Email: rachelkramerbussel at gmail.com



 

Lusty Lady

BLOG OF RACHEL KRAMER BUSSEL
Watch my first and favorite book trailer for Spanked: Red-Cheeked Erotica. Get Spanked in print and ebook

Sunday, April 30, 2006

Doesn't this photo just say it all?

I think this photo of Josh Kilmer-Purcell and Jessica Cutler is totally fabolous. Read Josh's take here. Let's hope the May 17th In The Flesh is just as hot, in all senses of the word.

Have had to skip a few things this week, including Hello, I'm Special and the big Nerve party. It feels good, though a little self-important and obnoxious, to say "sorry I can't go, I have to write." Freelance writing never feels like a "job," which is perhaps why I get in so much trouble with it and get panicked and freak out about it so much.

I've had artist friends who could just tune out and truly hibernate and bunker down for months at a time to finish a film or project. I want to be like them, but I also realized I need people. I can't just go to work every day and come home. I can do that sometimes, or mostly, and can force myself to sit at the computer and face the blank screen and make some words come out, but I can't be a robot. Finding that balance, well, is very tricky, and when I figure it out, I'll let you know. I'm giving myself some self-imposed deadlines, but those are pretty worthless when it comes to a slacker like me. I'm trying though - trying to make up for past mistakes, trying not to hate myself, trying to believe it's possible, that if other people believe in me, maybe they see something I don't. Trying to envision my goals and enact them. No promises here because I realize I could fall flat on my feet, but I feel this urgency to get it done now, while I can.

Friday, April 28, 2006

How hot is Felicia Sullivan?


_DSC5888
Originally uploaded by brianvan.
Plus she's so smart, enthusiastic, and caring. Check her out at www.feliciasullivan.com and www.smallspiralnotebook.com

Knitting! Burlesque! Tuna Casserole! Freestyle Rap! Handflute Showdown!

The Other Talent Show
May 8
Mo Pitkin's House of Satisfaction, 34 Avenue A
Hosted by Jon Friedman & Michelle Collins

Jonathan Miller (NY Times) & Peter Koechley (The Onion) A Handflute Showdown

Jessica Delfino (Comedian, Musician) Catching food in her mouth

Ricky Van Veen & Jakob Lodwick (College Humor) blindfolded freestyle rapping

Shawn Hollenbach (Comedian) Making his famous tuna casserole for theaudience

Molly Crabapple (Illustrator) Burlesque routine

Sara Schaefer (Comedian) Will be knitting a sweater during the whole show

Stickerbook (a band comprised of comedians) 80's Cover Band

June 21st is GLBT Night at In The Flesh

IN THE FLESH EROTIC READING SERIES
GAY, LESBIAN, BISEXUAL & TRANSGENDER (GLBT) EROTICA NIGHT
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 21 at 8 PM
AT HAPPY ENDING LOUNGE, 302 BROOME STREET
(B/D to Grand, J/M/Z to Bowery, F to Delancey, http://www.happyendinglounge.com)
Admission: Free
Happy Ending Lounge: 212-334-9676
http://inthefleshreadingseries.blogspot.com

This Gay Pride month, come celebrate queerness in all its rainbow of colors with gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender erotica at In The Flesh! Delight in these lusty tales by Cheryl B. (Coming Out of the Closet Again, Small Spiral Notebook), Trebor Healey (Through It Came Bright Colors, Sweet Son of Pan), Gena Hymowech (Afterellen.com, First-Timers, Black Table), Sam J. Miller (Best Gay Erotica 2006, Velvet Mafia), Scott Pomfret (Romentics, Hot Sauce) and Jane Vincent (Educated Slut blog, Everything You Know About Sex Is Wrong), and host Rachel Kramer Bussel. Rachel will be celebrating and signing copies of her latest anthologies, First-Timers: True Stories of Lesbian Awakening and Glamour Girls: Femme/Femme Erotica. Books will be given away as door prizes and free candy and mini cupcakes will be served.

In the Flesh is a monthly reading series hosted at the appropriately named Happy Ending Lounge, and features the city's best erotic writers sharing stories to get you hot and bothered, hosted and curated by Village Voice sex columnist and acclaimed erotic writer and editor Rachel Kramer Bussel. From erotic poetry to down and dirty smut, these authors get naked on the page and will make you lust after them and their words. Future themed nights include GLBT stories, porn star night, and erotic memoirs.

Rachel Kramer Bussel is a New York City-based author and editor. She is Senior Editor at Penthouse Variations and a Contributing Editor and columnist for Penthouse, writes the Lusty Lady column for The Village Voice, and conducts interviews for Gothamist.com and Mediabistro.com. Her erotic stories have appeared in over 60 anthologies, including Best American Erotica 2004 and 2006, and she’s edited her own collections, including Naughty Spanking Stories from A to Z 1 and 2, Up All Night, First-Timers, Glamour Girls, and the forthcoming Ultimate Undies, Sexiest Soles, Secret Slaves, and Caught Looking: Erotic Tales of Voyeurs and Exhibitionists. Rachel has also written for AVN, Bust, Metro, New York Post, Punk Planet, Time Out New York and Velvetpark. http://www.rachelkramerbussel.com

Cheryl B. is an award-winning poet and writer. Her work appears in dozens of print and online publications including; BLOOM, Small Spiral Notebook, The Guardian, Reactions 5, and Pills, Thrills, Chills and Heartache. She has received a fellowship from the
New York Foundation for the Arts and has been a resident at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. She curates and hosts the monthly ATOMIC Reading Series and she is the creator and producer of PVC: The Poetry vs. Comedy Variety Show. Cheryl is the editor of the forthcoming anthology Coming Out of the Closet Again: Queer Women on Loving Men (2007, Suspect Thoughts Press). She lives in Brooklyn and online at www.cherylb.com.

Trebor Healey is the author of a novel, Through It Came Bright Colors (Harrington Park Press, 2003), and a book of erotic poems, Sweet Son of Pan (Suspect Thoughts Press, 2006). His work has appeared in Best Gay Erotic 2003, 2004, 2006 and Best of Best Gay Erotic; the Bad Boy Book of Erotic Poetry; Queer Dharma; Holy Titclamps; Van Go’s Ear; and,dozens of other anthologies and journals. He wrote the hit single “Denny” for the Queercore band, Pansy Division.

Gena Hymowech is a freelance writer whose work has appeared in over 20 venues, including the New York Post, Time Out New York Kids, Complete Woman, Black Table and AfterEllen.com. Her first anthology work will be appearing (under a pseudonym) in First-Timers: True Stories of Lesbian Awakening. She used a pseudonym for that essay because the event happened at one of her last jobs and she really doesn’t want to be sued. If you get her drunk enough at the In the Flesh event though, she might tell you where it occurred, among other things. She lives in Brooklyn.

Sam J. Miller is a community organizer. His writing has been published in Velvet Mafia, Smut!, In The Fray, and Best Gay Erotica 2006, among others. He lives in the Bronx with his partner of four years. When he's not writing or organizing poor people to fight for social justice, he's binging on old movies and punk rock. Drop him a line at samjmiller79@yahoo.com.

Scott Pomfret puts fun and romance back into gay erotica with his funny, tender yet still smokin' hot stories. Together with his real-life boyfriend (also named Scott), he writes the Romentics series of romance novels for gay men (www.romentics.com). His stories have appeared in Best Gay Erotica, Playguy, Honcho, In Touch for Men, Hot Gay Erotica, Alyson Books' Friction series, Best Gay Love Stories 2005 and 2006, and numerous other anthologies. For more information, see http://www.scottpomfret.com.

Jane Vincent is a sexuality educator, smut writer, and certified sex coach who holds a BS in human sexuality. She has published diverse works ranging from A Baby Dyke Learns to Score to Gonorrhea – Questions & Answers. As the educated slut, she takes it to the streets and the sheets and lives to blog the tale at educatedslut.blogspot.com. She currently practices her unique blend of sexual activism in Houston, TX.

Doesn't this photo just say it all?

I think this photo of Josh Kilmer-Purcell and Jessica Cutler is totally fabolous. Read Josh's take here. Let's hope the May 17th In The Flesh is just as hot, in all senses of the word.

Have had to skip a few things this week, including Hello, I'm Special and the big Nerve party. It feels good, though a little self-important and obnoxious, to say "sorry I can't go, I have to write." Freelance writing never feels like a "job," which is perhaps why I get in so much trouble with it and get panicked and freak out about it so much. I wish I could be like this guy I was briefly seeing, who then disappeared off the face of the earth to bury himself in work (he had to, and I get it, though am sad that things had to end).

I've had artist friends who could just tune out and truly hibernate and bunker down for months at a time to finish a film or project. I want to be like them, but I also realized I need people. I can't just go to work every day and come home. I can do that sometimes, or mostly, and can force myself to sit at the computer and face the blank screen and make some words come out, but I can't be a robot. Finding that balance, well, is very tricky, and when I figure it out, I'll let you know. I'm giving myself some self-imposed deadlines, but those are pretty worthless when it comes to a slacker like me. I'm trying though - trying to make up for past mistakes, trying not to hate myself, trying to believe it's possible, that if other people believe in me, maybe they see something I don't. Trying to envision my goals and enact them. No promises here because I realize I could fall flat on my feet, but I feel this urgency to get it done now, while I can.

