Let’s welcome Alison Lister to the blog today! Morning Alison! Can you tell us a bit about why you decided to come along?
I’ve just started off two new series’, with two different publishers. Stable Hand (The Braided Crop Ranch Series) came out in November from NineStar Press, and Various Persuasions (Persuasions Series) came out on March 23rd with Pride Publishing. Ponyboy, (The Braided Crop Ranch #2) is out April 12th. I’ve been a little busy.
What started you writing?
I have been writing since I was thirteen or fourteen. I received an honourable mention for a short play I wrote in high school for a playwriting contest and that made me think I might have some talent. I took a year-long, post-diploma program at the local college in Dramatic Scriptwriting which I thoroughly enjoyed. It wasn’t until I began to write erotic stories for publication that I realized there might be a market for my style and subject.
Where do you write?
I prefer to write in the living room of the small town-home I share with my husband and two kids. We don’t have the space for an office but the living room has half a wall of windows and a lovely view, and faces south-east. It’s pretty much a sun room in the morning and afternoon and I love it. I occasionally move up to the master bedroom or down to the finished basement, if someone wants to watch a loud TV show or a movie in the living room. I have a MacBook Air, so that helps me write wherever I can find some quiet. I prefer to write first thing in the morning. That’s when I am at my most productive. But I am able to write any time of day except at night.
What do you like to read?
I used to read a lot of classic literature – before I had kids and I had to time to get comfortable and wile away a few hours reading. Now I read mostly quick and hot romance novels, like the ones I write. My Kindle Fire is pretty full! I don’t like really dark or taboo stuff. I like to read and write low angst stories.
What are the three books you’d take to a desert island? Why would you choose them?
Middlemarch by George Eliot, Working Out the Kinks by Misha Horne, and Oliver and Jack in London Towne, by Christina E. Pilz (who writes as Jackie North, now). Middlemarch is dense and brilliant and really takes you to small-town England in the eighteen-hundreds. Oliver and Jack takes you to London in the same time period, and so many good things happen for Oliver and Jack who have been through so much by then. And Working Out the Kinks is such a hot, kinky story about two men who are meant to be together and bring out the best in each other, written in Ms. Horne’s signature style (that I love so much)!
Writing is an intrinsically solo occupation. Do you belong to any groups or associations, either online or in the ‘real’ world? How does that work for you?
I am pretty introverted, so I don’t belong to any groups in real life. I enjoy the groups I’m in on Facebook, where I can pop in and out as I please. I’ve met many great authors through these groups. We support and help each other.
What do you like to do when you’re not writing?
I love to go for walks in nature, often on my own, but sometimes with my dog, Ollie. I like to watch movies. Lately, I’ve been watching my teens play through their favourite video games while I work on some knitting. Oh, knitting! I find it very meditative and relaxing. Interestingly, while watching my daughter play through Red Dead Redemption II, I was inspired to write my first queer historical erotic novel, 760 Miles, set in the Yukon in 1906. I’m editing the manuscript right now and hoping to submit it at the end of April for publication in 2022. It will be the first book in the Northern Horizons series.
Tell me a little bit about your most recent release. What gave you the idea for it? How long did it take to write? What did you enjoy about writing it? What did you hate?
Various Persuasions is a very meaningful story to me, because my protagonist is non-binary and choses to use male pronouns and is called Sir by the cis-male submissive they reluctantly take on at the beginning of the story. There is so much of myself in this character and it is true to something deep inside me. I’ve chosen to identify as non-binary now, since that is how I have felt my entire life. I often feel very, very masculine and I used to pretend that wasn’t the case. But I’m tired of pretending and I want to be free to be who I am. This story came very naturally to me and I wrote it quite quickly, then went back and thickened it up a bit, which is generally the way I write these days. Then Ponyboy, The Braided Crop Ranch #2, comes out April 12th. (Stable Hand is book #1). This series follows different men who find themselves at a kinky pony play ranch in the Muskokas, and lets the reader experience pony play from a few different perspectives.
Various Persuasions
A non-binary Dom. An eager young sub. Service, orgasm control, bondage. An initial encounter leads to a synchronous exploration of identity and intimacy.
Nic Walker is not your typical Dom—physically female but identifying as male. And Vincent Blake is not your typical twenty-four-year-old straight guy—seductively submissive with a penchant for lacy underwear.
When Nic’s Dominatrix friend Daphne encourages them to get together, she can only hope they recognize the compatibility of their desires and personalities.
Nic has been holing up alone in their townhouse for too long, getting over a bad ‘relationship’, and it’s time for them to start living again. When Nic meets Vincent, neither expects the tentative relationship to take off like a runaway train. But each layer of the attractive and seemingly vulnerable young man Nic exposes ignites their own desires and leads both on a path to revealing the most interesting parts of themselves.
Who knew piano practice could be a form of sexual service? Or that a pair of overpriced panties could inspire such devotion?
Through bondage, service, objectification and the purchase of large quantities of lacy unmentionables, as well as a few specific sex toys and devices, Nic explores how far Vincent will go to please them and how much of themself they will risk to have him.