We're in New York City this week visiting with Adriana Kraft - Author Interview Feb 19 - 24

Congratulations Dawne Prochilo! 

You won a copy of Sapphic Planet.

Brrrrr it's cold here! But do we have a treat for you! Adriana Kraft is with us this week. Be sure to bundle up as we'll wait outside for everyone to arrive. Tonya is inside the hotel making sure the staff has prepared a fire in the fireplace and an open bar in the private room we've reserved.

We are so excited Adri & Anna agreed to do an interview with us. Oh, here they come now! *waving them over to the group* Hi you two! Let's all go inside, get a drink and warm up by the fire.

There's Tonya! Readers, you can lay your coats across the beds in the other room. We have coffee, hot chocolate, plenty of baileys and various liqueurs to help you warm up on the inside. Come sit on the sofas and chairs in front of the fire. And readers, there is a giveaway, Adriana explains this at the end of the questions.

Naughty Reader’s: Everyone have a drink and comfy? Good. Tell us a bit about yourselves that our readers might not know.

Adriana:  We hope by now readers know that we’re a happily married pair of baby boomers who’ve been together over twenty five years. And readers have probably figured out that we like sex ~ one of our mantras is hot sex over fifty and beyond. We’re social activists, at present supporting marriage equality and proud to live in Iowa, where it’s recognized. We’ve lived a lot of places – East Coast, Midwest and Intermountain West – and we keep wondering what we want to be when we grow up.

Naughty Reader’s: What made you two want to become writers?

Adriana: We’ve both wanted to write since childhood. When I read Gone with the Wind in high school I wanted to re-write the ending, so I guess I’m a romantic at heart. Hubs also, lots of Zane Grey, Willa Cather, John Updike. Our lives took different turns in college and we landed in the social sciences (where we met, after our degrees, as professors J). We still both do some work in that field, but sometimes there’s not a lot of sizzle and spice in that world. A few years ago we had a serious discussion about what was missing in our lives and reached back to those childhood dreams. The result? We started writing what we love and haven’t looked back!

Naughty Reader’s: Please share a bit about your new release “Accidental Contact” without giving away any spoilers.

Adriana:  Our latest is an erotic lesbian short story in a steamy collection assembled by the member of Sapphic Planet and titled simply Sapphic Planet. 
It’s releasing in Ebook Monday February 20, to be followed by a print release on March 1st. We’ve loved working with this group of authors ~ this is our third project with them, and we couldn’t be happier. Here’s the book blurb, followed by a blurb for our story (no spoilers, I promise!)

BLURB

Welcome to the Sapphic Planet, a literary realm where women are free to love one another without fear of prejudice or reprisal. Inside these pages you'll discover nineteen stories written specifically to tease and titillate your senses. 

From a frolic in the rain with a Bathing Beauty, to a concerned sibling showing his sister some Brotherly Love, and everything in between – whether you're in the mood for steamy romance or unrequited lust, we've got a story guaranteed to satisfy your cravings.

This anthology showcases just a fraction of the talent from the writers of Sapphic Planet, a group specifically created for authors and aspiring authors of quality lesbian literature. Now sit back, relax and enter our world. Afterwards, while waiting to catch your breath, take a moment to visit us online at www.sapphicplanet.com 

Our short story, “Accidental Contact,” is a lesbian cougar story. Natalie and the much younger Bridgette are real estate agents who’ve often traveled together for business seminars. Now they’re snowbound in New York City in a hotel room with only one bed. Will Natalie dare to make her move?

Naughty Reader’s: Do you write under another pen name?

Adriana:  No, it’s hard enough being our real selves and just one pen name! Sometimes I nearly slip up and forget who I’m impersonating when I leave a comment or respond to something I’ve seen – especially if I want to post a link to FaceBook!

Naughty Reader’s: What types of hero or heroine do you like best?

