All this month on the Logical-Lust blog we will have interviews from the authors of The Cougar Book, edited by Jolie du Pre. Today is Emerald, author of “To Make It That Way.”

Emerald’s erotic fiction has been published in anthologies edited by Violet Blue, Rachel Kramer Bussel, Jolie du Pre, and Alison Tyler as well as at various erotic websites. She lives in Maryland and serves as an activist for reproductive freedom and sex workers’ rights. Find her online at www.thegreenlightdistrict.org.


What made you decide to submit your work for inclusion in The Cougar Book?

As with Swing!, I appreciated the theme of The Cougar Book as something seemingly misunderstood and/or under-celebrated by society at large. While I have heard that some find the term “cougar” offensive, to me it seems a concept that appreciates and recognizes women who are older than an arbitrarily postulated “prime” sexual age and who own their sexuality and don’t feel intimidated away from pursuing younger men if they want to. I myself find that kind of recognizance and embracing heartening.

In addition, I enjoyed working with Jolie and Logical-Lust on Swing!, so much that I was excited by another chance to do so when the call for submissions for The Cougar Book came out.

Tell us about your story. Give us a little teaser.

“To Make It That Way” is told from the point of view of Zack, a young man whose sexual experience and understanding have not been very developed yet. The story relates his experience of meeting Cole, a woman almost two decades older than he, and the sexual connection between them led by the assuredness, expertise, and mystery he sees in her.

Could you see yourself being a cougar?

Oh, of course. I’ve never felt much of a specific orientation toward certain age groups sexually, so I have no reason to feel I would not continue to be interested in men younger than I, particularly as I become relatively older. I may not specifically go after men who are younger just because they were younger, but I certainly wouldn’t resist doing so because of an age difference either. Of course, I am in a monogamous relationship now, so that is all notwithstanding that!

Does your writing turn you on?

It has, yes, though not always immediately while I am writing it for the first time. There have been times when I’ve felt so encompassed by the act of writing that I haven’t noticed whether the content is turning me on as it’s coming (no pun intended). In those instances I have sometimes gone back to edit and found myself turned on in a way I hardly remembered or noticed when I was writing it for the first time.

I have also had the experience of writing things that may not necessarily turn me on but are obviously turning on my characters, and since I am writing them and not myself, I do my best to stay true to that without interference.

What do you find difficult about writing? What comes easy for you?

I have historically experienced difficulty with finishing pieces due to the tendency toward perfectionism in me. By that I truly mean an internal demand for perfection, and I have experienced that internally generated standard as quite intimidating sometimes. That fear has sometimes been successful in influencing me to procrastinate or continually avoid actually finishing a story (even more so if it’s unconscious so that I’m not even aware it’s happening).

Perhaps ironically, if I don’t let that part of the personality structure in me dictate my behavior and focus on writing regardless of what it says, that may be when writing seems “easy” for me. This may sound simplistic or silly (though I don’t mean it that way), but the actual act of writing is what has seemed easiest to me, at the times when I’m actually doing it—not thinking about doing it, not planning to do it, not wondering what to write about or how the story will go, but when I am actually attending to the act and it is just coming—then I’ve just seemed to need to pay attention and write it down as it comes forth.

Your birthday has been declared a national holiday. How do you want people to celebrate?

The same way I would love for all people to live–openly, authentically, awake to the present moment that is all there is. If they feel so moved, sex seems to me not only a profound opportunity to do this, but also something that, when done this way, holds enormous potential for growth, openness, and connection. What a great birthday present I would consider that!

You’re stranded on a desert island and you can only have one book, one album/CD, and one person with you-what would they be?

Tough question. I would probably choose the book I have found most significant in my adult life, The Wisdom of the Enneagram by Don Richard Riso and Russ Hudson. The CD would be either Songs From Black Mountain or The Distance to Here by Live–I’m not sure how I would choose which one! As far as whom I would take, I would want my cat with me, but since the question does say “person,” I would choose my life partner. :)

What are you working on now? Do you have a current release or a new release coming soon?

I have around a half dozen short stories in progress right now (see above about finishing stories), a few for specific upcoming submission calls. My story “Power Over Power” is forthcoming in Please, Sir edited by Rachel Kramer Bussel, and my story “Shift Change” closes out Best Women’s Erotica 2010, edited by Violet Blue, which came out at the end of last year.


Where can we find you on the Web? Do you have a website or blog(s)? Any social networks?

My website, The Green Light District, is at www.thegreenlightdistrict.org, and it includes my blog (www.thegreenlightdistrict.org/wordpress).

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