Thursday, April 27, 2006

MJ Rose must read: "The Blog Trap"

MJ Rose just posted about "The Blog Trap" which I think should be required reading for blogger/authors. As someone who's certainly fallen prey to this (and countless other ways to procrastinate/get out of writing/being lazy/flaky), I totally identified with this post. Here's a snippet:

The point here about the 36.6 million is if you build the blog they will not come unless you drag them to it.

That means if you are an author and you have something to say and you want to share it with anyone who might happen by go right ahead. But if you are looking for a powerful marketing tool that is going to help you sell books you have to evaluate if a blog really will help or turn out to be nothing but a big time drain...

I think that every successful blog has a GAP – a clear GOAL, an identifiable AUDIENCE, and an outlet for the author’s authentic PASSION.

Passion might be a strange one in that mix but its key. Otherwise your readers will see through your efforts. This gig takes a lot of time so you better care about what you’re blogging about because authenticity comes through online.

Shari Goldhagen on tour


shariwithdaytonposter
Originally uploaded by williamfleitch.
My friend Shari Goldhagen is off touring the country with her debut novel Family and Other Accidents and her fiancee, Will Leitch, has put up some great photos from her tour. If you haven't read it already, get to it:

Family and Other Accidents

Family and Other Accidents



My interview with Shari at Gothamist

Donna George Storey's review of Family and Other Accidents

Wednesday, April 26, 2006

Sisterhood of sex columnists

There's no manual on "how to be a sex columnist." There's no format or formula to follow, little instruction, and you're kindof just on your own, winging it, hoping you have something original and interesting to say. I don't want such a manual but sometimes, it still feels very much like winging it. I have ideas galore, but it takes a real core of strength to believe you can even do this, to not secondguess yourself to the point of giving up, to really go there, to the sometimes uncomfortable or exposing places, ones that make sense to you but may not make sense to others. You have to basically tune out all the hype, all the haters and the fans, for a little while to figure out what's inside, what you feel like, not what you should feel like. You have to resist the urge to be somehow different - sluttier, more worldly, more knowledgeable, more XXX, more whatever - and figure out what you want to say and what makes sense for you at that moment.

Since I started writing the Lusty Lady column for The Village Voice, I haven't run out of ideas, but it hasn't always been easy. I have been heartened to have the support and friendship of so many other sex writers and to continue to do so. I don't see this as a competitive game; if we each have something interesting to bring to the conversation, I'm all for it. I love reading columns and writing by Tristan Taormino, Miriam Datskovsky, Em and Lo, Diana Cage, etc. I'm honored to know people like Lily Burana, Lisa Palac, and Susie Bright, and to have their support and encouragement is such a gift to me - these are people I've been reading for many years, whose work I return to again and again, who I've looked up to. At the same time, it's scary for me. It's easy to look up to people, to idolize them, to "want to be them," to worship them in the way some of us do with our favorite writers. There's this line in Mary Lou Lord's "The Bridge" that goes "and whatever happens to dreams/when they become reality." I'm not Kurt Cobain (who it's at least a very good guess that song was written about), but I get it. For some of us, success is fucking scary. It's why that Marianne Williamson quote is so powerful. It's like we want it so badly, more than anything, yet the closer we get, the more it feels safer, easier, cozier to stay where you are.

I was talking to another writer friend about this. "Success," or at least, widespread readership, does mean that it's not just your friends reading. It means people will disagree, stereotype, hate, judge. It means people will think things about you that very likely you'll never change. It forces you to grow up, to really figure out what you mean and what you don't, to not take even a single word for granted, because especially in this blogalicious day and age, it'll get picked apart. It's not fun, and maybe not healthy to read it all, but I do. Because I learn from it, and it makes me appreciate the people in my life, writers and non-writers, who just get me, who get it, who get the writer me, and the sitting around eating cupcakes laughing my head off me.

And that's why this post by AM NY dating columnist Julia Allison made me so happy. I feel like there's this self-imposed exile some writers have, or you hear about someone and think "oh, she's ___" or whatever it is (I just mean generally) and never reach out to them because of some perceived persona or competition factor or whatever, and that's a shame. I'm so honored to have met Miriam and Elise Nersesian during our New York magazine dinner, to have befriended Jessica Cutler and Judy McGuire (and have them gross us all out at my reading series), to trade emails with Mindy Friedman, who writes the Sex on Tuesday column for my alma mater's paper, The Daily Cal.

I would hope that there's somewhat of a sisterhood of sex columnists, and if there's not, we have to create one. That doesn't mean we have to like or agree with everything everyone else writes, but let's face it - it's a better "story" if there are catfights going on left in right, girls trying to outfuck one another on the page. I'm just not about that in any way, and while I can certainly state when I don't agree with something or someone, I'd much rather focus my energies on the good. It's why I continue doing Gothamist interviews, why I try to plug books and projects here that I think are worthwhile, why I feel like, as much as I want to succeed, I want everyone else I know who's talented to succeed too.

Writing is a really lonely business. Maybe you have an agent, maybe you have a few people who get it, totally. But I'm very gunshy. I hate showing people my writing. I'll pitch or mail things off to editors, but show it to a writing group? I freak out, petrified they'll eviscerate every word. Yes, it's true. Sometimes I know I'm done, know a piece worked, and sometimes, I hate it, and still hate it when I turn it in or, worse, never turn it in because I just am overcome by paralysis, fear, and doubt. So having friends who do what I do, who just get it, no questions asked, is a blessing, and one I'm really careful never to take for granted.

And speaking of sex columnists, be on the lookout this fall/winter (probably October or November) for an In The Flesh entitled "Revenge of the Sex Columnists." I don't know exactly what that will entail, but watch your backs.

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I hate drama



As I'm sure many of you know, I hate confrontation. I hate it when I'm involved, and I hate it when it's people I know. That's why I haven't commented on the Morgan/Michael, Overheard in New York/New York Overheard drama. I met them both on the same night, a night I was very fucked up and a wreck, and both helped me through that episode in their own ways and I've both enjoyed and been amused by getting to know these two very unique guys, who I can safely say are each unlike anyone else I know.

I just noticed that people have been searching for photos of Michael Malice, and have been friends, with a few ups and downs, with both for the past year so I really just don't want to have to pick sides. If you want to read more about Malice, check out Ego & Hubris: The Michael Malice Story. Also, I interviewed him recently on Gothamist.

I will say, though, that this comment doesn't seem totally applicable, since Morgan does go by his middle name (he's credited as S. Morgan Friedman in the Overheard in New York book):

Rule of thumb: When picking sides in a blogger slapfest, always go with the guy who uses his real name.

And really, that's my last word on that. See? Perhaps I learned something in those years of studying political science at Berkeley.

Is your vagina a sexual turnstile?

I encountered this book in a bookstore the other day, flipped through it, and then laughed very loudly. Even though, really, it's just yet another sign of the "My Sex Is Better Than Your Sex" crowd's attempts to lord their vision of "perfect" sexuality and gender roles onto everyone else. Then again, this book is published by Regnery, so that should say it all.

The Politically Incorrect Guide to Women, Sex and Feminism

The Politically Incorrect Guide to Women, Sex and Feminism




But apparently some people, like Doug Giles, think it's totally spot-on.

This book is going to liberate ladies to be ladies; and contrary to the propaganda belched forth via our universities and MSM, there are a whole lot of lassies who: [I'm skipping some of them and jupming to the good stuff - RKB]

7. Don’t want their vagina turned into a sexual turnstile. Who don’t want to be the village bicycle. Who see the benefits of serious sex verses casual sex. Who’re not buying the Paris Hilton/Courtney Love/Madonna whore thing. Who can be sexy without being a skank. Who like to retain their respect and power and require a man to show some commitment before he gets to run the bases.


Really, I have nothing more to say that I haven't already said. It's not an either or. I will be talking a bit about this in my "number of sex partners" column. Yes, I also think you can be sexy without being a skank . . . but I also recognize the ridiculous value judgments and totally subjectivity of the definition of the word "skank." Part of what I was trying to say with this Amazon Connect post is that we all need to look inward, defining ourselves less by the prevailing notions of "purity" and "sluttiness" or what other people think about our actions, especially when it comes to something as personal and individual as sexuality, than by our own internal moral compass.

The thing is, I'm not buying into anything either, at least, I try not to. It's hard because none of us can say we're completely unaffected by the culture that surrounds us, but I find the notion of trying to "keep up with the Samantha Joneses," regardless of what feels right or true to you and your desires, very sad. Sex should be about discovering what makes you happy, what turns you on, what you can't stop thinking about, whether that's something totally commonplace or utterly unique.

Hello, I'm Special - tonight!


