By Sumita M. Sheth

I'm particularly interested in the clash between social duty and individual desires, in the intrusion of political realities on private lives, in secrecy, in family, and in how all these issues play out in the arenas of marriage, love, gender, and sexuality.

Brought-up by traditional Sri Lankan parents to whom a career in medicine was as much of a given as good dental hygiene, educated in good Christian manners by nuns, surrounded by Tamil culture and the expectations of a close-knit family, her career path has been as much of a surprise to her as her family. In the seven years since she started writing erotica, she has been editor-in-chief of Clean Sheets an erotica magazine, edited “Aqua Erotica” and “Wet” (both printed on water-proof paper!), printed her own erotica stories in “Torn Shapes of Desire”, run an “Internet Erotica Writers Workshop” and founded the “Speculative Literature Foundation” amongst her many, tireless pursuits.

Modest, grounded, and genuinely generous, Mary Anne’s motto is – “what goes around, comes around.” This may go some ways in explaining her willingness to share her hard-won resources and experiences with other artists. She says she shares because there is “no sense in reinventing the wheel,” further illustrating that here for sure is an unheard of phenomenon – an artist as human as her most likeable character.

	Mary Anne's Website

I read your latest book- it was beautiful. Its title "Bodies in Motion” seems to have many meanings, while hinting at the sexual core. There are a number of gay, lesbian and heterosexual encounters. Was the title's ambiguity intentional?
We wanted the title to mean many things, to have various connotations, for all the different readers. Some of it works, I guess. We wanted the title to speak to the experience of the various family members leaving Sri Lanka, going across to England, then to the US and even there, always restless. And then of course, there is the sexual connotation.

I have always been a bit of a sexuality activist. We need to accept that healthy sexuality is an important part of our world and we need to stop hiding it away like some dirty thing. This is reflected in my writing. For me it is important to imagine characters in their sexual element because how people are in their bedroom is very different from their everyday life. There seems to be a barrier between their private emotions and the outside world for men. They can often only explore these emotions in their bedroom.

You were editor-in-chief and founder of "Clean Sheets", an online erotica magazine (its stories selected for the Best American Erotica anthology) - did that help form your writing style or do you think your writing led you to the magazine?
We founded "Clean Sheets", in October 1998 and it was started because of an Erotica workshop (now I teach workshops centered around sexuality, where we cover areas like craft, language and the value of honesty). During that workshop, we’d all found that what we wanted to write about were stories with more characters, more of a story line and more emotions than what was accepted by erotica magazines at the time. Otherwise, there were either places that were too soft core, like “yellow silk” or too hard core for us. Of course, there was also “Nerve” which had traits that we were looking for but to us it seemed to have a tone of edgy New York ness to it. We decided to form something that would voice our exact tone.

Did you get any complaints or strong reactions from the South Asian community? How did your family take it?
As for reactions, there were mixed ones. One story that went on to be the inspiration for “Bodies in Motion”, almost a prequel, “Season of Marriage” was posted on Sulekha.com and I got a horde of comments. There were many very angry comments. Other people were very supportive.

My family was at first unaware. It’s so funny- you put your name to something never thinking that it will travel to your parents but of course it does. My father is a doctor and almost everyone in my family has gone into medicine, so it was definitely a shocker to have people get in touch with them and mention that my name was associated with all this erotica.

Do you feel that the South Asian society's open acceptance of sex and especially gay sex has changed in the past decade? If so, how?
Things are evolving. There is a lot more conversation around sexuality in the South Asian community than before. Not sure if that translates into actions yet. However, there have been films handling gay sexuality openly, like Fire, The Journey in Malayalam and even popular cinema versions recently.

Do you have a different message now, from when you wrote erotica?
Yes! (laughs) For the past, I’d say, six to seven years, I have used my writing to explore sexuality. Now I have started to study Sri Lankan history: the importance of various races, the war, ethnicity, culture and its impact on sexuality. It is interesting how culture affects sexuality. History also affects sexuality.

How does it feel to have your dissertation turn into this book, "Bodies in Motion"? Was it a long journey?
As a thesis, I did expect to see it published but things happened much faster. My agent had already been familiar with my earlier stories and liked how I wrote. He took my work and everything fell into place.

Cooking and food are a large part of your book: what's the reason behind this, besides your Sri Lankan cookbook “A Taste of Serendib”?
What can I say? I LOVE food! If you’re going to write about the immigrant experience, you write about the connections with the other home. Food is a direct connection, whether it be people who move here as adults or their US born children.

In the past, Sri Lanka has been less written about than the other South Asian countries. Did that bother you?
I wouldn’t say that it has bothered me. It was just an observation that Sri Lanka is mentioned less in old history books than the other countries in the subcontinent. And perhaps just to counteract that, there is a new surge of Sri Lankan voices emerging in literature.

Who were your favorite authors while growing up?
It’s a difficult question. There were so many of them. I like Sri Lankan fairy tales, I like SF and Fantasy. Ursula Le Guin, for her lyrical writing. Samuel R. Delany a great SF writer, different with writing that makes you think.

Besides "Clean Sheets", you also founded and were editor-in-chief of a SF/F (Science Fiction/Fantasy) magazine "Strange Horizons". It has been nominated for the Hugo award for best website many times. Have you written any SF/F?
I spent a summer over at Clarion West in Seattle writing an SF novel and the guest editor told me bluntly that some of my SF stories were ok, but write main-stream fiction. I cried in my room after that. So that was my foray into SF writing so far. I have my four chapters of Young Adult SF book based in Sri Lanka and I’m sure I’ll finish that novel one day.

So, what next?
I have the follow-up novel to “Bodies in Motion”, “The Arrangement” due in the next month. I also have a non-fiction memoir that I am working on, with a working title of “Arbitrary Passions”.