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Szereto recently took time out from her frenetic schedule to tell us a little about herself, her writing, and her most current projects. Eros Guide: Can you give me a writer's resume (books edited, stories published, etc.)?  Mitzi Szereto: There's my collection of short stories Erotic Fairy Tales, A Romp Through the Classics (Cleis Press); my novella highway (Renaissance E Books), and my anthologies Erotic Travel Tales and Erotic Travel Tales 2 (both from Cleis), with Erotic Travel Tales 3 forthcoming in 2004. Then there's my erotic novels written as M. S. Valentine: The Captivity of Celia (Blue Moon, forthcoming from the Venus Book Club); The Martinet (Chimera Books); The Governess (autumn 2003 from Blue Moon); The Possession of Celia (2004 from Blue Moon); Elysian Days and Nights (a download from Renaissance E Books, but forthcoming from Blue Moon in 2004). All the Valentine titles save for The Martinet were originally published by Masquerade Books. I've had short stories published in such places as The Erotic Review, The Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica; Wicked Words 4, Proof, Libido, Joyful Desires, the forthcoming Best Bondage Erotica, and an upcoming issue of Moist. I also write the occasional non-fiction piece, the most recent appearing in Writers Forum, with another forthcoming in Moist.EG: Why do you write erotica? How did you first get into writing erotic fiction? MS: I pretty much fell into it by accident, although I suppose it's safe to say that I saw so much crap being produced that I decided to write something I'd actually want to read. I should add that my reading matter of choice in this area had mostly been the classics—Fanny Hill, the writing of Anais Nin—works that are classified as literature. It became increasingly clear to me that we'd lost our great literary tradition and I could not understand why. If I wanted to read quality erotic prose, then surely other readers did as well. This is the mindset from which I began my sojourn into erotica. As for the actual sitting down to write in this area, this began shortly after I'd attended a Christmas party in San Francisco. I'd met a writer of erotica (unpublished as far as I know), who pretty much held me hostage until I read his work. I wasn't very impressed, though I'm never easily impressed anyway! Nevertheless, I didn't give the subject of erotica another thought until a short time later when I began waking up in the morning with bits of scenarios playing inside my head. It was like trailers from a film. It kept happening again and again for several mornings in a row. Finally I had to give in. I sat down at my computer and started banging out these scenes. And this is how my—or should I say M. S. Valentine's—first erotic novel The Captivity of Celia was born.  As for why I've stuck with erotica, I've already touched upon the issue of wanting to produce something toward my literary ideal. Publishers liked what I was writing, readers liked what I was writing—so why stop? However, in the past couple of years it's become even more important to stay with it because I finally feel like I'm accomplishing something—that my work is helping to return erotica to its rightful place as "literature." I am trying to elevate it, to bring to it more respectability, and I think this is finally happening. But it's still an uphill battle, much of which is the fault of erotica writers themselves. I've often said that I take great offence at this smut-writing/porn-writing mentality so many writers of erotica have. Maybe they think it's chic, but in my view it does a major disservice to erotica. I am not the only person who believes this either. Why must we denigrate our art? Cheapen it? Instead we should be further distancing our work from these negative labels, this downmarket stereotyping. That's the only way we will earn true respect as writers. And it's the best way to stop erotica from being relinquished to the dung heap of literature.EG: What are you working on now? MS: I've got three anthologies in the works, along with a novel, and some short stories for my anthologies. You've got to have some perks as an anthology editor, so I always make sure I get a story in too! I often take as long to write a short story as some people do on a novel. Even my anthologies take forever to produce. I'm famous for continually changing my deadline dates—three to four times is about my average now. Writers who haven't worked with me before are always surprised by the amount of time I take to produce an anthology. But at least three quarters of the stories that make my short list I request revisions on. That's a lot of editorial work! Then figure half of these revisions I ask for yet more revisions. I recently had someone revise a story five times. There are a number of reasons for this, and they have nothing to do with the writer not being any good. It's more a matter of fitting my specs, of being the kind of material I want to have my name attached to as editor. I think you've got to shed some blood for your art. If you churn something out in fifteen minutes, it's going to look like it. Quality is everything. Somewhere along the way we've lost that. And I'm not just talking about erotic literature either. EG: What is the difference in working in London vs. the U.S.?  