Mitzi Szereto is the author of the critically acclaimed Erotic Fairy Tales, A Romp Through the Classics (Cleis Press). Born and raised in the United States, where she considers Los Angeles her adopted hometown, Szereto currently lives in South Yorkshire, England.

Szereto has also written a novella, highway, an e-book for Renaissance E-Books and is the editor of the anthologies Erotic Travel Tales and the follow-up anthology Erotic Travel Tales 2 ( a spring 2003 release), both published by Cleis Press. Her work has appeared in the Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica 2002, Wicked Words 4, Joyful Desires: A Compendium of Twentieth Century Erotica, Erotic Review, and Proof.

She has also published several erotic novels under the name M.S. Valentine, including The Martinet (new from Chimera Publishing Ltd.), The Captivity of Celia, The Possession of Celia, Elysian Days and Nights (now available from Renaissance E-Books), and The Governess.

Szereto formally studied art, after which she went on to earn a BA in Journalism with a political science minor from California State University Northridge. However, before that she was a fashion designer, brining out her own line of limited edition women's apparel in Miami and Los Angeles.

In between working toward her master's degree, Szereto teaches writing workshops, including erotic writing, in the United Kingdom for regional arts boards, literary festivals, and local councils, as well as residential writing workshops in Europe. She is presently involved in compiling an anthology of erotic writing based on classic Greco-Roman mythology and writing a novel.

Derek Alger: Erotic Fairy Tales, A Romp Through the Classics has been greeted with wide acclaim. How did you get the idea for telling such tales as Red Riding Hood in a sexually titillating way?

Mitzi Szereto: Totally by accident, which is how inspiration usually happens for me. I often tend to operate with a desert island mentality. I think this keeps the process of creating more pure. The idea for Erotic Fairy Tales just popped into my head one day and I began collecting fairy tales that triggered my erotic muse. I literally brought home stacks and stacks of books from the library, zipping through them until something caught my eye and started that little volcano bubbling inside my brain. The strange thing is, I was never a big fairy tale lover as a child. In fact, it's safe to say I didn't care for them at all. I thought they were too childish. If I'd only known then what I know now . . .

DA: Same here. How did you transform your inspiration into practice?

MS: I decided to approach this project in a way that the tales could still retain their fairy tale integrity. While it was important to twist and turn them into something entirely new, I made an effort to preserve enough of the original material so the reader could still recognize the tales. As I began the selection process, I became increasingly attracted to the idea of turning this into a multi-cultural project. The book contains plenty of tales that we in the West are already familiar with, but I included material from the Middle East and Orient as well.

DA: You've included a brief introduction to each tale telling the history and culture behind each selection. I'm sure most readers were unaware that fairy tales originally had such x-rated themes before being cleaned up for children.

MS: That's true. Many readers had no idea of what went on in the original versions. Nor did I, for that matter. As you can see, I did a lot of research into the history and culture behind each tale, all of which was done after I had written my versions of the fairy tales.  It was quite a scholarly enterprise, but well worth it, I think. The introductions gave greater significance to the tales themselves and the reader gains a better appreciation of them. I'd like to think that people are not only entertained by the book but enriched through the process of reading it. I approach my anthologies in the same way -- by providing material that goes beyond the typical.

DA: You started out writing serious fiction and fell into erotica entirely by the accident. What happened?

MS: I used to read erotica when I was younger -- probably way too young to be reading such material! The classic stuff, mostly. I really liked the flowery prose of the Victorians, the elegant language that seems to have fallen by the wayside in contemporary erotica.  I was also a big fan of those gothic-type novels -- you know, the "mysterious master of the manor" novels, sort of mass-market Jane Eyre. Take all this and throw in too many television reruns of Pride and Prejudice with Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy . . . well, you get the picture! So, I guess it was inevitable that I should have fallen into writing erotica. I will say that I approach it with all the seriousness of any serious fiction author. I don't subscribe to a factory mentality of churning out erotica books; in fact, I probably labor over the prose as much or even more than many authors of serious fiction. Just because a book is classified as "erotica" doesn't mean it has to be disposable literature.

DA: What prompted you to write under the name M.S. Valentine?

MS: In the beginning I wasn't sure where I was going with this erotica-writing business and I didn't want to be typecast in a specific genre. Before the publication of my first erotic novel, The Captivity of Celia, I discussed it with my then-publisher Richard Kasak at Masquerade Books, who understood my concerns and agreed that a pseudonym might be the way to go. In retrospect, I think it was a good decision, since the Valentine books are of a specific type, not like the writing I am doing as Mitzi Szereto -- although by now most everyone knows that I'm M.S. Valentine. To be honest, I was surprised and flattered to find out how many people really liked those M.S. Valentine novels. I still continue to hear from readers, many wanting to know if there will ever be another "Cecila" book. Hmm . . .

How I arrived at the name is a much simpler tale. Obviously you can see where the M.S. came from. As for the Valentine part -- don't laugh -- but that came from one of my favorite films: Shirley Valentine. And of course the word valentine evokes images of love and romance, which fits right in with erotica. Well, in some instances, anyway.

DA: I know you teach writing workshops on the creative process, but there is also a large demand for you to tutor erotic writing. I'm sure a lot of writers would be curious how you approach teaching erotic writing.

MS: Yes, there seems to be a surprisingly large demand for me to teach erotic writing -- more than I'd ever anticipated. I would like to think that my work has reassured people that they will get a workshop with a more literary focus rather than being something the guy in the raincoat and black socks might attend. These erotic writing workshops are not workshops I've put together by hiring out a venue in which to teach them. I am being invited to tutor them by arts groups, literary festivals and organizations that are in the business of running workshops, so this definitely puts a stamp of legitimacy on the experience.