We're happy to present this interview with author Shoshanna Evers from XOXO After Dark, a community site offering the best in romance, urban fantasy, and women's fiction. Read on to discover just what it's like when you're an erotica writer who still has to do the carpool run.
I've been writing BDSM erotic romance since my first book, Punishing the Art Thief, was released by Ellora's Cave in 2010, and have continued in that vein by writing The Enslaved Trilogy for Pocket Star, among many other stories. I write under the pseudonym Shoshanna Evers, but in everyday life, as I go about running errands with my young son or hanging out with friends, I go by my married name — and I pretty much never talk about sexy stuff.
In general, I don't tell people I write erotic romance. Mainly because no one really seems to care. They ask me what I do, working from home, and I say I'm an author and that I write under a pen name. They go, "That's cool," and the subject changes.
Sometimes, however, people follow up that question by looking at me holding my son's hand, and they ask: "You write children's books?" If they ask that, I usually smile and say, "Nope, erotic romance. I write how we make children."
If the conversation gets this far, I get these common responses:
- "Were you . . . promiscuous as a teenager?" (I can tell they're really wondering if I'm "promiscuous" now, but they know I've been married for nine years.)
- "Where do you come up with your ideas? Do you do all that sex stuff?"
- "Is this like Fifty Shades?"
- "So you write mommy porn?"
- "Are you published?"
Once someone told me they'd read one of my books and said it was so good that they thought I could "even write a real book." Yup. Apparently that book I wrote, the one they read and loved? Not a real book. Only literary fiction is real.
I get asked about my personal sex life so often it's embarrassing. I've come up with a standard response to that: "My personal sex life is personal, but the bedroom doors in my books are always wide open."
This, however, is my absolute favorite reaction of all when people find out I write erotica (and it always comes from unexpected places, like the little old lady or the soccer mom): "Oh my gosh! I love erotic romance! What's your pen name?"
True story: I was at the playground with my son and got into a convo with a mom who was reading on her Kindle. I asked her what she was reading, and she grinned and said "smut." I told her I loved smut (understatement!). She showed me the book she was reading . . . it was the Dominatrix Fantasy Trilogy set. By me. If I wrote that coincidence into a book, no one would ever believe it.
Now that was fun.
