JOHN UPDIKE, the American literary lion and renowned writer of sex scenes, has given his blessing to a new online service that e-mails 500-word slices of erotica to women’s mobile phones, The 76-year-old author, whose bestselling novels such as the Rabbit series, Couples and The Witches of Eastwick blend high literature and low sex, has found a protégée in Catherine Hiller, a former writer for Penthouse.

She is the lead writer for a new “ebook” service, Ravenous Romance, for which Updike has written a promotional blurb. He described Hiller’s first online offering, which went on sale last week, as “good, brave and joyful writing”.

Over the past half century Updike has won many literary accolades, including two Pulitzer prizes, although few are believed to have tickled him as much as last month’s Bad Sex in Fiction award from the British magazine Literary Review. It is awarded annually for the most “perfunctory, embarrassing or redundant” sex scenes.

After four nominations, Updike was given a lifetime achievement award because judges ruled that “good or bad sex, he’s kept us entertained for years”. The American press warmly praised the award, with several papers calling Updike the newly anointed laureate of lewd.

Hiller, a New Yorker who studied at Sussex University in the 1960s, met Updike 30 years ago when she was researching her doctoral dissertation on his work. “She is his protégée and John was happy to help her on this new e-venture,” said a publishing source last week. “He thinks the world needs some good sex now, and, for better or worse, a lot of people are finding it through the internet. At least this site is literate.”

Holly Schmidt, Ravenous Romance’s publisher, agrees with Updike’s assessment that “sex is like money: only too much is enough” and will be sending out erotic stories by up to 150 authors by the end of the year.

Schmidt , who says the tales do not reflect her own taste – “I’m a nice girl who married her high school sweetheart”– is hoping to attract major writers to pen their own tales of “hot love” including Updike and fellow New Englander Stephen King.

And what, exactly, is the difference between soft pornography and the “erotica” that she is selling over the web for 99 cents (66p) a day? “A better vocabulary.”

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