And I wanted to tell you about yet another book that I have writing in. I am very proud to have been included in the most recent edition of Best American Erotica: the special 15th anniversary Best of Best American Erotica 2008, collecting the standout authors and stories from the history of the series (along with a few previously unpublished gems).

This one is actually rather bittersweet, as this special volume of Best American Erotica is also going to be the last one in the series. This is a fucking tragedy for serious erotica readers and writers. As a reader, the world of erotic fiction is way too oversaturated right now, with far too many erotica anthologies on the market and, frankly, not enough good writing to fill them all up. Best American Erotica was always a treasure trove: I didn’t always love every single piece in every single volume, but the quality was always consistently high, even when it didn’t happen to be to my taste. And my tastes were often expanded by the stories in BAE, sometimes to my great surprise. I’m going to miss it sorely.

And as a writer, the world of erotic fiction is, alas, neither prestigious enough nor lucrative enough to justify the enormous amount of time and work I typically put into a porn story. But inclusion in Best American Erotica made it both. (Barely lucrative enough… but definitely prestigious enough.) Personally, I almost always wrote my porn fiction with a hopeful eye towards getting it into BAE — and I can’t be the only writer that’s been true for. Without BAE, it’s going to be awfully damn hard to convince myself that writing porn is worth it anymore. Again, I’m going to miss it sorely. Kudos to series editor Susie Bright for blazing the trail and keeping the light burning for so long.