Join us as we explore the enduring appeal of erotic literature, asking what it is about these stories that makes us want to curl up in bed and lose ourselves in their pages. The comforting escape of the erotic novel has captured audiences throughout the ages. Bedtime stories for adults, they allow us a moment of pure indulgence at the end of a long day.

Our expert panel, made up of writers of erotic fiction, will take us through their own passions for the genre, exploring what it is that first drew them to tales of steamy romance and what it is that keeps readers coming back for more.

Helping us navigate these tales of love and lust are chair, Rowan Pelling, and writers, Monique Roffey, Wray Delaney and Maya Blake.

About The Speakers

Maya Blake

Maya Blake’s dreams of becoming a romance author began when she picked up her first romance novel at 13. She currently writes for Harlequin Mills & Boon, and also writes erotic romance as Zara Cox. Maya lives in Kent with her family.

Wray Delaney

Wray Delaney is a pen name for children’s author Sally Gardner.  She has won both the Costa Children’s Book Prize and the Carnegie, and also won the 2005 Nestle Children’s Book Prize for her debut novel I, Coriander.  An Almond for a Parrot is her first adult novel.

Monique Roffey

Monique Roffey is an award-winning Trinidadian-born writer. Her books have been shortlisted for the COSTA Fiction Award, the Orange Prize and the Encore Award, and she won the OCM BOCAS Award for Caribbean Literature. She is a Lecturer on the Novel MFA at Manchester Metropolitan University and has also taught creative writing and mentored emerging writers in Trinidad for several years. Monique is an active member of Extinction Rebellion, and a co-founder of Writers Rebel, an initiative set up to encourage writers to address the climate emergency in their work. Her seventh book, The Mermaid of Black Conch, was released in 2020 and was named as the COSTA Book of the Year in 2021.

About The Chair

Rowan Pelling

Rowan Pelling is the editor of The Amorist and a columnist for the Daily Telegraph. She spent eight years editing The Erotic Review and has written sex advice columns for GQ and the Daily Mail. She is the editor of Dedalus’s The Decadent Handbook and Erotic Stories, a compilation for Everyman’s Library.