Free kinky sex reading tonight!

I can't be there, but if you're in NYC, check out the free Ravenous Nights Kink Night reading at Happy Ending Lounge. One of the readers is my fellow Cleis Press editor D.L. King, whose new book Carnal Machines: Steampunk Erotica features this crazy hot cover!

August 5th, 8 to 10 p.m.
Free. Casual dress.
Happy Ending Lounge
302 Broome Street

New York, NY 10002
www.happyendinglounge.com

How I Learned Who's Coming to Dinner June 22nd

I barely have time to plug my own events here but I wanted to share this - it looks fabulous! I've seen Victor and Blaise and Eugene perform (do check out Eugene's New York Confidential series, which I've performed at, too, see below for Roll the Dice June 18th) and read Dodai regularly at Jezebel. I was literally just talking about Victor's joke about getting a cab which I'd link to but don't have it handy. And Happy Ending Lounge is conveniently located near Meatball Shop! Also, add to the list of umpteen classic movies I haven't seen: Guess Who's Coming to Dinner.

Speaking of race and stories, I will have my interview with her up soon (I hope) but do check out Diane Farr's new memoir Kissing Outside the Lines: A True Story of Love and Race and Happily Ever After. (Hint: It's nothing like I Got the Fever except that it's about interracial dating.) It's heartbreaking at times to see racism laid out so bluntly but it's also moving and about love and families and what we do for each of them. If you didn't catch it, Diane had a Modern Love essay, "Bringing Home the Wrong Race," in last week's New York Times. You can follow her @GetDianeFarr on Twitter and Facebook her official site is kissingoutsidethelines.com. Good inspiration for me to finalize that interview because she had some fascinating things to say that took a while to process about race and identity and parenting.

To me the mark of a good comedian or performer is when their work continues to stay with you; Hari Kondabalu comes to mind. His joke about chocolate is one I think my friends Twanna and Nichelle and I will always find funny. Jokes are almost impossible to repeat, and I wouldn't try on a blog, so go see it. Definitely recommended. I'm planning to attend this.

The How I Learned Series Proudly Presents:

HOW I LEARNED WHO'S COMING TO DINNER:
STORIES ABOUT RACE + IDENTITY

Featuring:
VICTOR VARNADO
(Tell Your Friends!; Comedy Central)
DODAI STEWART
(Jezebel.com; Glamour)
EUGENE ASHTON-GONZALEZ
(The Moth; New York Confidential Storytelling Series)
LESLIE GOSHKO
(Vodka Shoes; Manhattan Monologue Slam Champion)
ALYSSA PINSKER
(Huffington Post; Bust Magazine)

Created, Produced + Hosted by
BLAISE ALLYSEN KEARSLEY

Wednesday, June 22nd
8pm / Doors open at 7
HAPPY ENDING
302 Broome Street between Forsyth + Eldridge
J, M, Z, F to Delancey
B, D to Grand
FREE!

www.howilearnedathappyending.blogspot.com

Sex and Food Night is January 21st at In The Flesh Reading Series

I'll recap December's AMAZING In The Flesh, which featured beautiful music, sexy belly dancing, HOT performance art and stories about demons and sex and religion. For once we weren't taping, so you'll just have to makes sure you don't miss all the sexiness in store in 2010:

January 21 - Sex and Food Night

February 18 - Love and Lust Night

March 18 - BDSM Night

April 15 - Nerd Sex Night

May 20 - True Sex Confessions

June - GLBT Erotica Night

I may be booking one more person and am working on catering but I promise this will be worth coming out of the cold for!



IN THE FLESH EROTIC READING SERIES
SEX AND FOOD NIGHT
January 21 at 8:00 PM (doors at 7)
AT HAPPY ENDING LOUNGE, 302 BROOME STREET, NYC
(B/D to Grand, J/M/Z to Bowery, F to Delancey or F/V to 2nd Avenue, http://www.happyendinglounge.com)
Between Forsyth & Eldridge. Look for the hot pink awning that says "XIE HE Health Club."
Admission: Free
Happy Ending Lounge: 212-334-9676
http://www.inthefleshreadingseries.com

Food is sexy, and sex is delicious, so In The Flesh Reading Series is kicking of 2010 with some saucy, sexy, steamy readings for the first Sex and Food Night. Featuring Cathy Erway (Author, The Art of Eating In, blogger, Not Eating Out in New York), Emily Farris (Author, Casserole Crazy: Hot Stuff for Your Oven), hot dog lover Jenine Sanford Holmes (New York Press), comedian Rachael Parenta (contributor, What Was I Thinking?! 58 Bad Boyfriend Stories), Yolanda Shoshana (The Luscious Life with Shoshi) and Heather Whaley (Author, Eat Your Feelings: Recipes for Self-Loathing). Hosted by Rachel Kramer Bussel (Peep Show, Bottoms Up, Sex and Candy). Free cupcakes by Baked by Melissa as well as finger food snacks will be served.

