Alison Tyler is one of the most prolific erotic authors of our time. Having started out writing erotica in the 1990s for numerous publications, including Penthouse Variations, for which she penned the 2002 Baudelaire Prize runner-up “Danae’s Apprentice,” she’s gone on to author over twenty naughty novels and edit a seemingly never-ending stream of anthologies for Cleis Press and her own Pretty Things Press. The California-based writer specializes in kinky sex with a fun twist, and has penned hundreds of stories running the gamut from lighthearted to scorchingly twisted.

Tyler’s oeuvre is extensive, and this year alone has seen the release of Luscious: Stories of Anal Eroticism, Slave to Love: Sexy Tales of Erotic Restraint, and Red Hot Erotica, with the novels Tiffany Twisted and With or Without You, the anthologies The Happy Birthday Book of Erotica and Caught Looking: Erotic Tales of Voyeurs and Exhibitionists, and the crowning achievement of her pen, Exposed: The Erotic Fiction of Alison Tyler, all due out later this year.

PENTHOUSE VARIATIONS: How did you get started writing erotica?

ALISON TYLER: Erotica has been something I’ve dabbled in since high school, although I didn’t really know the name for the genre. I penned sexy stories for my friends to pass the time during boring classes—Latin and chemistry, mostly. The stories featured my girlfriends with their favorite crushes. Rock stars. Actors. Home room teachers. (Ah, wait, that was me.) At some point, I got up the nerve to submit a story to Playgirl. And I’ve been writing erotica professionally ever since.

PENTHOUSE VARIATIONS: Where do you draw inspiration from for your stories?

ALISON TYLER: I’m probably the world’s biggest eavesdropper. I love listening in on people’s conversations. I don’t necessarily find stories in gossip, but I catch the cadence of the words, the flow. As far as actual ideas go, I believe I have one of the world’s dirtiest imaginations. And, of course, I build on true-life experiences, as well. How could I help but include my own erotic experiences in my work? I layer the truth with lies or change the locations, but there’s probably a bit of me in every story I’ve ever written.

PENTHOUSE VARIATIONS: You have several books which have come out recently, including Slave to Love: Sexy Tales of Erotic Restraint, which is your fourth bondage-themed erotica anthology, after Best Bondage Erotica 1 and 2 and Bondage on a Budget. How does it differ from those? How do you keep pushing the envelope when covering a topic multiple times?

ALISON TYLER: It’s a lot like Variations, I believe. Variations can run tickling themes or spanking themes, and the idea is the same, but the stories are wildly, wickedly different. As different as the participants. I don’t think authors will ever run out of bondage tales. I know I won’t! Maybe some tales will share similar gear—cuffs, blindfolds, whips, paddles—but the characters in the stories bring their own unique spark to the situation. And that unexpected quality is the biggest turn-on to me. A great example is “The Discovery,” which you wrote for Slave to Love. It shows the sweet side of bondage, in a super-safe environment. When paired with some of the harder core stories in this collection, like those by Michael Hemmingson or Thomas S. Roche, it really stood out.

PENTHOUSE VARIATIONS: Similarly, Red Hot Erotica is the follow-up to Heat Wave. What's the most erotic thing about hot weather? What ties these stories together, since it's not as obvious a theme as the others?

ALISON TYLER: A general feeling of heat throbs through all of the stories in this book. Even though I’m fair-skinned and tend to hide under shade for cover, I understand how hot sex on a beach can be. But Red Hot Erotica takes the reader further than simply on a vacation to a tropical island paradise. The stories are fundamentally hot, from Dominic Santi’s sizzling flashback story “Riverboat Queen” to Simone Harlow’s noir-ish “Sweet Home Alabama.” You just can’t escape the heat.

PENTHOUSE VARIATIONS: One of your recent books is titled Luscious: Stories of Anal Eroticism. Why did you choose to dedicate an entire collection to anal sex?

