UPDATED!: As of 2011, Jess writes about step relations, not incest [since it's against Amazon, PayPal, Google and Blogger's TOS to "write about bestiality and incest" (no word about necrophilia)]. Jess has updated her short stories on sale at Amazon too (so it's about step relations, not incest).
Photo by margolove.
1) Do *you* have a brother?
Jess: No, I do not. I've wondered from time to time what it might've been like, though (if I did have one).
2) Where did the idea for the story come from?
Jess: I submitted the story for a "taboo subjects" writing anthology (I think it was one of the lines from Harlequin). A few months later, the editor replied saying that the writing needed some "cleaning up." By that time, I'd already published 4:Play (my multiple genre-crossing erotic short story collection). Ed's voice is deliberately rough and unpolished -- and I kept it that way (allows his true thoughts/etc to show through).
3) What has reader response been like?
Jess: I got slammed by an editor of a literary journal, with regards to Ed in Wicked Lovely (an excerpt of the email discussion is available in my writing portfolio, Porcelain). Apart from that, I'm quite surprised at some of the responses to my work -- I primarily just write things coz I have to get "things" out of my system, lol. So it's nice when a reader appreciates something in the writing/story. And if they don't get it, that's okay.
4) Did you do any research for Wicked Lovely?
Jess: I was surfing around websites, reading on real-life accounts of brother-sister intimacy. I frequently read many accounts which were very honest and open (anonymous, or no)...what I saw in the accounts was a pure and clean type of love which you don't see often (in a society/culture that commoditizes sex and romance). I sought to capture this in a story on the topic. My erotic fiction is never meant to just work up a reader -- I'll always try to add something else in.
5)
Jess: Procreation concerns aside, I tend to look at the quality of the relationship itself (over the actual relations / blood ties of the people involved). A really solid relationship based on all the good things like real trust, etc, is really special, and I guess I share the views of Ed's friend, Rafiz, in Wicked Lovely. P.S. France lifted the incest ban as early as 300 years go, during the reign of Napolean (I think). For the purpose of this Q&A (with regards to Google's/Blogger's TOS), I am neither discouraging nor encouraging incest, just stating the matter as it is.
6) Is any subject too taboo for you?
Jess: Mentally and conversationally, not really. I'm always open to learning something new...