In the Flesh is a monthly reading series hosted at the appropriately named Happy Ending Lounge, and features the country's best erotic writers sharing stories to get you hot and bothered, hosted and curated by acclaimed erotic writer and editor Rachel Kramer Bussel. The series was named Best Reading Series by New York Press in 2009. 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. Since its debut in October 2005, In the Flesh has featured such authors as Laura Antoniou, Mo Beasley, Susie Bright, Lily Burana, Jessica Cutler, Mike Daisey, Stephen Elliott, Valerie Frankel, Polly Frost, Gael Greene, Andy Horwitz, Debra Hyde, Maxim Jakubowski, Emily Scarlet Kramer of CAKE, Josh Kilmer-Purcell, Edith Layton, Logan Levkoff, Suzanne Portnoy, Sofia Quintero, M.J. Rose, Lauren Sanders, Danyel Smith, Grant Stoddard, Cecilia Tan, Carol Taylor, Dana Vachon, Veronica Vera, Susan Wright, Zane and many others. The series has gotten press attention from the New York Times’s UrbanEye, Escape (Hong Kong), Flavorpill, The L Magazine, New York Magazine (Critics' Pick), New York Observer, Philadelphia City Paper, Time Out New York, Flavorwire, Gothamist, NBC New York, Jezebel.com, Nerve.com and Wonkette, and has been praised by Dr. Ruth.

Rachel Kramer Bussel is an author, editor, blogger and reading series host. She is Senior Editor at Penthouse Variations and a former sex columnist for The Village Voice. She’s edited numerous anthologies, two of which (Up All Night and Glamour Girls) have been Lambda Literary Award finalists, most recently The Mile High Club: Plane Sex Stories, Do Not Disturb: Hotel Sex Stories, Best Sex Writing 2009, Tasting Him, Tasting Her, and Spanked. Her writing been published in publications such as Clean Sheets, Cosmopolitan, The Daily Beast, Fresh Yarn, Huffington Post, Mediabistro, Newsday, New York Post, San Francisco Chronicle, Tango, The Village Voice, and Time Out New York, and in over 100 anthologies, including Best American Erotica 2004 and 2006. She has hosted In The Flesh since October 2005.
www.rachelkramerbussel.com


photo by Hilary McHone

Cathy Erway is a freelance food writer, blogger, and host of the cooking and dating podcast radio show, Cheap Date. Her blog, Not Eating Out in New York, is based on her two-year mission to forgo restaurant food, one that forged, among other things, alternatives to the nice restaurant date. She writes about sustainable food and farming for Saveur.com and The Huffington Post, and her first book, The Art of Eating In: How I Learned to Stop Spending and Love the Stove will be published next month by Gotham/Penguin.
www.noteatingoutinny.com



When Emily Farris was an impressionable youth her mom told her that people who talk the most about sex are the ones having the least of it. In Emily's case this has, unfortunately, turned out to be true. Fortunately, it helped her land a job at Nerve.com, where she edited the site's pop culture blog, Scanner, for two years. Emily is now the lifestyle editor at the KC Free Press in Kansas City and when she's not glued to the computer she takes her sexual frustration out in the kitchen. Her first cookbook, Casserole Crazy: Hot Stuff for Your Oven was published in 2008. (eefers.com/casserolecrazy.com).



Jenine Sanford Holmes is a New York-based writer who divides her time between advertising and creative non-fiction. She worked for six years as a senior writer at SpikeDDB, a creative boutique agency headed by Spike Lee. Her essays have appeared in The Detroit News, The Westsider, and New York Press, among other papers. Now that she has completed her memoir she can focus on whipping her Italian language skills back in shape.



Rachael Parenta lives in Brooklyn. She performs stand-up comedy all over NYC and throughout the US. She has written several plays (both full and short) that have been produced on both coasts. She has contributed writings to Gawker.com and the 2009 book What Was I Thinking?! Currently she’s working on comedy variety show “Please, Someone Kill Me!”—Emotionally inappropriate comedy.



