Sensual Soul Shine is out now!

11 women share their stories of reclaiming their sensuality, and I'm one of them

This is it. This is the day. The day Sensual Soul Shine starts making its way into the world. The day I become a published author.

It all started nearly 2 years ago. As soon as lead author Carrie Myers put out a call for contributions to the upcoming Sensual Soul Shine, I said yes. Then, last August, all would-be contributors were invited to share in audio form their reasons for wanting to be part of this project. You can listen to mine here, on Episode 144 of the Unbound Writers’ Club podcast, starting at 21’35. The word “unashamedly” comes up a few times.

As women, we are socialized and disciplined to dim our sensual selves for reasons from safety to parental and societal expectations and everything in between. Within the stories that the women in this book share are themes of reclamation and surrender to sensuality, femininity, and passion that is within us all.
(from the book’s back cover)

I started writing my piece in the autumn, getting lost for a while and churning out a first draft with three times the required word count – until I remembered that the story I wanted to tell was that of my first ever skinny dip. My final draft was submitted in February, along with a poem, Succumb, that I’ve only shared once so far, with the women of the Moon Fire Circle.

There is one line in my skinny dip story that I very nearly cut out, then repeatedly agonised over after submission, because it feels excruciatingly revealing. As a result, I mostly shied away from the project and my fellow authors, unwittingly bowing to my sneaky dream-killing tendencies (more on this in my July newsletter here). What springs to mind is the title of

Jess Pan

’s memoir that I finished recently: Sorry I’m Late, I Didn’t Want to Come…

Why stay quiet and small, after all the effort to get this far? Why stay on the outside looking in while the other contributors are owning it and having fun for it?

This is me.

My contribution to Sensual Soul Shine is all about desire – reclaiming it, owning it, succumbing to it, unapologetically.

If shame is a tool of control, and it is, then pleasure is liberation.

I want to get published because I want to matter. I want my words to make a difference in the world. I want to inspire, which is to “give breath”. Inspire people, inspire change, inspire hope – hope as the lifting of a weight, the capacity to breathe again, and momentum. I want to make the revolution irresistible.

The irony is not lost on me that the book which makes me a published author for the first time also makes me reckon with my desire – and “fan its flames by CELEBRATING the words that sing.”¹

So celebrate this!

Order information

All paid annual subscriptions come with a signed copy of Sensual Soul Shine (while stocks last).

All you have to do is take up an annual subscription, and I’ll contact you afterwards to sort out the rest. Please note that Sensual Soul Shine can be shipped to EU and UK addresses only.

Thank you for joining me here and reading my words – it means the world!

Wild wishes,
Annette

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1. Something

Jeannine Ouellette

said to me recently: “You must let yourself want it enough, and fan the flames of your desire by doing this, and doing that, one word at a time, and CELEBRATING the words that sing. That’s the way forward, I promise.”