Hello, I'm Special
Originally uploaded by rkb1.
From Jewcy

HELLO, I'M SPECIAL: THE CONTEST

Hosted by CHELSEA PERETTI

Featuring HAL NIEDZVIECKI and his new book HELLO, I’M SPECIAL: HOW INDIVIDUALITY BECAME THE NEW CONFORMITY

What happens when you throw a couple of comedy writers, Broadway’s Jewish Diva, fiercely talentless dancers, an angry Canadian writer, and impertinent audience members into a theater, ply them with booze, and pit them against each other in a contest for the title of “Most Special Person Ever?” A highbrow battle? A lyceum for lowlifes? We can’t say for sure, but the launch of this series – part salon, part reading, lots of shtick – will definitely be special.


Special guests and celebrity judges include:

MICHAEL SHOWALTER (Stella, The Baxter), JACKIE HOFFMAN (Broadway diva), ERIC DRYSDALE (The Colbert Report), ANDREA ROSEN (Variety Shac), MEREDITH SCARDINO (Late Night With David Letterman), JESSE OXFELD (Gawker), JOE GARDEN (The Onion), and VIDS (Varsity Interpretive Dance Squad).

Wednesday, April 26 at 8 p.m.

Ars Nova Theater: 511 West 54th Street, at 10th Avenue

Tuesday, April 25, 2006

Best. Book Party. Flyer. Ever.


Eat It
Originally uploaded by candiedyams.
From my friend Nichelle

Eat This Book Party
Wednesday May 3
7-9PM
The Delancey
Cupcakes!

Monday, April 24, 2006

Then what's my calling?

Queen of Babble

Queen of Babble



If you want to have a little fun with your email, start a google news alert on "blowjob." That and "cupcake" yield the most bizarre, interesting results.

One I wasn't expecting relates to author Meg Cabot, whose new book Queen of Babble I put on my Amazon wish list, just because, not really sure what it was about. Who knew that her calling is "[t]o put the blowjob back in literature" as she told The Book Standard. If I'd known that, I'd have quoted her in my last column.

But for this particular story, I really feel like the blowjob just hasn't had enough coverage in literature. I was like, "Damn it, I'm going to put that in, because we girls need to talk about it. I did that on purpose because I do feel like there has been a lot of talk lately about adolescent girls doing the whole blowjob-at-parties thing, and I feel like they're not getting the point. You've got to get something back, because it's great if you're going to do that for him, but what's he going to do for you? So I feel like that is something that older women think about, that I don't know necessarily if girls are. That's my calling—to put the blowjob back in literature. It just hasn't had enough exposure.

I will just say that if my current project ever gets off the ground (and I've basically given myself a mid-May leaving for BEA deadline), there will be blowjobs. And bondage. And threesomes. And, of course, spanking, but that's kindof a given with my erotica, isn't it?

I love . . .

I don't throw the word "love" around lightly. Even when using it in the casual sense, like "I love that dress," if I say it, I mean it. I try not to do things half-assedly, and sometimes that gets me in trouble, but most of the time it brings fabulous people into my life. So instead of feeling sorry for my single self, I'm so grateful for the awesome people in my life, like my friend H., who's as tiny as Miriam, who's all ready to kick some boy's ass cause he was a jerk to me. The people who know me, who just get me without me having to explain myself a zillion times, are so fabulous. They get that I can be a blowjob queen, not just on paper, but also be ridiculously infatuated with babies and cupcakes. And woe upon anyone who tries to take advantage of my sluttiness. I love them.

I also love Jessica, for her chutzpah. Really, I think that's the word for her reading last week. I want some of that. She's able to say "bygones" and mean it and not give a fuck what all the haters think, whereas I will twist myself into knots to get some random stranger not to hate me.

I love the very NOT safe for work Pippi Longstocking photos of Justine Joli over at TGP. She's so naturally sexy, and to me, the best sans makeup, just chameleonesque self.

I want to be friends with people and in relationships where I learn by example. I'm such a freaking sponge-like work in progress, and sometimes it amazes me how much I take from people's life philosophies, but I like that. I hate feeling so stuck in my ways that I can't learn something new, try something new, see the same old story from a different perspective. That's why I live here, even when I bum around the apartment most of the time - to meet those people, whoever they are, who make me a better person, like the friend who told me that if you're invited to a wedding, you should go. So I am - over July 4th, to Costa Rica. Like the one who said that he likes to have time to ruminate on a task, because then when he sits down to do it, it's all there in his head. I can't wait to take on BEA with the table of hot girls who usually sit with me at In The Flesh. We are gonna converge on the book masses with kitty ears and sexy smiles. Sometimes it amazes me how easy I am. Not easy like that; I think we know that already.

I mean how easy it is to make me feel, whether feel good or feel bad. I am probably never going to be completely level-headed. The highs are high and the lows are low but that's just me, and I've found that those who can't handle that I just have to walk away from and instead of belaboring and regretting those losses, I need to take a damn good look around and see all the fabulous people who make me smile all the damn time, the ones I can shove a book in their hands and say "read this!" the ones who I could talk to for days on end and never get tired, the ones who can say a lot in a single sentence. The ones who make me feel less alone even when I am alone. The ones who know who they are without me even having to say a word.

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Kirsten Lobe's Paris Hangover

Paris Hangover

Paris Hangover



Tues April 25th- Coliseum Books @ 6:30pm- NEW YORK
Wed May 3rd- Hotel Montgomery @ 6:30pm- SAN JOSE,CA
Thurs May 4th- Anne Fontaine Boutique @ 6pm- SAN FRANCISCO, CA
Mon May 1st- Book Soup @ 7pm- LOS ANGELES, CA


I haven't finished it yet, nor am I really a Francophile, but I'm liking Kirsten Lobe's Paris Hangover a lot. It's about a very fashion-obsessed New Yorker who moves to Paris to live the good life, much like its author did. She also has a great set of dealbreakers which I'm gonna quote in my dealbreakers 2 column. Her protagonist, Klein, can be a bit pretentious but is lovable nonetheless. And, full disclosure (how freaking excited am I to say this?): we share the same agent. She's reading tomorrow night at Coliseum Books, here's their blurb:

A hilarious & glamorous fish-out-of-water novel about Paris, romance, finding oneself, men, and oh yes, even a menage-a-quatre.

In this witty, intoxicating debut Klein has left Wisconsin behind and entered any fashionista's dream. In New York she swims in the glitzy world of haute couture. She has the job, the clothes, the triplex in Tribeca and the man to die for.

Ah, but Paris has always been her dream. With only the clothes on her back (and what will fit in ten pieces of Louis Vuitton) Klein heads for the City of Lights, wanting to decode the mysteries of all things French, especially the men.

From a tiny walk-up in the 7th arrondissement that she had to lie (in broken Franglais) to get, Klein plunges into the tantalizing world of Gallic Men: the casually sexy Alexandre, a prototypical Frenchman with a flute of Moet and Gauloise always at the ready; trying to keep everybody straight when she dates three men named Jean at the same
time; and one completely wrong Monsieur Married Aristocrat who wants Klein for his very well-kept mistress.

As Klein falls into Paris's passionate embrace, she may also be falling inexorably into the arms of the man who can rival that embrace.

For the boobiesexuals

Busty

Busty



Book Description
Busty is a collection of original short stories and confessions from both women and men, collected specially for those in love with women’s breasts. This salacious body of work has been edited by a genuine enthusiast, drawing on extensive experience and an unashamed obsession with full breasts, from the pleasingly womanly to the down right gigantic.



About the Author
Tom King is the pseudonym of a novelist, cartoonist and lifelong devotee of large breasts.

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Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez in NYC tonight!

Make Him Look Good

Make Him Look Good



I haven't read Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez's new novel Make Him Look Good, but I plan to soon. I really enjoyed her first two books, The Dirty Girls' Social Club and Playing With Boys, and think her blog is one of the best author blogs around, where she's discussed both her writing as well as being a single mom and her battle with bulimia. She's also putting on the Chica Lit Club Fiesta, which I would totally attend if I could, filled with fabulous authors like Sofia Quintero, Berta Platas, and Mary Castillo (who also has a great blog, Chica Lit).

More of my blogs!

A little more on topic and writing-related:

Amazon.com (through their Amazon Connect program)

and

Publishers Marketplace

The May Queen at Bookcourt, April 26th

The May Queen

The May Queen



There's a reading from the awesome new anthology The May Queen, featuring essays by Lily Burana, Jennifer Baumgardner, Kissing Jessica Stein's Heather Juergensen, Jennifer Weiner, and many others, this Wednesday at Bookcourt in Brooklyn at 8. See www.themayqueenbook.com and their blog 3 Things Before 40 for more info.

Sunday, April 23, 2006

Kate Taylor gets it

I find it fascinating that writers from other countries get this issue perfectly while Americans, not so much. Guess that's up to me, and while I do have a ton of projects on my plate, I've narrowed down the focus and come up with witty chapter titles and have been reading books like J.K. King's On The Down Low and looking at boobiesexuals and other examples of, well, I need to think of a word for it, but the opposite of sexual freedom.

