And second, thank you very much for spotlighting this anthology and specifically this story. I finally found the Barnes & Noble gift card I had from the Winter holidays, and I ordered a copy of Curvy Girls today. I’m very excited! ^^ (I also bought Take Me There while I was at it.) I am *so* thrilled that I’m going to have some great material to read that reflects my identities as a fat, genderqueer person.

And as for fic — why, gosh, thanks for asking! (*shuffle* and *blush*) Here’s the link to my account at AO3:

http://archiveofourown.org/users/elizajane

I’m relatively new to fan fiction writing (wrote my first one about a year ago!) so it’s all still very much a work-in-progress as far as Anna’s Philosophy of Erotica Writing is concerned. That being said, I’m particularly pleased with these two fics that take up late-in-life sexuality through the lens of a relationship between Maud Holland and Rose Buck of Upstairs, Downstairs (2011):

http://archiveofourown.org/series/14913

Hope you enjoy

I like your purposeful writing stance, and it makes me want to read stuff you’ve written. Do you have a link to your site?

(By the way, this Captcha thing is a nightmare. I lost my first post because I got the captcha wrong and it didn’t remember what I had typed as my message. And I’m slightly visually impaired, which makes it *really* hard to read these, and there’s no audio option. =\ Is there any way to change this and make it more friendly to people with disabilities? I’m on my 8th try right now with these ridiculous letters/numbers. v_v )

I totally hear you about the mainstream beauty tropes in romance/erotica (regardless of pairing). It can get really wearing. That’s actually one of the reasons I enjoy fan fiction so much — particularly pairings that aren’t super-mainstream-gorgeous people and have body insecurity issues to boot. It’s been really lovely, as I get more into fan fiction communities, to see the best fic working out what more authentic human-scale sexytimes are like.

It’s been a really intentional for me, too, to write smutty fic that doesn’t fall into the “everyone is Hollywood gorgeous” trap. In which people are older, or the initial sexual attraction isn’t about external appearance necessarily but about something else. Bodies that are about the people inhabiting them, not simply pretty to look at. I find it really redemptive and almost meditative (dare I say spiritual?) to write pleasurable sex scenes in which people do unexpected, human, loving things together — even if they’re not the sort of people our culture feels “deserve” to be sexually active.

I have actually given up on reading any kind of romance material because, without fail, I end up feeling shitty about my body. All of this nonsense about how he lifted her easily into his pickup truck or scooped her up in his arms and carried her across the threshold, or the two lesbians looked like supermodels, etc., etc. It pretty much reduces me to tears and makes me mad, too. v_v

I guess it never occurred to me that there might be fat-positive romance and erotica out there. This collection looks awesome, and this story, in particular, seems nuanced and engaging. ^^