Celebrate The Big Book of Orgasms, Volume 2 on Twitter Spaces Wednesday, February 9 with me

Get excited: On Tuesday, February 8, Cleis Press will publish my new erotic flash fiction anthology The Big Book of Orgasms, Volume 2: 69 Sexy Stories, which includes my new story, "Dirty Pictures," and then on Wednesday, February 9, from noon ET until 2 pm ET, Dr. J., aka Donna Jennings, Ph.D., another contributor to the book (her story is "Maintenance Needed"), will host me and other authors in a Twitter Spaces chat! I encourage you to follow Donna on Twitter and tune in to her weekly #TheSexualitySpace Twitter chats. We will be chatting about all things erotica with Ella Dawson, Meka James, Allison Hope, Evie Bennet, HL Brooks, Suzannah Weiss, Rien Gray, Heather Lin, jordan Monroe and Elle Stanger!



And pre-order The Big Book of Orgasms, Volume 2 wherever you buy books or ebooks or ask for it at your local library!

I'm a needy writer - here's my essay on why I feel unworthy because Twitter didn't verify my account

My latest Medium essay is up. It's called "I Feel Dumb for Feeling Dumb That Twitter Didn't Verify My Account. Hope you enjoy it, and if you do, I'd appreciate your claps (what happens when you click the little hand symbol at the left of the essay and hold it down for 1-50 "claps," which are Medium's way of determining reader engagement and author pay). Thanks for reading and for validating me (kidding, sort of).

How to follow me when I'm not blogging

So if you've been reading this blog for even a short period of time, you have probably realized that while my blogging intentions are good, my execution is lacking. I'll brainstorm daily post ideas but especially this year when I'm being pulled in so many directions, I haven't had as much time to devote to this blog as I'd like. I keep thinking I'll get to some magical "caught up" point but that hasn't happened yet. So while I will still be blogging here and will soon have news about my January and February mini book tour for Best Women's Erotica of the Year, Volume 2, in the meantime, I wanted to share other ways to keep in touch and get info if you're interested.

My email newsletter - it's a monthly newsletter that includes giveaways, news about my writings and events and whatever else I feel like sharing. September's will go out this week and then October's will have a really special, huge giveaway, so stay tuned!

Twitter - I Tweet daily and post more there than I do on any other social media platform.

Facebook author page - I share my writings and news as well as articles I think may be of interest by other people.

Instagram - While my daily life isn't that exciting, I do post a lot when I'm traveling, such as my recent trip to Pittsburgh and this weekend in New York, where I went to the Adoptapalooza pet adoption event in Union Square and saw this:

Adoptapalooza!

A photo posted by Rachel Kramer Bussel (@rachelkramerbussel) on Sep 18, 2016 at 1:26pm PDT

If you want to be notified of my new book releases (or any other author's), follow me/them on Goodreads and Amazon (click on the "follow" button below my photo on the left while you're logged into your Amazon account). With Amazon, if you follow an author, as I do writer LN Bey, you'll get notifications like this when a new title is released, and if a book publishes early (before the official on sale date), you'll find out:



My publisher frequently puts my ebooks on sale for $1.99 and you can get notified of those by following me on BookBub, where I encourage you to also sign up for your favorite genres so you can find out when other authors have free or very cheap sales. They send one daily email rounding up the sales in the categories you've chosen, or you can search by category, such as erotic romance.

Why I don't post many personal updates on social media these days

You can read all about my transformation from incessant social media oversharer to middle-aged social media observer over at Ravishly. I love writing for them and encourage you to bookmarked them; they're one of my favorite sites to read. This is an essay I've been mulling over and tinkering with for months and Monday I got so sick of my procrastinating I just wrapped it up. It wound up being longer than I'd planned, and feels a little vulnerable to write because it's such a stark contrast to the old me, but it felt incredible to hit send. I've got to do more of that rather than overthinking, which is all too easy for me most days.