MS: For me there's been a wealth of difference. At the risk of sounding like a Californian (which I am), being here has changed my karma. On a more tangible note, I think in the US it's a case of too many cooks spoiling the broth. You have all these people doing the same damned thing and quite frankly, it gets awfully boring after awhile. For me, Britain has become my new frontier. Things just don't seem as stale, as done to death. I'm sure you'll hear plenty of people here saying exactly the opposite, but I can only tell you how it is from my perspective.Take, for example, my erotic writing workshops, which I've pioneered in the UK and Europe. I've conducted them for arts organisations and at literary festivals and universities, even the occasional writing group. Yes, there are workshops in the US, but I ask you this: how are the majority of them packaged? Smut writing, porn writing, dirty story writing. And quite a few of them aren't even taught by real writers either. Therefore is it any wonder that serious writers, to say nothing of academics, don't give them any credence? At least here in the UK they haven't been prejudiced by this. Case in point: I recently conducted an erotic writing workshop for students on an MA writing course, along with their lecturers and professors. Do you honestly think that if I were promoting the writing of porn or smut I'd have been invited into a university to teach? I don't think so. Again, this goes back to the issue of erotica as literature. And I think we all know where I stand on that. EG: Do you have much contact with other erotic fiction writers in the UK? MS: Actually, I know writers from all areas of fiction. I've come across a handful of erotica writers through collecting for my anthologies, some of whom I've kept in close contact with, but I don't go out of my way to find people who write erotic fiction. I'm not part of any particular "scene." And from what I gather, neither are the erotica writers I've been meeting here. That seems to be an American phenomenon. EG: What do you feel is the state of erotic fiction in London? Is there an integrated literary scene? MS: If there is an integrated scene, I haven't come across it. The people I know here who write erotica are very segregated. In fact, they live all over the place, not necessarily in London. I've noticed that in the States there's this incestuous thing going on with erotica writers—they all seem to know each other. An erotic Peyton Place, if you will. I don't see that in the UK. Again, it's more of an American phenomenon. You see it tenfold in places like the San Francisco area, where I lived for awhile. EG: Do you write stuff besides erotica? MS: Absolutely! At the moment I'm writing a novel and I also have a screenplay on the backburner. I do the occasional non-fiction article, as I've said earlier. One of the more recent pieces in the non-fiction area is a scholarly paper I wrote, which just so happens to be on the subject of erotica in contemporary literature. It's scheduled to be published next year, but I also presented the paper at a creative writing conference at the University of Wales this past June. So as you can see, I travel in many circles. EG: What events do you have coming up? MS: At the end of August I'm off to the Greek island of Kythira, where I'll be teaching a weeklong residential erotic writing workshop. I'll definitely be bringing along my sun cream and hat for that one! Then on Sept. 13 I teach an all-day erotic writing workshop at the University of Sheffield. Then it's back to London again on Oct. 3 for a reading at the Hammersmith/Fulham Literary Festival, which will be held at the Amnesty International Bookshop.  EG: Who are your favorite writers? Your inspirations?MS: I like Arundhati Roy (The God of Small Things is one of my favourite books), Kathryn Harrison, Magnus Mills (The Restraint of Beasts is brilliant!), Haruki Murakami, Margaret Atwood, Michel Faber, T. C. Boyle, Martyn Bedford, Ruth Rendell, Alice Walker, Vladimir Nobokov, Theodore Dreiser, Upton Sinclair… I especially enjoy work that crosses cultural boundaries or is multicultural in nature. There's a wealth of this kind of literature happening in Britain and it's an area I've explored myself in my Erotic Fairy Tales book. It's also one of the themes running through my novel in progress. Perhaps because my own life has been so multicultural I'm naturally drawn to this in literature. Or maybe it's just the traveller in me? EG: Do you draw inspiration from other sources? MS: Of course! Popular culture is an endless source of inspiration. You only have to look around you to find inspiration. People too, are inspirational, especially the unpleasant ones! However, I am not one of those writers who go about with a journal; I find that I file things away inside my head. When I need them, they magically re-appear. I think it's a lot like a university education—or should I say the liberal arts style of university education in the States—you study all this stuff, forget most of it, but keep what's useful to you. EG: Do you write any fetish material? If so, what? MS: Not really. Or at least not serious fetish material directed toward serious fetishists. That's not to say that I haven't incorporated fetish themes in my work. It's an interesting area, so why not explore it a bit? In my book Erotic Fairy Tales, A Romp Through the Classics I played with a number of fetish themes. In one story, which is a take on the Daughters of Dracula theme, there's a cape made of black rubber that makes its wearer disappear. It's all very tongue-in-cheek, really. But then, you shouldn't take sex too seriously anyway!
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