But I'll just let the brilliant Kate Taylor take it away in her piece "Being loved for your body" in the Mail & Guardian Online:

...labouring to look like Pamela Anderson is not empowering. We’re not trying to be empowered. The twentysomething women I know don’t care about old-style feminism. Partly this is because they already see themselves as equal to men: they can work, they can vote, they can bonk on the first date. For younger women, raunch is not about feminism, it’s just about fashion.

Another reason for the rise of raunch is that women are rediscovering the joy of being loved for their bodies, not just their minds. Today, sexes mix a lot more than they used to, so boys grow up having girls as friends. They tend to listen to what women have to say, and when they marry they don’t consider sharing the housework to be castrating. Instead of desperately longing for the right to be seen as human beings, today’s girls are playing with the old-fashioned notion of being seen as sex objects.

This is not terrible news. In fact, this is the ultimate feminist ideal, which Levy would realise if she stopped shouting at MTV for a moment and thought about it. She proclaims that boob jobs and crop tops “don’t bring us any closer to the fundamental feminist project of allowing every woman to be her own, specific self’’. But what if a woman’s “own, specific self’’ is a thong-wearing, Playboy-T-shirted specific self who thinks lap dancing is a laugh and likes getting wolf-whistled at by builders?


This also echoes but one tiny bit of a brilliant book coming out soon called I Love You, Nice To Meet You by Kevin Bleyer and Lori Gottlieb, in which each (both straight, both friends, both single) tackle various topics on relationships and sex. In the porn chapter, he defends guys' love for porn while she talks about posing for an amateur photo site:

For the next week, I kept thinking about the men who had clicked on my photo. Instead of feeling uncomfortable, I wondered if they missed me. I wanted them to miss me.

And that's what most women won't admit: Naked women have tremendous power-and we enjoy that power. But we're also keenly aware (and afraid) of other women's power.
We don't mind being gawked at or objectified. It's the gawking at and objectification of other women that threatens us.

This book if funny and dead honest and the he said/she said format, written not antagonistically but realistically, is such a welcome reprieve from the divisiveness of the likes of Ariel Levy, Naomi Wolf, etc. when it comes to porn.

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Saturday, April 22, 2006

Rainy days, needed breaks

I've needed some time to sleep and catch up and just breathe and think. Doing too much too fast leads to mistakes, typos, falling behind, stress. All not healthy. So I'm trying my best to focus and take care of myself. Reading, writing, planning, errands. Saw beautiful cards by Smudge Ink at Exit 9 today, but resisted, for the moment. I have cards bursting out all over the place to be mailed. In the meantime, writing and reading about MILFs, watching Four Weddings and a Funeral (research for my "number of sex partners" column), catching up on various overdue things, writing a blurb, etc. Tomorrow Diana Cage is interviewing me for The Radio Blowfish Variety Show podcast.

Thanks, somehow Amazon Connect decided to now work from Internet Explorer on my laptop!

Friday, April 21, 2006

May 17th In The Flesh

A heads up, I will be reminding you again.

IN THE FLESH EROTIC READING SERIES
WEDNESDAY MAY 17 at 8 PM
AT HAPPY ENDING LOUNGE, 302 BROOME STREET
(B/D to Grand, J/M/Z to Bowery, F to Delancey, http://www.happyendinglounge.com)
Admission: Free
Happy Ending Lounge: 212-334-9676
http://inthefleshreadingseries.blogspot.com


In May, celebrate spring with an assortment of New York’s finest authors, from the fiction of Ron Bass, to CAKE co-founder Emily Scarlet Kramer, “Ivy League Homegirl” Sofia Quintero (aka Black Artemis), Edges: O Israel, O Palestine author Leora Skolkin-Smith, all the way from San Francisco, Charlie Anders (Choir Boy, She's Such a Geek) and the racy words of Polly Frost who wrote Vivid Girl Tawny Roberts’s novel Private Access, along with new work by host Rachel Kramer Bussel. Copies of Divas Don't Yield, Edges: O Israel, O Palestine, Private Access and Polly Frost's Eros Comic will be raffled off as door prizes. Free candy and mini cupcakes will be served.

In the Flesh is a monthly reading series hosted at the appropriately named Happy Ending Lounge, and features the city's best erotic writers sharing stories to get you hot and bothered, hosted and curated by Village Voice sex columnist and acclaimed erotic writer and editor Rachel Kramer Bussel. From erotic poetry to down and dirty smut, these authors get naked on the page and will make you lust after them and their words. Future themed nights include GLBT stories, porn star night, and erotic memoirs.

Rachel Kramer Bussel is a New York City-based author and editor. She is Senior Editor at Penthouse Variations and a Contributing Editor and columnist for Penthouse and writes the Lusty Lady column for The Village Voice. Her erotic stories have appeared in over 50 anthologies, including Best American Erotica 2004 and 2006, and she’s edited her own collections, including Naughty Spanking Stories from A to Z 1 and 2, Up All Night, Glamour Girls, First-Timers and the forthcoming Ultimate Undies, Sexiest Soles, Secret Slaves and Caught Looking. Rachel has also written for AVN, Bust, Metro, New York Post, Punk Planet, Time Out New York and Velvetpark. http://www.rachelkramerbussel.com

Charlie Anders can jump up to 100 feet in the air, but can't walk. She lives in a hot air balloon over Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. Her novel Choir Boy (Soft Skull Press 2005) is a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award and the Edmund White Debut Fiction Award. She's the co-editor of the anthology She's Such A Geek (Seal Press 2006), publisher of other magazine and organizer of the Writers With Drinks reading series. www.charlieanders.com

Ron Bass recently read in the Swift Ink reading series at Swift Hibernian Tavern. His short story The Varieties of Orgasmic Experience and his interview with the writer/director Dan Roentsch have been published on the Erotic Authors Association website. He is currently working on To My Twenty-Fifth Century Biographers, a novel about the life and times of the controversial Pultizer Prize winning poet, Brockden ("Bronc") White.

Polly Frost's short story collection Deep Inside: Extreme Erotic Fantasies will be published next year by Tor. She also recently collaborated with the artist Jess Fink on the "Head 14" anthology of graphic stories for Eros Comix, which will be out in February. She also wrote the Vivid Girls Tawny Roberts novel Private Access, which has just been published. With her husband, Ray Sawhill, Polly co-writes the ongoing erotic soap opera, "Sex Scenes," that's read by actors in monthly performances at Cornelia Street Cafe and other venues. In addition to her erotica, Polly has written on movies, books, food and music, and her humor pieces were published in the New Yorker. Her website is http://pollyfrost.com/

Emily Scarlet Kramer is the co-founder of CAKE, an entertainment company dedicated to providing education and information about female sexual culture, and the co-author of A Piece of CAKE: Recipes for Female Sexual Pleasure. She received her B.A. in Women and Gender Studies from Columbia University and has spent the last five years writing about female sexuality and actively educating women on the subject. http://www.CAKEnyc.com

Self-proclaimed "Ivy League homegirl," Sofia Quintero was born and raised in a Puerto Rican-Dominican family in the Bronx where she still resides. She is the author of the "chica lit" novel Divas Don’t Yield and also pens hip hop fiction under the pseudonym Black Artemis. She co-founded the nonprofit Chica Luna Productions (www.chicaluna.com) as well as Sister Outsider Entertainment (www.sisteroutsider.biz) Sofia's first erotic novella will appear in an anthology of Latina authors to be published by Atria/Simon & Schuster in 2007. http://www.myspace.com/sofiaquintero

Leora Skolkin-Smith’s novel Edges: O Israel, O Palestine, was selected by Grace Paley for Glad Day Books. Also nominated for this years 2006 PEN/Hemingway Award by Grace Paley, Edges is Skolkin-Smith’s first published full-length novel. Born in Manhattan in 1952, Leora spent her childhood between New York and Israel, traveling with her family to her mother's birthplace in old Jerusalem every three years. http://www.leoraskolkinsmith.com

You tell 'em, Lily!

Lily Burana has a newly redesigned website in preparation for the release of her luscious-looking first novel, Try. I got sent a copy this week and am going to dig into it more soon, but I really liked this Q&A with her, especially this part (bolding mine):

Q: Early on in the story, you describe how Daryl's ex-boyfriend repeatedly made her feel she-masculated. You define this term as being the female equivalent to emasculated. Why is it that no such term exists for a woman left to feel less womanly? Have you coined it here?

A: Well, I coined it, but I wish I hadn't had to! It seems to be that every young woman I know struggles with balancing her desire to do her own thing with her deeply ingrained need for nurturing, protection, and all the sweet little romantic gestures that make us feel alive. It saddens me that one of the casualties of the gender wars of the past forty-plus years is romance. Let me state emphatically for all the world to hear: The need for autonomy and the need for romance are not, and never will be, mutually exclusive. I may long for a room of my own, but I also long for a simple bouquet of hand-picked wildflowers brought to me for the vase in the corner.

We're fucked

Yes, I'm mad for babies, but what the fuck? This is just so ridiculous, pointless, and wasteful, to not have Plan B, aka, a stronger dose of birth control pills, available over the counter for no reason whatsoever. Oh yeah, except for that pesky wanting people to only have sex to get preggers thing. Cristina Page points to this article by Tony Pugh, "Documents raise questions about decision on morning-after pill"

Two FDA advisory panels recommended the sale of Plan B without a prescription in December 2003. But strong opposition by religious and conservative groups and the Bush administration has delayed final agency action on the measure.

