GIVEAWAY and GUEST POST: Rob Rosen
Confessions of a Smut Writer
By Rob Rosen
Hello. My name is Rob Rosen and I am a smut writer—and a highly successful one at that. In fact, I’m also the editor of Best Gay Erotica 2015, the largest, the oldest, and the most esteemed of all gay erotica collections on the planet, now in its twentieth year and due out on January 13th. It’s a rare privilege to be handed the reins of this anthology, especially since I didn’t start out to be a smut writer, let alone the editor of the granddaddy of all gay anthologies.
See, fifteen years ago I was writing mostly standard fiction. Sure, I wrote gay stuff, too, but all of it very PG. In fact, I’d never really read that much erotica, nor did I think I had anything to add to the genre. I mean, I assumed everything on the subject had been written about, every dick and hole configuration already stickily put to the page.
Still, there were a lot of calls for submissions for gay erotica. Turns out, sex sells. Who knew, right? So fine, I tried my hand at it. I mean, my hand knew how to work both the keyboard and the crotch below said keyboard, so why not? And guess what? My story was promptly rejected for publication in a certain print anthology. Bummer. Then again, no harm, no foul. And since I’d already written said story, the aptly named “Go Fuck Yourself,” I resubmitted it elsewhere, to an online M/M erotica site. No money, pretty nice-sized readership. And that’s where my story soon landed.
Now, here’s where fate stepped in, lubed up now that it was. Turns out, the editor of MEN Magazine also read that certain nice-sized site and enjoyed my story—my one and only gay erotica story. That same editor then emailed me and asked if I’d like to write for his magazines, plural, because he also edited Freshmen and [2]. Combined, they had a home subscription base of over a hundred thousand readers. Wait, to rephrase that: A HUNDRED THOUSAND! And that didn’t even include the newsstand sales. So, yeah, despite the fact that I hadn’t a clue how to write gay erotica, I said sure. I mean, I might have been a neophyte smut writer, but certainly not a stupid one. And I could write, right? So why not for him?
And that’s what I did. I wrote for him and all three of his magazines for just over five years, appearing in more than forty issues, until the magazines sadly folded. And by then I’d also written for just about every gay publisher on the planet. Turned out, I did have something new to add to the erotica genre: comedy. Comic romances, in fact. And with some pretty nifty dick and hole configurations, too, if I do say so myself.
Jump ahead to more than several hundred published short stories, most of them nicely smutty, not to mention eight riotously funny novels, and here I now am, the editor of the most nicely smutty of all the gay anthologies. And, yes, I am humbled by the honor, the honor to edit this collection and the honor to work with the biggest and brightest erotica writers in the business. Fate, you see, takes you to unimaginable shores, especially when it’s amply lubed up.
As for Best Gay Erotica 2015, it too is nicely smutty, it too adds something new to the genre. Every editor, you see, has their own style, their own sense of what they deem erotic, not to mention their own predilections for what they like to read. So, yes, there’s more humor in this collection, more dark fiction, more fantasy, but with the same literary acuteness that everyone has come to expect.
So, yes, like I said, I’m a smut writer. And a rather proud one at that.
Thank you fate. Feel free to lube up and step into my life anytime you damned well please. I’ll be here, waiting for you.
Rob Rosen
Rob Rosen is the author of the critically acclaimed novels, Sparkle: The Queerest Book You’ll Ever Love, the Lambda Literary Award Nominated Divas Las Vegas, which was the winner of the 2010 TLA Gaybies for Best Gay Fiction, Hot Lava, Southern Fried, the Lambda Literary Award Nominated Queerwolf, Vamp, Queens of the Apocalypse, and Creature Comfort. His short stories have appeared in more than 200 anthologies. You can find 20 of them in his erotic romance anthology, Good & Hot. He is also the editor of Lust in Time: Erotic Romance Through the Ages, Men of the Manor and Best Gay Erotica 2015. Please visit him at www.therobrosen.com
Blurb
Best Gay Erotica 2015 is filled to the page-turning brim with fantastic tales of fire dancers and TV repairmen, of hunky painters and electricians and magicians, solo sex, duo sex, and sweat-soaked triple onslaughts. Heck, throw in an alien and a priest, and you’ll soon see why this anthology is head and shoulders — not to mention certain other body parts — above the rest, and always with the highest literary quality that readers have come to expect from this esteemed and steamy collection.
Buy Links
Giveaway
Enter the Rafflecopter. There are 2 PDF copies of Best Gay Erotica 2015 up for grabs. Click here or the image to enter.