Yolanda Shoshana ("Shoshi") is a personality, sensualist, courtesan coach, speaker, and blogger known as the Luscious Lifestyle Diva." She followed her entrepreneur spirit by starting a lifestyle company for women which swirls sensuality, sexuality, and spirituality. Her company includes the School of the Courtisane Moderne, a modern day courtesan school which teaches women the art of seduction from the boardroom to the bedroom. She also creates seductive body products with notes from aphrodisiacs to help women bring out their inner courtesan. Shoshi has also produced and hosted her own live talk show for women in Manhattan on Channel 56 for the past 4 1/2 years titled The Luscious Life with Shoshi. Recently, she started The Luscious Life, a bi-weekly radio show with delicious guests, experts, and gurus. www.lusciouslifestylediva.com



Heather Whaley is an actress and writer. The author of Eat Your Feelings: Recipes for Self-Loathing (Hudson Street Press, 2009), she has appeared in the films The Jimmy Show and New York City Serenade. Her plays Who's The Boss, Now? and I Will Not Marry Anthony Porter! have been performed off-Broadway and in regional theaters across the country and both contain punctuation in the titles. She has written extensively for television. Her play, Social Note, was the first play to appear in the storied Oak Room of the Algonuin Hotel. She lives in New York City with her husband and two children.



You will hear from the following books:


Best Women's Erotica 2010 (Rachel Kramer Bussel's oral sex restaurant story "Secret Service")


The Art of Eating In


What Was I Thinking?!: 58 Bad Boyfriend Stories (Rachael Parenta's essay)


Eat Your Feelings: Recipes for Self-Loathing

Sex and Comedy Night October 15th at In The Flesh Reading Series

And the final Quickies takes place Friday, October 2, 7:30-8:30. Free cupcakes, lots of great readers and the great relief for me of not trying to organize another one! They've been fun but no time and it's better to focus on building up In The Flesh. In November I have so many awesome giveaways of sex toys, a $100 Babeland gift card, 2010 Sex Blogger Calendars, and more. But first I have to make it through November - 6 events in October plus plugging sex and comedy night. WOW.

Yes, we are having our first guest host while I'm in San Francisco for Litquake. I promise you LOTS and LOTS of laughter! Please come out and show Carolyn and everyone else how funny sex can be!

And yes, OF COURSE, there will be free cupcakes!

In the ultra swanky, sexy former massage parlor that is Happy Ending Lounge:



IN THE FLESH EROTIC READING SERIES
SEX AND COMEDY NIGHT
October 15th at 8 PM (doors at 7; we recommend arriving by 7:30 for a seat)
AT HAPPY ENDING LOUNGE, 302 BROOME STREET, NYC
(B/D to Grand, J/M/Z to Bowery, F to Delancey or F/V to 2nd Avenue, http://www.happyendinglounge.com)
Between Forsyth & Eldridge. Look for the hot pink awning that says "XIE HE Health Club."
Admission: Free
Happy Ending Lounge: 212-334-9676
http://www.inthefleshreadingseries.com

Sex and Comedy Night is back with guest host Carolyn Castiglia (Last Comic Standing, Funniest Mom in America) filling in for Rachel Kramer Bussel. Featuring comedians Seth Herzog (Sweet), Dan Hirshon (Lampshades and Ottomans), Shayna Ferm, Shawn Hollenbach (Miss Fag Hag Pageant), Margot Leitman (Stripped Stories) and Mindy Raf (Best Night Ever), as well as writers Marty Beckerman (Dumbocracy) and Megan Carpentier. Free cupcakes from Baked by Melissa will be served.

In the Flesh is a monthly reading series hosted at the appropriately named Happy Ending Lounge, and features the country's best erotic writers sharing stories to get you hot and bothered, hosted and curated by 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. Since its debut in October 2005, In the Flesh has featured such authors as Laura Antoniou, Mo Beasley, Susie Bright, Lily Burana, Jessica Cutler, Mike Daisey, Stephen Elliott, Valerie Frankel, Polly Frost, Gael Greene, Andy Horwitz, Debra Hyde, Maxim Jakubowski, Emily Scarlet Kramer of CAKE, Josh Kilmer-Purcell, Edith Layton, Logan Levkoff, Suzanne Portnoy, Sofia Quintero, M.J. Rose, Lauren Sanders, Danyel Smith, Grant Stoddard, Cecilia Tan, Carol Taylor, Dana Vachon, Veronica Vera, Susan Wright, Zane and many others. The series has gotten press attention from the New York Times’s UrbanEye, Escape (Hong Kong), Flavorpill, The L Magazine, New York Magazine, New York Observer, Philadelphia City Paper, Time Out New York, Flavorwire, Gothamist, Jezebel.com, Nerve.com and Wonkette, and has been praised by Dr. Ruth.

