"People don't accept sex very well in society," she said. "If people find out that you write erotica, it's really quite confronting to them."

Shoalhaven Heads resident Evans has been a published author since 2011.

Evans leads somewhat of a double life - "rural romance" writer by day, erotica author by night.

She writes her erotica and erotic romance stories under the pseudonym Cate Ellink.

"It's crazy, but necessary," she said of her different writing personas.

"There's a real freedom to writing the erotic stuff I find.

"And I find erotic readers are a lot more forgiving, or more open-minded."

Evans has had more than a dozen erotic pieces published, from short stories to novels.

The author said with the #MeToo movement and mainstream popularity of the Fifty Shades series, there was likely "more interest and openness" about this style of writing.

"I think a lot of romance readers became interested in reading romance because of Fifty Shades of Grey, and I think that's probably the same with a lot of writers too," she said.

"They're writing the more edgy stuff because of that book breaking out, and opening up that world.

"But it's always been written - it's been written about forever.

"I think a lot of people are writing erotica and trying to jump on the marketing bandwagon, but in my definition of erotica, that's not what they're writing.

"I think people are writing what they term 'sexy stuff', but it's not looking at in-depth emotion and action.

"It's more one or two sentences of sex and then we go on with the story, so it's not true erotica."

The South Coast Writers Centre will host Evans' new workshop series for writers hoping to break into the romance genre, or just people hoping to improve their skills at writing steamy scenes in their future projects.

"If we can have a space where we can talk about it, talk about how you write it and what it means, and how you can be proud of what you're writing in a society that's really not accepting about it so easily," Evans told the Mercury.

The workshop series will take place on October 18, November 1, November 15 and November 29 at The Lab at Wollongong Library from 5.45pm to 8.15pm.

This workshop series is not suitable for people under 18, but all writing abilities are encouraged.

For more information including bookings, click here.

Adara Enthaler from the South Coast Writers Centre said the workshops would be a unique opportunity for Illawarra and South Coast writers.

"In this four-week writing workshop, you'll develop your capacity to flirt with words, and create stories and imagery that could make anyone hot under the collar," she said.

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