and innocence and it worked, but I will say, I
described everything. CITY about a fictional swingers club here in
Atlanta. And it took off from there.
Marissa Monteilh: And I wrote Hot Boyz right
after The Chocolate Ship, but I think I focused
on not trying so hard. Christine Pauls: Thanks for the insight. It makes
sense to me.
Anita Roseboro-Wade: Do you have a topic in
particular that you prefer to write about more so
than others?
Marissa Monteilh: Not really, as long as there’s
a theme of relationships. Believe it or not, even
my erotic novels have church scenes. I like to
explore all dimensions of the characters, and if
the topic is going on a cruise as in The Chocolate
Ship, or having racists parents as in The Practice
Wife, I enjoy the relationship factors, people who
desire to do and be better, but sometimes fail,
and I love showing and exploring brokenness
Anita Roseboro-Wade: Love it
Naleighna Kai: You’ve written a ton of books
under Marissa Monteilh, what made you write
the others under PYNK?
Marissa Monteilh: I wrote under PYNK to
separate the genres, and also so that my
next erotic book would be excluded from any
contracted option book clauses under Marissa
Monteilh.
Christine Pauls: What attracted to you write
erotica? Hopefully, it doesn’t sound like a trick
questions. lol
Marissa Monteilh: I found that I was very
comfortable in showing what was happening in
the bedroom, or bathroom, or on the balcony, lol,
because I believe that if I show you a character’s
choice in food, criminal activity, etc., why should
I not show their choices when having sex. Also, I
wanted to help women to relax about the word
sex, and show that we can live our sexy dreams,
without shame. I enjoy it, though in my opinion,
erotic novels are harder to write. And so, after
sexy scenes in some novels, I wrote EROTIC
50 | NKLC MAGAZINE
Antionette Gates: Was gathering information
and researching escort services time consuming
for Politics, Escorts, and Blackmail? How did the
characters come about?
Marissa Monteilh: Finding women to talk to
about that was difficult, but I did get introduced
to two women. I asked them about the toughest
parts, and they were very candid. Some of the
things escorts are asked to do are demeaning,
and the safety factor is tough, so I showed those
in POLITICS.ESCORTS.BLACKMAIL. It made me
sad. After a while, one of them would call to
offer more info, and I got a fairly good picture
of how it worked business-wise when the John
showed up, etc. It was fascinating. I also used
the Internet.
Naleighna Kai: Marissa, when you say that you
wrote under PYNK to “separate” the genres, I
thought they both wrote erotica?
Marissa Monteilh: My mainstream fiction
titles, like May December Souls, Hot Boyz,
The Chocolate Ship, Make Me Hot, etc., were
not erotica. My erotica book contracts were
separate deals.
Naleighna Kai: With the sudden interest in that
“unmentionable book” that had women losing
their minds and figuring out there was more to
sex than a little slap and tickle, did you see a
renewed interest in your work that also delved
into the depths of the sexual underworld?
Marissa Monteilh: I did, there was a slight bump
in my PYNK sales with Hachette - Erotic City,
Sixty-Nine, Sexaholics, and POLITICS. ESCORTS.
BLACKMAIL., and also I was contacted
by Insatiable Press to write erotic ebooks,
sequels to Erotic City, but I don’t think that my
readers were really the same readers as the