Marty Beckerman, 26, is the author of Dumbocracy, Generation S.L.U.T. and Death to All Cheerleaders. He has written for Playboy, Discover, Huffington Post, New York Press, mediabistro and The Daily Beast, and has been featured by the New York Times, Gawker, MSNBC, ABCNews.com, Salon.com and National Public Radio. Christian Lander, bestselling author of Stuff White People Like, said of Dumbocracy: "Beckerman uses the deft and subtle touch of a sledgehammer. If you can read this entire book without being offended, then there is a good chance that you are illiterate. If you can read this entire book and not enjoy it, then there's a good chance you take yourself too seriously."
www.martybeckerman.com



Megan Carpentier is a freelance writer and a former editor of Jezebel.com whose work has also been published in The Daily Beast, Glamour and Ms.


chaoticmegan.blogspot.com

Carolyn Castiglia has been seen and heard nationally on VH1, MTV2, NBC's Last Comic Standing, Nick-at-Nite's Funniest Mom in America, The Maury Show, ABC World News with Charles Gibson and Sirius/XM Radio. She performs stand-up all over New York, in both alternative venues and mainstream clubs. Internationally she's appeared at the Comedy Cafe in Amsterdam and most recently at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, where she filmed a pilot for BBC3 with Brown Eyed Boy called Laughter Shock, showcasing the 14 edgiest International stand-ups at the Fringe. Her solo show, Brown Ambition, has been performed at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Off-Broadway at 59E59 Theatres and premiered at Ars Nova. Her joke writing has appeared in Time Out New York, the New York Post and The Idiot's Guide to Jokes. http://carolyncastiglia.blogspot.com


photo by Anya Garrett

Shayna Ferm performs solo, with her band and also with her sketch comedy group, Fearsome, at music and comedy venues all over NYC. Her band, "Shayna Ferm and the Upper Deckers" released their first album, Blonde, last year. She is currently working on a video project for one of her latest hits.
www.shaynaferm.com



Seth Herzog has been a professional actor since elementary school and performing stand up since the 5th grade talent show. After doing a lot of theater as a youth (and 5 summers at Stagedoor Manor), he found stand up again once he moved back to NY in 1994, and since than has a been a vital force in the thriving downtown scene. He's the creator and producer of Sweet, a long running, popular show at the Slipper Room. Sweet has hosted some of the greatest talents in the country, along with his Mom. On the big screen, Seth has appeared the films, Role Models, The Ten, The Baxter, Safe Men, In the Weeds and upcoming The Winning Season. On the small screen, Seth has been a regular pop culture pundit on VH1's Best Week Ever and All Access series for the last 5 years. Also, he's had some memorable turns on Comedy Central's "The Chappelle Show" & "Stella" as well as, CBS's Love Monkey, E! #1 Single, and AMC's Date Night.



Though incapable of doing his own laundry, Dan Hirshon is able to leave audiences in hysterics. Since taking the spotlight in Boston's Theater District several years ago Dan has performed at the Boston and Las Vegas Comedy Festivals, co-written and produced the sketch comedy album, Lampshades and Ottomans, and shared secrets about his traumatic childhood with strangers from Maine to South Africa. If you are looking to laugh or just looking for a 90-pound basket case with a Jewfro who dresses like a seventh grader, then you'll love Dan.



Shawn Hollenbach is a New York based stand-up comedian, improv actor and songwriter. You may have seen him on Logo's Gayest Week Ever or hear him occasionally on The Frank DeCaro Show on Sirus/XM's OutQ Radio. He has been featured on two episodes of Hot Gay Comics Live on here! TV and was the host of a celebrity video podcast, Busted. Shawn is the producer of Closet Cases, a Critics' Pick for Time Out NY and a Homo Must for HX Magazine. He was the creator and co-producer of the Miss Fag Hag Pageant featuring Caroline Rhea, Hedda Lettuce and Michael Musto. He also co-produces The Back Room at Comix Ochi's Lounge and The Skip and Sparkle Variety Show as Skip Lickdale with Katina Corrao. Shawn has also been on the Comedy Central at Crash Mansion Showcase and has performed with the Funny Gay Males 20th Anniversary Show at Gotham Comedy Club.
www.shawnhollenbach.com



