps fast and furious as we hurried to the motel down the street. It was naughty and insane and so illicit I was about to leave a wet spot in my jeans. "Oh God. We have to hurry." My knees felt weak.

Mandy put her arm around me and pulled a worn-looking keycard out of her purse. "I know. Me too."

We both started running down the hall. I nearly crashed into her when she stopped in front of door number fifteen. "This is it."

I grunted in reply as Mandy fought to get the bent-up passkey to work. If the real sex was half as good as the online version I'd be a well satisfied woman. I'd done and talked about things online with Mandy that I'd never spoken to another soul about. She knew all my deepest, darkest secrets. We were about to make fantasy number one come true now—hot sex in a seedy motel.

There were plenty more kinky adventures on my to do list but I couldn't think that far ahead. My brain had turned off the minute I'd laid eyes on her. My clit was doing the thinking for me and I was fine with that.

The light on the scanner had barely turned green when she pulled me inside. Mandy kicked the door shut with one foot and pushed me up against the wall. I felt the vibration of my back hitting the wood all the way down to my toes. Her urgency set my nerves to humming, ratcheting up the tension until I was ready to beg for her to touch me.

"Mandy, please!"

"Please what?" One hand strayed from its perch on my hip to the top of my jeans. She jerked the button open with a twist of her wrist. I couldn’t help groaning.

The sound of my zipper parting seemed loud in the hushed confines of the room, overshadowed only by my harsh and heavy breathing.

"Are you wet for me?"

Wet? I was fucking soaked. "Yes. I'm so turned on I can't stand it anymore. I need you." I'd never been able to orgasm without some type of physical stimulation but at the moment I thought it might actually be possible.

"How bad do you need me?"

I sucked in a deep breath and fought to calm my racing pulse. My heart was beating so hard in my chest I was worried she could hear it. "Bad, Mandy. Real bad. I need you to fuck me. I want to come screaming your name. " My clit pulsed in time with my request.

Her hand pushed inside my jeans and the muscles in my stomach contracted. Her free hand started pulling my pants down as her fingers inched their way inside my panties. I moved my hips and spread my feet in encouragement. Her finger had barely touched my slit when she found the proof of my statement. "Good lord, you're drenched." Her fingertip tapped against my clit and I bucked, my ass banging hard against the door.

"Yes, I am, and we're both wearing too many clothes."

After that it was a race to see who could get undressed and get to the bed first. I beat her, but not by much.

"I rented the room for three hours," Mandy informed me while I was on my hands and knees, grappling to throw the wrinkled comforter off the bed. She grabbed me by the thighs and jerked me backwards. I squealed, the unexpected move catching me off guard.

I felt the hard edge of something cold nudge against my opening. Before I could question what it was, Mandy pushed forward with one deep stroke and buried a ribbed vibrator deep inside my pussy. At the same time her mouth attached itself to my clit. I looked down between my legs, gasping as the combination of sight and feeling pushed me over the edge. I screamed, the orgasm catching me unaware. I clawed at the bedcovers and shook my way to ecstasy. My head fell down against the bed, my hands and knees shaking while I worked to slow my breathing.

Mandy pulled the toy out of my still spasming cunt, taking a moment to suck the juices off it before sliding her way up next to me on the bed. "Did you enjoy that?"

My reply came out breathy and hoarse. "God yes!" She kissed me and I tasted myself on her lips, but there was something else I wanted to taste more. "Now it's my turn."

I wrapped my arms around her waist, grinding my pelvis against hers in blatant mimicry of sex. Her eyes widened when I palmed first her left and then her right breast. I was busy working my tongue around one hard nipple when she threaded her hands into my hair and began to urge me lower. I paused my oral explorations and grinned up at her. "Is there something I can do for you?"

Her sigh was full of frustration and pent up need as she tried to push my head past her navel. "Yes. You know there is."

I took a minute to dip my tongue into her delightfully deep bellybutton. "What do you want? I'm a bit busy." I chuckled against her skin and she broke out in goosebumps.

"Don't tease, Janie. I'm dying up here."

I took her plea to heart and positioned myself between her legs, staring at the feast before my eyes. I licked my lips and went straight for her core. The cry she let loose was music to my ears. I was definitely going to add a few more hours onto the bill. I'd known all along the real thing was going to be good but nothing could have prepared me for the workout I got that afternoon.

Beth loves to get feedback. You can reach her at b.wylde@yahoo.com or find her online at www.bethwylde.com & http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bethwylde/

***

Rumi Verse of the Month

Your task is not

to seek for love,

but merely to seek

and find all the barriers

within yourself that you

have built

against it.

~Rumi

September, Awake and Ready!

2010-08-30T21:27:00.000-05:00

It's the rainy season. For days at a time, the earth outside my windows gets rejuvenated by torrents of delicious rain. From safe under my roof, the sound is music; a frantic/tranquil chorus that can lull you into a deep sleep or wake you from one. Sounds of a beautiful Summer winding down into Fall.

My summer's end means the coming to a close of one of my current projects--the young adult novel due on the shelves April 30, 2011. Closing that project folder leaves me space to start at least one thing and I'm torn between putting time into the sequel to Every Dark Desire or the more literary novel in progress, Language of the Broken. Choices, choices. Both are a pleasure to dive into so maybe I'll end up working on both simultaneously.

Happy Autumn beginnings to you and everyone you love. Enjoy the thunder and the storms. Stay dry, if you wish. Be saturated, if you desire. Be contented.

Coming To Your Town?

The release of the new book is only five (5!) short months away. To gear up for Dangerous Pleasures hitting the shelves, I'm in the process of planning signings and readings around the U.S., Canada, and possible the

U.K.

So far, I've signed up to be in Atlanta, GA - Austin, TX - Chicago, IL - Tampa, FL with more cities to be announced.

If you want me to make a stop in your city, drop me an email to let me know and I'll do my best to get there.

Upcoming Workshops

Write Your Novel Workshop

Location/Date/Time - To be announced.

To sign up for the workshop taking place in the late fall, or to find out more, contact me at f.zedde@gmail.com.

Publish Your Novel Workshop

Location/Date/Time - To be announced.

To sign up for the workshop taking place in the winter, or to find out more, contact me at f.zedde@gmail.com.

Drawing for a Signed Copy of Dangerous Pleasures

Enter a raffle to win an autographed copy of the latest Fiona Zedde novel, Dangerous Pleasures, shipped directly to your door.

The cost of a raffle ticket is $1. To put your name in the hat, email me at f.zedde@gmail.com. The winner of the raffle gets a bonus prize if they answer the question:

In Hungry For It, what is the perfume that Claudia wears?

Good Luck!

Rumi Verse of the Month

I have lived on the lip

of insanity

Wanting to know reasons

Knocking on a door.

It opens

I have been knocking

from the inside.

~ Rumi

Hot Shorts

"Study Session" Part IV

Mercedes immediately shrugged out of her shirt, throwing it in the general direction of the door. Tessa moaned low in her throat. She knew it. Mercedes was stacked.

The hours she had spent burning out her imagination time and time again with visions of Mercedes’ breasts, nothing could compare to the reality of wide, strawberry-textured nipples, dark, like the perfectly ripe fruit, bleeding between her teeth.

“Sit on the bed.”

When the woman did as she was told, Tessa immediately dropped to her knees and took a nipple in her mouth. She wasn’t gentle. Tessa pushed her nose into the sweat-scented skin, clawing at Mercedes’ back to get even closer. She wanted to suffocate in the other woman’s flesh.

Tessa bit, sucked, licked until Mercedes was moaning, rubbing herself against the seam of her jeans, and when that wasn’t enough, she slid the zipper down, finger fucking herself until Tessa pushed her hand away.

“Not with me, you won’t.”

She drew the other woman’s cum-stained fingers into her mouth, licking them one by one. Mercedes watched her with lazy lidded eyes, her lips parted on a silent moan as she allowed Tessa to push her onto her back. Then with a sigh, one of regret, Tessa took both of Mercedes’ hands and pushed them to the strawberry nipples.

“Play with these, I’ll be busy for a little while.”

Tessa paused to make sure that her instructions were being followed, but with Mercedes she never had to repeat herself. She was a very good student. Tessa watched as Mercedes arched her back, bringing her hands up to cup her heavy breasts and stroke saliva wet nipples. Tessa’s breath caught. So fucking beautiful…

The other woman’s impatient moans brought her back to the matter at hand. She bent her head, licking her way the other woman’s quivering her belly until she came to the barrier of cloth.

“You could take a lesson, you know.” She murmured as she dragged Mercedes’s sticky-wet panties off along with her jeans.

Mercedes laughed deep in her throat, still squeezing her own nipples, the heavy flesh of her breasts overflowing her hands.

“Why are you always laughing?”

“Because life is beautiful, it makes me happy.” Mercedes gasped at the first brush of Tessa’s breath on her engorged clit. “Right now, you make me happy.”

“I bet you say that to all the girls,” Tessa breathed. Her nose lingered over the sea-foam scent of her, drinking it in deep, before allowing her mouth to become involved in the feast. She directed a cool stream of air at Mercedes’ soaked slit, then hot. The thighs on either side of her head threatened to close. Mercedes moaned.

“I am so ready for this.” She whispered before moving her tongue, once across the plump little button. Sweet. Mercedes tasted so damn sweet.

The hot flesh swam under her tongue, firm and wet like late summer muscadines swollen in the heat of the sun. Juice dripped down Tessa’s chin a she groaned into the oozing wet pussy. Mercedes undulated under her, Tessa’s earlier instructions forgotten.

Her fingers were clenched in the sheets as she watched Tessa’s every movement, her lips parted in a breathless O, her lean body striated with muscle and awash in sweat. This was every one of Tessa’s fantasies come true.

Her senses felt close to overload with the smell, taste, and sound of Mercedes, goddess-created and more responsive than Tessa had even dreamed as she groaned and writhed on the bed.

Tessa’s fingers slipped against the heated and damp skin as she tried to latch onto the wild thing under her. That was all right. She had better things to do with her hands anyway. Tessa slid two fingers inside Mercedes and felt her own pussy clench. She was so wet, so hot. She felt so damn good. Her fingers reached deeper, her tongue worked faster.

“Fuck!” Mercedes’ hips bucked against her mouth and fingers, thrashing fiercely as she came, alternately whispering and screaming Tessa’s name. Her gasps were loud in the sunlit room.

She slowly caught her breath.

“That was really fun.” Tessa stood balanced over Mercedes, a grin dancing on her wet mouth.

“No shit?”

The words came out breathless and low. She reached up to trail long, pussy-slick fingers down Tessa’s cheeks. She smiled into Tessa’s eyes before kissing her lightly on the mouth, a butterfly touch that sent tiny aftershocks ricocheting through Tessa’s body.

Then Mercedes extended her tongue with its silver adornment and licked at Tessa’s face, lapping her own cunt juice from her lover’s chin, cheeks, and mouth. She sucked on a full lower lip and took it between her teeth before kissing the corners of Tessa’s mouth, first one then the other.

“Does that mean that this is the end of our session for today?”

Mercedes shook her head and tongued the parted lips above hers.

“Honey, we’re just getting started.”

Tessa shifted above her and pinched Mercedes’ nipple, then stroked it in response to the music of the other woman’s quiet groan.

