Author Interview: T.C. Gardstein

Photo ©T.C. Gardstein  All rights reserved. Used with permission.

Today we are interviewing T.C. Gardstein. Her writing is spicy and real, but has a haunting quality brought on by the point-of-view. The  availabliity of the prose and ease of reading is what helps to make her writing high on our list of favorites.

Okay, T.C. Your turn. Tell us why you enjoy writing erotica.

I find writing erotica to be a delicious exercise in torture. I create a scenario and characters that turn me on, and force myself to keep both hands on the wheel (actually, keyboard) and let the sexual tension keep building as I write, and let the characters take over and do what they want, until I have a complete first draft. The revision process is a different beast…with the initial tension gone, my head clears, which I need in order to make it the best story it can possibly be. If my erotica stimulates a reader mentally as well as sexually, maybe challenges them in some way or tickles their funny bone, that’s the steamy, slippery icing on the cake.

We can all learn so much about ourselves through sexual and sensual exploration. Both writing and reading erotica is safe because it’s exploring a fantasy through a story, not necessarily experiencing it in reality; yet erotica can also encourage people to take control of their sex lives, question their assumptions about what’s “proper,” and maybe try a flavor other than vanilla. Also, despite being a fairly shy person, I also find great pleasure in giving reading performances of my erotica—it creates such sizzling, visceral energy. Galapagos Art Space in its Williamsburg, Brooklyn, incarnation had a monthly “Smut Night” that was particularly encouraging of my work. At first I was surprised that this performance series was written up and praised in the New York Times, but the reality is that erotica has joined other things, like tattoos, that were once considered outrageous, edgy, or not appropriate for “nice” people.

When it comes to reading erotica, I tend to prefer sexy poetry—I read www.cleansheets.com every week, and was beyond pleased when they published two of my poems in 2008—and literary fiction that has explicit sex scenes. My favorites include Mary Gaitskill’s short story collection Bad Behavior, E. L. Doctorow’s Billy Bathgate, and anything by Ellen Gilchrist. John Updike, may he rest in peace, had some great moments in Couples. I also admire the hell out of Anaïs Nin. And e. e. cummings wrote some white-hot verse.

What other kinds of writing do you do regularly? Or is it just erotica?

Literary fiction, poetry, and children’s stories. I also published a few astrology articles, and content-managed an astrology website during the dot-com boom. From the late ‘90s to the very early ‘00s, I wrote and drew a strange little comix-with-an-x that was inspired by the brilliant and misanthropic cartoonist R. Crumb. My first novel, Circuit, a coming-of-age tale mostly set in ‘80s suburbia, is available on Amazon and Xlibris, where the first few chapters can be read for free: www.xlibris.com/Circuit.html. It’s not erotica, but in the very first chapter, the protagonist fellates her college boyfriend while he is driving on a highway. I also have a short story collection that has quite a bit of sex in it, but it’s more “neurotica” than erotica.

Heh. I wonder if that's a genre we should include here. Speaking of here, how about ebooks? Like 'em?

It’s great to have the option not to kill any more trees if you want to read something, and it saves shelf space as well. However, if the reading material is longer than a few pages, both physically and psychologically I prefer to curl up on the couch with it, either in book or magazine form, than read it sitting up at the computer.


Who is your favorite character that you've written?

That’s a tough question. I like the unnamed girl in “Sandwich Filling” because when she is about to turn 30, the dawn of her sexual prime, she decides to go after what she wants: a ménage à trois with two guys. Three may be a magic number, because I also like the three main characters I’ve come up with for my second novel. They are so different from one another, and yet I can relate to each of them.

What are your thoughts about publishing? It seems you have a bit of experience with the business.