Seven states already have allowed Plan B to be sold without a prescription. They are Washington, California, Alaska, Hawaii, New Mexico, Maine and New Hampshire. In addition, morning-after pills are available in 102 countries, 34 of which require no prescription.

Latest Lusty Lady column, "Long Live Blowjob Nation"

Long Live Blowjob Nation
Proud cocksuckers share why they love going down


Complete with Brandy Barber's photo of me trying to somehow pretend to give a straw a blowjob. You know someone's a good friend when you just casually mention, at a comedy show, "Hey, I need a photo for my blowjob column . . ." and they whip out their camera and are totally cool with it. I'm calling this my dirtiest column, kindof a companion to my dirtiest story, not coincidentally also about blowjobs.

I was going to call this column "The Joy of Cocksucking" but I want to save that, maybe for "The Joy of Spanking." Anyway, my spirited defense of the blowjob. It's a little weird to me because I know some people will only read that one piece and form a certain impression of me, which isn't necessarily incorrecct (yes, grammar gods, kill me now) but is a part of who I am. I probably give blowjobs three times a year; I do plenty of other stuff more often than that. It would be nice, one of these days, though, to find someone to go to movies with me, eat cupcakes with, be dorky with, and give blowjobs to, if they're a guy. I'm back to the drawing board on that one but I feel pretty good about it all; there's none of the drama like over the unprotected sex guy. No more tears is my motto when it comes to dating in 2006. So yeah, for anyone who was there on Wednesday, this is a "confession," but I have to say, I'm much prouder of what I read on Wednesday.

One more thing on the column - I slam Caitlin Flanagan for basically saying blowjobs are degrading, but I didn't hate her new book, To Hell With All That, and actually gave it a pretty decent review in BUST. I don't love everything she says about being a housewife, but believe it or not, some of it I found moving. But that still doesn't mean cocksucking is inherently bad or degrading.

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3 more new Fetish Chest books, now with covers

All coming out in July from Alyson Publications:



Ultimate Undies: Erotic Stories about Underwear and Lingerie

Does her teddy make you want to do anything but sleep? Do his boxer briefs bulge in all the right places and tell a story about what he'll do to you in bed? Is her lingerie enough to land her any girl in the room? Here are thirty sexy panty play stories that won't disappoint.




Sexiest Soles: Erotic Stories about Feet and Shoes

Delight in that delicious touch of steely stilettos...delicate arches...black motorcycle boots...sweaty size twelves. Whether it's the gentle massage of a foot rub, the suckling of tempting toes, or a very private pedicure, this naughty collection of fetish erotica has no trouble putting its best foot forward. Both risky and risque, Secret Soles will make more than an imprint on your desires.




Secret Slaves: Erotic Stories of Bondage

Want to be tied up with tantalizing tales of beautiful bondage? Do handcuffs have a trusty place next to your bed? Does a coil of rope or the crack of a whip make you quiver with desire? Here are thirty sizzling stories to satisfy your desires.

Peace out with Molly Crabapple


The delicious Molly Crabapple
Originally uploaded by brianvan.
I just love this photo. Molly Crabapple designed the little logo on the bottom that everyone (including me) has been raving about - she's adorable, talented, and totally sweet, and has a very sexy voice. Check out her artwork all over the place, with a gallery show in NYC and one in Arizona!

One of my friends interviews another friend of mine

Rachel Fershleiser interviews Elizabeth Spiers for Downtown Express

Caught Looking in the PGW catalog

The original title was Somebody's Watching Me, hence that reference in the copy. Book's still being finalized, but I can tell you it's gonna be HOT!



From the PGW Catalog:

Click through for an excerpt from Saskia Walker's "Room With a View"

Description:
A collection of erotic stories celebrating the naughty delights of peeking — and showing off.

The possibilities are endless. Watching a lover undress from the safety of a window or a hidden hole in the wall. Peeking at the neighbors through a crack in the blinds, when they think nobody’s looking. Going to the local strip club to glimpse a beautiful dancer, or to an orgy where a world of sexual scenarios suddenly appears. Secretly watching others as they expose themselves, or reversing the equation by taking center stage to entertain them, can be some of life’s naughtiest delights, proving that the eye is as much a pathway to pleasure as any part of the body. For the dedicated voyeur, exhibitionist, or anyone who can’t resist peeping when they know they shouldn’t, Somebody’s Watching Me offers scintillating fantasies by top writers in the genre. These stories — from Stan Thomas’ celebration of voyeurism “My Finest Hour,” to Saskia Walker’s sexy peep-show “Room with a View” — take the reader inside a world where people get to show off, watch, and feel the vicarious thrill of sex times two, their erotic power multiplied by the eyes of another.

Page 6 . . . of Metro

Check out page 6 of today's New York edition of Metro for a piece quoting me, Nichelle and Allison all about Cupcakes Take the Cake, our cupcake blog! I commend the author, the fabulous Paul Berger, for such thorough research (he called to find out the year when the Magnolia Bakery Sex and the City episode aired, and luckily our dedicated readers had told us it was 2000) and attention to detail and really getting the story.



Click here if the above version's too small

Thursday, April 20, 2006

Not a news flash: Writing is hard

Remember the whole hoopla over Barbie saying "math is hard?" Well, I'm here to tell you: writing is hard. Sometimes it's fucking impossible. But also impossible not to. I've been having trouble lately getting it together, making the words come out right. They sound great in my head and then on paper, not so much. I try to tune out all the hype, all the crazy people who tell me I suck, and even more, the ones who give me useless, clueless praise. It's too confusing and confining to live by other people's standards.

I'm lucky to have so many fabulous people in my life, many of whom were there last night, who just get it. Who get why I write and get how it helps me make sense of the world. To have them be proud of me, to have them know the backstory that's not necessarily for public consumption, and like it anyway, means the world to me. I love all the writing I get to do now, am so grateful for it all, yet sometimes it feels a little off because I cannot explain every aspect of ME in 1100 words every two weeks. Things change so quickly, one minute I think I'm starting over, start liking someone, and then they're gone, and it's back to the drawing board. It's confusing, but I just keep going and hoping and being open.

Dan commented last night that I seemed so much more comfortable reading other people's words and introducing everyone, and I did. I love that. I loved putting together last night because it made me proud and excited that all these talented, smart people wanted to do MY show. I like making something from nothing like that. When I was asked to do the series last fall, my first thought was "oh no, how can I handle one more thing?" And yet it's tapped into many skills I had that were sortof hidden and allowed those to come out. I've met tons of new authors and hopefully helped foster a space where desire is okay to speak about. That was the thing with last night - it only worked because the audience was with us. I didn't feel like people would judge me for "confessing" something that I've already beaten myself up about plenty. I'm past that, and still, it nags at me, for many reasons. But Dan's right (so tired I just wrote "write") - I'm not a natural performer. I don't love being up there with people's eyes on me. I giggle and stammer and race through the words. I'd much rather let them read to themselves, even the dirty things.

Almost anyone who talks to me about the really dirty stuff I write knows that I will joke around about it, because there's actually not a ton of people I will sit around and discuss the really deepest parts of my sexual desires with. I'll write about them, but there's always more going on underneath. The best part about doing what I do is connecting with other people about these topics that we're all so isolated about. I like hearing people's stories less in a voyeuristic way than a sharing way. I love that, mainly with other girls, I can know them for five minutes and we're dishing all these crazy stories. But it's not just the "wild" stories, it's the really personal stuff too, the stuff that matters. Having people who get all of me, and vice versa, means everything to me, which is why I can't even be fuck buddies with someone who just disappears for a while. I'm not like that, and I think finally I've stopped apologizing to the world for that, for being, yes, needy, and wanting to be more than an afterthought. The highly ironic thing is that I have so much to give as a girlfriend. To the right person, obviously, but I feel that sortof maternal, sortof service thing of wanting to be needed. I want to tuck someone into bed and send them cards and make them mix CDs and just care about them in all the little ways you do in those situations. Care without needing anything in return, except that I finally realized I do need something. I can't say what that is precisely, but I can't just give and give and give with nothing in return, but that sounds like I'm counting, and I'm not.

