British Author Stella Duffy

Even in her mystery novels, Duffy admires the British writing scene's attention to current social realism. The crime novels in the U.K., she said, are based on what is real — "What's going on in the street, the problems. British crime writers see it as their job to deal with what's going on in current politics."

Interestingly, this is something she finds lacking in lesbian crime writers from the United States. In fact, overall Duffy thinks that lesbian literature needs more present-tense stories. Though she has great admiration for Sarah Waters' work (and counts Waters as one of her friends), she finds it disturbing that today's most successful fiction about lesbians comes in a historical package.

"This has nothing to do with what [Waters] is writing, it has to do with advertising," Duffy explained. "I think she's a fantastic writer, but I find it upsetting that we are still safe as long as we're in costume. We're safe to put on television if we're in costume."

Duffy's concern for this issue and the lack of present-day lesbian stories was recently confirmed when she and her wife, playwright Shelley Silas, were commissioned to write a treatment for a "British The L Word."

When Channel 4 asked if they could write such a treatment, Duffy's response was no, because "people don't look like that here," she said, laughing. "I'm not sure they look like that in L.A. though, either."

Nonetheless, Duffy and Silas wrote the treatment, and though Channel 4 liked it, they ultimately decided not to produce the show. "What we've heard is that they're making a lesbian series set in the 1950s," she said. "So again, it's about lesbians in period costumes. Maybe it's that they didn't like our work, there's always that, but I like to think they're just scared of contemporary lesbians."

Part of the solution, she believes, is in widening the mainstream and making it more inclusive — "inclusive of everybody, from the women who are a little bit bisexual who don't know it or are extremely bisexual or utterly lesbian. I want to have bigger inclusion both in the straight community and in our own community. I would like for us to be more of a community and less a group of fractions."

Along with starting a new novel, Duffy is busy filming a BBC documentary to mark the 100th anniversary of Mills and Boon — or Harlequin as it's known in the States — as well as helping a young theater group write a play about global warming called Earth Play.

If Duffy had time to even consider another career, she said she'd either be a "contemplative nun" or an "acrobat." And, actually, she doesn't see this as a far leap from being a writer.

"When I teach, I say that writing is a physical activity," she said. "It's an intensely private and emotional and intellectual activity turned into a physical activity. So the spiritual, contemplative side turns into someone who is still — given enough wine — willing to do cartwheels into splits."

For more on Stella Duffy, visit her MySpace page or website.