Desire rolled inside her like a tsunami, flooding her thighs again, making her tongue wet with the urge to taste Mercedes again and again. She wet her lips. “Maybe we can get an extension on that presentation?”

Mercedes couldn’t seem to find the words to say no.

2010-08-11T17:53:00.001-05:00

Dangerous Pleasures cover now live on Amazon.com. Yes! - http://amzn.to/ca9xoh

August Pleasures

2010-08-03T10:49:00.000-05:00

Author's Note

Summer is flying by and all, too soon, will be past us. Backyard barbecues, sunsets on the beach, and hot afternoons running through sprinklers are moments to be savored and cherished. So far, my short and hot summer has been spent writing the young adult novel, Dreaming in Color, taking pre-orders for the January-bound novel of erotic romance, Dangerous Pleasures, and getting to know my first ever Smart Phone. All while making time for trips to the beach, of course. Once I've finished the novel, I will be hosting a series of how-to workshops on publishing and writing in the Tampa Bay area. Stay tuned. Keep enjoying your summer. Be well. And, as always, thanks for reading the words I love to write. - Fiona

Dangerous Pleasures Pre-Order

It's officially official! According to Amazon UK, Dangerous Pleasures will be available on January 25, 2011. If you want your autographed copy mailed by that date (or before), send me a private email to (f.zedde@gmail.com) and get a jump on everyone else.

Upcoming Workshops

Write Your Novel Workshop

If you've always wanted to write that novel or you have one "in progress," this workshop is for you. In this series of writing sessions, we will push forward with our novel writing projects, explore methods to get beyond writers' block, make our stories come alive, and take the book to the next level. Location/Date/Time - To be announced.To sign up for the workshop taking place in the late fall, or to find out more, contact me at f.zedde@gmail.com.

Publish Your Novel Workshop

You've written that novel, now what? Sign up for this workshop to find out the next steps to take. In these sessions, we'll talk about what publishers are looking for, how to get your book publisher/agent-ready, and how you can make the process work for you. Location/Date/Time - To be announced.To sign up for the workshop taking place in the winter, or to find out more, contact me at f.zedde@gmail.com.

Rumi Verse of the Month

Come into me
that way again.

Like a fresh idea
in an artist's mind.

   ~Rumi

Hot Shorts

For previous installments of this short story and other stories, see earlier blog posts.

"Study Session" Part III

Sunday

She lay drowsing under the window with the sun heavy and stinging warm on her belly when Mercedes came by for their study session on Sunday afternoon. She was early.

Tessa turned her head at the sound of the knock, but didn’t bother to get up.

“Come on in.”

Mercedes looked around the room, eyes moving briefly over the obvious lack of furniture and the pillows strewn everywhere to the girl lying in the sun, with only a threadbare rug between her back and the hard floor.

“Where’s your roommate.”

“At her boyfriend’s place.”

“Good. Because there’s something we need to get out of the way before we start on our presentation.”

"What?” Tessa sat up.

After last night, she was sure that Mercedes would call to cancel or at least postpone their last session. Mercedes propped her book-bag against the closed door and slid the lock home.

“I know what you want, Tess. And obviously you can’t handle it. So I’m going to let go of all this tension for you… for both of us.”

Tessa stared into the unblinking eyes of the other woman before she stood up and walked past her to get to the bathroom. “Don’t play games with me, Mercedes.”

Her hands were shaking. What was this shit? Here was Mercedes, the woman who slithered through her day and twilight dreams, making it sound like … well like she wanted her. Tessa closed the bathroom door pressed her solitary aching weight against it.

She took a deep breath. Please be gone when I open this door. She picked up a washrag off the metal towel rack and put it under the cold tap.

The low sound of Mercedes calling her name reached Tessa from behind the door. Then the catch released and the door opened. In the mirror, Tessa watched Mercedes come to her.

The first sting of her tongue, an insistent snake at the back of her neck, snapped Tessa’s body to attention. She dropped the wet cloth.   The hands enfolding her breasts from behind had her own fingers curling into the edge of the sink, her breath scraping roughly in an unbearably dry throat. Tessa moaned and arched into those fingers, begging them to touch her nipples, stroke her harder.

“So is this what you want?”

All she could do was groan and push her ass against the zipper of Mercedes’s jeans, trying to prolong the electricity firing in her belly. Teeth opened on her neck and sank into the straining flesh.

“Is this what you think about in class?”   Blunt nails raked the inside of her thigh. “Did you want me to fuck you in the library?”

Mercedes’s hand pushed up the hem of Tessa’s skirt clawing at the hot skin as it raised the cotton higher. Her fingers brushed bare hips. A low growl of appreciation rumbled in her throat.

“No panties, Tessa? You were expecting me to come.”
Tessa groaned at the first teasing brush of fingers at the top of her thighs.

“Open your legs for me, baby.”

She helplessly obeyed, gasping when Mercedes’s thumb stroked her clit.

“Do you want this?”

“Yes. Please.”

The mirror teased her with its image of them, Mercedes’s tongue a tease at her earlobe, her hand stroking Tessa’s breast and nipple. But it was what she couldn’t see that pulled the breath from her lungs: Mercedes’s fingers sliding around her wetness, flicking against her clit, making her hips jerk against her hand.

An electric current jolted between her nipples and her cunt as pin-wheeled behind her closed eyelids. Her belly tightened and she fell apart with Mercedes’s teeth at her neck, her thumb hard against her clit. Her breathing was ragged, loud in the little bathroom, as she came as quietly as she could.

Through the wall she could hear her neighbor’s stereo, the sound of laughing boys. Tessa closed her eyes to the girl in the mirror, to her sweat-drenched skin and swollen lips.

“None of that, mouse,” Mercedes said with a soft laugh. We’re not done yet.”

Damn right.

Tessa was in a daze, but if this was all she was going to get of her Mercedes fantasy, then she was going to make the most of it. She turned around in Mercedes’s arms and kissed her.

A shifting push/pull of wet flesh, full lips and a pierced tongue that set her clit to jumping again. She slid her hands up under Mercedes’s shirt, palms flat against her belly and pushed her out the bathroom.

“True,” she said, her eyes drowsy but intent.

“Now the mouse wakes up. I think I’m going to like this.”

“You talk a lotta shit, you know that?” Tessa didn’t wait for an answer.

She pushed until the backs of Mercedes’s knees touched the bed, still engaging her tongue in that clit firing dance.

“I want to see your tits.”

(to be continued)

Sweet July

2010-07-06T18:56:00.003-05:00

It's been a brisk and hectic summer already with plenty already done but lots more to get through. Ever since I got back from Nicaragua I've been promising myself a day at the beach here in Florida but between Hurricane Alex, work to be done, preparing to move, and other things, I have yet to make it. Soon, though.

Fourth of July/Black Pride celebrations in Tampa were fantastic. Fireworks, family, parties, readings, meeting new people, trying to stay dry during the frequent downpours. A great Florida beginning!

I hope your summer has been stellar so far.

Dangerous Pleasures Pre-order

It's officially official! According to Amazon.com

, Dangerous Pleasures will be available on January 25, 2011.
If you want your autographed copy mailed by that date (or before), send me a private email (f.zedde@gmail.com) and get a jump on everyone else.

Tampa Black Gay Pride 2010

July started off with a beautiful gathering of folks in Tampa, Florida for Tampa Black Pride. Most of the events took place at the Comfort Inn Conference Center and ranged from literary titillation to shake your booty all night and get your drink on fabulousness.

At Valentine's on Friday night for the Grown Gurls party.

Nora and some of her Grown Gurls at the Meow Myxxer on Friday afternoon

Sorors of Omicron Epsilon Pi

Hot transmen at the Meow Myxxer.

Rapper/Singer Shunda K and her lady.

Sheree L. Greer, writer and host of Oral Fixation, a night of poetry, stories, and more.

Kisses after Midnight now available to everyone. Everywhere.

The artist with a secret passion. An assassin on the hunt. A Jamaican exiled in snow. These are just a few of the women who come to life in this seductive collection of thirteen stories by novelist, Fiona Zedde.

Exploring themes of love, desire, liberation, and loss, these stories take the reader on a journey into the hearts and minds of unforgettable characters who linger long after the last page has turned.

If you read and enjoyed any of Fiona's previous novels - Bliss, Taste of Sin, Every Dark Desire, or Hungry for It - this is an anthology not to be missed.

For a copy of the new ebook in Kindle form, log onto Amazon.com. For a copy of Kisses as a downloadable PDF directly from me and at a reduced price, send an email request to f.zedde@gmail.com.

Rumi Verse of the Month

You are quaffing drink

from a hundred fountains:

whenever any of these hundred yields less,

your pleasure is diminished.

But when the sublime fountain

gushes from within you,

no longer need you steal

from the other fountains.

~Rumi

Reviews, Reviews!

If you've already read Kisses after Midnight and would like to share your opinion of the eBook, please log onto Amazon.com and do a short review and star rating. Let me and the world know what you think.

Hot Shorts

"Study Session" Part II

Saturday
The cloud of exhaust and dust left by the city bus slowly cleared around Tessa. Sighing, she blinked the dust from her eyes and began the brief walk to Mercedes’s house.

Already she could see the brick lined walkway and the empty porch swing swaying in the breeze. She walked the block and a half with feet that longed to turn back and run in the opposite direction.

At the door, she hitched her bookbag on her shoulder and sighed again, before rapping quickly on the dark wood. A jet-skinned amazon answered almost immediately.

“Hey, Stacy.” Tessa greeted her Mercedes’s lover with a spasm that she hoped passed for a smile.
“Mercedes is in the sunroom.” Stacy gestured down the hall. “She was about to call and make sure you were coming over.”

I almost didn’t. “My bus was running late. You know weekend traffic.”

Tessa suddenly got the impression that Stacy was checking her out—tits, ass, and last of all her face—as if seeing her for the first time.   But that was probably wishful thinking on her part. If she couldn’t have Mercedes, why shouldn’t her girlfriend at least show some interest?
“Come on in.”
Tessa walked reluctantly into the cozy little house and followed Stacy down the hall.

Mercedes was sitting on the floor with her books spread around her, already scribbling in the thick literature notebook. Today her hair was pulled back from her face with a deep red ribbon.

“Honey, I’ll see you later.” Stacy bent her face to Mercedes’s. Tessa looked away as their lips met and rummaged pointlessly through her own books.

“Bye, Tessa.”
“Bye.”

She only looked up after Stacy had disappeared and the sound of her footsteps was already fading down the walk.
“Sorry about yesterday.” Tessa dropped her books on the floor and sat down.

Mercedes met her eyes. “So what’s really going on with you, Tessa? We can’t do this with you acting like a lunatic. This is our final project, and I didn’t invest all this time and money just to fail because we couldn’t get along. So tell me what’s up.” Mercedes tilted her head to one side and waited.

Tessa opened her notebook to an empty page. “Nothing that I haven’t taken care of already.” Her corners of her mouth tucked up. “Thanks for your patience.”

So Mercedes had to drop it.
“Alright that’s the last section. Let’s finish up tomorrow.” Mercedes closed her laptop. “Stace will be back in a few and I promised her I’d be done by the time she got back.”