This post kindof got away from me, but I think my point was that writing can be totally scary, to really go there. It's a lot easier not to, to keep it all light and fluffy, to not let your mind go there. Because there aren't easy answers. Writing this piece was tough in some ways, but once I figured out what I wanted to say, it was pretty easy. Tuesday night I got to see my cousins and hold the baby for a while and just walk with him outside to calm him down, and it calmed me down. He was just so sweet and warm and heavy and perfect there and I realized that I have to stop talking about all the things I want to do and just do them. I talk myself out of writing things all the time because I'm scared, and then I'm jealous when so-and-so's on Oprah or whatever. I can find so many ways not to write, or to write sortof what I want, but not push myself, not really go there, and that's what I want to find the time to do. Because it really saddened me that someone would think I'd be the kind of person to want to write a book in my sleep, even though probably they just wanted their cut. I could do it, maybe, it's not that, it's that I left something that was physically making me unwell to wind up here and it would be sad not to try my best just because I'm scared of failure, or scared of what people might think. The hardest lesson, one I still haven't quite figured out, is to tune out the comments. From people like Miriam, of course I want them, but the general ones, the ones that, whether good or bad, just don't matter in terms of what I do next. So yeah, writing is hard, but when it works, so so worth it, and I'm proud of myself and all the readers last night for saying things that were worth it. Things that weren't "easy" or simple or lighthearted, even though some were funny. Confessing, I saw last night, doesn't have to be about guilt and sin and all that, but it takes you somewhere deeper, somewhere slightly uncomfortable, to thet places where maybe we do things, at least in my case, that logic would tell us are "wrong." Getting over that hump, the one that tells you, for whatever reason, that you and your writing are "wrong" is so vital to getting the words out. The ones that matter, anyway.

When I was 17, and 19, and probably around 22, I thought I was pregnant. There was no real reason, other than that I’d had sex with a guy sometime in the previous three months. I was kindof paranoid about it, and I'd even get my period but still be convinced I was knocked up. Once I think I even got my period again and still trudged off to Planned Parenthood for a test to make absolutely, totally sure. I thought I’d be like one of those women who doesn’t know she’s pregnant and only finds out six months along. I was sure that I’d be that one person for whom the condom failed or something else went astray. Eventually, I got over myself and trusted that the Pill, and later, condoms, would do the trick. Back then, I thought getting knocked up was the worst possible fate that could befall me. It scared the hell out of me, and continued to do so. Until I turned 29. I’ve never been a big believer in the biological clock, but something happened to me a little over a year ago, where I went from thinking babies were silly, smelly, loud messy things to wanting one in a way that practically overpowered me.

I often liken it to feeling like some alien’s taken over my body, making me crave the company of a small, helpless child in a way I’m powerless to resist. I now look at babies I pass on the street the way I once looked at hot guys and girls (okay, not exactly the way I once looked at them), but with the most powerful urge to reach out and touch them, to get up in their face and bust out my best baby talk, to offer up my finger for them to curl their miniscule hands around. Holding my five-month-old cousin Adam, like I did last night to calm him down, feeling his warm, sweet head pressed against my shoulder, kissing his pudgy little cheek, is heaven to me. As impossible and impractical as I know it is at this moment in my life, I want a baby. Which is really the only explanation I can give for why on the night before Valentine's Day I went home with a guy and had unprotected sex, once that night, and once the next morning.

More cuteness


Julia Allison, Nichelle Stephens
Originally uploaded by brianvan.
AM NY dating columnist and hottie Julia Allison and Nichelle "Newsletter" Stephens

I love this girl


Rachel and Miriam
Originally uploaded by brianvan.
One of my favorite things about last night was that not only was the reading jam-packed, all the readers were fabulous and . . . they're all my friends! I love having smart, talented, amazingly creative, brave, honest people for my friends. Brian kept asking me who he should take photos of, and I wanted a shot of Miriam Datskovsky bending over cause she was so adorable, but this will do just fine. She was our youngest reader (21!) and it was her first reading, and, yes, people laughed.

See all of Brian Van's photos from True Sex Confessions Night at In The Flesh

New book in October: Caught Looking

Caught Looking : Erotic Tales of Voyeurs and Exhibitionists edited by Rachel Kramer Bussel and Alison Tyler

Please DON'T ask me the status of your submission - the book's almost done and is going to KICK ASS, it's the best project I've ever worked on, I think, with really stellar stories, but it's not finalized yet. I am always (or try to be) really good about letting authors know the status of their work and it's super annoying to have them ask every step along the way or to just generally not follow the instructions I work hard to put together to forestall potential problems. What's also annoying? Questions like "what's PVC?" Because, you know, there's a little thing called Google. Sorry, it just amazes me sometimes how lazy people are. Cause I'm not busy at all. Ha! I'm actually for real going to be hiding away on nights and weekends to finish all sorts of writing I need to do and just take a break. Bigger update on the best In The Flesh ever later, it was just so fun and spectacular and perfect, so thank you to everyone who read, everyone who confessed, and everyone who attended (also: all of you who drank many drinks).

And yes, of course I know that Caught Looking has the same title as a seminal work in feminst history, one which I do in fact have . . . somewhere. A total classic from the sadly still-going-on "sex wars."

Wednesday, April 19, 2006

She's cute even with her eyes closed

Jessica Cutler and I at In The Flesh - from the photo you'd never be able to tell just how gross her story was.

Photo by Viviane - check out all her In The Flesh photos here - and a ton more from Brian Van are coming soon

"Hug a pug in Honolulu"

Just had to share this:

Meetup is having a contest and you can win a trip anywhere there's a meetup! If you win and found out about it here, please take me!

Also, I'd be remiss in telling you that if you absolutely abhor true sex confessions from awesome writers/bloggers/kickass people, my favorite band, The Reputation, are playing tonight at Northsix and there is also Boggle and dumplings, which I'm sad to miss but will be there next month hopefully.

True Sex Confessions TONIGHT at In The Flesh!!!

As seen in Flavorpill and Jossip and the Hoboken Reporter (and now on YouTube!), tonight is the BIG night. All my readers are fabulous and are going to kick ass, and I'm also going to be on the radio at 1 am with Josh Kilmer-Purcell on The Joey Reynolds Show on WOR 710 radio. Get to Happy Ending early to get a seat!

We've got a comedian, a blogger/Playboy model/novelist/scandal star, a college sex columnist, a former drag queen who has a special surprise during his set, an advice columnist, an editor/sex worker/nude model and an editor/memoirist (and me!) all sharing their true sex confessions. And free candy and mini cupcakes. What more could you ask for?

Here's a teaser: someone's talking about their porn obsession, someone's shoving candy up their ass (or mimicking it), someone's talking about trying to have sex in the stacks, someone's talking about unprotected sex, someone's talking about bad reasons to have sex, someone's talking about a visit with a prostitute, and someone's talking about fisting. You have to show up tonight to find out who's who!

IN THE FLESH EROTIC READING SERIES
TRUE SEX CONFESSIONS NIGHT

WEDNESDAY APRIL 19 at 8 PM
AT HAPPY ENDING LOUNGE, 302 BROOME STREET
(B/D to Grand, J/M/Z to Bowery, F to Delancey, http://www.happyendinglounge.com)
Admission: Free
Happy Ending Lounge: 212-334-9676
http://inthefleshreadingseries.blogspot.com

In April, New York’s hottest personalities share their 100% true sex confessions. From bad sex to porn obsessions to prostitutes and more, they’ll make you cringe, laugh, and turn you on (maybe even all three at once!). Featuring comedian Dan Allen, blogger and novelist Jessica Cutler (The Washingtonienne), Columbia Spectator sex columnist Miriam Datskovsky, memoirist and ex-drag queen Josh Kilmer-Purcell (I Am Not Myself These Days), Dategirl columnist Judy McGuire, nude model, porn reviewer, and sex worker Audacia Ray (WakingVixen.com), memoirist and editor Felicia Sullivan, and your host, Rachel Kramer Bussel. Audience members will have the opportunity to anonymously submit their own true sex confessions to be read aloud. Free refreshments of the sweet variety will be served. Plus there are many, many books and magazines being raffled off as door prizes in between readers.

In the Flesh is a monthly reading series hosted at the appropriately named Happy Ending Lounge, and features the city's best erotic writers sharing stories to get you hot and bothered, hosted and curated by Village Voice sex columnist and acclaimed erotic writer and editor Rachel Kramer Bussel. From erotic poetry to down and dirty smut, these authors get naked on the page and will make you lust after them and their words. Future themed nights include GLBT stories, porn star night, and erotic memoirs.

Tuesday, April 18, 2006

I heart Emily and this post

How much? Soooooooooo much. Seriously, chica, keep it coming. Now with RSS feed!

Seriously, tell me - could the comments be any more priceless?

Also, Fratire? What is it satire of??? I blame Warren St. John for all of this and I hope he googles himself today.

Posted by: lindsay robertson at April 18, 2006 03:32 PM

You're right, it is a nonsensical term, but I guess it does have a nicer ring to it than "tiny penis lit."

Posted by: emily at April 18, 2006 03:42 PM

30 days of unparalleled Justine Joli hotness

My favorite cupcake baker/porn star/all around super sexy girl who needs to come back to NYC ASAP cause I am lonely and single and want to make cupcakes with her. Fabulous news!

Los Angeles, CA, April 18 2006 – Today TGP.com, in conjunction with
with Justine Joli, announced the start of its '30 Joli Days'
promotion. For 30 days TGP.com will give visitors free access to an
exclusive photoset from Justine Joli's website, previously
unparalleled access to unseen photos of one of the worlds most highly
regarded glamour models.