Dream achieved: My Yahoo Travel profile of a JetBlue superfan is up

A few years ago, I took a Mediabistro class on travel writing, and while the instructor was fascinating and wonderful, I left discouraged. I don't have what it takes, I concluded, and pretty much set that dream aside, even though I do love traveling and do it a fair amount for work-related events, and sometimes for fun. Today I achieved that dream by having my first article run at Yahoo Travel, about a JetBlue superfan who's taken more than 100 flights since April 2013 on a Ph.D. grad student budget. Travel has changed my life, so it was an honor to profile someone for whom the same can be said. It's also an interesting look at how a brand, in this case JetBlue, can best interact with its customers to make them loyal and also have fun with their Tweeting! I hope you'll check it out, and I hope that I continue to get to write about one of my favorite topics! Here's a snippet:

How did the airline win him over? The Boston College PhD student’s JetBlue obsession started by accident. He’d booked a trip to Hawaii with another airline, which bungled his reservation so badly he canceled it and rebooked on JetBlue. Then he took to Twitter. “I first discovered how different JetBlue was when I tweeted them and another airline due to some poor service I experienced,” Brown told Yahoo Travel. “The response was telling. The other airline’s tweet read like a machine-generated form letter. JetBlue’s tweet was personal, and they let me know they were ‘#superexcited’ to have me fly with them.”

And this right here is proof of what he is talking about, in response to my Tweet about the article:

I'm moderating Sex Talk Tuesday May 14th from 4-5pm EST on erotica

On Tuesday, May 13th from 4-5 pm EST, I'll be taking a break from RT Booklovers Convention in New Orleans to moderate #SexTalkTuesday on Twitter. Just visit that hashtag and/or @SexTalkTuesday and join the discussion which will center around what makes a good erotica and what kind of erotica you like.

Fifty Shades of Grey roleplaying article at Nerve

I wrote about some of the many Fifty Shades of Grey roleplaying families on Twitter for Nerve. Learned a lot!

Cory Booker's Tweets with a stripper (yes, I'm voting for him)

My latest Medium piece is titled "I Don’t Care That Cory Booker Tweeted With a Stripper, I’m Still Voting for Him" - that pretty much says it all, though there is a bit in there about a job offer for stripper Lynsie Lee I found interesting. If you like it, I once again ask that you click "recommend" at the bottom - I'm a huge fan of the site and want to keep writing for them! You can also leave notes on the piece, whether you agree or disagree with me. Thanks.

5 easy ways readers can help out their favorite authors

I'm going to do a separate post about what authors can do to promote their books, but since I'm a very avid reader, I wanted to share a few ways you can help your favorite authors very easily. Aside from buying their books, which obviously helps them.

1. Tell the author you liked their work.
Writing is lonely. You don't always get feedback, and sometimes when you do, it's the people who hated your work the most who will be more than happy to share that. Yes, writers want to sell books, but that's the business side. The person/creative side is happy when someone genuinely engages with their work. That doesn't have to mean you fawn over it and tell them they are the best author ever. You might even disagree or grapple with a concept. That's fine; as long as you're reading their work and have something to share, I'd take a wild guesstimate that 99% of authors would love to hear that. If it feels weird to send a fan email, do it via Twitter. I've interacted with lots of my favorite authors, like mystery author Sue Ann Jaffarian (@sueannjaffarian) and paranormal YA author Tera Lynn Childs (@teralynnchilds) and not only do I get excited when they Tweet back to me, but 140 characters is less intimidating than an email, and unless they're Stephen King level of famous, they are probably going to read what you Tweet.

2. Like their book on Amazon.
This literally takes a second and looks good for the author. (Note: I don't 100% understand what it does for their book's rankings on Amazon, if anything, but still, if 100 people have liked a book, that surely counts for something with potential buyers.)

3. Review the book on Amazon, Bn.com, Goodreads, etc.
Reviews don't have to be long or eloquent to get the point across. You think ___ is like ___ on acid? Or __ is a beach read page-turner? It's all good.

4. Request your local library and bookstore carry the book.
This one requires a bit more effort, but goes a long way. You might even find that you turn the librarian or bookseller on to a book, and they in turn may tell others, and also may recommend books to you.

5. Share your love of the book on Twitter, Facebook, etc.
Often this may simply mean you retweet or repost something the author has posted; it's that simple. You may also find them holding contests, posting about events, or offering up recommendations for what to read next, or giving sneak previews of their upcoming work.

Sex in books Twitter chat December 7th!

Join us December 7th from 7-8 pm on Twitter with the hashtag #sexinbooks - I'll be moderating, so if you have questions for these authors, email me at rachelkb at gmail.com with "#sexinbooks" in the subject line. See you there!

Rachel Kramer Bussel (@raquelita)


Women in Lust

Anna David (@annadavid)


Falling for Me

Beth Griffenhagen (@thathaikugirl)


Haiku for the Single Girl

Kiri Blakeley (@kiriblakeley)


Can't Think Straight

Sascha Rothchild (@sascharothchild)


How to Get Divorced by 30

Judy McGuire (@hitormissjudy)


How Not to Date

Pre-order this: Best Sex Writing 2012!

