Black Iris Belles Lettres

Books that make you feel alive

Black Iris Belles Lettres is a new erotic literature imprint that was born from a simple belief: that literature at its most alive doesn't just speak to the mind, it moves through the body. We use erotic in the same sense as Audre Lorde, who described it as “the deepest life force, a force which moves us toward living in a fundamental way.” Or, in the words of Dylan Thomas, it’s “the force that through the green fuse drives the flower”—the vital energy that animates all living things.

We believe there’s more to life than what lies on the surface, that there are other dimensions we can access through art, that there is a transcendence to be experienced not just in the mind but through the body. The books we publish are manifestations of this belief, offering the gift of embodied experience to the reader. We can think of no better representation of this experience than our namesake, The Black Iris by Georgia O’Keeffe (1926)—sinuous, enigmatic, and provocative, a portal to the senses.

What We’re Looking For

Short but substantial belles lettres (50- to 250-page manuscripts) that elucidate the erotic—in other words, books that make us feel alive, whether fiction, nonfiction, poetry, or hybrid.

Think the letters of Joyce to Nora Barnacle, the diaries of Anaïs Nin, The Lover by Marguerite Duras, Bear by Marian Engel.

Or, in more modern parlance: All Fours, Written on the Body, Don't Be a Stranger, Fingersmith; the films In the Mood for Love or Moonlight rendered in prose.