Goodreads asked Laura Pritchett:

Where did you get the idea for your most recent book?

Laura Pritchett This particular novel’s journey started many years ago, when a short story of mine was published in The Sun. I got more fan mail from that short story than I’ve ever received for anything else, including all my books put together, probably! – and the vast majority wrote to say thanks. Thanks for writing about sex, about violent fantasy, thanks for bringing up these subject, thanks for making he/she feel like he/she wasn’t the only one who harbored such thoughts.

I kept several of the letters, because they were so inspiring (never think writing a letter to an author doesn’t matter!) One fan wrote: “I was especially interested in the conversation between the women about sex/orgasms/fantasies and violence. I've never seen or heard it put together quite like that, but felt a big poof! of relief and surprise ... I thought I was just very peculiar, twisted, living out some sort of painful karma in that arena!”

Another emailed: “I have never written a note like this, and I am surprised at how intimidating it is to write to a writer. But I have to because I have lived with your story “Under the Apple Tree” for several months now. . . I want to thank you for an honest, real, and intriguing look at the life of an adult woman. I wish more talented women writers would follow your lead.”

I was so honored by such responses. That correspondence got me to thinking about doing just that—trying to continue the conversation of honest portrayals of sex in literary works.

Those fan mails sent a clear signal. In a society that is wildly prudish on one hand, and pornographic on the other, I think we sometimes lose sight of the honest portrayal of sex. In fact, to my mind, there is an inverse relationship between the amount of pornography and Hollywood-style sex available (as in, gleaning pleasure only from sex) and our ability to talk and write about the vulnerability and problems and joy that intimacy entails.

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