“She has big plans for you huh?” The unbidden image of a naked Mercedes, back muscles tense and straining above Stacy made Tessa’s cheeks burn. She started shoving books into her backpack. Why did their sessions all end like this?

“More interesting than what you have to offer, at least.”
Tessa’s head snapped up. Mercedes raised an eyebrow at her study partner’s expression. “You know. . . studying. Our Lit-Crit presentation.”   She smiled.

Tessa shot to her feet. “Alright, I’ll see you tomorrow then.” She was gone before Mercedes could react.
Real smooth, Tessa. Real smooth.

(to be continued)

Tampa Black Pride Events

2010-06-24T18:59:00.000-05:00

Tampa Black Pride jumps off Thursday, July 1 and continues through until Sunday July 4th. I'll be bouncing around town enjoying all the festivities but I'll also be working. Stop by and say "hello."

THURSDAY

ORAL FIXATION - AN INTERACTIVE NIGHT OF POEMS, SHORT STORIES, AND MORE

Thursday, July 1, 2010 - 6 PM to 10 PM

Tampa Black Pride Host Hotel Comfort Inn Conference Center

820 East Busch Boulevard Tampa, FL 33612

HOSTED BY SHEREE L. GREER AND SPECIAL GUEST PERFORMANCE BY SHUNDA K OF YO! MAJESTY

Artists will be on-site after the performance to sell their books, CDs, and other merchandise.

*FREE HIV/AIDS TESTING

FRIDAY

MEOW MYXXER VENDOR EXHIBITION 2010

Friday, July 2, 2010 - 1 PM to 5 PM

Tampa Black Pride Host Hotel Comfort Inn Conference Center

820 East Busch Boulevard Tampa, FL 33612

Summer Dreams - July Newsletter

2010-06-19T21:06:00.001-05:00

Two hectic months have gone by too quickly: A move from Atlanta. New Orleans for a bit for the Saints and Sinners Literary Festival. A two week trip to Nicaragua. And now, jumping headfirst into a new project - a young adult novel called "Dreaming in Color." It's wonderful to be so busy in these heated days of summer.

Cool breezes and summer splendor to you.

Upcoming Events

Tampa Black Pride Presents:

ORAL FIXATION - AN INTERACTIVE NIGHT OF POEMS, SHORT STORIES, AND MORE

Thursday, July 1, 2010

6 PM - 10 PM

Tampa Black Pride Host Hotel Comfort Inn Conference Center

820 East Busch Boulevard Tampa, FL 33612

HOSTED BY SHEREE L. GREER AND SPECIAL GUEST PERFORMANCE BY SHUNDA K OF YO! MAJESTY

Artists will be on-site after the performance to sell their books, CDs, and other merchandise.

*FREE HIV/AIDS TESTING*

For more information, check out the Tampa Black Pride website:http://www.tampablackpride.com/

Kisses after Midnight

If you read and enjoyed any of Fiona's previous novels - Bliss, Taste of Sin,Every Dark Desire, or Hungry for It - this is an anthology not to be missed.

For a copy of the new ebook in Kindle form, log onto Amazon.com. For a copy of Kisses as a downloadable PDF directly from me, send an email request to f.zedde@gmail.com.

Hot Shorts

"Study Session"
Friday
“I suppose that’s a valid interpretation of that piece, but I disagree.” Mercedes Leroux spread her fingers across the pages of the thick text book and adjusted her body in the uncomfortably hard library chair.

Tessa, her study partner nodded from across the table. “OK, Mercedes. So we agree to disagree.” Tessa crossed her legs under the thin blue skirt and looked away from the flash of silver in Mercedes’s tongue. “We don’t have to discuss that segment in our presentation.”

“Or we can present both perspectives and give them a chance to make up their own minds,” Mercedes said in the tone of one who knew that she was right, all other opinions be damned. She leaned over to type on her laptop, stroking the smooth, dark keys with her nimble fingers. Her tongue snaked out to touch her upper lip.
“True, but we don’t want to make it seem like we couldn’t reach a conclusion on our own.”

“That’s hardly the case, we just can’t come to an agreement—”
“And that’s worse.” Tessa took off her glasses and carefully put them on the table.

Mercedes tapped her short stub of a pencil against her lower lip and watched Tessa through narrowed eyes. The wild coils of Africa-hair framing her face made her look angelic even as her tongue made another appearance to tease the rubber tip of the clit-sized pencil. It was getting the best, and probably only, blowjob of its short life.

“This is getting us nowhere,” Mercedes muttered. “Let’s just call it a night and start fresh tomorrow.”
It wasn’t a suggestion. That much was obvious when Mercedes closed the machine down.

“Alright.” Tessa quickly conceded the point and moved to gather her books, taking care to not brush against Mercedes. This project would actually be going much better if Tessa didn’t find herself well and truly in lust with her study partner. Everything about the other girl distracted Tessa, made her want to be naked and sweaty under Mercedes’s skin that was more milk than chocolate, made her ache for those vermilion lips to slide over her clit.

And there was her obsession with Mercedes’s breasts. She had only been rewarded with the most teasing of glimpses of that glorious part of her anatomy even in the swollen abundance of the Florida heat. Tank tops were always shielded by an armload of books or, in the cold classroom, an inconvenient sweater. Her tongue curled into itself at the thought of those breasts, of licking them, of sucking the nipples until they were hard and wet.

“That’s my notebook you’re shoving in your bag.”
Tessa fought the sudden heat that rose in her face. “Sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it, just hand it over.” A smile transformed the words into a gentle tease. Tessa’s own mouth twitched in automatic response as she jerked the three-ring binder out of her backpack and slid it across the table. All without looking up.

“Thanks.” The word rolled sweet and sensuous from the other woman’s mouth—a mouth, Tessa had long ago decided, that was made for eating pussy.

"I’ll walk you to your dorm.”
Mercedes had her computer packed up and ready to go. She adjusted the carrying case over her shoulder and started to follow Tessa out of the small study area.

“Thanks, but no thanks. I don’t need a senior escort.” She only needed one thing right now, and a sexless walk to her empty dorm room wasn’t it.

Mercedes’s smile made another appearance. “Don’t be so butch.” Tessa finally looked at her. Of course, Mercedes knew she was into girls. “This may be a small town, but there are still nut balls out there. Besides I’d feel guilty letting you walk over to the other side of campus by yourself.”

Tessa nodded. “Alright then.”

They stepped into the steamy Florida spring night and drew in a lungful of honeysuckle and orange blossom scented air. This was definitely worse than the library. Tessa longed for the formality of the air-conditioned building, heavy with the scent of books and old money. Out here the very breeze whispered of sex, nearly begging her to dwell on the high curve of Mercedes’s ass, its deliciously rhythmic one-two sway under the loose denim jeans.

I want to fuck you. The thought passed with surprising ease through her mind.

It was nearly one o’ clock in the morning. The library courtyard was empty, quiet except for Mercedes and Tessa’s footsteps. They crossed the overpass in this silence, the occasional whine of a passing car its only interruption. Tessa was pitifully close to the breaking point, her body ached for the twin pressure of the cement wall at her back and Mercedes’s naked skin against her breasts and between her thighs.

Mercedes cleared her throat. “So are you doing alright, Tessa?”

She jerked her head in a simulation of a nod. “Never better.”

"Then am I wrong in thinking that there’s something bothering you lately?”

Lately? You bother me all the time. This is nothing new. “What makes you think that there’s something wrong?” Tessa threw her a quick glance from the corner of her eyes. “Is the pace of the work not enough for you? What is it?”

“OK, let me ask this another way. What’s up with this Miss Bitch attitude? Not getting off enough lately?”

“Fuck you.” Her tone was fierce, almost desperate.

“Wait a second.” She put out her hand, the long fingers spread wide.

Tessa stopped. Please touch me. She moved back, first one step then two.

“What the fuck? I’m not going to—” Mercedes looked at Tessa’s face, at her glazed eyes and stiff shoulders. “Alright. Screw it. Walk your own damn self home.”

Tessa watched her turn around and disappear down the incline into the library parking lot. Seconds later, she heard a car engine then saw the flare of headlights.

Tessa was paralyzed by this want, paralyzed and stupid. She slumped against the cement wall and released a tense breath.

That didn’t just happen. I did not make myself look like a complete asshole. She groaned and put her hand to her side where Mercedes almost touched her.

Rumi of the Month

"You try to be faithful
And sometimes you're cruel.
You are mine. Then, you leave.
Without you, I can't cope.

And when you take the lead,
I become your footstep.
Your absence leaves a void.
Without you, I can't cope.

You have disturbed my sleep,
You have wrecked my image.
You have set me apart.
Without you, I can't cope."
— Mawlana Jalal-al-Din Rumi (Love: The Joy That Wounds: The Love Poems of Rumi)

April Showers - Newsletter

2010-04-02T23:50:00.011-05:00

Spring Showers

Spring truly kicks off with some lovely and unexpected news: Hungry for It was in good company in Curve Magazine's list of "Lesbian Books for Spring: More than 150 Fascinating Finds." Good to know that people are still reading and loving what they read.

Among the other books in the list is Professor L. H. Stallings' Mutha' is Half a Word, a book on queerness and myth in black female culture. Later on in the month, I will be sitting with one of Professor Stallings' classes to discuss my first book, Bliss, which the students are currently reading. I'm interested to hear the academic take on the novel.

April is a ripe month for possibilities. Pick fat, beautiful fruit and enjoy.

April Signings and Appearances

Thursday, April 15, 2010

University of Indiana, Bloomington

The Black Novel (Forms, Tropes, and Genre)

Class discussion and question/answer session on the novel, Bliss.

Thursday, April 22, 2010 @ 10:30 PM

Lara Zielinsky's Radio Show

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/lara-zielinsky

Sign onto the Blog Talk Radio website the fourth Thursday of April when I chat with wonderful Florida-based writer, Lara Zielinsky, about books, sex, love, and everything in between.

Saturday, April 30, 2010 @ 7 PM

Charis Books and More

1189 Euclid Avenue Atlanta, GA 30307

Join me at Charis for a farewell reading and signing before I leave Atlanta for parts further south. I'll be signing any and all of my novels and will have copies of the ebook, Kisses after Midnight for sale as well.

Kisses after Midnight

Kisses now available to everyone. Sort of.

I've has many requests from readers who don't have a Kindle but still want to receive Kisses after Midnight as soon as possible. And since my new website is taking longer than anticipated to come online, the PDF of the eBook won't be available until May, at the earliest.

As an intermediate step, anyone who wants a copy of the eBook in non-Kindle format can contact me at my email address (f.zedde@gmail.com) to get one sent directly to their email inbox at a discounted price. Order the Kindle eBook from Amazon here.

Rumi: Verse of the Month

Let the lover be disgraceful,

crazy, absentminded.

Someone sober will worry

about things going badly.

Let the lover be.

-- From Essential Rumi by Coleman Barks

Reviews, Reviews!

If you've already read Kisses after Midnight and would like to share your opinion of the eBook, please log onto Amazon.com and do a short review and star rating. Let me and the world know what you think.

Hot Shorts/Workshop Excerpt

A participant's piece from my November 2009 Mini Erotica Workshop at Bound to be Read Books in East Atlanta.

I like to watch, so she covered my eyes. I heard her behind me, then felt her pull the bindings taught around my wrists and felt her long hair brush between my shoulder blades. She stretched her fingers out and scraped along my bare thigh as she moved to the front of the chair.