ALISON TYLER: I thought it was unbelievable that this hadn’t been done before, because we (at Pretty Things Press) receive so many requests for this sort of story. I pitched the idea to Cleis, asked the ever-amazing Tristan Taormino to write the foreword, and voilà. Instant anal sex book. Just add lube.

PENTHOUSE VARIATIONS: You write in the introduction to Luscious that anal sex is "dirty," in a good way. What do you mean by that, and why do you think anal sex has remained both taboo and alluring?

ALISON TYLER: Dirty was actually my original title for the book. If people didn’t think anal sex was a little bit dirty, it wouldn’t be so fucking fun.

PENTHOUSE VARIATIONS: When you're doing a book all about a specific topic, how do you make it diverse so the stories are all different?

ALISON TYLER: I read on Violet Blue's blog recently, that when she opens up submissions for an anthology, she occasionally receives a slew of stories on a particular subject, which happens to me as well. For Down & Dirty 2, I received many one-night stand stories, many stranger-in-a-bar stories. Maybe the short format brought out that theme for people. But since I gather a great deal of stories to choose from, I am able to make sure each book is multifaceted.

For Happy Birthday Erotica, which I just finished, I was impressed with how totally different the stories were. I expected an abundance of spanking stories, which I adore, but I received tales of threesomes, strangers, sex toys, orgies, strippers, female domination and total kink . . . as well as spanking stories!

Another extremely varied book I edited is Three-Way. This anthology is filled with ménage à trois (and ménage à more) stories, but it isn’t just one threesome after another. My two favorite unique stories featured a man, a woman, and her alter-ego tattoo (“Craving Faces” by Tom Piccirilli) and “The Scarless” by Marcelle Perks, which featured all these guys in rubber suits. Crazy, but cool. Even the standard threesomes were varied, a flashback fuck by Marilyn Jaye Lewis called “Three for the Money,” and a man and a woman picking up a stranger in a bar to play with in a piece called “Third Party” by Dawn M. Pares. That story was outrageously sexy to me, even if the theme was somewhat familiar.

PENTHOUSE VARIATIONS: Which of the books have proven to be the most popular, and why do you think that is?

ALISON TYLER: Naughty Stories from A to Z is my all-time best-seller. I think, like me, people are drawn to the concept of “naughty.” Sure, sex is healthy and good and wholesome, and all that. But I’ve found that most of my readers want something a little on the edge without going too far. The fact that it’s packaged in pink yet kinky on the inside adds to the allure, I believe.

PENTHOUSE VARIATIONS: And on a personal note, which book or story is your favorite and why?

ALISON TYLER: I adore Naked Erotica. I think the stories are truly delicious as is the cover. One of my all-time favorite sex stories, “Stroking” by Cate Robertson, is in this book. I also love Best Bondage Erotica. The cover is so hot, it’s hard to compete. But I think the stories live up to the girl in red vinyl. “Selling Point” by Carl Kennedy is my favorite story in that book. It just gets dirtier and dirtier and dirtier. The girl has to ask the guy to fuck her ass because he’s already slid a dildo into her pussy, and—really, I have to take a quick break right now, just thinking about it.

PENTHOUSE VARIATIONS: What do you enjoy most about putting together an erotica anthology?

ALISON TYLER: Reading erotica never gets old for me. I love finding new authors—or at least authors who are new to me—and I enjoy seeing unexpected spins on themes I’ve been familiar with for years. For instance, I adore doctor stories and spanking stories, but Simon Sheppard’s “The Krankeit Treatment” in Naughty Spanking Stories from A to Z took me on a completely unexpected ride.

PENTHOUSE VARIATIONS: You're also the author of more than twenty erotic novels, the most recent being Tiffany Twisted. How is the creative process different from your other projects? What's your favorite part of novel writing, and how long do they normally take you to complete?

ALISON TYLER: When I’m in a zone, the words flow. But my novels have all taken me different amounts of time to write. In fact, I have one on my computer that’s a decade old and still unfinished. Someone asked recently how many novels I’ve actually written, because the number is always listed differently in interviews. The thing is that I believe I’ve had more than twenty novels published, but I’ve written more than that. The unfinished one is actually somewhat of a horror novel, and it’s based on a relationship I had with a roommate. More Predator than Single White Female. I hope to get it done one day!

