Zane Interview

From She's famous but anonymous: the enigma of erotic author Zane:

Zane's take on sex is hardly revolutionary: it should be safe and pleasurable, and communication is the key to stronger, more satisfying relationships. But her straightforward, conversational prose resonates in the black community, Mackey said.

"It's not openly discussed in most of our homes," Mackey said. "I had to learn from books or friends and big sisters. To have an author come out and broach this, even in fiction, is a breakthrough for us."

Zane's readers agree. Her work "goes right to the heart of modern sexuality," said Harold Fisher, a former Baltimore TV news anchor and one of a few men who joined dozens of women fans at a local book signing. "We all have sex. We just need to relax about it."

Also from the interview:

"Whereas most people don't have an issue with what I do, there are those who are self-righteous and do have an issue," Zane says. "So it's just not fair for other people who have absolutely nothing to do with it to be affected by that, because they didn't make this choice. I did."

Zane says she has a good relationship with her parents, but she didn't tell her mother about her writing career until she had three titles on the Essence bestseller list. It took her father a while to warm up to the idea of his daughter writing erotica, but he when he read "Nervous" - about a meek woman who channels her sexual aggressiveness into an alternate personality - "he thought it was brilliant," she says.

Two nifty things I learned:

I had no idea Zane was a chemist!

Zane started Strebor Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, in 1999.