Ella’s First Time In Print!

This Sunday night I got a very special package: a bubble envelope containing Chemical se[X], my first ever anthology. It’d been waiting all day for it to arrive, knowing it had gotten to the post office at 8am but wasn’t scheduled for delivery until 5pm. That was, to put it politely, some major bullshit. So I waited. And then… a heavy package hit the front porch.

It was heavy. It was slender. It was the book. I sat down with my mom (and our two rowdy black labs) and tore it open.

And then there it was. After a decade of imagining this moment, there it was. A weird, shiny, gorgeous little paperback with my name on the back cover. Was it maybe not the type of book I expected to be a part of at twelve-years-old, when I first decided to be a writer? Probably not. But I wouldn’t have it any other way.

“Friendly Neighborhood Drug Dealer” is not the sort of story I usually write. It’s light-hearted, it takes place in the first person, and it’s just plain fun. There are a ton of Wesleyan easter eggs tucked away (cookie dough, anyone?). I worked in a conversation about hookup culture and safe sex because of course I did, but the stakes are low. I’m learning how to incorporate feminism in smut without it being heavy-handed or mood killing, and seeing my work alongside authors I admire so much is the best validation that feminist erotica is a thing that can be a thing.

I have to say thank you to Oleander Plume, who took a total leap of faith inviting me to contribute to her anthology. Unending gratitude to our fearless leader, seriously. And to Malin James and Exhibit A, who brought me into this community, it’s an honor to share pages with you.

Chemical [se]X is available for purchase as a paperback on Amazon or in the Kindle store. Click here for smut. If you can, take the time to write a review on Amazon (it’ll help other readers find us and stroke our egos). And for reviewers who want to give it a read, drop me a line at ellacydawson@gmail.com.

Bonus round: my essay about Taylor Swift and sex writing won both the reader’s choice and the judge’s choice categories of the Sex Blog of Sorts ‘Don’t Read Clickbait, Read This’ competition! She had really nice things to say about me. Thank you to everyone who voted!