As I posted on Twitter, when you pre-order a book, you're both buying your single copy and signaling to the store that there's so much interest in the book that they should stock up. Whether that's Amazon or your local indie bookstore or wherever, every little bit helps, and more than any of my other books, this is the one that I'm most proudest of and that I think will hold up in ten or twenty years. As timely as some of the pieces are, unless our entire culture changes into a sex-positive one, we will be facing dealing with "sluts," homophobia, insane sex scandals and more well into the future, and these thinkers have some profound things to say about these topics. Also, I'll link to the Kindle and Nook editions as soon as they're for sale (probably January 10th), but this book will be in stock by the end of December at stores, probably a little sooner. Basically, this is my 42nd book, and I'd say, if you've never read any of them, read this one. (Love the rest, but this feels like my best work and the book of mine I'd most want to take to a desert island.) A quick and easy way to help the book? Click "like" on its Amazon page!



It has an instant and powerful effect, and in an age when book publishing is, shall we say, a precarious profession, I strongly encourage you as book consumers to do so if you're sure you want to read the book. And, well, I don't think I need to do a hard sell on Best Sex Writing 2012 once you see the lineup below. It touches on culture, education, religion, the law, the military, New York City, circumcision, SlutWalk, butch femme, sex work, gender roles, sex scandals, monogamy and nonmonogamy, queerness and many other topics. It's a truly powerful collection I'm incredibly proud of and I hope you enjoy it too. I'm working on NYC, Seattle and Bay Area readings (possibly others, time/money/venue permitting).

Best Sex Writing 2012: The State of Today's Sexual Culture is a nonfiction anthology edited by Rachel Kramer Bussel, with Susie Bright as guest judge, to be published by Cleis Press in January 2012. It is available for pre-order at Amazon (other links below). Email bestsexwriting2012 at gmail.com if you have any questions; to request a review copy, email Brenda Knight at bknight at cleispress.com. Stay tuned for details about the virtual book tour and readings in NYC, Seattle and San Francisco. For more information about the Best Sex Writing series, visit www.bestsexwriting.com.



Pre-order Best Sex Writing 2012:

Amazon

Kindle (coming soon)

BN.com

Nook (coming soon)

Powell's

Books-a-Million

IndieBound (find your local independent bookstore

Cleis Press

Table of contents:

When the Sex Guru Met the Sex Panic Susie Bright

Beyond the Headlines: Real Sex Secrets Rachel Kramer Bussel (see below)



Sluts, Walking Amanda Marcotte

Criminalizing Circumcision: Self-Hatred as Public Policy Marty Klein

The Worship of Female Pleasure Tracy Clark-Flory

Sex, Lies, and Hush Money Katherine Spillar

The Dynamics of Sexual Acceleration Chris Sweeney

Atheists Do It Better: Why Leaving Religion Leads to Better Sex Greta Christina

To All the Butches I Loved between 1995 and 2005: An Open Letter about Selling Sex, Selling Out, and Soldiering On Amber Dawn

I Want You to Want Me Hugo Schwyzer

Grief, Resilience, and My 66th Birthday Gift Joan Price

Latina Glitter Rachel Rabbit White

Dating with an STD Lynn Harris

You Can Have Sex With Them; Just Don’t Photograph Them Radley Balko

An Unfortunate Discharge Early in My Naval Career Tim Elhajj

Guys Who Like Fat Chicks Camille Dodero

The Careless Language of Sexual Violence. Roxane Gay

Men Who “Buy Sex” Commit More Crimes: Newsweek, Trafficking, and the Lie of Fabricated Sex Studies Thomas Roche

Taking Liberties Tracy Quan

Why Lying about Monogamy Matters Susie Bright

Losing the Meatpacking District: A Queer History of Leather Culture Abby Tallmer

Penis Gagging, BDSM, and Rape Fantasy: The Truth about Kinky Sexting Rachel Kramer Bussel

Adrian’s Penis: Care and Handling Adrian Colesberry

The Continuing Criminalization of Teen Sex Ellen Friedrichs

Love Grenade Lidia Yuknavitch

Pottymouth Kevin Sampsell

Beyond the Headlines: Real Sex Secrets Rachel Kramer Bussel

I think about sex a lot—every day, in fact. I don’t mean that in an “I want to get it on” way, but in a “What are other people up to?” way. I’m a voyeur, first and foremost, and this extends to my writing. I’m naturally curious about what other people think about sex, from their intimate lives to how their sexuality translates to the larger world.

