COMING TOGETHER An Erotic Cocktail Volume 1
Coming Together - An Erotic Cocktail Vol. 1 is a titillating collection of short, but steamy, romance vignettes, written by some of today's fastest rising talents. Discover these new authors and their sensuous tales of love and lust.

Author Bios:

4degrees is an 18-year-old oversexed gay boy trapped in the body of a 35-year-old female. Don't believe anything he says. He's also a pathological liar and cyber-slut extraordinaire. He is currently typing absurdities at his computer. His influences include Carlton Mellick III and neonurotic.

Alessia Brio is a sassy tart from Pittsburgh who burst (or tip-toed, depending on who you ask) onto the erotic fiction scene in the latter half of 2005 with two eBook publications from Phaze. Until that time, she’d been giving her work away on Literotica. Now, she gratefully accepts money for it. That, she realizes, is the difference between a slut and a whore. Readers can find her online at alessiabrio.com.

Amy Sweet writes under a seemingly endless variety of pseudonyms on Literotica.com®, most notably and prolifically as sweetnpetite. Don't be fooled by the name; Amy Sweet is one of the filthiest writers on the Author’s Hangout. Her continuing goal is to produce quality smut with a high kink factor.

Angelic Minx is a free-spirited author living in the world of sexual fantasy and intrigue. A confounding mix of innocence and seductress, she enjoys arousing the mind to hidden pleasures. Her characters explore love and lust as they go hand-in-hand through life, unbound by the confines of social acceptance.

Black Tulip is living in the Netherlands. She is a true fan of fantasy and SF, and prefers the women in her stories to be strong and adventurous. Apart from that, she likes to write stories set in historical times or fantasy worlds. She says English is a sexy language.

Janie Andersen (a/k/a sophia jane) loves sex. Since she can't always be having it, she writes porn and poetry in her spare time. She is also a mom and a student of library science. Once she finishes her degree, she'll be able make all of her naughty librarian fantasies come true.

Justanne Farrow (a/k/a matriarch) is a delightfully wicked “old” woman with a knack for the vivid expression of loving passion and intense longing in every word she writes. She resides in England, but her heart spans the globe.

Liar is an almost-30 Viking rooted at the shore of the Baltic Sea. A fetish with the English language’s musicality turned him to writing, and plain randiness turned him to writing erotica. Militant pacifist, freeloading poet, and cat person.

Savannah Reardon (a/k/a CrimsonMaiden) is a wife and mother in her early 30s who lives in the Southern US. She strives to write stories that capture the imagination and passion of her readers.

Selena Kitt’s e-publishing credits include: Christmas Stalking (StarDust Press, 2006) and Blind Date (StarDust Press, February 2007). She has been published in The Shadow Sacrament: a journal of sex and spirituality, and was first runner up for the 2006 Rauxa Prize (awarded annually to an erotic short story of "exceptional literary quality") out of over 1,000 nominees. As a psychologist and writer, she has an interest in and passion for human sexuality. Using her stories as a vehicle, Selena explores sexuality and human relationships, and isn’t afraid to examine controversial issues. She writes for both her own and the readers’ enjoyment, often taking a deeper look into serious topics, uncovering hidden secrets and working to create complex stories, whether they are sensual, carnal, or thought-provoking. Readers can find her online at selenakittyn.com.

The Earl is a young author from England. He stumbled into writing erotica three years ago, after discovering some of the poorer efforts on the internet and deciding he could do better. He claims to have the mind of a lesbian, but refuses to reveal which one and how he managed to take it away from her.

vella_ms is a raving lesbian who thrives on making people laugh. Writing on a part time basis brings her joy and release from every day doldrums. Though she will never write a Pulitzer Prize winning piece, if she's made someone smile or laugh out loud, then she feels she has done her part as a writer.

Victoria Blisse (a/k/a English Lady) is a 26 year old mother, wife, Christian, Manchester United fan and erotica writer. She was born near Manchester, England and her northern English quirkiness shows through in all of her stories. Passion, love and laughter fill her works, just as they fill her life.

