Overview
This is Stringybark Publishing’s fourth foray into publishing erotic fiction. Their other books, The Heat Wave of ’76 (2011), Between the Sheets (2012) and Valentine’s Day (2013) were so successful that they couldn’t neglect running another competition for this most difficult of writing genres.
There is always a very thin line between pornography and erotica and what one person finds erotic another will find pornographic. For just such a reason they were careful to use four judges to choose the stories in this anthology. Importantly they made the decision early on that all four judges did not have to be in agreement for a story to be selected — a simple majority of judges would do. This ensures that you will find in these pages some edgy tales as well as the more classical forms of erotica.
The title of this collection comes from the original competition theme, which was for a writer to submit a tale that had a title that was the name of a cocktail. A web searchwill showan enormous number of cocktail names and thus they felt this gave wide creative scope to their writers. They think that the stories presented here show great imagination.
Author Information
About the Judges
David Vernon is a full time writer and editor. While he is known for his non-fiction books about birth: Men at Birth, Having a Great Birth in Australia, Birth Stories and With Women, he has turned his hand to writing science articles for newspapers and magazines as well as scribbling the odd short story or two. He established the Stringybark Short Story Awards in 2010 to promote short story writing. He is currently trying to write an Australian history book. He is the Chair of the ACT Writers Centre. David’s website is: www.davidvernon.net.
Tessa King is a primary school teacher who spends her days teaching six year olds how to correctly structure their sentences and spell words such as clock: “Do not leave out the ‘l’, dear!” Tessa has lost herself in the pages of countless novels starting with Harry Potter and arriving at her present favourite Daughter of Smoke and Bone. One day when she is old and determined she will write her own novel which has been stewing in the back of her mind for the past decade. In the meantime she will paint pictures and enjoy living in country NSW.
Jamie Todling’s early passion swere for all things to do with shopping, writing and history, in particular, various world mythologies. Now all grown up he buys for a living and writes for a hobby, but would much prefer it to be the other way around. He is an avid reader of pretty much anything that falls in front of him and can be seen haunting the rows of shelves of bookstores and libraries fossicking for a forgotten gem. Jamie has previously judged the Stringybark Flash and Microfiction Award 2012 and The Stringybark Erotic Fiction Award 2013.
Arna Walker is a Kiwi with a long held love of literature. She left her beloved homeland some years back to seek her fortune in Australia as an accountant. Whilst still looking for the fortune she does lots of reading, travelling to obscure parts of the globe, quilting and other crafts, and walking her dog. Arna previously judged the Stringybark Short Story Award 2013.
