Sizzling July Interview with Rachel Haimowitz!

Hello again, my twisted and kinky lovelies! The Sizzling Hot month of July is coming to a close but don't fret! Grab a tall cool drink of someone or something and settle back for our last interview.

I saved the best for last... Meet Rachel Haimowitz!

Welcome to My Twisted & Kinky World!

Thank you! Twisted and kinky are two of my fav-o-rite things J (Bad showtunes puns are apparently a third favorite thing.)

*laughs* It's great to have you here!

Let's start off by telling everyone a little bit about you!

Well, my name is Rachel, and I’m an— Oh, not that, huh? Let’s see… I’m 34, a Jersey gal born and raised, love hiking, musical theater, reading everything I can get my hands on, and indulging a myriad of kinks in my writing. I’m also the Managing Editor at Riptide Publishing, which is easily one of the most fulfilling things I’ve ever been a part of—right up there with typing “The End” on a new book.

 I just love, love, love Riptide Publishing! Did I mention Love?

So, I know when I sit on writer panels I am always asked this question. When did you start writing?

When I learned how to read, basically. I wrote my first complex story when I was seven or so—it was about a killer ceiling fan that detached from its moorings and tried to kill the whole family. Chased them down the street and everything. In retrospect, it was pretty shocking my parents didn’t put me in therapy after that J Funny thing, though, is that my stuff never really lightened up very much, even after I started writing romance.

A killer ceiling fan? Now that's imaginative!

Have you always written erotica?

 No. My first finished novel was a dystopian future-fic in which a post-disaster America eschews technology and becomes a theocracy. My second completed novel was a psychological thriller. Curiously enough, both featured gay characters (a prominent secondary character in the first one, and the main character in the second), but neither contained a stitch of sex. Neither are published, either, though I’d love to get them into shape and out into the world one day. I think, with the exception of my BDSM fic, the umbrella under which all my work falls is actually speculative fiction rather than erotica. I just happen to write a fair share of spec-fic with erotic content J

I think you should publish those if you could find the time in your busy schedule!

What made you decide to write erotica?

In part because I love to read some very specific kinds of kinks, and not a lot of people are writing good stories that scratch those itches. Also in part because the sexual journey, especially in a BDSM or power exchange setting, can be so formative and/or revealing for a character and so erotica can be a fascinating vehicle for a character’s exploration and also can contain surprising depth. Sure, some erotica’s just stroke fiction, meant to be read one-handed (and god knows there’s nothing wrong with that—I read my share of it!), but the kind of erotica I really enjoy writing is psychologically complex fulfilling.

It's the kind I love reading, too!

How would you classify your erotic writing?

So far, my stories that feature relationships have all featured m/m relationships. I am working on a story now with an m/f relationship, but it’s not a romance—it’s a psychological horror with a relationship in it.

If you had to name one character you have written that was the most like you, which character in which book would that be?

This is an interesting one. I’m not really sure any of my characters are like me, although they do all have bits and pieces of me in them and in their lives. I suppose the closest is probably Jonathan from Power Play: Resistance and Power Play: Awakening. We’re both hardcore sadists, vegetarians, environmentalists, fairly nonconformist, spiritual but not religious, lovers of wild spaces, blessed with amazing parents (although his are dead; mine, thank goodness, are not) and upbringings that taught us to embrace the nonconventional, overachievers, early graduates (I think I was the only kid in my senior class who wasn’t old enough to drive, although Jonathan outclasses me there by a number of years), introverts, loners, knitters, obsessed with Brandon . . . ;-)

Introvert and sadist are not two words you hear usually in the same sentence! *grins*

 

Are there certain characters or stories you would like to go back to?

Most of them, to be honest. Sometimes you finish something and it just feels done, but most of the time I look at things and think, Wow, there’s a whole world there to play in and I want to get back to it one day. I have two more story ideas in the Song of the Fallen world (where Counterpoint and Crescendo are set), and a ton of story ideas in the Belonging world (where Anchored, Where He Belongs, and Aleksandr Voinov’s Counterpunchare set, and where my current WIP is also set), two more story ideas with Aleks Voinov in the Break and Enter world, two more story ideas with Cat Grant in the Power Play world, and probably a dozen more story ideas in the Master Class world (where Master Class and Sublimeare set). 

The trick is finding the time and the right creative energy to revisit those places—which is made doubly hard when you’ve co-written and have to line up your schedule and muse with your partner’s schedule and muse.

I can only imagine! It seems like you won't be needed to think up another story for awhile with that list! *smiles*

What is your latest release and where can readers find it?

>That would be the Power Play series—PowerPlay: Resistance and Power Play:Awakening, co-written with Cat Grant. You can find them just about anywhere books are sold, but you can read 30-page excerpts from both of them on the publisher website.

I totally love this series! Can I just say… YUM!

Most authors offer some sort of e-pub of their work. Do you offer traditional paper versions as well?

Most of my stuff is available in paper as well as ebook. I think Break and Enter is the only one that isn’t, and Power Play: Awakening will be in a couple weeks but isn’t quite yet.

Is there anything else you would like to say to your readers and fans?

Thank you, and I love you. I mean that quite seriously, too, because if it weren’t for all the amazing readers and fans, I wouldn’t get to keep writing.

Thanks for dropping by My Twisted & Kinky World!

Thanks so much for having me! J

You're welcome! It was a pleasure to sit down and chat with you for awhile.

*waves goodbye to Rachel*


You can find Rachel here:

Website, Bookshelf, Blog, Goodreads, Elance, Twitter, Facebook

Read the Rainbow at Riptide Publishing

Well, my twisted and kinky lovelies, we only have one more interview after this in my Sizzling July Interview series so don't forget to stop back!

Amara - July 1-3

Evan J. Xaiver - July 4-6

S.L. Armstrong - July 7-9

Brita Addams - July 10-12

Leigh Ellwood - July 13-15

Blaine Arden - July 16-18

Leigh Jarrett- July 19-24

A.D. Cooper - July 22-24

Giselle London - July 25-27

Rachel Haimowitz - July 28-30
Aleksandr Voinov - July 31-Aug. 3


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