She placed my left foot between her hands and let the heat emanate into them. Then she began to knead the top of my foot and worked her way down to the sole, pummeling it lightly with her tiny fist. She massaged my right foot. And then the kiss on my inner ankle, followed by a lick, and a soft exhalation that chilled my skin.

Moving to the other side, a little further up the leg: kiss, lick, blow, now nip. And then back to the other leg: kiss, lick, blow, bite. Slowly, she snaked up my legs, her arms slithering around my limbs, pushing them apart, opening me up wider. She grabbed the short, curly hairs on the inside of my thighs with her teeth and pulled on them, the flesh straining in a tiny tug of war.

The darkness magnified the smack of her lips, the scratch of her tongue, the slide of her fingers along my flesh. My head felt light as the blood in my body pooled into the swirling vortex of my crotch. And then she she-dragon devoured me.

-- by Jef Blocker

March: A Celebration of Women and Spring

2010-03-02T17:57:00.000-05:00

Writer's Note

March is starting off with a bit of a groan but only because I had all four of my wisdom teeth taken out on Friday - I'm still wondering just how "wise" of me that was - and am still recovering from the entire ordeal. But everyone from dentists to the stranger on the street insists that I'll be back to myself by this coming Friday and should not worry. I'm not worried, but I'd like Friday to get here sooner rather than later.

Aside from that self-inflicted woe, all is well. The eBook Kisses after Midnight has finally been completed and is ready for viewing, plus there are quite a few new developments peaking on the horizon. More on that in the later months...

In the past year or so, I've been getting more and more interested in the writings of Rumi, a 13th century Persian Sufi sage and poet. His words crack the soul wide open. If you're already familiar with his work you know what I mean. If you're not, be welcome and read on.

By the way, last month I put an incorrect release date in the newsletter for the upcoming book Dangerous Pleasures. The novel will actually be available February 2011, not this year as originally stated.

Take care for now, and enjoy the splendor of March with its melting snow and well-loved first signs of Spring.

♀♀♀♀♀♀♀♀♀♀♀♀♀

Last Month...

The Lesbian Fiction and Lesbians in Literature Discussion with moderator Sheree Downey that happened on Tuesday, February 23rd went very well. Thank you to those who logged on to chat or just share space with us. It was a great discussion. Sheree will be doing it again with author Gerri Hill on March 23, 2010 at 8 PM. For a transcript of the discussion from last month go, here.

♀♀♀♀♀♀♀♀♀♀♀♀♀

Kisses after Midnight - The new book

After months of preparation and excitement, the eBook, Kisses after Midnight is here. As of this moment it is available for the Amazon Kindle on Amazon.com.

Within a few weeks, Kisses will be available for direct download - no Kindle or other digital reader device needed - from my blog and/or website.

In the meantime, my blog has been re-vamped to include additional pages with excerpts from each novel and novella. Log on and take a look around the re-designed space. Feel free to leave any comments or to subscribe to the blog.

Order the eBook from Amazon here.

♀♀♀♀♀♀♀♀♀♀♀♀♀

Rumi Verse of the Month

The minute I heard my first love story

I started looking for you,

not knowing how blind that was.

Lovers don't finally meet somewhere.

They're in each other all along.

Black Love

2010-01-31T17:56:00.010-05:00

It's absolutely perfect that February is the month of love AND of celebrating black history. Another month-long excuse to love yourself and another beautiful afro-god(dess) spiritually, physically, and honestly. Never mind that February is the shortest month. It's about the quality of time spent, not the quantity.

As for me, I plan on a trip to the African-American Research Library and Cultural Center in Fort Lauderdale. After (or before) that I will watch When Night is Falling (my new copy on DVD!) at least once more, and then take myself off to the spa for a day of self-appreciation.

Ah, black love!

**************

February Appearances

Saturday, February 13, 2010. 4 PM - 5 PM.

Gay Black Heritage Literary Cafe
Join me, Skyy, and other authors for a reading and discussion at the Breath of Life Fellowship Community Church (BOLFCC) 2210 East 3rd Ave, Tampa, FL

=========================

Tuesday, February 23, 2010. 8:00 PM

A Live on-line discussion on Lesbian Fiction and Literature
To join log onto: http://bit.ly/cBNRqC
See you there!

**************

Hot Shorts

From the upcoming novel Desire at Dawn

She tasted like fresh baked bread. Like the flavors from Kylie’s human life that had meant so much, that once made her tongue dance and wet itself and beg.

Kylie sniffed the woman cautiously, took her passive fear into her nose, ran her hands over the fear-stilled flesh. Bread and cheese, melting. Hm.

She tasted good. Like sitting on the front stoop waiting for her mother to come home while rain fell in lazy droplets ready to wash Naomi’s city smells away.

The woman stirred in Kylie’s arms. Twin red pinpricks dotted the curve of her throat. “Are you finished with me?” Her voice was fearful but excitement danced just beneath the words.

“No.”
“Yes.”

Kylie turned to see who had negated her although she already knew who had spoken. Silvija. Just a few feet away, barely sheltered by the trees in the woman’s front yard, she stood just behind Kylie’s mother. She was tall and fearsome while Belle, Kylie’s mother, was graceful and small, a gazelle waiting to run.

“No,” Kylie said again. “I am not finished with her.”
In her arms, the woman moaned softly and clung.
Silvija laughed. “Rebellion must run in the family.”
The look she leveled on Kylie was not amused. It was her first and last warning.

***************

Fiona on the Web and Online

www.fionazedde.com

www.myspace.com/zedde

www.twitter.com/fionazedde

www.fionazedde.blogspot.com

www.facebook.com/fiona.zedde

New Year, New Dreams

2010-01-06T22:12:00.009-05:00

Writer’s Note

Welcome to the new year! Only a few days into it, 2010 already feels like a year of positive change, excitement, and blessings to come.

With the help of wonderful friends, I'm making great headway on the eBook, Kisses After Midnight, slated to come out later this year while my website is being re-vamped and made even more fabulous. So stay tuned for that unveiling to come soon. The paperback novel, Dangerous Pleasures, is on my editor's desk going through its own particular process. All good things. All progress. All things for the new year and beyond.

In that vein, be prosperous and be well. The fortunes of the future are yours to seek now.

**************

Hot Shorts

“Fast” Part V

[continued from last month]

Relief pushed aside Jette’s caution. She didn’t even bother to ask Luna how she got into the locked and alarmed car. “Where do you want to go?”

“Down to the beach.” Luna’s teeth glinted in the darkness. “Near the cliffs.”

They cruised down the boulevard, top down despite the rain-heavy gray clouds that floated above their heads. At the beach, Jette nosed the car past a high gate and down to a ramp leading to the water. Waves crawled up the beach, lapping at the Mustang’s tires.

Luna touched Jette’s thigh. “I hear you’ve been looking for me.”
“And you wanted to be found?”
“More or less.” Luna’s smile turned playful. “So now that you’ve found me, what are you going to do?”

Jette wasn’t used to all this talking. The other woman’s bright smile intimidated her, started a shiver of fear in her belly that she’d never known before. It felt good.

“Let’s go for a walk.” Jette opened the car door.

They made it as far as the hood of the Mustang before the rain started. They stopped and stood under the cool shower, watching each other. Silver droplets caught in Luna’s eyelashes and traced the full curve of her mouth.

“What do you want, Adrenaline Girl?”
“You tell me,” Jette said. “Aren’t you the one who’s sure that she knows what I want and how I want it.”

Luna chuckled again and stepped closer. Jette’s skin tingled in anticipation. Her world slowed, tilted until the warm hood of the Mustang was under her back. She closed her eyes. Rain danced against her mouth, streamed down her face and into her hair. Luna moved over her, shielding Jette from the rain. “I have exactly what you want right here.”

She tasted like a well-aged merlot, wet and soft, with a touch of oak and cardamom. Rain blinded Jette again as Luna moved away. She felt a hungry mouth nuzzling her throat, the delightful slide of the woman’s tongue on her skin.

The pain. It blossomed gently under the hothouse mouth. Jette gasped and swallowed rain, eyes fluttering, blinking quickly under the steady drops. It felt like she was losing her virginity again. Pleasure slowly obliterated the pain. Jette’s hands hooked in Luna’s hair, holding her against her throat, pressing the greedy mouth into her skin. Her body was wet from the inside out, spreading and softening under Luna’s hands.

Deft fingers floated over Jette’s belly, down to the zipper of her slacks. Luna opened her body, slid inside its welcoming heat. Her pussy clenched and sucked the fingers deeper. That’s when Jette felt it, a vibration like the roaring of the Mustang as it slid into third gear. Jette’s body trembled under the soft hand, then shook, then shuddered before finally coming to rest.

Luna slowly pulled away. “Now,” she said. “What can you do for me?” Her eyes glowed like headlights through the rain.

“I thought I already did it?” Jette touched her own throat, felt the rawness there. Her voice trembled. She knew exactly what had just happened. The part that most concerned her was that she’d let someone else do the driving. She said as much to her new lover.

Luna laughed, husky and low. “You are worth keeping.”

Jette once thought that death would come quickly. But now she knew better. Death was languorous and sweet, perfuming the air with the scent of blood and woman and jasmine. Death came at night, lingering over Jette’s throat and thighs with a hunter’s patience, drinking her fill, taking everything that Jette was or ever knew. Slowly.

**First published in VA-VA-VOOM: Red Hot Lesbian Erotica. Edited by Astrid Fox, 2005.

December Newsletter

2009-12-03T00:29:00.009-05:00

Wintersweet

On December 1st, I woke to frost on my car. The first frost. The first of December.

All season, I've been bemoaning the loss of Summer, of its warm nights and hot days, the possibility of motorcycle rides through dark and intimate streets while clinging to a leather-clad back and feeling absolutely safe. Now that the first frost has arrived, burning through the all-too-brief Fall, I still wish for Summer. Maybe I'll move further South.

Have a wonderful holiday season. Share love and be love.

***********************************************

Hot Shorts

“Fast” Part III

“Damn!”

The faint outline of her body, drawn in mist and steam, lingered on the hood of the Mustang. Jette leaned back against the car and tilted her head at the horizon.

The colors of the setting sun had lost their appeal. Instead, a vision of Luna, soft and full, burned brightly in her mind’s eye like the afterimage of a too-bright flame.

Jette was dropping off one of her latest thrills when she spotted Luna, full hipped and gorgeous in a pale dress. In the midst of the hectic early Saturday evening foot and street traffic, she strolled, swinging her ass and the tiny nothing of a bag that seemed attached to her fingers by air alone.

No one shoved her, no one pushed against her. She floated. Jette quickly parked the Mustang and caught up with the woman. Luna turned. She seemed not at all surprised to see her.

“Was she any good?” She gestured behind them to the girl Jette had just left behind.

“Well, I was. So we had a good time.”

Luna chuckled. Her laugh was a delicate ripple that floated along Jette’s skin. “I’m sure she’ll be back for more,” she said.

“Maybe, but I won’t be there. I never perform the same trick twice.”

“Cold little bitch, aren’t you?”

“Not in the least. I’m hot. All the time.” Jette’s eyes ran over Luna’s body, lingering on its bold curves and the dip and rise of what she quickly realized was an amazing ass. “Especially when you’re around.”