Margot Leitman’s off beat, brutally honest, fearless comedy has earned her two ECNY “Best Female Stand Up” nominations and the “Joke of the Week” in Time Out New York. Margot now regularly appears as various characters, including the cult favorite Gynoblast on Late Night With Conan O’ Brien, in addition to appearances on VH1’s Best Week Ever, ESPN’s Cheap Seats, AMC, the Style Network, E!, Comedy Central, MTV and NBC Broadband. Most recently she can be heard as the voice of “Fox” on the new Spike TV cartoon The Team, as a featured comedian on Comedy Central.com’s Weekly Evil, and dancing in the current Mohegan Sun ad campaign. Every month she and Giulia Rozzi co-host the wildly popular, monthly, sex-themed storytelling show Stripped Stories. Margot has been featured in Glamour magazine, and the books Fifty Dates Worse Than Yours and The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Jokes. She has written online for the Lifetime Network, College Humor.com, EHow.com and in print for Playgirl magazine.
www.margotleitman.com



Mindy Raf has appeared regularly on VH1's Best Night Ever, and has contributed her comedy and voiceover work for WACB, The Daily Comedy Network, and Embraceyourgrace.com. Mindy also authored a widely-read relationship column on College Humor.com that has been featured in The New Yorker and the New York Post. Mindy performs stand-up and musical comedy as well as sketch characters all over New York, in both alternative venues and mainstream clubs. Her most popular character being chick rocker/vegan activist Leibya (Labia) Rogers, who she played recently in her solo show Leibya Fair! Mindy is currently working on her first novel which is set to be published by Dial Books for Young Readers, a division of Penguin.
www.mindyraf.com

Quickies with free cupcakes this Friday!

Happy Ending Lounge and I are experimenting on expanding on In The Flesh with Quickies: Short Erotica. First one is this Friday, 7:30-8:30, readers will have 6 minutes to read, and there will be cupcakes. Free, 21+, please come out to help me make sure we have more audience members than readers! Lineup TBA, and I sense this may be the first and last cause I have NO energy to plan/host/pimp more than I'm already doing, as is perhaps apparent by this last-minute plea.

Friday, August 7, 7:30-8:30
Happy Ending Lounge, 302 Broome Street, NYC

In The Flesh on Boing Boing = SHOW UP EARLY!

Since I got berated last time for the huge crowd from someone who'd never been (it was SRO, but it's a rather small bar), I'm now saying that while the official start time of In The Flesh Reading Series is still 8:00, you should arrive by 7:30 if you want a seat. Doors are at 7! See below or the In The Flesh site for details.

Thanks so much to reader Craig Yoe, author of the excellent Secret Identity: The Fetish Art of Superman's Co-creator Joe Shuster and BoingBoing for listing it!

2/19 (TONIGHT): The Biggest In The Flesh Ever

If you've never been to In The Flesh, or have and liked it (or even have and didn't like it), you SO don't want to miss tonight's extra-special massive lineup and special guests Susie Bright and Maxim Jakubowksi. We've also got 80 mini Sugar Sweet Sunshine cupcakes, Ferrer Rocher chocolates, candy cane cookies, mini peanut butter cups, chips and giveaways galore (including sex toys)! We'll go from 7:30-10.

Questions: email me at rachelravenous at gmail.com (fastest email to reach me)

See you tonight!

IN THE FLESH EROTIC READING SERIES
SUSIE BRIGHT NIGHT
February 19th at 7:30 PM
AT HAPPY ENDING LOUNGE, 302 BROOME STREET, NYC
(B/D to Grand, J/M/Z to Bowery, F to Delancey or F/V to 2nd Avenue, http://www.happyendinglounge.com)
Admission: Free
Happy Ending Lounge: 212-334-9676
http://inthefleshreadingseries.blogspot.com





The legendary author, editor, activist and sexual provocateur Susie Bright joins us from Santa Cruz, California to celebrate her beautiful new hardcover anthology X: The Erotic Treasury (Chronicle Books), which includes a story set at In The Flesh which you will hear! Joining Susie will be contributors Paula Bomer, Ernie Conrick, Martha Garvey, Nicholas Kaufmann, Tsaurah Litzky, Marcelle Manhattan, Lisa Montanarelli, Chelsea Summers and host/curator Rachel Kramer Bussel (Best Sex Writing 2008, Spanked). Special guest Maxim Jakubowski, editor of the Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica, also joins us from London. Note special start time (for February only): 7:30 pm. Doors open at 7. Arriving early is highly recommended. Books will be available for sale by Mobile Libris. There will be a Q&A with Susie and book signing after the reading.

