CHICAGO - Talk-show mogul Oprah Winfrey is getting down and dirty in a new HBO project.

According to Variety, Winfrey and her Harpo Films production company have joined up with HBO for a new, steamy pilot.

Erin Cressida Wilson, who wrote Secretary, the 2002 sadomasochistic drama starring Maggie Gyllenhaall, will write the pilot, which will focus on a Los Angeles woman, Georgia, who leaves husband and children to fulfil her erotic fantasies in L.A.'s sexual underbelly.

The news comes just days after Winfrey announced she's leaving her top-rated Oprah Winfrey Show in 2011 after 25 years to focus on her new cable network - and endeavours like this one, taking her far afield from her goody-goody daytime image, noted the New York Post.

Winfrey and Wilson will executive- produce the pilot, along with Harpo Films president Kate Forte, who came up with the idea for the pilot.

"It's a very erotic mystery about...a woman and her secret desires that are, in fact, rather pure,"' Wilson told the Post.

"She acts out in pretty extraordinary ways. It's all about an unfolding mystery."

Asked exactly how erotic the series will get, Wilson answered: "The language I write in is often erotic, so there's no question (the HBO series) will be erotic - even when there's no sex involved. There's nothing gratuitous. I would say in terms of creating eroticism that is integrated into the psychology of the lead character and the story."

And will the show look much like Secretary?

"I think the woman's sexuality and sensuality in Secretary - both her fragility and her strength - are central to Georgia's character (in the HBO series), as well. Georgia will embrace darkness with a joyful spirit," said Wilson.

The series with Wilson is part of a move that sees Winfrey - the queen of daytime television - moving into new ventures such as channel and network development.

She announced last year that she would start a cable company, OWN (Oprah Winfrey Network).

Then, she wrote on the OWN press website that she had long dreamed of starting a television network.

"Fifteen years ago, I wrote in my journal that one day I would create a television network, as I always felt my show was just the beginning of what the future could hold.

"For me, the launch of OWN is the evolution of the work I've been doing on television all these years and a natural extension of my show," she wrote.

But the network, initially slated to be launched in the middle of this year, has been mired by months of behind-the-scenes troubles. A host of scheduling delays and executive departures have left the lifestyle-themed network so far behind that it hasn't announced a premiere date.

Winfrey's attention, noted Forbes.com, would be a boon for the nascent channel.

But the question on many viewers' minds, noted British newspaper The Examiner, is whether they will see Oprah Winfrey on OWN.

While there is no Oprah Winfrey Show listed on the OWN press information, one would have to guess that she will be visible in some form on the Oprah Winfrey Network.

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