Luna’s laughter was slightly mocking. “You look good, Bridgette. But you’re not quite as good as you think you are. Don’t try to handle me like one of your girls, because you won’t be able to.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it.” Jette said, though she did. Intensely. After she’d met Luna for the first time, her nights had been filled with visions of the voluptuous woman.

Hot dreams of heavy breasts and excited hips, Luna calling her name, gasping that she’d never had it so good. But even as Luna had moved like a puppet through Jette’s fantasies, the small woman’s dark eyes had glowed feral in the bedroom light, her lips parted over sharp teeth.

Her eyes flickered over Luna’s body again only to encounter a dark, knowing look.

“Know what you’re asking for, Bridgette. Isn’t that what you always tell your little girls? Know that you’ll never be the same afterwards.”

They stopped in the midst of the crowd. People flowed past, barely stopping to acknowledge them on the crowded sidewalk. Everyone was high on the goodwill of a Friday night, no more work for another two days, and possibilities pranced around in high heels and tight shirts. Why worry about something so insignificant as an amorous couple standing in the middle of the crowded sidewalk?

Luna pressed an open palm to Jette’s belly, inciting a riot of tiny butterflies under the skin.

“Think of me the next time you fuck one of your girls. Wonder what it would be like to let someone else drive for a change.” The fingers started to move, stroking the flesh under Jette’s jacket. “The one thing you wouldn’t have to wonder about is how it would feel.”

Nails scraped the suddenly sensitive skin and Jette felt her pussy perk up and begin to salivate. “I would be very good to you.” Luna drew back and began to walk forward again through the crowd. “But let me know what you think about my offer,” she threw over her shoulder.

What offer? Jette wondered, still drowning in the sudden and immediate arousal spiraling under her skin and the river rushing beyond control between her thighs.

“I want you, Bridgette. When you’re ready for me, if you’re ready for me, I’ll come.” And without seeming to, her steps picked up speed until she disappeared altogether.

Jette wasn’t pleased. She tried to follow Luna, but quickly realized that was impossible. She had been dismissed. After a half-hearted attempt to pick up someone else on the strip, she headed back home.

Jette couldn’t concentrate. Luna was the throbbing engine that drove her obsessive visits to the cliffs and to downtown Long Beach, hoping to catch a glimpse of her again. Other women, no matter how tasty, couldn’t take the power of her memory away.

When Jette’s fingers found them wet and wanting, it was Luna’s mocking face she saw. When the women’s mouths touched her throbbing pussy, Jette heard Luna’s low, taunting voice.

Jette almost gave up on finding Luna; but she didn’t have to. Luna found her first. Walking up to the car after an unsatisfying stroll on the strip, Jette nearly jumped out of her skin when a dark head poked from the open window of the Mustang.

“Hey, sugar.” Luna’s sweet jasmine scent touched her face.

[to be continued]

**First published in VA-VA-VOOM: Red Hot Lesbian Erotica. Edited by Astrid Fox, 2005.

November Newsletter

2009-10-29T20:58:00.013-05:00

November: Warm feet, fireplace, pumpkin soup...

The Fall has been lovely so far (chilly weather aside) with the Crucial and Amazing Fire and Ink Writers' Conference in Austin, Texas still fresh in my mind and spirit.

At the conference, I met and re-met so many brilliant and lyrical writers (ate a LOT of Mexican food) and woke up every morning just before 7 to stretch my pen in the literary chef, Marvin K. White's "Morning Stretches." Happily, I left Austin with enough inspiration to write and write and write...

The next weekend found me in Tampa for SistaExposure, a wonderful networking affair put together by GrownGurl Events. As promised, the evening was a fountain of plenty - visual artists, poets, fiction writers, even a massage therapist with her chair ready and waiting for eager bodies. All in all, a fantastic trip down south.

In other "blissful" news, while at Fire and Ink, I found out that my first book, Bliss, has been and will be used in university classrooms from Florida to the Midwest. Students have written papers on it! Amazing.

And finally, in this month of giving thanks, I cannot forget my readers, friends, and supporters: Thank You!

*********************************************

Writing Workshop - Erotica

Saturday, November 14th - 3:00 PM

Mini-Erotica Writing Workshop and Book Signing

Bound To Be Read Books

481-B Flat Shoals Avenue, S.E.

Atlanta, Georgia 30316

(404) 522-0877

Free

*********************************************

Signings, Readings, and Book Discussions (aka Love, Love, Love)
Saturday, October 31, 2009 – 2:15 PM
Atlanta Gay Pride
The Bud Light Stage
A reading with Elizabeth Anderson, Alice Teeter, and Amanda Gable
Piedmont Park, Atlanta.

Saturday, November 7, 2009 – 2:00 to 3:00 PM
Charis Books and More Birthday Bash
Charis Books and More
Atlanta, GA 30307
(404) 524 0304

Saturday, November 14th - 3:00 PM
Mini-Erotica Writing Workshop and Book Signing
Bound To Be Read Books
481-B Flat Shoals Avenue, S.E.
Atlanta, Georgia 30316
(404) 522-0877

Friday, November 20th – 8 PM
Does Your Mama Know? – The 2^nd Edition Reading with Lisa C. Moore
Charis Books and More
Atlanta, GA 30307
(404) 524 0304

*********************************************

Hot Shorts

“Fast” Part II

A week later found Jette back at the same overlook, only this time she was alone. Just her and the sea. The pounding surf below echoed the unfamiliar quiet in her blood.

She hadn’t been able to sleep tonight. Something in a waking dream had brought her back up here to brood under a sky that was on fire with the last colors of the sunset. The wind flung her thick black hair before her eyes like a veil. A full moon already hovered, pale and ripe, ready to take its place among the stars.

Beneath the sounds of the wind and surf, Jette heard footsteps. She turned and her breath stopped. To say that the woman, her sudden companion on this stretch of lonely road, was pretty would have been an insult.

She had the round, soft face of innocence, but her mouth was a dark slash of color, like drying blood, against her mocha skin. Jette drew in a deep breath just to make sure that she could. She acknowledged the woman’s slow smile with one of her own.

The stranger was all softness and warm breeze in a blue dress the color of the Mustang and the sky. Her dress was loose, but the wind molded it to her body, giving Jette an unrestricted view of full breasts with their crown of wide nipples, the gentle round of belly and honey thick thighs framing the delicate V of her womanhood.

But this was no mere honey. She was like silk unfolding on a breeze, a teasing whisper of sound and graceful motion.

Jette’s world narrowed to the vision walking toward her. Sunset, full moon, and not another soul in sight. She licked her lips. What a treat this was. She expected the woman to go straight for the car, to ooh and ahh over the butter-soft leather interior, the sleek classic lines, maybe beg her to put the top down so they could watch the sunset from the Mustang’s cozy interior.

But she walked past the car, smiling.

“You must get a lot of pussy with this car.”

Jette smiled. “I do alright.”

“Hm. I bet you do.”

Still watching Jette, the woman walked back to the Mustang and leaned back against the hood of the Mustang. She closed her eyes. The breeze ruffled her dress, lifting it away from her dimpled knees.

“I’m Luna.”

Below them, sunset-colored waves flung themselves at the cliffs. The moist spray flicked against Jette’s face, wetting her mouth and cheeks.

“So, Bridgette, have you ever been…taken?” Luna asked without opening her eyes.

Jette looked closely at the woman. She hadn’t been called that name in a long time, and certainly never by someone she’d just met. “Do I know you?”

“No, but you will.” Luna opened one amber-flecked eye. “Are you going to answer my question?”

For a moment, Jette was tempted to tell her to fuck off. But a stronger part of her wanted to know where this conversation was going. “No. I’ve never been fucked. And I don’t want to be.”

She frowned, not quite sure that she wanted to answer any more personal questions from this stranger, although she herself had asked that question of many strange women. Just before making a home inside their bodies for her fingers or tongue.

“The old saying is true, you know,” Luna murmured. Her gaze was lazy, but watchful. “You never know what you’re missing until you try it.”

“Usually I’d agree with you. But not in this instance. Not when it’s about me getting fucked.”

“So you’re going to stick with what you know? Fucking girls in your fast car then peeling out at 110 miles just to get back to your lonely little apartment?” Luna propped herself up on her elbows and watched Jette with amused eyes. “Doesn’t sound like much fun to me.”

“Then you obviously haven’t tried it.” Jette grinned.

“I’ve experienced something like it.” The woman bared her own teeth. “You feed on their fear and turn it into lust. You’re no better than a leech, or a vampire.” Luna didn’t sound judgmental. Simply like she was stating a fact.

Suddenly uneasy, Jette shrugged and turned around to squint into the darkening distance. She didn’t see anything wrong with what she did with these women as long as both of them got off and nobody got hurt. She turned back to face Luna. But the woman was gone.

[to be continued]

**First published in VA-VA-VOOM: Red Hot Lesbian Erotica. Edited by Astrid Fox, 2005.

SistaExposure in Tampa

2009-10-07T19:42:00.006-05:00

SistaExposure

Come out one and for this delicious event at the Good Luck Cafe in Ybor City, Tampa.

Saturday, October 17th from 9 PM until 3 AM

Drink specials. Spoken Word. Great Music. Networking. Flirting. Good times!

Autumn Sonata - October Newsletter

2009-09-24T22:00:00.010-05:00

**Changes**

When I was younger, there were things I couldn't be bothered with--vegetables, chocolates, my evening bath. Now, there are few pleasures sweeter to me than a slice of German chocolate cake, the dark, slightly sweet pastry with its silky-on-the-tongue coconut frosting and a maraschino cherry glistening on top.

Change is not only a sign of time passing, it is a sign of progress, of life moving forward, like a river, washing away the old, and bringing in the new.

My writing is changing. The things I want to explore are changing. Life is moving forward.

And tonight, after a dinner of vegetable stir-fry and tofu, I will lay back in my evening bath with a slice of German chocolate cake and think about how far I've come.

** Writing Workshop**

In Association with A.I.M.

Feeding the Hunger Within:
A Creative Writing and
Publishing How-to Workshop

Saturday, October 24, 2008 – 2:00 PM until 5 PM

The first half of the workshop will be dedicated to the craft and task of writing while the second will address publishing and the different routes to get a story to an audience.

Bring a pen, notebook, and your inquiring mind.

To make a deposit and reserve your space, contact Fiona at f.zedde@gmail.com.

Cost: $30 or $20 for A.I.M. Members

**Signings, Appearances, and Book Discussions**

Friday, October 9 – Sunday, October 11, 2009

Fire and Ink Cotillion
Austin, Texas

Saturday, October 17, 2008
9:00 PM until 3:00 AM
Good Luck Café
Ybor City, Tampa

Saturday, October 24, 2008
2:00 PM until 5 PM
Feeding the Hunger Within – A creative writing
and Publishing How-To Workshop

The first half of the workshop will be dedicated to the craft and task of writing while the second will address publishing and the different routes to get a story to an audience.

Bring a pen, notebook, and your inquiring mind.

To make a deposit and reserve your space, contact Fiona at f.zedde@gmail.com.