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 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. Since its debut in October 2005, In the Flesh has featured such authors as Laura Antoniou, Mo Beasley, Lily Burana, Jessica Cutler, Stephen Elliott, Valerie Frankel, Polly Frost, Gael Greene, Andy Horwitz, Debra Hyde, Maxim Jakubowski, Emily Scarlet Kramer of CAKE, Josh Kilmer-Purcell, Edith Layton, Logan Levkoff, Suzanne Portnoy, Sofia Quintero, M.J. Rose, Lauren Sanders, Danyel Smith, Grant Stoddard, Cecilia Tan, Carol Taylor, Dana Vachon, Veronica Vera, Susan Wright, Zane and many others. The series has gotten press attention from the New York Times’s UrbanEye, Escape (Hong Kong), Flavorpill, The L Magazine, New York Magazine, New York Observer, Philadelphia City Paper, Time Out New York, Gothamist, Nerve.com and Wonkette, and has been praised by Dr. Ruth.

Susie Bright is the editor of X: The Erotic Treasury as well as the author and editor of multiple best-sellers on the themes of sexual politics and erotic literature, including The Best American Erotica series, Full Exposure, and The Sexual State of the Union. She blogs on sex and politics every day at susiebright.com ad hosts the weekly audio show In Bed with Susie Bright at Audible.com
susiebright.com

Rachel Kramer Bussel is an author, editor, blogger and reading series host. She is Senior Editor at Penthouse Variations and a former sex columnist for The Village Voice. She’s edited numerous anthologies, most recently Best Sex Writing 2009, Tasting Him, Tasting Her, and Spanked. Her writing been published in publications such as Clean Sheets, Cosmopolitan, Fresh Yarn, Huffington Post, Mediabistro, Newsday, New York Post, Penthouse, San Francisco Chronicle, Tango, and Time Out New York, and in over 100 anthologies, including Best American Erotica 2004 and 2006. She has hosted In The Flesh since October 2005.
www.rachelkramerbussel.com

Paula Bomer is a writer from South Bend, Indiana who now lives in New York. Her fiction has appeared in Best American Erotica 2002 and 2003, Nerve, Open City, Fiction, The Mississippi Review, The First City Review, The New York Tyrant, juked, Storyglossia, Word Riot and elsewhere.
www.paulabomer.com

Ernie Conrick is the penname of Richard Connerney, a religions and philosophy scholar who recently returned from India as a Phillips Talbot Fellow studying the influence and impact of religion on Indian life and society. He is the former senior editor of Tricycle: The Buddhist Review, and the author of Safe in Heaven Dead. One of his previous erotic short stories, “The Queen of Exit 17,” was published in The Best American Erotica, and had the distinction of being Hunter S. Thompson’s favorite story from the series.

Martha Garvey’s fiction has been published in The Best American Erotica, Exhibitions, Glamour Girls, Strange Pleasures 3, Salon, Clean Sheets, Bust, and November 3rd. Her essays have appeared in The New York Times and Killing the Buddha. She is also the author of two pet health books, My Fat Dog and My Fat Cat.

Maxim Jakubowski is a writer and ex-publisher who lives in London. He edits and pens erotica, being responsible for The Mammoth Book of Erotica series and several novels and short story collections including recently American Casanova, Fools for Lust and Confessions of a Romantic Pornographer, and the Rome Noir anthology being published in the USA this week. In civilian life, he is better known for his crime and mystery books and runs London's annual TCM Crime Scene festival, as well as being a regular contributor to The Guardian newspaper. He has been known to frequent hotel rooms and has no website. Read into that what you will.

Nicholas Kaufmann is the Bram Stoker Award-nominated author of General Slocum's Gold and Walk in Shadows, and the editor of Jack Haringa Must Die!, a fundraising anthology benefiting the Shirley Jackson Awards. His short fiction has appeared in Cemetary Dance, The Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica 3, City Slab, The Best American Erotica 2007, Playboy, X: The Erotic Treasury, and elsewhere. Nick lives in Brooklyn.
www.nicholaskaufmann.com

Tsaurah Litzky writes erotic fiction because she has a perpetual case of steamy stockings. She hopes her stories will steam your stockings, too. Tsaurah's erotica has appeared in over sixty-five publications including Best American Erotica eight times. Simon & Schuster published The Motion of the Ocean, Tsaurah's erotic novella as part of Three the Hard Way, a series of erotic novellas edited by Susie Bright. Her prize-winning course "Silk Sheets: Writing Erotica" is now in its eleventh year at the New School in Manhattan. She has recently completed a collection of short stories, End Of The World Sex.
www.tsaurahlitzky.com