I like writing novels because my characters are around longer—inside my head, anyway. I tend to fall for my characters a little bit. In With or Without You, my latest for Virgin Books, I focused on the relationship between two best friends. And I ended up being sort of enamored with this club owner named Nora. I actually found that I was dressing a little bit differently, trying to be as cool as she was.

PENTHOUSE VARIATIONS: Do you try to make the stories realistic enough that people can try the things they read about at home? Do you have any sense, from readers, as to whether that's why they're reading your books—have they taken inspiration from your books to spice up their love lives?

ALISON TYLER: My fan mail indicates that people definitely do “try this at home.” I think Bondage on a Budget in particular shows how easy it is to employ unexpected gadgets into an active sex life. But I’ve never actually written a nonfiction guide or anything like that. I think imagination is the best tool for a fulfilling erotic life, and definitely sexy stories can help spur the imagination.

PENTHOUSE VARIATIONS: You yourself have confessed to a bit of a shoe and boot fetish. Why are shoes so sexy, and which ones are the sexiest? Are there specific shoes you'd recommend a woman keep strictly in the bedroom?

ALISON TYLER: No, wear them out! Show them off! I love boots and fishnets, love Docs with dresses. I’ve never gotten over this fetish, and now, when I’m taking a break from writing, I tend to haunt the Internet for cool footwear. I even have friends e-mailing me [links for] shoes and boots they think I’ll like. My first pair of Doc Martens were cobalt blue and laced up to the knee. I wore them with torn stockings and black dresses, and I felt invincible. Like a gothic super hero. There are so many different boots and shoes I adore—patent leather, rubber, high heels, Mary Janes. I am a total shoe slut.

PENTHOUSE VARIATIONS: You're about to release Exposed: The Erotic Fiction of Alison Tyler. How did you pick which of your countless stories to include?

ALISON TYLER: (Speaking of boots—the shoes on the cover of this book absolutely send me!) I chose my favorites, and I tried to pick stories from my whole career. The book spans about 15 years of short stories. My personal favorite stories are in this collection: “Heat” and “Ten Minutes in the 80s.”

PENTHOUSE VARIATIONS: You used to do voice work reading erotica for the Herotica CD series. What advice do you have for people who want to read dirty stories to their lovers?

ALISON TYLER: Reading sexy stories is intensely arousing! The two books that Thomas Roche and I co-wrote, His and Hers, are perfect for reading aloud to a lover, as they’re written to the “you” of the reader. I’d suggest listening to other readers (like the delicious Violet Blue) to get an idea of how to read a sexy story. Violet has this way of getting into the words that is so damn hot.

PENTHOUSE VARIATIONS: What advice can you give people who want to create their own sexy stories?

ALISON TYLER: Have no fear of putting words on a page. I know so many people who say that they don’t know how to start. They’re paralyzed before they hit the first key. But your words are your own. You don’t have to share them. You simply have to get over the fear. Unfortunately, I don’t know any special method. Writers simply have to find out what works for themselves.

Years ago, one of my friends decided that he was going to be a writer. He bought a typewriter, a Fedora and a bottle of Jack Daniels. That’s what he needed to get the creative juices flowing. Truly, I don’t think he did much except drink the Jack and toss cards into the hat. But do what it takes. If you need silence, go to a quiet space. If you like chaos, write in a bar (I like to do that—I can tune out just about anything, and it turns me on to write filthy stories while sitting among people who have no idea what I’m up to). Start with one of your favorite fantasies and write it down as fast as you can, not worrying about punctuation, spelling, etc. Then rework it. Read it over and over to make sure that you have the details exactly how you want them. If the story turns you on, you’ve succeeded.

Pass it on to a friend or lover, and watch the sparks fly.

Find out more about Alison Tyler at http://alisontyler.blogspot.com and her books at http://www.prettythingspress.com.