Cost: $30 or $20 for A.I.M. Members

**Hot Shorts**

“Fast”

Bridgette Peoples thought that when death came, it would be quick—the slam of steel and metal, brakes screaming, burnt rubber steaming on the pavement, a searing fire. But she was wrong.

Jette drove her cars fast and liked her women even faster. She loved it when they curled into her body on hairpin turns, trembling in fear at the quick downshift and the feral snarl on her lips. She didn’t believe in a speed limit.

“Slow down, Jette,” her date squeaked from the passenger seat.

The girl’s long brown legs were taut against the floor as if searching for the brakes to stop the 1968 Shelby GT 350 Mustang convertible herself. Still, her breath came quickly and her nipples were hard against the thin cotton shirt.

"It’s alright, honey.” Jette called them ‘honey’ because she always forgot their names. “I know what I’m doing.”

The speedometer inched up to ninety-five and the girl’s legs widened. Jette grinned. It was almost time. Wind pounded into the open convertible from all sides. When a soft whimper of fear leaked from the girl’s mouth, the car reached one hundred.

The coastline beyond the Mustang was a blur of trees, electric sky, and blue-green water. Jette abruptly dropped into fourth gear. Then third. In a whirlwind of gravel and sand, she stopped the car.

Suddenly it was just her and the honey. The growl of the Mustang’s engine and the girl’s rapid breath kicked her pulse into overdrive. Jette could smell the girl.

“I’m sorry I scared you.” She wasn’t.

Jette went for her, climbing over to the passenger seat. The girl met her halfway, lips parted, wet, and ready; her hands already sliding under Jette’s leather jacket.

Long legs opened to receive and Jette’s fingers slipped quickly between them, past the barrier of shorts and panties to bury themselves in paradise. With her other hand, she shoved the seat back, giving herself more room to move. The girl squirmed, gasped, panted as Jette tongued her nipples through the white cloth, bathing the straining flesh beneath. The windows fogged.

Jette’s clit throbbed harder with every gasp the girl released, with each pull of the girl’s wetness on her fingers. The honey’s bare thighs trembled. Her hips bucked in the sweat-slick leather seats and her naked foot slid against the windshield in quick, staccato squeaks.

“Let it go, honey,” Jette hissed.

The girl flung her head back and howled at the sun. Twenty minutes later, Jette dropped her off and sped away in a blur of blue.

[to be continued]

**First published in VA-VA-VOOM: Red Hot Lesbian Erotica. Edited by Astrid Fox, 2005.

**Fiona on the Web and Online**

www.fionazedde.com
www.myspace.com/zedde
www.twitter.com/fionazedde
www.fionazedde.blogspot.com
www.facebook.com/fiona.zedde

September 2009 Newsletter

2009-08-26T22:14:00.003-05:00

The summer is falling away. Just before the Fall arrives, I am tensed for shorter days and darker evenings, dreading every sunset that brings the season closer. But what I’ve forgotten is the true beauty of Fall, that it is the time to rid oneself of the extraneous, leaving only the absolute necessities. In this season, we are naked to whatever experience the universe has for us.

In the last few months, there has been some writing, though not as much as I’d like. The new book, Dangerous Pleasures, has been pushed back from Summer 2009 release and I’m crossing my fingers that it will be ready in time for shelves and Christmas stockings in Winter of 2010.

***

The last few months have been quiet but an excerpt from Every Dark Desire was published in Fist of the Spider Woman, a wicked anthology edited by Amber Dawn and published by Arsenal Pulp Press.

Satisfy Me Tonight has come out to good reviews and is available in local bookstores as well as online. My novella in this collection was inspired by my trip to Belgium two winters ago and features an American tourist and her sexy European lover.

***

Hibernation is well and truly over. I’ve thrown off the blankets, rubbed the long sleep from my eyes, and am ready to jump back into the thick of things starting with some local signings in September. Check them out below. After that, there are tentative trips planned to Florida, DC, Austin, and Toronto so stay tuned.

September Events

Wednesday, September 2nd, 2009 – 8:00 PM

Sippin’ On Ink Interview on Blog Talk Radio

www.blogtalkradio/Sippin-on-Ink.com

Log on and listen LIVE!

Friday, September 4th, 2009 – 8:00 PM

Charis Books and More

1189 Euclid Avenue, NE

Atlanta, GA 30307

(404) 524 0304

Saturday, September 5th, 2009 - 2:00 PM

Atlanta Black Pride @ the Charis Books Table

Atlanta Renaissance Hotel

590 W. West Peachtree Road

Atlanta, GA 30303

Saturday, September 5th, 2009 - 5:30 PM

Decatur Book Festival

Decatur City Hall

Saturday, September 5th, 2009 - 10:00 PM

Dragon*Con

LGBT Panel

Hyatt Regency, Downtown Atlanta

Sunday, September 6^th – 2 PM

The Grand Atlanta Hyatt – Charis Books Table

Sunday, September 6^th – 7:30 PM

A Tribute to E. Lynn Harris

Outwrite Bookstore and Coffeehouse

991 Piedmont Avenue

Atlanta, GA 30309

(404) 607-0082

2009-08-02T22:02:00.002-05:00

After many, many months of hyper-hibernation, I’ve gotten back enough energy to get back into writing in long streams again. I’ve finished a rough draft of the book due out next year (or so) – Dangerous Pleasures.

In the meantime, I’m getting ready for a hectic September with appearances/signings/readings at DragonCon, Decatur Book Festival, and Atlanta Black Pride.

I love productivity!

Happy Post-Valentines Day, Post-Black History Month, and Pre-Easter!

2009-03-04T07:28:00.001-05:00

It was an eventful and deflating 2008 and I, like most people, am looking for something better from 2009. But don’t we say that every year? Near the close of 2008, I was supposed to turn in my newest book to the publisher, but because of unforeseen life-changing events (are these things ever seen?), Dangerous Pleasures is still half finished and hanging out somewhere on my computer's hard drive. This means that it will be much delayed. Instead of a June 2009 release the new book will more than likely be out in December just in time for gift giving. Something to keep winter chill from your bones.

In the meantime, check out the cover and blurb:

Erica and Maxine are best friends. Two women who’ve known each other for a lifetime and are close as they are different.

Maxine is a free-spirited lesbian and very much wanted by the ladies in and around her hot Southern California community. Erica, straight and innocent, is a woman just getting out of a painful divorce and looking for an escape from that pain.

While Max slips in and out of affairs, taking pleasure where it bites the sweetest, Erica steps into a dangerous game of anonymous sex-by-dark that transports her to places she’d never dreamed. But the worlds of these best friends are heading for a dramatic collision. At the end of it all, will they or their friendship remain standing?

In the meantime, the new collection Satisfy Me Tonight is now available in stores and online. Check out the cover and have a peek inside at Amazon.com. The threesome (Satisfy Me, Satisfy Me Again, plus this latest book) makes the perfect Springtime gift.

Which reminds me, May is National Masturbation Month. I know it’s two months away but it never hurts to look ahead and start celebrating early…

Happy reading and have a wonderful next few months.

Thank you, Philly! Thank you, New York!

2008-10-23T23:31:00.003-05:00

A very big thanks to everyone who helped to make my trip up north a memorable one—Carleen at Bristen's Eatery in Brooklyn; Ed from Giovanni's Room in Philly; Rachel Kramer Bussel and the amazing writers and readers at "In the Flesh" ; Linda V, Yojani, and all the wonderful folks from The Center. Not to mention Starlita, DJ, Krystle, Phyllis, and Ozzy. I'm looking forward to heading that way again next year.

October Greetings

2008-10-05T13:54:00.004-05:00

It’s been a long, long time. I hope you’ve been doing well in the past few months while keeping your loved ones safe and near and avoiding the lure of very bad temptations. As for me, after many personal changes and several new directions, I am finally able to log back into life again. Change can be a mad and painful thing, as we all know, but there’s no choice but to move on through it.

In the meantime, there’s a lot in line for the next few months, the least of which is a trip “north” to New York in a few short weeks. There, I’ll be reading all over Manhattan and Brooklyn and in between I’ll visit Philadelphia for the first time and get to meet the lovely folks at Giovanni’s Room.

Check out my schedule and stop by. There will be delicious cupcakes at Happy Endings in Manhattan or everyone to nibble on during all that hot oral sex talk.

Thursday, October 16, 2008 @ 8 – 10 PM
In the Flesh Erotica Reading Series
w/ Rachel Kramer Bussel, Donna George Storey, and others.
**The theme of this third anniversary evening is oral sex**
Happy Ending Lounge
302 Broome Street
New York, NY 10002 (look for pink awning)
http://www.rachelkramerbussel.com/

Saturday, October 18, 2008 @ 5:30 PM-7:00 PM

Giovanni’s Room

345 South 12th Street

Philadelphia, PA 19107

http://www.giovannisroom.com/

Sunday, October 19, 2008 @ 7 PM
Bristen's Eatery
751 Franklin Ave
Brooklyn, NY 11238
(646) 393-9422

Tuesday, October 21, 2008 @ 6 PM
A night with Linda Villarosa
LGBT Community Center
208 W 13th St
New York, NY 10011
(212) 620-7310

The new book is doing well. It got a nice mention in the AJC (thanks, Sara!) a few weeks ago and has been getting great reviews from readers and publications all over the place. Thank you for making it such a success!

That’s it from me for now, but you’ll be hearing from me again soon. In the meantime, happy reading, happy loving. I hope to see you in New York or Giovanni’s Room in Philly!

Chicagoans, I'm heading to your town!

2008-08-04T12:55:00.006-05:00

The last time I was in the city, I had a fabulous time eating dim sum, meeting some remarkable people, and even checking out the clubs. Great music! Now, I'm heading back for work and plan to fit in just a little bit of fun during that weekend amidst all that making the bacon business. I'm having three events Friday thru Sunday, so please come check out at least one -- or all of them if you just can't get enough of me and the new book HUNGRY FOR IT : ).

Friday, August 15, 2008 @ 6:30 PM
Intimate Sessions of Erotica
Affinity Community Services
5650 S Woodlawn Ave (in Hyde Park)
Chicago, IL 60637
773.324.0377

Saturday August 16, 2008 @ 8 PM
Sappho's Salon
Women and Children First
5233 N Clark St
Chicago, IL 60640
773.769.9299

Sunday, August 17, 2008 @ 4 PM
Red Kiva
(An event by Femistry)
1108 West Randolph Street
Chicago, IL 60607
Phone: 312.226.5577

Interview with Treazure Magazine

2008-07-08T12:41:00.006-05:00

Check out this great interview I had with Treazure Magazine. B over at the mag treated me really well. Here it is:

http://www.treazuremag.com/article/interviews/1898/hungry-for-writing

June? Already?!

2008-06-06T22:54:00.005-05:00

**In this Installment**

+Life Updates
+New DESIRE Review
+Reviews in General
+Travel News
+List of Upcoming Signings

Hi there, Booklovers!

A big sigh of relief…before taking off at full speed again. That’s what my summer/spring is looking like now that I’ve just finished up my MFA in San Diego and am looking forward to the in-store arrival of my new book, HUNGRY FOR IT, on June 24th.

