Erotica is often dismissed as a genre filled with stereotypes. Bouquet books with muscular men on the covers come to mind. Rarely, it is seen as an art form. Is this because erotic literature is inherently lacking, or is it because the open discussion of sexual desire, especially by women, is still considered taboo? English spoken.

Authors Yael van der Wouden, Mikaella Clements and Onjuli Datta guaranteed an engaging discussion on what makes erotica powerful, how voices of women are reshaping the genre, and whether erotic stories deserve the status of literature with a capital L. The programme opened with a short video made for the occasion by famous reviewer and reading vlogger Leonie Dams. Host was Mojdeh Feili.

Yael van der Wouden is a writer and teacher of creative writing and comparative literature. Together with Daphne Huisden and Simone Atangana Bekono, she wrote the mosaic narrative Vlucht/Dans/Vondst (Flight/Dance/Finding, 2023). Her debut as a novelist The Safekeep (2024) is one of six books shortlisted for the 2024 Booker Prize. Yael is the first Dutch author to make the shortlist.

Onjuli Datta (UK) is the co-author of Feast While You Can, a queer horror-romance which the New York Times described as 'adventurous, exciting, fantastical and erotic', and of the novel The View Was Exhausting. Her writing has been featured in Salon, Reactor Magazine, Lithub, Autostraddle, Vulture and more. She lives in Berlin with her wife and co-author Mikaella Clements.

Mikaella Clements is an Australian writer currently based in Berlin. With her wife Onjuli Datta, she co-wrote Feast While You Can (2024), an 'exciting new hybrid horror-romance  about queer love in a small town that serves as an unsettling reminder that the horrors of modern life are a monster ready to possess us all' (New York Times Book Review), as well as The View Was Exhausting. Her non-fiction has been published in the New York Times, Guardian, Washington Post, TLS, and many others. She has a Masters in English Studies from the Freie Universität Berlin.

Leonie Dams is a video creator, 'dweller of fictional worlds', makes reviews, reading vlogs and all sorts of other bookish, English spoken content that is viewed by many on her YouTube and Instagram platforms titled The Book Leo.

Mojdeh Feili is a writer, editor, book reviewer and programme maker. In 2021, her story Zeemeermens was published in the collection Damn Horny and in 2020, her story Eindelijk als Alice was published in the collection De goede immigrant.

Reading tip: the essay The Best Queer Sex Scenes in Literature (2024, published by the digital publisher Electric Literature).

Literary Heat - The Female Gaze was curated for Writers Unlimited Festival 2025 by Mojdeh Feili.