As far as erotica publishing goes, I think it’s a good thing that it’s really taken off, at least in the U.S., over the past several years. There’s been an explosion of print anthologies and online magazines devoted to the genre, plus of course a new kid on the block called Paper Bag Press. I’ve always found it ludicrous and downright disturbing that violent situations are par for the course on U.S. TV shows and in PG-rated movies, but not naked people in the throes of ecstasy, giving and receiving pleasure instead of harm. Yet anything that falls under the umbrella of erotica is pro-sex, and so the increasing acceptance and visibility of this genre is a positive sign. Of course, popularity and high quality are two separate issues, but I have a feeling with erotica that the bar is going to keep being raised.

I can’t resist a bit of soap-boxing here. It’s hardly a secret that it’s never been more difficult to get a literary novel published if you are an unknown quantity. First you have to land an agent, because there’s no “slush pile” at publishing houses anymore. Several agents claimed in rejection letters that I was a very talented writer, but they didn’t think they could convince anyone to publish my novel “in this harsh publishing climate”—and this was years before the economy tanked! Even if you have representation, marketing has been trumping editorial at publishing houses for at least the past 20 years. Now many editors at publishing houses are being let go, and entire imprints are being discontinued. More than ever, books are seen purely in terms of profit potential, not as potential art. To be a mid-list author means that you may not get another chance at that house if your book doesn’t earn its keep.

A recent study indicated a slight increase for the first time in several years in the number of people reading fiction, which is a hopeful sign. Yet the only weekly print magazine left in the U.S. that publishes fiction is The New Yorker, and fewer people are able to afford a hot-of-the-press hardcover novel by an exciting new author. One way of cutting costs could be making the shift to eBooks, but it’s not an option for every reader, and what would that do to the used-book market and libraries? I can see small presses benefiting from this topsy-turvy era—some of them, like Soft Skull Press, have already gotten acclaim. I hope more small presses will attract praise and not fold because times are tough. It would be nice if self-publishing and print-on-demand publishing got some respect, but frankly, as long as anyone can do it, and the quality of writing is therefore so erratic, these avenues will be seen as a last resort. That’s why I treasure the review my own print-on-demand novel got on www.girlondemand.blogspot.com. There are countless online literary and poetry magazines with very high standards, but many of them don’t offer any compensation—then again, anyone contributing to these magazines and is in touch with reality is doing it for love and a bit of validation, not money.

We're doing it for money, here. Rockstar that you are, could you tell us a bit about your life? What does an erotica writer do in her off time?

Favorite leisure activities include reading, Netflix nights, going to the beach—my favorite one by far is the clothing optional Orient Beach in St. Martin, but the closest one is Coney Island—seashells, hats, art deco anything, checking out museum exhibits, ambling around the city streets, burlesque, yoga, dancing either to ‘20s jazz—I can do a sort of pseudo-Charleston—or ‘80s pop, ‘60s rock posters, browsing in used bookstores and thrift shops, cafés, bars that have sofas, drawing, ranting in my journal, waking reveries, and trying to figure out what my dreams mean. Cooking for friends relaxes me, and I could probably make spaghetti carbonara under general anesthesia. [Ed. note: Isn't spaghetti carbonara itself a sort of anesthesia? But I interrupt...] I miss playing tennis regularly, and wish I could travel more, but some of the best experiences aren’t purchased ones. I’d go into more detail about how I research my stories, but, you know, that’s classified information. <Wink>

One last question, and you can get back to the spaghetti: What does T.C. stand for?

I was named Tough Cookie in honor of my great-great-grandparent who damned the pogroms and stubbornly stayed behind in the Old Country. Everything I publish, not just erotica, is under T. C. Gardstein. Some of my favorite authors use their initials: J. D. Salinger, E. L. Doctorow, F. Scott Fitzgerald, E. B. White, e. e. cummings. But that’s not why I do it. I like the way my nom de plume sounds, and as a writer I find the androgyny of this name very freeing.


T.C., you rule. Thanks for all your thoughts. I loved reading about your life. Readers, feel free to leave comments for T.C. here, or on her story's page.


I'll start:  Damn, girl, you are gorgeous!