Marcelle Manhattan launched the popular blog "Sexegesis" in 2007, combining sexuality with gender politics. She first appeared at In the Flesh as a spectator, and later as a reader with "Shaved," something of a hit on YouTube. Marcelle is currently on blogging hiatus while working on a novel version of her blog, and can also be seen bi-monthly at Bar On A with the comedy writers' troupe "Inner Monologues." She holds an M.A. in Literature but dropped out of her Ph.D. to write smut, among other things, in New York City.
sexegesis.blogspot.com

Lisa Montanarelli's erotic fiction has appeared in Best American Erotica 2004, Best American Erotica 2005 and Whipped, among others. She has co-authored three nonfiction books, including The First Year – Hepatitis C: An Essential Guide for the Newly Diagnosed, which she revised and updated in 2007. She also holds a Ph.D. in comparative literature from U.C. Berkeley.
www.LisaNY.com

Finding herself uninspired to write her doctoral dissertation, Chelsea Summers began writing her award-winning blog (prettydumbthings.typepad.com) in March 2005. Since then, her work has appeared in GQ, Penthouse, and Singular magazines in the United States and in Scarlet, a couple magazines in the UK, on a bunch of big websites, and in several erotic anthologies. Currently, Chelsea is working on a novel and a host of other projects. Chelsea lives and writes in glamorous New York City. She has gleefully abandoned the world of academia for the writing life.

Please join me Thursday for Oral Sex Night at In The Flesh

IN THE FLESH EROTIC READING SERIES
ORAL SEX NIGHT
October 16th at 8 PM
AT HAPPY ENDING LOUNGE, 302 BROOME STREET, NYC (look for pink awning that says "health club")
(B/D to Grand, J/M/Z to Bowery, F to Delancey or F/V to 2nd Avenue, http://www.happyendinglounge.com)
Admission: Free
Happy Ending Lounge: 212-334-9676
http://inthefleshreadingseries.blogspot.com





Celebrate the joys of giving and receiving-—head, that is-—with the first Oral Sex Night at In The Flesh Reading Series, featuring readings from host Rachel Kramer Bussel’s latest anthologies, Tasting Him and Tasting Her. Readers including Tasting Him and Her contributors Tish Andersen, Heidi Champa, Emerald, Tsaurah Litzky, Michelle Robinson and Donna George Storey (author of erotic novel Amorous Woman) as well as Daniel Maurer (author of Brocabulary) and Fiona Zedde (author of Hungry for It and A Taste for Sin, among others), who will also read oral sex-themed work. Books will be available for sale and signing. Hosted and curated by Rachel Kramer Bussel. $3 Blow Job shot special drinks! Free candy and cupcakes will be served. For more information about Tasting Him and Tasting Her, visit http://tastinghim.wordpress.com and http://tastingher.wordpress.com.

Tish Andersen (a pseudonym for this shy erotica-lover) was born in the South but now lives north of the Mason-Dixon line: New York City’s East Village/Lower East Side, to be precise. She spends the bulk of her time reading, writing, editing, taking pictures and managing the subsequent—and dreaded—postproduction work. She’s most comfortable behind a lens, focusing on the fabulous freaky folks that surround her. A fan of all things naughty, Tish is a kinky voyeur and a shameless romantic.

Rachel Kramer Bussel’s most recent edited anthologies include Spanked: Red-Cheeked Erotica, Tasting Him, Tasting Her, Dirty Girls, Yes, Sir, Yes, Ma’am and Best Sex Writing 2008. She is Senior Editor at Penthouse Variations and wrote the popular Lusty Lady column for The Village Voice. Rachel has also written for AVN, Bust, Cosmopolitan, Gothamist, Mediabistro, Metro, New York Post, Punk Planet, San Francisco Chronicle, Time Out New York, Velvetpark and Zink. She also co-edits the cupcake blog Cupcakes Take the Cake.
www.rachelkramerbussel.com

