IF AT FIRST YOU DON’T SUCCEED…

Portia Da Costa

Once upon a time, I had a dream of becoming a published romance author, and writing books for Mills & Boon…

I always wanted to write romance, and my ever first attempt at writing was a short erotic love story about a handsome zombie and the mortal woman who fell for him. Even though there was no brain-eating involved, it was still colossally stupid, and probably one of the worst stories ever written, but I was so thrilled to have just written something that I didn’t care. And it was romantic. Sort of.

A few years passed, and I wrote more of these stories, just for my own amusement. Gradually, it got a bit easier, and the stories were slightly less stupid, and I started to dream of writing books, and being published. My day job was librarianship, and though I read in all different genres, what I really adored were Mills & Boon romances. As many as I could lay my hands on, especially by great authors like Sophie Weston, Sara Craven and Kate Walker. So obviously, my goal was to emulate these writers and become a Mills & Boon author. Foolishly, I hoped I could succeed quite quickly, and in 1988, I started submitting manuscripts. And submitting them and submitting them and submitting them…

I think I subbed about six or seven times in those early days, and even though I loved my stories and my characters, I see now that those first efforts were silly and self-indulgent with paper thin plots and zero emotional conflict. They had slightly more going for them than the zombie story, but there was still a big difference between what I was writing, and the high quality of the romances I was reading.

But then, fate took a hand, and I got shunted onto a slightly different writing track. A writers’ advisor took a look at one of my manuscripts, and amongst all the terrible plotting and the flimsy romantic conflict, she picked up on something I seemed to be pretty good at. Writing sex scenes. She advised me to try writing erotica, as that was an easier market to break into at the time. I took her advice, and with a speed that still surprises me today, I had a book accepted. And some stories. Pretty soon I started writing for Virgin’s famous Black Lace imprint, and I’ve been writing Black Lace novels ever since. My latest IN TOO DEEP, came out in November 2008, and KISS IT BETTER, my 15th title [including novellas] comes out in August 2009.

Read more… »

We’ve still got some great historical authors coming up this week (Deborah Brent, Sabrina Jeffries, and Karen Hawkins), but February is right around the corner and so is our Sensual Authors’ Blogathon!

You’re not going to want to miss a day on the blog because we have some GREAT authors lined up. You can check out the guest calendar (see link in above menu), but here’s a short list of some of those lined up to blog…

Joanne Rock, Lucy Monroe, Stephanie Bond, Holly Jacobs, Leslie Kelley, Julie Elizabeth Leto, Carly Philips, Desiree Holt, Portia Da Costa, Jessie Verino, Judith Rochelle, Shelley Munro, and many more!

Another of WeWriteRomance.com’s exciting features is the interview section. We usually have one to two new ones posted each month (or so!) …be sure to check back often!

Interview with Portia Da Costa

Portia Da Costa is an author of steamy, erotic romance novels and erotica for women. Her publishing career began around 1994 and has been going strong since. She’s best known as one of the original pioneers of Black Lace, and the only author from the original line up who still produces new titles for the imprint. She also writes for Spice Briefs and Total-E-bound. Portia is certainly one author to put on your to buy list!

WWR: Portia, to start us off, can you give us a brief rundown of your writing career to date? How long have you been writing? What got you started?

Portia: I first started writing way back in the early 1980s, more by mistake than anything. An artist friend was looking for some stories to illustrate, and she suggested that I write one for her. She thought that because I was a librarian at the time, and a voracious reader, I should be able to write as well. I knew that it didn’t necessarily follow, but I thought I’d give it a shot anyway. I didn’t write what my friend wanted, but for myself I wrote a paranormal erotic short story, about a sexy zombie who fell in love with a living woman. It was a bit mad and probably a terrible story, but I enjoyed writing so much that I decided to keep on doing it.

For several years I wrote purely for my own amusement, and as part of a writing group I’d joined, but eventually, I decided to try and get published. My first attempts were aimed at Mills and Boon, but I wasn’t successful, although I got some great feedback from editors. But then, a book doctor suggested I try erotica, because I had a flair for writing hot sex scenes, and very quickly, I sold my first erotic novel to Nexus, an imprint of Virgin Publishing. Not long after that, Virgin Publishing started Black Lace too, and I became one of their pioneer authors with GEMINI HEAT, my first title for the line.

Since then, I’ve written 12 books for Black Lace as Portia Da Costa, as well as titles for several other women’s erotica and erotic romance publishers, including LESSONS AND LOVERS from Ellora’s Cave, and OBJECT OF DESIRE and WILD IN THE COUNTRY for Total-E-Bound. In all, I’ve written over twenty books.

WWR: Do you have any other names you write under? And, if so, what books have you published under the other name(s)?

Portia: I’ve got masses of pseudonyms! Some I don’t use any more, and some I’ve probably forgotten. My main writing name is ‘Portia Da Costa’, but I’ve had two women’s erotica titles published for X Libris as ‘Dorothy Starr’ – HOTEL OF LOVE and DESIGNED FOR SIN. I’ve also had two straight romances published under the pseudonym ‘Megan Paul’ – NO SWEETER CONFLICT and FORBIDDEN.

Read more about Portia’s exciting erotic releases!