Adriana: Funny thing, we both like lean, buff bodies, but looks aren’t the most important thing, for either gender. We don’t write many alpha males. Our men are handsome and tough, but they can be counted on to be sensitive and deeply caring, to know how to give a woman what she wants. Our females? We both want someone we can connect with. We almost never write drop-dead-gorgeous, but we do want her to care what she looks like, to feel good about herself (or learn to do so during our story), to have passion. I guess that’s the bottom line – if the characters have passion, many other flaws can be forgiven and often serve to spice up the story. Sometimes we even grace characters with flaws of our own.

Naughty Reader’s: Tell us about a typical day in your life as a writer.

Adriana:  That’s a tough one, and I’ll have to answer for two of us.  I work at a day job three days a week. On those days, any spare evening time I have is devoted to keeping up with promotions and social networking. I’ll only work on manuscripts in that tight time frame if we’re desperately up against a deadline. Hubs (or “Adri,” as he’s been dubbed) does some part time consulting but has much more time available for the writing. He typically spends mornings writing, and when I’m home, we both devote mornings to our fiction. We do read everything out loud to each other before moving on. We find that helps a lot with dialogue, cadence, and especially erotic scenes, as well as general accuracy.

We both work out daily to stay healthy, so that’s usually mid afternoon, though sometimes instead in the evening we turn on the XBox 360 and put the moves on to Dance Central. Sometimes I cook, sometimes he does (especially on my work days). He does dishes and vacuuming, I do laundry and grocery shopping. More than you wanted to know?

So many readers assume the life an author (especially an erotica author) is glamorous and filled with mind-bending hot sex every minute. We do make time for some of that in our life as well but mostly we’re just ordinary peeps, doing something we love!

Naughty Reader’s: Do your books have a common theme or are they all different?

Adriana: Another tough question! Different enough to have variety, an author always hopes! But definitely a common theme. We write a lot of bisexual and lesbian heroines – both of us have a soft spot for tender (well, or sizzling!) scenes between two women, so it’s rare to find a story of ours without any f/f scenes. That being said, we have a wide range of characters and plots – urban professionals, north woods canoe guides, teachers, massage therapists, detectives, shop owners, carpenters, exotic dancers, authors, rodeo riders, house painters, ranchers…Sometimes we pick an occupation because we’re curious about it and want to study it, sometimes something we know more personally. We like to mix in a little suspense sometimes, and a dash of paranormal, including ghosts and time travel. Always, though, the central story line is about characters reaching inside, claiming who they are and taking action for what they want and what they care about.

Naughty Reader’s: How long does it take you to write and then edit a story?

Adriana:  We can polish off a short story in a few days or at most a week. Novellas, at about 35,000 words, might take two or three weeks and full length novels more than that. We focus first on getting the whole story on the page. Sometimes another story beckons and it’s a while before we get back to the editing task on an earlier manuscript, so total project time is hard to gauge. We’re pretty clean writers (and I’m a tough grammarian *smiles*) so the editing isn’t as daunting as it might be for some.

Naughty Reader’s: Do you have to be alone to write?(either of you?)

Adriana:  Both of us LOL! My office is in our basement (a finished, pleasant basement, not your average BDSM dungeon) and his is on the second floor, so the writing is still solitary. Plotting and reading out loud tends to happen in the living room on our main floor, often with our laptops open, so actually only part of the process is solitary. Or we might read out loud in the bedroom, with the laptops not open…

Naughty Reader’s: How do you go about naming characters?

Adriana:  Sometimes the names have a purpose or come from an ethnicity we’ve chosen, sometimes they leap out at us, sometimes we draft an entire story with what turn out to be the wrong names and we have to go through and change them. Which, btw, can be dangerous – if you’ve picked a name that can be a part of a word, don’t ever just use “search and replace” to change a name in a manuscript without checking out every change! If there’s a villain in the piece, it’s likely to be a name we don’t like very much.

Naughty Reader’s: Is it easier to write about the characters if you find pictures of them before you write or do you write then find character pictures?

