Photo credit: Asian Palm Civet Over A Tree.jpg, from Wikimedia Commons (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Asian_Palm_Civet_Over_A_Tree.jpg). Attribution: Praveenp, distributed under a Creative Commons License [CC BY-SA 3.0 ]
Stormdance Spotlight on Grumpy Old Gods Vol. 1 Author Avery Vanderlyle
How Do My Ideas Ferment into Stories?
by Avery Vanderlyle
Most of my previously published stories have been erotica or erotic romance. Three of them are set in the same urban fantasy universe. In the first one (“Mirrors, the Moon and the Boy,” from an anthology called Forgotten Menagerie), I established that this world didn’t just have werewolves, but had shifters into unusual or exotic animals. In “Mirrors,” the narrator isn’t happy about being a shifter, considering it a curse.
Then came Circlet Press’ call for submissions for an erotica anthology themed around coffee. And I thought: Isn’t there a type of coffee made from coffee beans that pass through an animal’s digestive system? What if they were shifters? A few google searches later and I was reading about the Asian Palm Civet, pictured above, and about the making of Kopi Luwak, civet coffee. Unfortunately, real civets are often exploited for the production of this coffee. But to my shifter civets, it’s part of a ritual and a rite of passage as the adolescents eat special coffee beans and attempt to steal magical herbs from Fay gardens.
The civet shifters have cultures and traditions. This is not a curse to them, but a way of life. The magical version of Kopi Luwak they produce has unpredictable powers and aphrodisiac tendencies. Pilgrims come to bargain for a taste — who are they? Deciding on that gave me the other main character for my f/f erotica story, “Drink to Seal the Bond,” which appeared in 2015’s Coffee: Hot anthology.
How Do My Ideas Ferment into Stories?
Avery’s Story Blurb
Rule 34 by Avery Vanderlyle: When the Primal Terror goes AWOL, Demeter is forced to chase him down in order to keep humanity from destroying themselves; unfortunately, he has a new hobby, and it’s for mature audiences only.
About Avery Vanderlyle
Avery Vanderlyle credits her interest in the sexy side of sci fi and fantasy to reading Samuel Delany as a teenager. Today she still reads more than is healthy, devours Game of Thrones fan theories, plays Dungeons and Dragons, and earns money by making computer programmers cry. She lives in Boston with her spouse and six cats… some of whom converse with her regularly.
Cover Art of “A Beastly Affair” provided by Circlet Press. Out Now!