"Justine's probably the only nude model who's as popular with the
hardcore fetish crowd as she is with A-list Hollywood. Heart-stopping
good looks, a willingness to undress and a genuine enthusiasm for kink
have made her something of a phenomenon. To celebrate the re-launch of
her website she's given us open access to her archives and we hope
that by sharing some of Justine's best work we can expand her appeal
still further," said Sam Sugar TGP.com's publisher. "Of course with
the other hot Jolie 9 months pregnant and sequestered in Namibia, we
saw an opportunity and took it."

TGP.com has built a rapidly growing audience of subscribers who visit
for its combination of free adult content and first-class
sex-blogging. This promotion marks the first time TGP's worked to draw
attention to an adult model via exclusive content.

"The photos we'll be publishing encompass the gamut of work at the
core of Justine's appeal. From hardcore fetish through to the sets
which have earned her a place in coffee-table books and glamour
magazines," said Sugar. "Like her namesake Angelina, Justine's sexual
appeal is universal. It's hard to choose between them. Angelina has
done more for orphans, Justine's done a 'fucking machine' – a tough
decision."

'30 Joli Days' begin on April 18th at TGP.com

About TGP: TGP.com is a continually updated online sex magazine in
blog and thumbnail gallery post format which brings readers the best
sexy stuff online.

About Justine Joli: Justine Joli is an internationally published
glamour model. She is the star of Andrew Blake's 'Justine', is a
Penthouse Pet, has graced the cover of Hustler three times and loves
fetish, Apple Macs, Science Fiction and anime. Joli

About Sam Sugar: Sam Sugar has worked in publishing, advertising,
film, television and the adult industry. He runs a network of blogs
including Podnography (http://podnography.com), PSP Porn
(http://pspporn.com), SugarPit (http://sugarpit.com), SugarJoy
(http://sugarjoy.com), Sugasm (http://sugasm.com) and TGP
(http://tgp.com). He blogs at SugarBank (http://sugarbank.com).

Contact Sam Sugar via sam.sugar@gmail.com

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Flavorpill!

Okay, now you really better get there early and be prepared to stand!

Flavorpill on tomorrow's In The Flesh

Everyone likes a dirty story. From housewives and their throbbing-member paperbacks to the literati giggling over Joyce's letters to Nora, there's always been a place in literature for the felicitous four-letter word. Happy Ending Lounge indulges this age-old yearning in its new erotic reading series. As host, the Voice's own Lusty Lady, Rachel Kramer Bussel, instructs us on the dangers of drunk sex while encouraging us to get drunk and talk about sex. Although this month's topic is true confessions, we're sure Bussel will only be satisfied if you come again and again.

-CA

Note: In the Flesh takes place the third Wednesday of every month.

Mediabistro interview with Jessica Rozler, Associate Editor, Allworth Press

Mediabistro From the Editors interview with Jessica Rozler, Associate Editor, Allworth Press

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Monday, April 17, 2006

In The Flesh in Metro

Thanks to Dacia (her summary: "bar, free event, candy, story about fisting") for snagging this and to Amy Benfer at Metro for listing it! Seriously, people, it's gonna be packed from all that I'm hearing. And I wrote a witty line that's the highlight of my piece that you really won't want to miss - let's just say, a woman scorned and all that . . .

Latest Gothamist interview with Sofia Quintero, Author, Divas Don't Yield, Co-Founder, Chica Luna, Co-Owner, Sister/Outsider Entertainment

As always, if you like the interview, please click "Recommend This!" Click here to read the whole thing.

2006_04_sofialg.jpg36-year-old "Ivy League homegirl" Sofia Quintero is an author, activist, and businesswoman who has transformed her passion for social change into her fiction, most recently with Divas Don't Yield.., a touching road trip novel featuring four outspoken, daring and diverse women-Jackie, Hazel, Inez, and Lourdeswho travel across the United States to celebrate their graduation from Columbia. In the process, they confront each other on multiple levels, coming out about various secrets, learning each other's foibles, and culminating in some powerful confrontations and friendships. Touching on issues of class, race, sexism and sexual orientation, Quintero roots all these issues in the personalities of these bold women, who force their friends to contront often painful truths about themselves.



Part of the burgeoning and successful genre of chica lit, Quintero has also contributed to the anthology Friday Night Chicas, with more stories in the works. Her first two novels, Explicit Content (about two women in the underground hip hip scene) and Picture Me Rollin' (about a female ex-con inspired by Tupac Shakur), were published under the name Black Artemis, though Quintero makes no secret of her authorship of "bona fide hip hip fiction." She started out creatively in the world of film, and began Divas as a screenplay, Interstates, and has also written several short films, including Corporate Dawgs and Blind Date.



Quintero also has numerous activist credentials, currently focused on creating more entertainment and media opportunities for people of color, with an eye toward the mainstream (and the big screen). She is the co-founder of Chica Luna, an activist group currently sponsoring an anthology writing contest and various film projects and co-owner of Sister/Outsider Entertainment, which is developing film, theater, television and book projects (including a play called "Mini Skirt Mafia"). Raised in the Bronx, where she still lives, Quintero has moved from a life of professional activism (and was named by City Limits "New School of Activists Most Likely to Change New York") to one of written activism, incorporating her visions for change into a range of fictional output. A passionate defender of the written word, Quintero has argued for the slogan "Real Men Read" on MySpace. Here, she discusses the roots of her novel (think pop music), the lack of roles for Latina women in Hollywood, the importance of chica lit, art and activism, and fiction as a tool for changing the world.



Divas Don't Yield began as a screenplay called Interstates, about four Latina women going on a road trip. What was the initial inspiration for it, and why did you choose to start with a screenplay?

Believe it or not, Interstates was inspired by the Latin Pop Explosion. You know . . . those six months in 1999 when Latinos were in. Again. It annoyed me how the mainstream industry was patting itself on the back for acknowledging a handful of entertainers who represented such a narrow part of the Latino community. If a role in the film called for a Latina, and Jennifer Lopez passed because she was trying to crossover, the film didnt get made. I was thinking, They dont confuse Julia Stiles and Kirsten Dunst, but one Latina can play them all. So I decided to write a screenplay that would break out not one but four new Latina talents of different nationalities, races, and even sexual orientation. And they would be political. You know . . . care about something other than getting some papi to buy them a mojito at the club on salsa night.



Read the whole interview

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Sunday, April 16, 2006

possibly the cutest photo I've ever seen


Hello Kitty cupcake
Originally uploaded by Virtual Frolic.
Like magic, my gloomy mood is transformed by this awesome photo, one I'm sure Miss GirlyNYC, just back from an international trip, shall enjoy as well. Aside from baby photos, there seriously couldn't be anything cuter. Hello Kitty, ogling cupcakes, and my favorite band, The Reputation at Mercury Lounge tonight? Well, that certainly helps me get over myself a little bit.

To steal a line from Josh Kilmer-Purcell . . .

I am not myself these days. (And yes, that's the name of his book)

Or, more accurately, I'm very much myself but that girl that everyone seems to think I am, who can somehow magically do everything and go out all the time and be all smiley and happy, well, that's kind my idealized self, who I am sometimes, but that's more who I wish I could be, and sometimes I just can't be that girl. It feels so fake and flat and stupid, like spackling on tons of makeup to cover up a zit which you know is there and can feel practically burning a hole in your skin. Maybe a terrible analogy since I don't get too many zits myself but whatever, the point is, the past few weeks have kicked my ass so much I just feel like I need to take a break.

So after Wednesday I really will be bunkering down, and so if I can't post your event or go to your event or hang out for a few months, I apologize in advance, but I've been kindof a terrible person and a slacker lately and need to sort out my head and get back on track so I don't hate myself. Kindof an oversimplified explanation, but that's all you really need to know. Hopefully, in a few months, I'll emerge feeling a lot better about myself and having accomplished something. And if not, at least I'll have saved some money and maybe will even investigate this whole online dating thing everyone's been urging on me. But first things first, as opposed to the way I've been doing it my whole life. Even this old chica can maybe learn to do things right.

True confessions

On Wednesday at In The Flesh, we've really got a little bit of everything on Wednesday, including fisting, reasons not to have sex, prostitution, candy asses, a porn obsession, sex in the library, a really gross story that you'll just have to hear to believe, and unprotected sex. Hot and crazy and horrible and entertaining. The last bit I can promise. Plus you'll have the chance to anonymously submit your true confessions, and I'm cleaning out my desk and have really massive amounts of books and magazines to give away so unless it's mobbed, probably half or more of the audience will get a prize.

I'll probably still be writing mine in the cab on the way to Happy Ending (kindof like everything I do lately), but here's a little teaser. I really wish I could say this happened when I was young and stupid, but it was 2006, when I'm old and stupid. C'est la vie, I guess. At least it makes me realize that as fucked up as my life may be, it could be sooooooo much worse. I could be throwing up not just in my mouth all the freaking time. But I'm not, so thank goodness for that.

I wish I could tell you it was the martinis that did it, all three of them, even the one I almost spilled. I wish I could tell you it all happened so fast there was no time to really make a decision, no time to process what was about to happen. I wish I could tell you it was all worth it because it was the best sex of my life, or even something close to someone's definition of "best." I wish I could tell you he had a really big cock, the unforgettable kind you dream about long after you're done. I wish I could tell you it felt so much better . . . . I wish I could tell you anything that might make me sound like less of an idiot, but I can’t.

