Category: women writers

First Book

It’s an exciting time at Black Scat when we get the chance to publish a talented writer’s first book. So we’re ecstatic to announce the launch of Amy Kurman‘s collection of fiction — SHORTS.

Featuring edgy, witty, strange, & sexy short stories by a powerful new voice

This is now a BLACK SCAT BOOKS BESTSELLER!

ADVANCE PRAISE for SHORTS

“Short stories that gleefully jettison all the rules and hydroplane across the most unexpected surfaces, freeing the imagination to crash into the world full speed.” 
—Tantra Bensko, author of Floating on Secrets

“Those of you who have not yet met the work of Amy Kurman are in for a treat. Her debut collection is compelling, quirky, and crafted with effective attention to detail. Some passages could easily be sung for how mellifluous they are. Shorts is a compendium of compelling juxtapositions, a contrapuntal delight, but, most of all, it is the type of work that resonates in the mind long after the actual reading has ended. Kurman has the rare ability to write prose in feminine and masculine voices. Her sardonic story, ‘A Night at the Zoo,’ reads like an old black-and-white film, like something Alec Guinness or Charlie Chaplin might have done. Excellent!”  —Eckhard Gerdes, author of The Pissers’ Theatre

“Don’t be fooled by the length of the affectionately bizarre stories in Shorts. A colony of dryads, a sentient Kit-Kat clock called by its wrong name, two moles in an existential marital crisis, these tropes of strangeness belie an underbelly of social commentary about the human condition that I couldn’t stop reading.
A new satirist is in our midst.”  
—Suzanne Burns, author of The Veneration of Monsters

CLICK HERE TO ORDER ON AMAZON

The. author at Powell’s Bookstore in Portland.

A RAUNCHY SUMMER FANTASY FROM FRANCE

A FISH FROM ELSEWHERE

Eléa follows a strange fish and is thrown into a provocative realm of unabashed sexual gratification. Faced with evading the grip of the law, escaping the intoxicating clutches of l’hôpital du plaisir, and eluding the ire of her parallel lover’s fiancée, she must return home before she fades away altogether.

A startling, surreal, satiric erotic escapade, this raunchy Wonderland is imbued with the spirit of Kafka, Nin, and Terry Southern.

Laure. Favager’s style is engaging and disruptive, transporting readers into a surreal world where the lines between reality and sexual fantasy blur. The author’s vivid and explicit prose create a comic atmosphere that is both sexy and unsettling, immersing the reader in Eléa’s increasingly erotic escapades.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Laure Favager’s short fiction has appeared in several literary journals in France and Quebec. This is her first publication in the U.S.

She lives in Brittany with two uninhibited cats.

UPDATE: Laure Favager’s The Desire Box is now available from New Urge.

LE CHAT NOIR EXPOSED

Caroline Crépiat talks about her book, Let Chat Noir Exposed: The Absurdist Spirit Behind a 19th Century French Cabaret, translated from the French by Doug Skinner.

Now available worldwide on Amazon.

Extremes of Female Desire

In 2020, New Urge Editions published Hélène Lavelle‘s controversial erotic novel, The Rites of Ecstasy. Today, we are pleased to announce Volume 2—Le Château du Comte—translated from the French by Valéry Soers.

Summoned back to the Domain, Gabrielle surrenders to the demands of the Vicomtesse, the Comte, and Lady Isabella. Much more than a sequel to The Rites of Ecstasy, this novel takes us beyond the introspective feminine dreaminess of La Maison to a more bracing, hallucinatory, wild and strange terrain of its own—the culmination and climax of ‘the Great Work’ on Gabrielle’s heart, soul, mind and body. A story of dramatic and erotic power – an immersion in another world – exploring the farther shores of female desire, love, hate and friendship, through extremes of pleasure and pain to the heights of the Sublime.

Le Château du Comte
by Hélène Lavelle
Translated from the French by Valéry Soers
A New Urge Paperback Original
Trade paper; 315 pp.; $14.95
ISBN 979-8985999648

FREE DOWNLOAD
Peek behind the scenes & explore Hélène Lavelle’s novels. Read Dawn Avril Fitzroy’s article “Ruminations on THE RITES OF ECSTASY,” from Black Scat Review #25.
Click here to download the free PDF.

ALSO AVAILABLE

In the tradition of Decadent literature, spiced with Gothic, this provocative novel takes the reader on a voyage through dream, reverie, fantasy, memory and imagination – recounting the raptures and tortures in the initiation of a young woman, Gabrielle, by the Vicomtesse, the Comte and their entourage in The Domain.

“This modern classic deserves to be ranked alongside the great French erotic masterpieces, Story of O and The Image , and very few others. Not for the faint-hearted or the narrow-minded, this story of love, excess, degradation, cruelty, tenderness and beauty is for all women whose fantasies and desires embrace the intensely erotic.” —Dawn Avril Fitzroy

Escapist Fiction

So begins this mesmerizing tale by a gifted young writer: Su Orwell. Her unique style, laced with edgy humor, makes ESCAPE ARTISTS a memorable work of contemporary  erotic fiction. It is the story of a married woman, Susann, who encounters the charismatic Arjan online. What begins as an internet flirtation soon evolves into an unusual affair — a fantasy escape becomes a reality of intense pleasure, taking Susann far from her suburban comfort zone.

Escape Artists
Su Orwell
Pocket Erotica #19
paper; 66 pp., $10
ISBN: 13 978-1-7379430-0-6

photo by Rob Gaczol

             

Su Orwell’s debut novel, Edge of Sundown, was published by Darkstroke Books in 2020. Her short prose and essays have appeared in Write City Magazine, Writing Disorder, Raconteur, and The New Urge Reader 4, among others. She lives in Chicago.

 

 

 

 

LEAVE IT TO EVE

“If I ever wondered why, this was the answer that kept me glued to my task. Their flesh was the humble instrument on which I sang praises to God. For God was love, and God was transgression.”

Every girl deserves a good mentor.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Born on Lesbos, Greece, Eurydice is a feminist writer, artist, multi-modal scholar, and podcaster. She is the author of Satyricon USA: A Journey Across the New Sexual Frontier (Simon & Schuster, New York, London, Sydney, Singapore, 2000 &  Touchstone 2001), f/32: The Second Coming (Virago Press, London: 1993), f/32 Revisited (Richard Kasak Books. New York: 1994), f/32 (Fiction Collective II. Normal, IL: 1991), two chapbooks (Labyrinth, and Gymnostithi, a book of poems in Greek), and dozens of investigative articles for Spin magazine. Her essays, articles, reviews have appeared in magazines like Harper’s and Newsweek, and literary journals. She was an investigative staff writer for Spin magazine and the sex advice columnist for Gear magazine. Her art has been featured in numerous shows in Europe and the U.S. and is in private collections and public museums. In 2010 she had a ten year retrospective in Miami Beach during Art Basel. Her podcast, Speak Sex w Eve, is available on every audio platform.