Adriana:  Definitely pictures! We do scour the internet for photos that fit our mental image of the characters we’d like to work with, and then the photos stay up in front of us while we write.  Not quite story-boarding format, but close. Having several poses or expressions on a character helps, too. But usually we have a concept before we settle on the photos.

Naughty Reader’s: How do you pick locations for your stories?

Adriana:  We pretty much stick to places at least one of us has visited or lived in. I think it’s hard to give accurate detail of settings an author isn’t familiar with, although these days there’s a wealth of internet resources to fill in the blanks. But we like to try to give readers a feel not just for the physical location, but also for the culture, and that’s hard to convey for someone unfamiliar. At least I think it is. We do lean toward some favorites. Our new short story is set in New York City, where one of our kids lives now and where I’ve spent some time. We’ve probably set five or six stories there, total (of our published work). Another favorite is the north woods of the upper Midwest, again with several stories. But Paris and Stratford Upon Avon show up, as well. We love to travel!

Naughty Reader's: Thank Adri & Ana for inviting us to this wonderful city and chatting with us this week!

Adriana: Thank you so much for having us! I love what you’re doing here at Naughty Readers Boudoir and plan to visit often! I’ll put my web links here, with a caveat – right now my website is being overhauled by Lucy Felthouse (who I highly recommend, btw), so my website urls I’m posting today are for the version that’s currently active. Lucy will be finished any day this week and I’ll come back to update with the new links as soon as we go live!

Giveaway: One download of my newest release, the anthology Sapphic Planet, to a lucky commenter. Drawing will be held at the end of the week, Sunday, February 26. Can’t wait to hear from you – I love talking with readers, and I hope you’ll ask me some questions. Good luck!

Accidental Contact Excerpt:

For three months, Natalie had eagerly anticipated this trip. She'd bought a pair of pink silk pajamas wanting to feel a little more presentable and desirable. Pink had always gone well with her dark hair. And she'd come to believe that Bridgette's choice of silk pajamas was perfect—not too seductive, not two revealing—but classy. Not tacky, like her old sleepwear that resembled sweatpants and gym clothes. On top of that, the feel of silk against flesh was incredibly sensuous.

At least she didn't have to guess whether Bridgette was into women. She'd never tried to hide that fact. She'd even bemoaned not having found a partner with whom she really wanted to share a lot of time.

Natalie balled her fingers into fists and swallowed hard. She'd made the effort to tidy up her pubic hairs just in case. She couldn't risk rejection. There was nothing more to do—it was up to destiny now. What had Bridgette said? Everything happens for a reason. Maybe the blizzard was heaven sent just for her—just for her and Bridgette.

Natalie blinked back tears. Even a blizzard wouldn't be enough to fuel her courage. She dozed. Morning couldn't come too quickly.

Groggily, Natalie peeked at the red numerals on the hotel clock. Midnight—they'd only been in bed for an hour.

Her eyes blinked wide open. There was a hand on her breast. She wiggled her fingers. The hand definitely wasn’t hers. She held her breath, taking stock of her situation.

Steady breathing warmed her neck. She was in danger of becoming intoxicated with Bridgette's scent. She squirmed her bottom only to discover something solid—Bridgette's torso, curved around hers. Fortunately, they were about the same height.

She couldn't discern if Bridgette was awake or maybe acting out a dream. Natalie rechecked the clock. It had taken her nearly five minutes to assess her situation, and she still wasn't sure what was happening. Her breathing faltered. She did know her nipples were growing incredibly aroused.

Shutting her eyelids, she withdrew into her body to concentrate on one particular nipple. The one Bridgette's thumb lay within an inch of.

 Sapphic Planet buy links:
Amazon
All Romance

Adriana on the Web:

Website

Blog

FaceBook 

Twitter 

GoodReads 

Midnight Seductions 

Sapphic Planet

Adriana’s Author Pages at Amazon.com and All Romance Ebooks