Before her death in 1997, Dulcinea wrote 63 brief but sexy stories, each giving us an intimate glimpse of a nice, ordinary young man and a nice, ordinary young woman in the midst of a nice ordinary life together.

The stories, though, are anything but ordinary; they are light without being trifling, simple without being superficial, straight-forward without being tedious or mundane. They glisten. In the Dulcinea story, whether we find our couple at work or play or engaged in the typical tasks, activities, and situations of modern life, inevitably sex ensues--lubricious, serious sex, but sex that is fun and spirited and joyous and always in the service of love.

We don't find pain or tragedy or a trace of threat. We don't see stress. We don't encounter the difficult problems of the world or the darker problems of a modern marriage. The partners may tease each other, but care, respect and love are implicitly behind every action. Love as expressed through sex wins the day. This is not to say that Dulcinea stories are without tension, without rising action, without climax. As you might expect, the tensions in a Dulcinea story revolve around sex and resolve with sex. Getting the couple together that way is the crux of it--they can't just fall into fucking. Much of the charm of a Dulcinea story is the graceful way Dulcinea's couple manages to come to satisfaction. And Dulcinea works her magic using few if any props or secondary characters, no extraneous descriptions, no tricky plot complications; she uses ordinary settings and situations, yet her characters and stories feel full and rich, and they satisfy us as well as themselves. The little twists which sometimes grace the ends her tales only enhance our sense of her characters' well-being: Goodness in Dulcinea's world goes on and on.

It is that goodness we hope to honor with this Dulcinea Memorial Writing Festival.

In tribute to Dulcinea, we have asked writers to celebrate Dulcinea by writing stories which embrace her themes, her style, and her spirit. It is those stories we are pleased to present here. This was not a trivial assignment: Dulcinea's writing seems easy, graceful, almost effortless--the language is fluid, the plots simple, the pace perfect, but the best of her stories are perfect cameos--they are not simply snapshots of good sex. Writing such as this is rare. Stories such as these are rare. We were so lucky to have her.

The Festival's Directorate:
Rui Jorge ([email protected])
Mat Twassel ([email protected])
Father Ignatius ([email protected])

Note: Dulcinea's stories can be found at /~BitBard/forray/dulcinea/