It’s been a hectic last few days between moving from San Diego, attending the Lambda Literary Awards in Los Angeles, and relocating back to Atlanta full time. What a time to find out that AirTran’s luggage policy changed! But ah well. Good times were had in LA despite not being able to take home the Lammy in my category. But relative newcomer to the writing scene, Gabrielle Goldsby, was awarded a well-deserved trophy for her mystery Wall of Silence. Fred Smith and I rubbed elbows with some luminaries from the queer lit world and were treated to some fabulous nosh throughout the evening, including these amazing cream puffs that nearly made me scream….

Book Expo America the next day was fun, crazy, overwhelming, and everything in between. My signing there went fast and I got the chance to grab a bunch of signatures from writers whose work I love or at least always wanted to try. At the end of the afternoon, I waited in line for about thirty minutes to pay for a cheeseburger that was, unexpectedly, worth it. Golden toasted wheat bun split around a tender, well-grilled meat patty slathered in melted cheddar cheese. And don’t forget the fries. Crisp. Greasy. Yum.

On the writing front – more about books, less about food – I’ve started the outline for a new novel that’s due out next June and tentatively entitled, Pleasures in the Dark. The title is a bit cheesy, but will more than likely change before the book hits the shelves. Unlike HUNGRY, this 2009 release is not a sequel to anything previous. For those curious about a sequel to BLISS and DESIRE please have a bit more patience with me. I was supposed to do a sequel to BLISS due next year but the storyline I came up with for my girls, Hunter and Sinclair, was so weak that I couldn’t go forward. But I’ll keep working on it : ).

Big thanks to all you lovelies who sent in graduation congrats. I’m easing into a slightly slower groove so will be responding to your wonderful messages soon. Take very good care. Enjoy the outdoors as much as you can, and remember that it’s life’s small delights that make it all worth it.

--Fiona

**New DESIRE review**

Erotica Revealed just did a great review for DESIRE. Do check out the full text of it at their site http://www.eroticarevealed.com/. Here is a snippet:

“This book stands out from the red sea of current vampire erotica and casts its own powerful spell. Although they are repeatedly defined as "beasts" and "fiends," these characters attract the mortal reader as they attract mortal characters in diverse places in the real world: Jamaica and Alaska, with kinky weekends in Los Angeles.” – by Jean Roberta at EroticaRevealed.com.

**Reviews in General**

Don’t forget that you too can write a review of your own about any of my books for Amazon.com and barnesandnoble.com. Any lovely words – no matter how brief – are very much appreciated and welcome.

**Travel News**

In addition to a round of signings in Atlanta and the surrounding areas this year, I’ll also be heading to Chicago (August 14 – 16) and New York (September 5 – 7). Now that I’m no longer in school, there will be time to go farther and do more. For further details or changes, keep an eye out on my Myspace page.

**List of upcoming signings**

Tuesday, June 24, 2008 @ 8 PM
Outwrite Books and Coffeehouse
991 Piedmont Ave NE
Atlanta, GA 30309
404.607.0082

Saturday, July 5, 2008 @ 8 PM
Charis Books and More
1189 Euclid Ave NE
Atlanta, GA 30307
404.524.0304

Saturday, July 12th @ 2 PM
Borders (Stonecrest Mall)
8000 Mall Parkway
Lithonia, GA 30038
Phone: 678.526.2550

Sunday, July 13, 2008 @ 2 PM
Nubian Books
2449 Southlake Mall
Morrow, GA 30260
678.422.6120

Thursday, July 24, 2008 @ 12 PM
Borders
One CNN Center
Atlanta, GA 30303
Phone: 404.659.1949

Saturday, July 19, 2008 @ 2 PM
Atlanta - Midtown – (next to Whole Foods)
650 Ponce de Leon, Suite 500
Atlanta, GA 30308
Phone: 404.607.7903

Saturday, August 2nd @ 12 PM
Nubian Books
2449 Southlake Mall
Morrow, GA 30260
678.422.6120

Saturday, August 9, 2008 @ 2 PM
Borders - Northlake
4800 Briarcliff Road NE
Atlanta, GA 30345
Phone: 770.938.2441

Friday, August 15, 2008 @ 6 PM
Affinity Community Services
5650 S Woodlawn Ave (in Hyde Park)
Chicago, IL 60637
773.324.0377

Saturday August 16, 2008 @ 8 PM
Women and Children First
5233 N Clark Street
Chicago, IL 60640
773.769.9299

Sunday, August 17, 2008 @ 8 PM
Red Kiva
(An event by Femistry)
1108 West Randolph Street
Chicago, IL 60607
Phone: 312.226.5577

Friday, August 22, 2008 @ 12 PM Borders
One CNN Center
Atlanta, GA 30303
Phone: 404.659.1949

Saturday, August 23, 2008 @ 2 PM
Borders (Stonecrest Mall)
8000 Mall Parkway
Lithonia, GA 30038
Phone: 678.526.2550

Saturday, August, 30 2008 @ 2 PM
Walden Books
Cumberland Mall
US 41 AT I-285 NW
1228 Cumberland Mall
Atlanta, GA 30339
770.432.3288

a party in atlanta

2008-04-14T01:22:00.002-05:00

if your appetite is for lovely ladies and pulse-pounding music outside your bedroom, stop by plaka next sunday night, april 20, 2008. you won't be disappointed...

Lammy Finalist!

2008-03-21T14:33:00.003-05:00

i found out over the past weekend that EVERY DARK DESIRE is a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award in the category of erotica. three cheers!!! the annoucement of the winners will be made in may at book expo america (held in los angeles this year). i'm crossing my fingers for me, frederick smith, gabrielle goldsby, samuel delany and a host of other fabulous writers.

2008-01-09T14:16:00.000-05:00

PS - i made a quickie trip to the netherlands over holiday break and had the chance to step into the most fabulous shop. i fell in love with sooo many of their delish outfits. the resolution of the pics on their site isn't that great, but in person the smell and feel of rubber was intoxicating. if you get a chance to go any time in life, you must....

Playing catch up

2008-01-09T14:10:00.000-05:00

i've been having unrepentant blog envy lately. there are so many people out there - my friend fred included - who make the time to blog often enough that there isn't a gap of months between notes. ah! if i had the free time and will power....

but i'll parse out my news to make it seem like i have tons to say : ).

DESIRE is alive and well.

Thanks to your wonderful and continued support, EVERY DARK DESIRE has made a sensational splash. The news through the grapevine has been mostly positive although I hear the biggest complaint so far is that the novel has too much sex (sex and more sex) and not enough of the supernatural to suit those die-hard vampire fans. Whatever reaction, keep them coming; I love hearing what you have to say.

Frederick Smith in the house!

2008-01-08T12:34:00.001-05:00

As I mentioned last post, my fabulous writer friend from Los Angeles Frederick Smith has a new book out. You got a preview of the book cover before but now I have Fred (sort of) live and direct to answer some questions about his books and writing life. Check it out:

1. So you just published your second book. Congratulations! Tell us a little about the book, and
what's similar or different from your first...

Thanks. Right Side of the Wrong Bed is a novel about relationships, specifically a romantic relationship between opposites. The main characters, Kenny and Jeremy, are different in many ways -- age, education, experience, ethnicity, outlook on life -- but somehow manage to find each other interesting enough to try and make it work. I think it's a fun, funny, and thoughtful look at contemporary romance. I think anyone who's been in one of those "so good, yet so bad" relationships can relate to Right Side. Lots of fun supporting characters who have their opinions on whether Kenny and Jeremy are good or bad for each other. And I have lots of strong women characters in the new book who were fun to write and create.

Both my books are set in L.A. Right Side focuses on two main characters. Down For Whatever focuses on a foursome of friends who are looking for love in all the wrong places. Both books are stand-alone books, though I'm considering bringing back a few characters in future projects.

2. You must be able to stay awake 24-hours a day, since you've written a couple books, work full time, travel across country, and still maintain good relationships with those around you. Help us understand how you manage to have it all and do it all... what keeps you going?

I feel like I never sleep... for real! I have my alarm set for 4:30 am, and I try to write for a couple hours in the morning before leaving for my day job. Fortunately, I have a really great work team that supports my writing career, and I get to take off time for travel and book work. I can come in on weekends and have a quiet space to write if I want. I can be a pretty fast and productive writer when I'm focused on a project. When I'm not focused, I get sidetracked by things like email, reading blogs, responding to readers' notes, watching television, etc... After work, I go to the gym and then write until bedtime, which is usually 11:30 pm.

3. Can you talk a little about your writing techniques? When you sit down to write, where are you? What are you doing? Anything on in the background or outside your window? Do you set page goals?

I usually write in my bedroom, since I start writing in the wee hours of the morning or late at night. I have no rituals, per se, but I have to turn off the internet if I am to be productive that writing session. For me, I try to complete a scene... or at least get the scene going in the right direction so that when I start writing again, there's some direction. Some days I'm fast and turn out a lot of pages. Some days I'm slow. I would encourage new writers to finish their draft, then go back and edit. I wasted many a good writing session editing stuff I'd already written. So I usually just go forward because I know I'll have time to revise and edit once the novel draft is done.

4. So you're at the forefront of current black gay literature. How does that feel? How do readers feel you've represented the community or their lives? Is that how you want your work to be categorized?

I don't know about forefront, because there are so many great writers doing their thing for black gay literature. And there are great people who paved the way for people like me -- James Baldwin, E. Lynn Harris, James Earl Hardy, etc... I'm fortunate that I was able to be picked up by a mainstream publisher, and I wish more people in my genre were in the traditionally published route. It's coming, I'm sure.

Readers have responded very positively to my novels. With Right Side of the Wrong Bed, I have gotten tremendous love from the guys under 25 in big cities, who say that I've represented their generation very well with the Jeremy character -- the lingo, language, and urban edge. That's a surprise to me, because everyone writes off young people as non-readers. So that's exciting to hear their responses. Overall, people are positive.

Sometimes, I get questions about having characters from various cultural backgrounds interacting with each other. I think that's because people don't realize that in L.A., where my books are set, our reality is seeing so many people from various ethnicities in the same circles at work, in love, or at the club. Once I explain that, then people understand. Overall, I feel like I write work that anyone can relate to.

5. OK. So I'm going to ask you for a few of your favorites. Tell me your first response... so we can get to know you...

Favorite musician: i like Whitney Houston and Diana Ross
Favorite food: soul food, thai food, and seafood
Favorite political cause: access to higher education; cultural awareness and cultural empowerment
Favorite shallow pasttime: america's next top model, music videos, surfing the net
Favorite vacation spot: i enjoy disneyland or disney world... even as an adult
Favorite book: anything by Eric Jerome Dickey, Terry McMillan, Alisa Valdes-Rodrigues, or E. Lynn Harris

6. Any final words or thoughts you want to share?

I love hearing from readers, writers, and supporters. I really enjoy getting out to book clubs and book festivals, so if you're looking for someone cute, fun, smart, and exciting to be on a panel... lol. But seriously, feel free to check out my website or MySpace for updated events and book signings. I'll be doing some events in your area soon, so keep in touch.

October, already?

2007-10-24T04:04:00.000-05:00

It seems that time truly waits for no one. Here I am flabbergasted that it's October and being hit with the realization that November isn't so far away. Do you realize that Macys already has Christmas decorations up? Ridiculous.

The last few months have been a giant blur of busy-ness. What else is new, right? So, before time gets away from me anymore, I am posting a new blog. Dammit.

