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Free-ing Jessica

By Cornelius A. Fortune

Royal Oak native Anne Harris decided one day that science fiction wasn't in her future.
With the critically-acclaimed novels "Accidental Creatures," "The Nature of Smoke," and "Inventing Memory" under her belt, it seemed Harris would just go on writing mind-bending cyberpunk novels with lesbian heroines and feminist themes. But then she discovered slash fiction.

"Slash is a subset of fan fiction that is dedicated to romantic and sexual relationships between male characters," she says. "I didn't know anything about slash at that time, but the more I read of it, the more I loved it. The more I realized that the new project I was working on was essentially a slash novel."
Inspired by Jay and Silent Bob slash fiction online, Harris came to the realization that her new novel was a distinctly different beast. Somewhere during that transition, Jessica Freely was born.
"I decided to just write something that was going to be everything that I loved, with no market consideration," Freely says.
It took awhile for anyone to catch on. Both her agent and her editor rejected the novel, which meant that the award-winning author (winner of the 1999 Gaylactic Spectrum Award for the best science fiction/fantasy) had to start over – from scratch.
"That was the beginning," she says. "From that point on, the search has been for a viable professional market for stories of romance between two men. It took me quite some time."
Another interest was Yaoi, a type of Manga popular in Japan that features male lovers as its central characters. This direction actually appealed most to Freely, who had spent her career writing novels. Yaoi was words and pictures – and she couldn't have been more excited.
Thanks to a visit to Yaoi-Con in California, Freely made some great contacts that eventually lead to her finding a publisher. She flew down to the convention expecting a book launch. What she found was an empty space and no book. The company had folded without giving her any notification. So there she was in San Francisco without a book to promote.
"That was a real blow," she says, still pained by it. "But I knew I had to do something. I said to myself, 'You're here already. Do some business. Start talking to some publishers.'"
Five minutes later, she was having a great conversation with e-publisher Torquere, which specializes in LGBT erotic romance, and they were thrilled at the prospect of taking on an already-published author.
"I went home and wrote a story for Torquere, and they bought it and it came out and it was well received and they honored their contract," she says. "I got paid, and so I did another story for them."
Freely describes her new book "Virgin" as a paranormal romance. In it, the two heroes are up against a cabal of sorcerers that are running a little backwoods town. These sorcerers have been deliberately isolating Joam (the hero and a shape-shifter) to make sure he remains a virgin, because they're planning on selling him as a sacrifice.
As Anne Harris, the author explored speculative ideas; as Jessica Freely, there's one simple focus: romance.
"It's all about the relationship between characters. I find it incredibly liberating to have that be the front and center element in the story," Freely says. "I would say there is a slightly different seasoning. I don't really put on a persona when I'm writing. Everything I write is coming from what I have inside."
Freely had always written LGBT characters and was interested in gender role issues since she began putting words on paper.
"There's been quite a bit of curiosity as to why I made that choice (of a male/male erotic fiction), especially since I'm married to a man," she says. "It finally came to me: I love romance, but I hate heterosexual power dynamics. So having two characters of the same gender in a relationship does all kinds of wonderful things. It evens the playing field. If there's a power differential in the relationship, it's not a societally-ordained one."
In addition to the gender role issues – and the undeniable fact, she adds, that if you do like men, two men together is even better – there's also an element of seeing men be emotionally vulnerable with each other that's appealing.
"That is incredibly powerful. We have such a cultural taboo against that," she says. "I'm doing what I love. I'm writing the stories that I've always wanted to write, only for a long time I didn't know I could. I think it's good for the work that I really love what I'm doing. I think that's true of most m/m writers."
Has she seen Anne Harris readers switch over to Jessica Freely books? Not necessarily, though a few have continued to follow her latest work.
"I do think m/m and romantic romance in general, regardless of the sexual orientation and gender of the characters, is its own thing," she says. "It will often have science fictional or fantastic elements, but the focus is on the romance. Not every science fiction fan wants that. I understand that, so I just felt it was time to let Jessica Freely be Jessica Freely."

Want more Jessica Freely (aka Anne Harris)? Visit http://friskbiskit.com or link to Jessica Freely stories on the Torquere Web site, visit http://tinyurl.com/freelytq.

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