Heidi Champa is a typical last-born child. Snarky, attention-seeking and rebellious, she chooses to write dirty stories to keep herself out of real trouble. Her work appears in the anthologies Tasting Him: Oral Sex Stories and Frenzy: 60 Stories of Sudden Sex. She has steamed up the pages of Bust Magazine and if you prefer your erotica in electronic form, she can be found online at Oysters and Chocolate and The Erotic Woman. In addition to her flare with the written word, she knows every last sentence of the movie Clue by heart. When she’s not writing, she can be found reading or filling her iPod with more music. She lives in Pennsylvania with her husband. Her greatest wish is that her sarcasm would translate better in the written form.
heidichampa.blogspot.com

Emerald has been a writer since age seven, though her repertoire did not begin to include erotica until her early twenties. Her erotic fiction has been published in Tasting Her, Best Women's Erotica 2006, Erotika: Bedtime Stories, G Is for Games, and online in GV Weekly magazine. Currently she resides in suburban Maryland with her cat and serves as an activist for reproductive justice and sex workers’ rights.

Tsaurah Litzky's erotica has appeared in over sixty publications among them Best American Erotica eight times, Best New International Erotica 6&7, Sex For America, Politically Inspired, Dirty Girls, Wicked Women 7, The Blacklisted Journalist, Sex and Candy, Women-Period. She is also a poet and her book of erotic haiku, Crazy Lust, is now its third printing. Her erotic novella, The Motion Of The Ocean, was published by Simon & Schuster as part of Three The Hard Way, a series of erotic novellas edited by Susie Bright. Now entering it's eleventh year at the New School, Tsaurah's writing class, Silk Sheets: Writing Erotica was named Best Writing Class in NYC in the Village Voice 2004. She recently completed a book of erotic short stories titled End Of The World Sex, but Tsaurah believes sex is not the end but the beginning of everything. To read more of her dirty stories go to http://tsaurahlitzky.com



Daniel Maurer is a nightlife editor at New York Magazine, where he also co-edits the food blog Grub Street, winner of a James Beard Award, a MIN Award, and nominated for a National Magazine Award. He is the author of Brocabulary: A new Man-i-festo of Dude Talk. He has appeared on television (WNBC’s “Today in New York”) and in a New York Times feature. He was nominated as a New York “hottie” by Gawker, a blog to which he has also contributed (he coined the term “Douché,” which won the Gawker T-Shirt Contest). His freelance journalism has appeared in the New York Times, Nerve.com, Un Chin magazine, Modern Drunkard magazine, McSweeney’s, Shecky’s Nightlife Guide, and the Metro newspaper. Daniel’s alter ego “Mosca” (”The Fly”) has appeared in newspapers and on national television as a world-ranked competitive eater. His personal best is 24.5 soft-shell tacos in 12 minutes.
www.brocab.com

Michelle Robinson’s erotic short story “Mi Destino” is included in the New York Times bestseller Caramel Flava. Michelle is also a contributing author to the anthology collections Succulent: Chocolate Flava II with the story “The Quiet Room,” Asian Spice with the story “The Flow of Qi” and Missionary No More: Purple Panties 2 with the story “Hailey's Orgasmic Splendor.” She has recently completed work on four novels, Color Me Grey, Pleasure Principle, Serial Typical and You Created a Monster, and is currently working on the screenplay adaptation of “Mi Destino.” Michelle can be reached at robinson_201@hotmail.com as well as on www.myspace.com/justef.



Donna George Storey’s erotic fiction has appeared in many anthologies including Tasting Him, Tasting Her, Yes, Sir, Dirty Girls, She’s On Top, He’s On Top, Best American Erotica 2006, Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica 4-7, and Best Women’s Erotica 2005-2008. Her novel, Amorous Woman, the story of an American woman’s steamy love affair with Japan, was published by Orion in 2007. She currently writes a column “Cooking up a Storey,” about delicious sex, well-crafted food, and mind-blowing writing, for the Erotica Readers and Writers Association. Read more of her work at www.DonnaGeorgeStorey.com.



Fiona Zedde is a transplanted Jamaican currently living and working in Atlanta, Georgia. Her work has been published in various anthologies including Best Lesbian Erotica 2004 and 2007, Wicked: Sexy Tales of Legendary Lovers, and Best Lesbian Romance. She is also the author of four novels, the Lambda Literary Award finalists Bliss and Every Dark Desire, as well as A Taste of Sin and Hungry for It. Her novellas, "Pure Pleasure," "Going Wild" and the soon-to-be-published "Sweat" appear in the collections, Satisfy Me, Satisfy Me Again, and Satisfy Me Tonight, respectively. Readers and voyeurs can find out more at www.fionazedde.com.

You can watch the book trailer for Donna George Storey's Amorous Woman: