How many books makes you a book hoarder?

I answer that question as well as whether you can own "too many books" in my latest essay at The Toast, which got picked up by the LA Times blog Jacket Copy! I also shouted out some of my favorite books by authors such as Dylan Landis, Matt Logelin, Mark Haskell Smith and Frank O'Hara. I'm always traveling with several print books as well as many on my Kindle, and it's a struggle sometimes to sit and enjoy one without wanting to immediately also start the next one. If only I had two heads and two sets of brains!

LA Times' book blog Jacket Copy (and me) on why women CAN write about sex

Carolyn Kellogg at the LA Times' book blog Jacket Copy quoted me extensively about the whole "women can't write about sex" story that The Erotic Review editor Kate Copstick has stirred up.

Here's a snippet of what I emailed to Kellogg:

I think the number one critical element is honesty, meaning using your most natural voice to write about sex. Trying to make it sound more 'porn-like' by deliberately using words that you wouldn’t normally use almost always reads in a stilted, clichéd way. Honesty, too, about sexual desire; I think part of why so many writers, male and female, use pseudonyms (approximately half of the authors in my erotica anthologies) is because it allows them more freedom to go to the often dark, disturbing, odd, etc. places their sexual imagination takes them.

Make sure to click through for the HOT kissing photo (by someone called masochismtango on Flickr, an awesome Flickr name if I've ever heard one!).