How long have you been writing?

That’s an interesting question. A few summers ago my elementary school principal saw something I’d published, read it and tracked me down. He handed me a paper I’d written in third grade that he’d saved all these years. I think it was on insects.

And you have been writing about the beasties ever since.

(Laughter.) Oh, my God, I’d never thought of that. I guess I have a theme.

I’ve heard a bit about your story from mutual writer friends, and as a single mom with no time for yourself, your experience sounds like a fairytale come true. The way i heard it, you used to lock yourself in the bathroom  for short intervals so you could write without interruption. When it was finally completed, the book was auctioned off to the highest bidder in New York. I don’t know how accurate this story is, but tell me a little about your process.

It started about six years ago—just after I had my first child. I went to the Surrey International Writers’ Conference. At this conference participants are able to schedule ten minute sessions with the editor or agent of their choice. I had scheduled an interview with Claire Eddie of TOR. And because I was also nursing at the time, I was late for my interview—my first big interview with a New York editor. I went racing down the hallway baby in hand, blouse still open, only to find that my interview time was already over. But Claire took pity on me and allowed me to pitch my idea for a book to her anyway. She liked it and told me to send it to her—which I did. She wrote me back a long critique and told me why my book didn’t work for her. But she also sent me a copy of a book just then coming out by TOR, called Kushiel’s Dart. She said, I think you can produce a book like this. I gave it some thought and started to write Touched By Venom.

At the same time I was trying to write the book for Claire, I had a small child and then had another baby. I was living in a small apartment. At night when the children were asleep there was nowhere I could turn on a light to write, because it would wake them. So, I ended up writing in the bathroom. The first three chapters of my novel were written with me sitting on the toilet—lid down—scribbling my thoughts onto recipe cards.

When the book was almost done I wrote back to Claire Eddie and asked her if she was still interested. She was, and I sent her the first three chapters. But she took so long to get back to me—which is an industry problem—that in the meantime I started looking for an agent. Lo and behold, not one agent but several were interested, so that was a wonderful situation to be in. I could pick and choose. I chose Caitlin Blasdell because she’s a mom; she would understand my situation. And also, she is new, hungry and earning a really good name for herself. Prior to becoming an agent, she was a senior editor at Harper Collins so I trusted that she knew the business.

Caitlin was really interested in my work and right away thought we could do an auction. She contacted Claire Eddie and told her she was invited to attend, but unfortunately for Claire, who had nurtured me along that far, she was unable to purchase the book. Touched By Venom was picked up by ROC instead. And that’s the story of how I got my first fantasy novel published. I hope this explanation isn’t too long.

No, no your story is a good inspiration for many authors who are struggling along, especially those of us who don’t have the money to attend many cons where we can get to know the editors and agents.  Tell me a little more about how you got your agent. I assume you sent your manuscript to several.

I did contact many, many agents, but I didn’t send them my manuscript—or even sample chapters. I sent them the query letter, a page and a half double-spaced synopsis and the first ten pages of my manuscript. And I sweated bullets over that synopsis. I think it took me months to write it.

How did you decide which agents to contact?

I went through about ten or fifteen back issues of Locus magazine. I looked in the books sold section and wrote down the name of every agent I saw. A number of agents were interested in seeing more so I had to winnow down my list from there and at last chose Caitlin Blasdell.

Tell me a little about the book, Touched By Venom.

First of all, I was inspired by the story of Eva Perron, a woman in Argentina who rose to a position of national prominence through her use of sexual liaisons with powerful men. But this type of sexual liaison is socially acceptable in our society—not much new there. So, I asked myself the question; what if I put a twist on the plot and created a story about a woman who rose to power by having an unacceptable sexual liaison? And what if I took that one step further and really made it unacceptable by making her sexual liaison with dragons?

The other inspiration for the book goes a little deeper and has to do with the gender oppression that is going on in Iran and Iraq right now. The suffering that women and children are enduring weighs on my mind quite heavily and I felt I had to write my way through my feelings.

By raising the subject of bestiality, are you expecting any negative publicity?

Maybe I’m being naive, but no, I’m not expecting any. With Anne McCaffrey’s  Pern books, I figure the basis is already there. In those books dragons and their riders communicate telepathically and are linked when mating. My book only takes the process one step further.

Do you think that in the future the fantasy genre will become increasingly open to “unusual” sexual content in the books published by major publishing houses?

You mean kinky? Yes. As a society, we seem to be going through a stage right now where “raunch” is a really big deal, especially with women.  In many areas, TV, reality shows, books, women are doing the most stunning things. We seem to have put this kind of sex up on a pedestal and are glorifying it. I don’t think there is such a thing as kinky sex any more. It’s all going mainstream. For example, look at my book. It isn’t being published as porn or by a publishing house specializing in erotica; it’s being published by ROC, a big, mainstream, New York publisher.

Thank you very much, Janine Cross, and I’m sure we will all be looking forward to reading your book.

Touched by Venom, published by ROC, was released on November 1.