Yui is a twenty-something, Japanese-American female who lives inside her head while her body resides in the southeastern US. She began to write erotic stories just to see if she could use all those four-letter sex words without giggling. Yui does not sleep with her brother.

Will Belegon is a poet and author from California who has come to believe that there is no better teacher than experience, that just because it hurts does not mean it is bad, and that nothing is more important than those we love. He intends to never guard his heart. Readers can find him online at willbelegon.blogspot.com.

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Charles River Press Interview with Victoria Bliss, contributing author of “Coming Together, an Erotic Cocktail, Volume 1. Interview by Jonathan Womack

JW: Thank you for sharing your time with me today, Vicky. I’m sure you’re as excited as I am about Charles River Press’s release of Coming Together, an Erotic Cocktail Volume 1. How did you get involved with the Coming Together series?
I have been a member of the Literotica forums for close to five years now, and my favourite place on that board is the Authors Hangout. Alessia, our talented editor also likes to hangout there and she suggested we group together and publish our own anthology and give our profits to charity.
I thought it was a great idea and have been involved from the beginning and I can tell you Alessia is an inspiration. I was thrilled when she told me my story would be in Volume 1 and I’m delighted that now we have several volumes filled with top notch erotica by many talented authors and we have a publisher so Coming Together can reach even more people.

JW: I think it’s very admirable of you to donate your royalties to charity. How difficult was it to get published?
Well, I feel almost embarrassed by this answer, but I have to say I found it to be very easy. I heard about the Phaze Heatsheets, and I knew I had a story that would definitely fit the Snuggler set that was released Christmas 2006. So I polished up the story, reformatted it, wrote the cover letter (much harder than you might think) and sent it in. 48 hours later, I had an email telling me it had been accepted by Phaze for the Snuggler range –I honestly, couldn’t believe it. I had myself all geared up ready for the “Thanks but no thanks” reply, having heard the stories of great writers who’d tried to get published –I believe I was incredibly blessed to find such a good publisher suited to my stories straight away.

JW: I like the “Invisibility” twist in your story “Not What You See, What You Feel.” Where do you get your ideas from?
Ideas‘R’us of course, no seriously my ideas come from all over. The inspiration for “Not what you see, What you feel” was actually an episode of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” so as you can see, inspiration can strike at any time. I often get ideas on the bus because my mind is wandering or sometimes just a line will pop into my head and from just one line a whole story will be created. I also find a lot of storylines in my sleep; I’m a vivid dreamer and I will often write my dreams down as soon as I wake up and many of these turn into stories.

JW: Yes, I’ve heard of other writers tapping into their dreams for inspiration. It sure seems to work for you. Do you have any current projects?
I am currently looking through my unfinished folder and trying to get some of them completed. I have two novels, well novella’s that need finishing and polishing up and I want to pull together several of my short pieces and put them into an anthology. Oh, and a new story inspiration hit me yesterday, so I want to be writing that too.
Goodness knows where I’ll start but it’s good to be busy and to have that inspiration –writer’s block is not a fun experience at all.

JW: What advice do you have for aspiring writers who want to get published?
Go for it, you’re not going to get published if you don’t submit your work to publishers. Be ready for rejection, but don’t le it completely deflate you, keep going and you’ll find the right publisher, it’s a case of perseverance and confidence.
Also, write. It sounds like a daft piece of advice, but if you’re planning to be published, you need to have several works ready to go to follow up on the success of your first published book.
Another thing that is essential is to think of how you will promote your work because it is something you’ll be asked. Start your own website, or if you can’t quite stretch to that a blog or a MySpace page works just as well, but make sure you have somewhere that you can direct people to find out more about you and your writing.
And finally, don’t be afraid to ask for help. Ask someone with more experience if you don’t know what to do next and I’m sure you’ll get the help you need. It’s better to do that than to do something wrong or to miss out on an opportunity because you don’t understand it.