Welcome Phaze author, Fenner Jekyll, to Love Romances & More. We are excited to have the opportunity to speak with you and learn more about your work. 

Can you tell us a little bit about yourself? 

Well, the full bio is on the website - http://www.fennerjekyll.com/html/about_fenner_jekyll.html - but the condensed truth is that I’m an incredibly fortunate person who expects the luck to run out any day now. And I’ve felt like that since I was about four years old. 

How long have you been writing; was it something you have always wanted to do? 

I can’t recall a time when I didn’t write stories – just as I can’t remember a time when I couldn’t read. I remember being very small and reading a book in which this chick Jane told this guy Dick to see the dog. She was very insistent about it. She kept telling him to see the dog. Then he did see the dog, and he told her he had. He saw the dog and went on and on about having seen it. Then the dog ran and they both saw that. 

I remember thinking, “This is terrible. I can do better than this crap.” 

But I’m not a subscriber to the notion that a writer has to write or go mad. Whenever other writers tell me they feel that way, I suggest that they consider getting professional care. The uncontrollable compulsion to write – that’s not a muse-driven talent; that’s a behavioral disorder. For me, writing isn’t like breathing; it’s like cooking. It comes naturally to me, and I enjoy it, but I could quite well go for weeks at a time without doing it if there was no reason or opportunity to. 

What influenced you to get published? How long did it take you to get your first book published? 

I suppose I always wanted to be published, but I never really knew how to make it happen. Almost everything I’ve had published – in magazines, comics, e-books, print – has come about because a friend who saw something I’d done showed it to a woman who knew a guy who was a reader for an editor who… You get the picture. I’ve just been very lucky. 

MITIGATED FILTH is now available at Phaze. Can you tell us a little bit about this book? 

It’s a collection of short stories that are passionate, dirty, funny, emotional and untidily spontaneous – pretty much like actual sex, in fact. In real life, sex is never insignificant. It’s never ‘just sex’. In Mitigated Filth, sex features as an expression of love, of anger, of risk, of hilarity, of trust or mistrust, of admiration or condescension, of sincerity or of the lack of it.  

Often, erotica implies that everything is about sex. But actually the opposite is true - sex is about everything. 

How did you come up with the stories for MITIGATED FILTH? 

Some stories were based around my own experiences, or sprang from anecdotes that friends had shared with me. But you soon run out of those and you have to start making stuff up. When there’s nothing in my head, I tend to set myself little tests. So – for instance – I’ll write an opening sentence and then I tell myself to put a story to it.  

One day I wrote this: I knew my husband ten years before we got married, but the first time he ever made me climax was in the church on our wedding day. And even then he had help. 

Then I had to write a story that justified that opening, and it turned out to be one of my favorites in Mitigated Filth. I find that very satisfying. 

 That is some cover! Who did the cover art for MITIGATED FILTH? 

Isn’t it fantastic? It was designed by Alessia Brio, who is not only a great graphic artist but a fine writer too. Bitch. 

We can see from your website http://www.fennerjekyll.com/html/about_fenner_jekyll.html that you have always been a bit of an adventuress. Love the part about the ambulance. Have you used any of your personal escapades in any of your stories? 

The stories in the book are set in places I’ve lived – Boston, London, Amsterdam, the Black Forest – and some are based on my experiences or those of people I met (however briefly). But many, as I’ve said, are entirely made up. I’d like to think it’s difficult to tell which is which. 

Often a writer’s first book is the toughest to write. Was this true for you? If so, what helped you get through it? If it wasn’t the first, which one was the most difficult to write? The easiest? 

Sometimes I think writing is easy. And sometimes I think it’s tough. And then I think about the jobs most people do every day, and I realize that even when it seems tough, writing’s easy and I have no cause for complaint. 

What helps me get through most things is Cabernet Sauvignon. It has never failed me yet. 

Do you usually outline your stories before you write, or do you "go with the flow"? 

The latter. If I knew how they ended, I wouldn’t write them. 

Most authors are also avid readers. Is this the case with you?  

I’ll read the first ten pages of any book that crosses my path. I don’t read page eleven of many.  

Have you ever suffered from "writer’s block"? If so, what did you do to get past it? 

I don’t believe in writer’s block. I don’t understand why a writer is permitted a get-out for not doing the job. If you called a mechanic to fix your car and an hour after he arrived you found him in your driveway, sitting on the hood and smoking a cigarette, you’d be pretty pissed if his excuse was that he was suffering from mechanic’s block and he just, y’know, couldn’t get the whole engine-fixing muse to work with him right now, so rather than force it he was backing off and staying cool and waiting for inspiration to strike him in such a way that he felt like cleaning the spark-plugs. Can you imagine going to a restaurant and finding that none of the entrées were available because of the cook’s attack of chef’s block? How much credence would you give to brain surgeon’s block? Or firefighter’s block?  

Sometimes writing comes without much effort, and sometimes it’s a terrible slog. But there’s no real excuse for not doing it. 

What is your idea of a romantic evening? 

On my own, or with someone? Or several people? 

In any case, it involves laughter, wine, the aroma of food from the kitchen, very little sleep and no pressing engagements the following day.  

What do you think readers would be surprised to discover about you? 

I think a lot of them would be surprised to discover that this is my real name. Also, as there’s a fifty-fifty split in the mails I receive addressed to Ms Jekyll and Mr Jekyll, I’d guess that half of my readers would be surprised to discover what gender I am. 

It contributes to the ambivalence, I suppose, that I write stories from both male and female viewpoints. Certainly there are both in Mitigated Filth.  

But I like the uncertainty. I think it means that the reader concentrates on the sex of the narrator rather than on that of the writer. So - in case you’re wondering - no, I’m not going to say which I am.

Do you write every day? 

No. But I do think about stories every day. 

If you could write and be guaranteed publication of any genre of book, what would it be? 

I’m not very interested in genre. All I care about is the quality of the writing, the use of the language, the compulsion of the story. If I were to say, for instance, that I tend to avoid Westerns or Sword’n’Sorcery sagas, you can bet your life that next week I’d come across a fabulously well-written, intelligent, gripping novel about a dragon-riding warlock pursuing Jesse James across the Yukon in search of the Amulet of Glan-Dra-Foer.   

So there’s no particular genre I want to take a shot at. Except, now I think of it, a sword’n’sorcery western. 

Are you working on anything right now? Can you tell us a teaser about these projects? 

There’s a story from the current collection – Mitigated Filth – on the website at http://www.fennerjekyll.com/html/free_filth.html.  

My current project is to write a story for one of my readers. I’ve incorporated a competition into Mitigated Filth, the prize for which is that I create a short story based on a reader’s fantasy or real life. As I’ve said, I like to write to a specification, so I’m looking forward to discovering what I’ll have to work with. 

Any final advice to aspiring authors? 

1. Don’t try to write like anyone else. Try to write like yourself. It’s not easy, but it’s the only way.
2. Be sure you can justify every single word on the page. Every single one. If in doubt, cut.
3. Drink heavily. 

Thank you so much for spending time with us at Love Romances & More. We wish you the greatest success in all of your future endeavors. 

It’s been fun. Thank you for having me.