Hear the rest on Wednesday, April 19th at 8 pm at In The Flesh Reading Series at Happy Ending Lounge, 302 Broome Street (F/V to 2nd Avenue).

Saturday, April 15, 2006

Anthology call: Doing It In Strange Places

Just saw this on Black Artemis's blog (aka Sofia Quintero, author of Divas Don't Yield and my Monday Gothamist interview). Having worked various day jobs in ultra corporate America before becoming an editor, I certainly know what that's all about (I would not advice dropping out of law school, or even starting law school unless you're absolutely sure you want to be a lawyer, to anyone). I need to remember that as tough as things feel sometimes trying to remember everything (perhaps it's time for a BlackBerry) and make time for it all and cut down on social activities, my life could be a lot deadlier. The job I had before this one would invariably see me crying either over the copy machine, in the bathroom, or when I left. I'm sure I was quite miserable to be around, too. But that's another topic for another day. I'm not a formal activist about anything anymore, but thought this might be of interest to some readers.

Call for Submissions - Young Women’s Anthology “Doing it in Strange Places… And Making Change: Young Women Fighting for Social Justice”

A commonly asked question at social justice events is, “What can I do to get more involved?” This question is usually answered in one of three ways: send money, call politicians, and volunteer. Unfortunately, none of these foster a sense of personal investment or involvement in an issue or offer solutions for how to be personally involved in solving the injustices in the world. It also doesn’t account for the lack of time, money and resources that these three answers require.
What if we could just incorporate our politics into our every day lives, particularly into our seemingly apolitical jobs/careers? In fact, that is just what most activists do. In this anthology, we want to hear from young women from all walks of life around the world, who have found creative ways to use their job/career/talent/passion (from writing to banking to computer programming to being a homemaker) as an outlet for social justice activism. We seek to create an anthology that makes activism more accessible and inspire others to use the resources they already have to contribute to social justice.

Changing the world won’t happen overnight, so let’s share our daily successes and strategies for making all of our visions of a better world possible. Tell us what worked and what didn’t because all experiences are valuable. We want to be sure multiple voices and perspectives are represented in the anthology. Writers of all experience levels areencouraged to submit work. All work must be original and should not be published elsewhere.
Submission Guidelines
* “Young” is about how you self-identify. We do not have age limits.
* We prefer to have submissions sent via email in a Word or Rich Text Format document to mandy_vandeven@yahoo.com with “Doing it in Strange Places” in the subject line. Otherwise, submissions can be mailedto: Mandy Van Deven 955 Metropolitan Ave, #4R Brooklyn, NY 11211
* If you would like your submission returned, please include a SASE.
* Word count: 2,500 - 5,000
* All submissions require your name, address, phone number, email address, and a short bio.
* Submissions should be received by May 15, 2006.
* Please direct any questions you may have to mandy_vandeven@yahoo.com
Topic Ideas Already Submitted Include:
* Biking for Women's Empowerment
* Blogging to Fight Street Harassment
* Living Choices and Neighborhood Development
* Bellydancing to Increase Confidence and Comfort w/ Sexuality
We look forward reading to what you have to say!

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one May break from hibernation

I can't not go see the super brilliant author of my favorite book, making a rare public appearance (that would be Jeannette Walls, I also adore Felicia, whose memoir I can't wait to read, as well). Otherwise, save for BEA, In The Flesh, and May 29th's SMUT and a June 6th event I'm doing, I will (fingers crossed) be being a good girl instead of a slacker and will be just going to work, going to the gym and typing away for the next few months.

Tuesday, May 9, 7pm
Halfway Home, a literary benefit for Covenant House NY, at Bowery Poetry Club, 308 Bowery at First St., 212-614-0505

Featuring Nick Flynn, author of Another Bullshit Night in Suck City
Jeannette Walls, author of The Glass Castle
Felicia Sullivan, forthcoming author of The Sky Isn't Visible from Here
Moonshine Shorey, from The Bowery Bartenders Big Book of Poems
E.F. Goode, author of A Bird on a Wire
and slam poetry legend luckydave

Featuring free book raffle, and "re-gift" bags you can keep or give to a person in need.

$5 - $25 sliding scale

Hope to see you there!

manliness, girlieness, dating my writing

Come out on Wednesday to In The Flesh to hear a kindof fucked up story about something stupid I did, about someone even stupider than I am.

Also, if I don't get a real book deal by the end of the year I think I will just retire from writing. Everyone is bitching about their $15,000 and $25,000 book deals and I'm jumping through hoops for fractions of that. No mas. But all that's gonna change for me very soon and there'll also be no more throwing up in my mouth. But, no, I don't speak the "alphabet of manliness" and hopefully never will, and if that means I'm such a fucking girl, so be it. I am, and I'm actually proud of that. I'm so lucky to have people in my life who aren't about playing games or trying to "be" something they're not, and for people who are honest and care about and respect me. The past few weeks I've met a lot of really wonderful people. I've realize that I probably will always be "dating my writing," but it's certainly better than the alternatives, though I'm hoping to move on and actually date real human beings again someday, just not so easy to find anyone I can connect with who actually likes me for longer than a few weeks but I'm over feeling sorry for myself. Been writing my piece for Wednesday and it's super fucking cathartic, one of the first things I've written in a long time that actually made me feel good about myself and not like a loser or a whore.

It's a weird time, when I'm getting rejections or no replies from every magazine I pitch, but have agents seemingly coming out of the woodwork and people asking me for blurbs and things. It's surreal and totally trippy and there's never any time to process any of it, even with vacations here and there. It's just go go go, but I've found that I'm finally tapping into some creativity and am ready to move forward, I think, though that may mean retreating into my apartment for a while and just being on my own instead of the insane mania of New York City where every night it's someone's event and I feel like an awful friend if I can't make it all. I realize that success, on my terms, will have to mean a little bit of passion, not the haphazard fucking around way I've treated my work the last 6 years or so, catch as catch can, grateful for any scrap of work thrown my way. "You could write this in your sleep," someone told me about a book, like that's my goal, to write silly little books that don't mean a thing. Yes, I'm poor and have at least five years more of paying off loans, but that sentence really made me realize where I've gotten myself and where I don't want to go. I found it ironic and amusing, because this is someone who'd told me big publishers won't want anything to do with me cause I have these small press books behind me, even though it was too late, even though I've tried my best with them on miniscule budgets. I was just told that Up All Night did really well and is the book people compare others in that genre to. I know I've done a lot in my own random, haphazard way, but I feel like I'm ready to leave all the bullshit, both personal and professional, behind. To try to be the best person I can be and figure it out along the way, even if that means getting hurt, even if it sometimes means making poor decisions.

But what it really means is picking who I confide in, in finding the right friends. And on that score, save for a few horrible missteps, I do pretty well. I cannot wait for Wednesday, not just to see Miriam and Jessica and Felicia and Judy, who, save for Felicia, I haven't seen nearly often enough, but because they are all brilliant, beautiful women who make me laugh and who are each ingenious and unique and who care about me. Not "Lusty Lady" or about blowing smoke up my ass or whatever, but just me. I feel like I connect with other writers so well, people who'd never tell me I'm "dating my writing" cause they just get it. And for every annoying person wanting me to write a book in my sleep, I've found people who are fabulous and creative and supportive and who get it all, and that feels like a miracle. And if the cost of having to throw up in my mouth a little, to realize that I'm not a baby, but I'm not some unsentimental asshole who gets over things in five seconds, well, I can pay that cost. The painful stuff, the stupid stuff, the things that want to make me run away and throw up and just be anyone else, are all learning opportunities, which I figured out as I scribbled some words on the train, words chastising myself, but also forgiving myself. I need to learn to do that a little more often.

No comment (other than to throw up in my mouth a little or maybe actually a lot)

"Dude, Here's My Book" by Warren St. John, The New York Times, April 16, 2006

With titles like "Real Ultimate Power," a satirical ode to the masculine prowess of ninjas; "The Modern Drunkard," a paean to getting hammered; and "The Game," a manual for manipulating and bedding women, they collectively represent the once-elusive male counterpart to so-called chick lit, and so perhaps deserve a cheesy epithet of their own. How about: fratire.

"All of this is a reaction against over-socialization, or maybe an over-feminization of the culture," said Jeremie Ruby-Strauss, Mr. Max's editor at Kensington and a point man for the genre. "I think all of these books are about men searching for a model other than what they're being told to do, something more rebellious, less cautious and less concerned with external approval."...

"When you think about the ninja, you think about the apex of manliness," Mr. Hamburger said in a phone interview. "These are guys no one could ever spank or tell what to do or tell what time they could go to bed — real men," he added. "It's a spoof of that."


But to be vaguely self-promotional, in the nature of the above boys:

I quoted Tucker Max in my latest Village Voice Lusty Lady column "Sex, Drunk vs. Sober"

I interviewed Jeremie Ruby-Strauss last year for Mediabistro