The impetus behind all this? Three things. First, my friend, Fred Smith has a new book coming out - Right Side of the Wrong Bed - next month. The second novel from this fabulous Los Angeles resident. Check out his latest book when it hits the shelves as well as his first, Down for Whatever (remember that saucy song by PYT from the early 90's?). The second push, is that that San Diego is burning all over the place. As a result, classes have been cancelled for the week, so I now have a little bit of time to catch up on some things I've been neglecting the last few months. Myspace, beware: I might even have time to check my inbox and respond to some messages, gasp!

And last but not least, news of my latest signing:

Monday, November 5, 2007 @ 6 PM
Cal State LA
5151 State University Drive
Los Angeles, CA 90032
(323) 343-3000

Thanks to everyone who already stopped by to hear about the newest book and to have their copies signed. Your presence is ALWAYS appreciated.

Wednesday Greetings!

2007-08-29T10:02:00.000-05:00

Hello everyone,

I hope your summer was wonderful – yes, I am using the past tense since I see leaves changing color outside my window and it’s almost time for me to head back to school. My summer started off with high hopes of lazy lemonade-filled days and endless nights of writing and gazing deeply into my characters’ souls. But the reality of it is that I was often too busy with the business end of “being an author” to do more than give my growing e-mail and myspace inboxes passing glances of horror, while my fictional babies suffered from neglect. Ironically, with even more busy-ness looming with my journey back to San Diego and all things MFA less than a week away, I’m forced into making the time to cull through my mailboxes and attend to the neglected quarters of my writing life. (sigh) But enough with the tragedy.

DESIRE is a success! The two big readings that I gave in Atlanta (at Charis and Outwrite) were wonderfully well-attended and the feedback that I’ve gotten regarding the novel and its characters, plot, etc. has been great. Thanks to everyone who made the time to come to these events – sometimes driving large distances – and chatted with me afterward. And those who sent notes of luck and light in lieu of your physical presence, big thanks to you as well.

My last two events in the Atlanta area this year will be for Black Pride and the Decatur Book Festival. Both events are this Labor Day weekend. I’ll be in pretty great company with authors like Fred Smith and Lisa C. Moore (Literary Café on Saturday afternoon from 4 - 7) then L.A. Banks and Sherman Alexie (Decatur Book Festival on Sunday afternoon 2:30 at the Decatur Conference Center Stage). Check out the sites for more info if you’re interested. http://www.inthelifeatl.com/pride/schedule/ and http://www.decaturbookfestival.com/2007/index.html .

Stay tuned for news about signings around the rest of the country. They are coming!

**By the way, those of you who read DESIRE and loved it, please drop by Amazon.com and post a review. Nothing too ornate required. Even a brief, “loved it and can’t get enough” will do. Thanks!**

Until next time, everyone. Be well!

DESIRE at Outwrite - Wednesday, August 22 @ 8 PM

2007-07-23T10:27:00.000-05:00

If you missed the first reading or want to sate your thirst with a second helping of DESIRE,
come in….

Desire can be dangerous. No one knows better than Naomi McElroy who, during a moment of intense ecstasy, is transformed into Belle, a ruthless beast whose hungers know no bounds. Hungers that inevitably endanger the people she loves. Set in the lush landscapes of modern day Jamaica and Alaska, EVERY DARK DESIRE is a vampire's tale of passion, discovery, and survival under starlight.

Outwrite Bookstore & Coffeehouse
991 Piedmont Avenue
Atlanta, GA 30309
Tel: 404-607-0082

Monday, Monday

2007-07-16T09:49:00.000-05:00

i have risen from the bowels of sleep with a purpose - to work. but as usual, got distracted by my inbox. one thing that stuck out from the rest of my mail was news of a new review of iridescence by the prolific and wonderful author, catherine lundoff. it's a fabulous one!

Review of "Iridescence"
"Iridescence: Sensuous Shades of Lesbian Erotica"Edited by Jolie Du Pré (Alyson, 2007)

"Iridescence" is a collection of lesbian erotica with characters from many cultural backgrounds. It is also probably one of the highest quality anthologies that I’ve read in the last few years.
There are interesting plots and settings, even some I haven’t run across before, and characters I’d like to spend more time with.

Have I mentioned that it’s hot? From C. B. Pott’s Akwesasne casino cop going home to her girlfriend after foiling a robbery to Fiona Zedde’s classical musician and her fan to the achingly poignant “Waiting” by Tenille Brown, this antho’s got range and, for that matter, legs. And it knows how to use them as well as a few other body parts. Jacqueline Applebee’s hot public sex in a British pub in “The Sound Inside,” the very sexy but doomed relationship between two First Nations sex workers in Jean Roberta’s “All My Relations” and Amanda Earl’s lovely “Daughter of Haiti” get you hot while making you question your assumptions about a lot of things.That’s not all. There are painters, mechanics, movies stars and women on the run – a whole spectrum of sex between women shows up in one form or another in this book. And it’s done well.

I’m impressed, especially since this is the first anthology Jolie has edited. I’m looking forward to her next anthology while I reread this one in the meantime.

good vibes all around. congrats on a great job, jolie!

Interview with Pmyner

2007-07-10T10:28:00.000-05:00

Here is the interview that i did with the very warm and welcoming renair amin. as you will hear on the feed, she is doing A LOT of things. check her out at http://www.pmyner.com/.

http://www.pmyner.com/radio.html

The Morning After

2007-07-08T06:00:00.000-05:00

The house was packed last night! Thanks to everyone for coming out to the reading and book party at Charis Books. By the time we left, all the drinks, fruit, and most of the cake was finished. Thanks for celebrating well so we didn’t have to take it home with us : ). It was great to see some of you all out at the club afterwards where lots of grooving was had and people took advantage of the $2 drinks.

Overall, the night was a success. The rain held off and people who I hadn’t see in ages – or who I only see once a year – came by and shared their hugs with me. One of the local radio stations came over to tape the reading and the Amazing Jennifer again recorded the event for posterity. The only fly in the ointment – Me. I don’t know if it was being in front of SO many people or just knowing the fact that I was being recorded for the radio, but the reading was certainly not all it could have been. I fumbled so many times and didn’t take the time to chat with the crowd like I normally do. Now I realize that more than anything the chatting helps both me and the people watching/listening to warm up and relax. So, there was no foreplay. No warm up. I just jumped straight into the session and boy oh boy…. Ah well. I’ll keep that in mind for next time.

Especially because of that, I want to thank folks for their patience and sweetness after - to Corticia, Joslyn, Mimi, Joelle, Kathi, Ronni, Dorothy, Brenda Joyce, Debra, Anne, Annie, Sara, Rhonda, Malika, Dionne, Akwe, Candace, Kia, Lacey, Jetta, West, Davone, Shirley, Yolo, Jenny, Asha, Red, Claudia, Keturah, Colette, Sarah, Michelle, Karen (times 2), Linda (times 3), Zenobia, and everyone else who helped to fill up the Charis space. I’m glad I have you all in my life.

And, as always, BIG BIG thanks to the newly Mini-Motoring Mckenzie for being there (and here). For being a shoulder, an ear, and a source of good feedback. I love me some you.

Happy rainy Sunday, all. I hope you’ll be able to stay in and enjoy the pretty precipitation from a warm and cozy place.

Four days and Counting...

2007-07-03T09:38:00.000-05:00

so, the countdown to the book release party is going going. I've sent out invitations, picked out my outfit, and today will choose which sections i'll be reading on saturday. i have butterflies. the first signing is always the big one for me - usually because i have to read/talk in front of a crowd and those kind of things always make me nervous. maybe one day i'll work past that....

in the meantime, i just read a great new york times article by martha southgate (author of third girl from the left) that talks about the state of writing and writers in the black american community/american publishing industry. check it out here.

now, it's back to writing. i'm working now on the 4th novel due out next summer and am trying to balance the writing with promoting this new one. busy bee, i am.

Signing Season

2007-06-26T15:56:00.000-05:00

ahhhh, the sweet smell of a tour season about to begin.... although all the arrangements haven't been made yet, i'll go ahead and put up the dates i have so far and will sinc that list with my website and myspace page shortly.

Atlanta Area

Saturday – June 23, 2007 @ 2:15
Gay Pride Weekend
WaMu Stage with Rock, Rhythm, & Rhyme Café
Piedmont Park, Atlanta
http://www.atlantapride.org/

Sunday - June 24, 2007 @ 5
Southern Voice Booth
Gay Pride Weekend
Piedmont Park, Atlanta

Saturday - July 7, 2007 @ 8 PM
Charis Books and More
1189 Euclid Ave. NE
Atlanta, GA 30307

Sunday - July 8, 2007 @ 1 PM
Nubian Bookstore
2445 Southlake Mall
Morrow, GA 30260-2334
(678) 422-6120

Friday – July 13, 2007 @ 12 PM
Borders Express – CNN Center
CNN Center Ste 265
One CNN Center
Atlanta , GA 30303

Saturday - July 14, 2007 @ 6:00 PM
Borders Books and Music
8000 Mall Parkway
Lithonia , GA 30038
(678) 526.2550

Saturday – July 28, 2007 @ 1:30 – 3:30 PM
Cumberland Mall
US 41 AT I-285 NW
1228 Cumberland Mall
Atlanta, GA 30339

Saturday – August 11, 2007 @ 2 – 5:00 PM
Barnes and Noble – Edgewood Retail District
1217 Caroline St NE Atlanta, GA 30307
(404) 522-0212

Saturday – August 18, 2007 @ 2 – 4 PM
Oasis Books Cart
South Dekalb Mall (Aisle)
2801 Candler Rd.
Atlanta, GA
404-381-0040

Wednesday – August 22, 2007 @ 8 PM
Outwrite Books and Coffee
991 Piedmont Ave NE
Atlanta, GA 30309
(404) 607-0082

Saturday – August 25, 2007 @ 2 PM
African-American Discount Books
5143 Old National Highway
College Park, GA 30349
(404) 246-6496

Sunday – September 2, 2007
Decatur Book Fair
http://www.decaturbookfestival.com/

LA/San Diego Area

Thursday – September 13, 2007 @ 8: 00 PM
A Different Light – West Hollywood
8853 Santa Monica Blvd.
West Hollywood, CA 90069
(310) 854-6601

Monday – September 17, 2007 @ 7:30 PM
A Different Light Bookstore – West Hollywood
Iridescence Anthology Reading with:
Jolie du Pre, Jolene Hui, Andrea Dale,
Nan Andrews, and Dylynn DeSaint
8853 Santa Monica Blvd.
West Hollywood, CA 90069
(310) 854-6601

Sunday – September 23, 2007 @ 10 a.m. - 6 p.m.
6th Annual West Hollywood Book Fair
West Hollywood Park
647 N. San Vicente Blvd., CA

Monday - November 5, 2007 @ 6 p.m.
Cal State LA
5151 State University Drive
Los Angeles, CA 90032
(323) 343-3000

Tampa Area

Saturday - August 4, 2007 @ 2 PM
Borders Books of South Tampa
909 N. Dale Mabry Tampa, FL 33609
(813) 874-5722

Sunday – August 5, 2007 @ 2 PM
Barnes & Noble Booksellers
Brandon Town Center
122 Brandon Town Center Dr.
Brandon, FL 33511
(813) 661-9883