I ordinarily don’t invite erotica authors onto the blog because I rarely read erotica (I used to read an incredible amount of erotic fanfiction, but that’s a story for another day… or never) but I was extremely excited when Kaelan Rhywiol offered to come over and chat about her work, which features accurate BDSM. Most of you don’t know this, and I’m willing to bet a couple of you don’t want to, but I’m sort of involved with the kink community here in Toronto and I have a couple friends who actually teach rope play. So I’m thrilled to be chatting with Kaelan today about her work and representation of BDSM/kink in literature in general.Today we’ll be chatting mostly about her novella, Mothmen.
The Blurb
Dr. Shealyn MacConnelly, PH.D buried her father on her birthday, and getting drunk to mourn both her father and brother seemed the thing to do.
Rian, Shea’s long lost beloved recently moved back to town with his lover, Jai. Returning from a project, he finds out her father has died.
Jai and Rian have a secret, one that Shea needs to know. They’ll have to convince the stubborn scientist before it’s too late and she learns it for herself, the hard way.
A kinky, erotic romance novella with R.A.C.K style BDSM and a m/m/f polyamorous Ménage.
The Interview
Can you tell us a bit about your book, Mothmen?
MOTHMEN is a contemporary paranormal romance novella. It came in at about eighty pages so it’s a quick(ish) read. In it, I tell the story of Shea, a girl on the verge of losing what little she has left, and how she and her high school boyfriend, Rian, get a second chance at love.
Of course, I twist it, because Rian is bisexual, he found love with a man while he was away at university and only came back to Georgia when his parents died.
It’s the first in a planned series of novellas featuring the three main characters, Shea, Rian and Rian’s lover Jai.
It has accurate kink, as I’m a practitioner of BDSM and have been for twenty years, everything is factual, and if it isn’t something I’ve done myself, I’ve researched the hell out of it, as well as spoken to those who have done it.
The second in the series will be released sometime this spring.
Mothmen is ownvoices for a few things other than kink as well. It’s ownvoices for death of a sibling, the book is dedicated to my brother Kyle, who died three years ago, and Shea’s brother Darren is based, heavily, on Kyle.
It’s also ownvoices in that Shea is asperger’s, like me. Her stims are my stims, and the way she thinks is the way I do.
What was the hardest part of writing Mothmen and how did you get through it?
Reliving my brothers death to get the details right. Yeah, that was definitely the hardest part of writing Mothmen for me. I cried through writing any scene where Dare is mentioned (which is like… a lot of the book.) I just sat with it and did it, (I may have gone through a box of wine during the writing of it), but oddly enough, writing Mothmen worked as a catharsis for me. I’ll never stop missing Kyle, but he’d kick my ass up over my shoulder to know I weren’t getting on with my life. Writing Mothmen helped me realize that.
Why did you start writing erotica?
Here I’m going to point out that I don’t write ‘just’ erotica (which is specifically, a snapshot into a sexual act) Most of my published work is exactly that, erotica. Mothmen, however, classifies as Erotic Romance, because though there are my classic hot and heavy open-door scenes, it’s the relationship that matters most in this book.
I do have erotica published, and I’m internationally known as excellent an erotica writer, but I’ve been writing erotic romance for much longer, and it’s my true love. As far as why I started publishing my erotica, I let a friend of mine read some of it, wondering what I could do to make some money. She loved it so much she pushed me into polishing my stories up and even, into trying again for a career in writing.
As to why I write erotica and erotic romance, I think it’s because I’m gray asexual but I have a very prurient mind. All that sexual energy has to go somewhere, for me, it’s usually into my words rather than real life.
How would you like to see representation within erotica change over the next five years? How does this differ from issues you see in other genres?
I’d really like to see both erotica and erotic romance respected more within the writing community. I’d like to see romance and erotica readers deal with less judgment for enjoying a good read about a relationship. It’s the top selling genre for a reason. People love to feel sexy, and both of these genres do that for them. So many people poo-poo romance and erotica as not being ‘real’ writing, but having written several theses in my time, I’ll tell you this, it’s MUCH harder to write erotica and erotic romance (especially if it’s LGBTQUIA+) than it is to regurgitate facts on a page in your own words.
In Sci-fi, for instance, you can have a ‘literary sci-fi’ tacking literary onto it only means you use language a certain way and your writing sends a message. Romance could do that too, and I’d love to see ‘literary romance’ as a thing.
What resources would you suggest to other authors who want to include accurate kink, poly or LGBTQ+ relationships in their work?
I host a Write Kink Right twitter chat once a month, right now I’m going through some of the basics and mythbusting some things that people think they know about kink.
There are a lot of good resources on the web for these things as well, my own website has a page with links on kink, and a reading list of accurately polyamorous writing as well.
Who is your favourite ownvoices author right now and why?
Probably Tiffany Reisz, she’s a lifestyle kinkster and you can totally see it in her writing. She’s written what is THE best flogging scene I’ve ever read in my life.
What are you working on right now that readers can look forward to?
I just finished Blood-Bound, which is book one in the Ace Assassin series. It’s a contemporary paranormal romance with Welsh folklore and pagan origin story. It’s dark, delicious and may make you want to eat it up with a spoon. It’s out for reading to my critique partners and first stage beta-readers. When they get back to me, I’ll make whatever changes it needs, send it out to second stage beta readers and then start querying it. If traditional pub doesn’t pick it up, I’ll indie it sooner rather than later.
I’m working on an LGBTQUIA+ fairy tale retelling, it’s likely to end up at novella length, because there’s only so much plot you can put into a retelling and keep it true to form. This one is one of my favorite fairy tales and I’m not telling which one it is! I’m not sure if this one is going indie or if I’ll try to submit it to one of the smaller presses that accept novellas. I think it depends on how it comes out.
Once I’m finished with the fairy-tale, I’ll be working on Mothmen 2 and edits or rewrites (whichever my mentor deems necessary) on Dreaming, which is the first book in my Science fantasy series, Ilavani.
About the author
Kaelan was born and raised in upstate NY, in the Adirondack mountains. She started writing when she turned 11 and hasn’t ever stopped as evidenced by the massive amount of notebooks and digital files of her writing she has hanging around. Her hobbies include reading, spinning wool with a spinning wheel, cooking, knitting, sewing and making jewelry.
She currently lives in Southern Ontario, Canada with her husband of 19 years, their two kids, a foot fetishist of a cat and a grumpy chinchilla.
The best place to connect with Kaelan is on twitter, where she spends way too much time.
You can find her at https://kaelanrhywiol.com/ or @KaelanRhy. Or you can go buy a copy of Mothmen right away.