Iron Horse Takes on 50 Shades

This issue (17.1) of Iron Horse Review had me at the cover image, which drew me in to learn this is the “Bedroom Issue.” Certainly not limited to that literal room, Assistant Editor Katie Cortese writes, “We considered this issue a risk.” Oh goodie! She goes on, “Not because sex is a taboo topic—as an important part of adult existence, it’s as worthy of ink and metaphor as any other aspect of living—but because writing about it is so hard to do well.”

Cortese offers her view on the ends of the spectrum, from bad to good sex writing, and on purposely having released this issue for the movie release of Fifty Shades of Grey: “. . . we conceived this issue in part to combat some of the problems we see with a work like Fifty Shades of Grey. We don’t believe that series constitutes art.”

She goes on, engaging the perspective of Elizabeth Benedict in her work The Joy of Writing Sex to support what is “good” sex scene writing. “When we applied her standards to the wonderful, brave, inventive work that flooded our submission portal, we were forced to make some truly difficult decisions.”

Read Cortese’s full commentary here.