With the Best Sex Writing series, I get to merge my voyeuristic self with my journalism leanings, and peek into the lives, public and private, of those around me. This volume in the series doesn’t pull any punches; the authors have strong opinions, whether it’s Marty Klein sticking up for circumcision in the face of an effort in California to criminalize it, Roxane Gay taking the New York Times to task for its treatment of an 11-year-old rape victim, Thomas Roche calling out Newsweek for its shoddy reporting about prostitution, or Radley Balko examining a child pornography charge.

There are also more personal takes on sex here that go beyond facile headlines or easy answers, that aren’t about making a point so much as exploring what real-life sex is like in all its beauty, drama, and messiness. Whether it’s Amber Dawn and Tracy Quan sharing the truth about their lives as sex workers, or Hugo Schwyzer explaining the damage our culture does to men with its mythology about their innate sexual prowess, or Tim Elhajj’s first-person account of pre–don’t ask, don’t tell military life, these authors show you a side of sex that you rarely see.

What you are about to read are stories, all true, some reported on the streets and some recorded from lived experience, from the front lines of sexuality. They deal with topics you read about in the headlines, and some topics you may never have considered. They are but a small sampling of the many kinds of sexual stories I received in the submission process.

Part of why I think sex never goes out of style, as a topic or activity, is that it is so very complex. There is no one way to do it, nor two, nor three. Sex can be mundane or mind-blowing, and for those who are trying to get from the former to the latter, there is a plethora of resources but also a host of misinformation purveyed by snake oil salesmen.

In Best Sex Writing 2012, you will read about subjects as diverse as “Guys Who Like Fat Chicks,” the care an handling of a man’s penis, and the glamour and glitter of the Latina drag world. Abby Tallmer, telling a story set in a very specific time and place—the gay leather clubs of New York’s Meatpacking District in the 1990s—manages to capture why sexual community is so vital, and why, I’d venture, those who lack such a community wind up mired in sex scandals. Tallmer writes, “These clubs gave us a place to feel that we were no longer outsiders—or rather, they made us feel that it was better to be outsiders, together, than to force ourselves to be just like everybody else.”

I’m especially pleased to present stories about the kinds of sexuality and sexual issues that don’t always make the headlines, from Lynn Harris’s investigation of dating with an STD to Hugo Schwyzer’s moving look at men’s need to be sexually desired and what happens when boys and men are told that that wanting to be desired is wrong. Joan Price gives some insight into elder sexuality, as well as into what it’s like to purchase the services of a sexual healer. The topic of elder sex is often treated with horror or disgust, or the focus is placed on concern over STDs—which is a worthy topic this series has explored before. But Price, author of two books on elder sexuality (her piece here is excerpted from Naked At Our Age), obliges the reader to see the humanity behind her age. She writes, “My birthday erotic massage from a gentle stranger changed something in me. It showed me that I was still a responsive, fully sexual woman, getting ready to emerge from the cocoon of mourning into reexperiencing life. I realized that one big reason I ended up on Sunyata’s massage table was so that I could get ready to reenter the world.”

Not all, or even most, of the reading here is “easy.” Much of it is challenging and heartbreaking. Roxane Gay’s media criticism centers on a New York Times story about a Texas gang rape and why “The Careless Language of Sexual Violence” distorts our understanding about rape. You may think such a piece doesn’t belong in an anthology with this title, but until we rid our world of sexual violence so that everyone can freely express themselves sexually, we need to hear searing indictments of media or those in power who ignore injustice.

As an editor, I’m not only looking for pieces that I agree with, or identify with, but for work that illuminates something new about a topic that’s been around forever. The authors here dig deep, challenging both mainstream ideas about sex and a few sex-positive sacred cows. Ellen Friedrichs sticks up for the right of teenagers to be sexual without throwing parents, school boards, and other adults into a sex panic. Amanda Marcotte explores the fast-moving SlutWalk protest phenomenon, which has garnered criticisms from various sides, from being futile to only appealing to white women.

I will quote Abby Tallmer again, because I don’t hear the words “sexual liberation” often enough these days. What moves me most about her piece is that you don’t have to be a New Yorker, queer, leather, or kinky to understand what she’s talking about. I’m 100 percent with her when she writes, “Back then, many of us believed that gay liberation was rooted in sexual liberation, and we believed that liberation was rooted in the right—no, the need—to claim ownership of our bodies, to experience and celebrate sexuality in as many forms as possible, limited only by our time and imagination.” I hope this applies in 2012 just as much as it did in the 1970s, 80s, or 90s.

The truth is, I could have filled a book twice this size. Every day, stories are breaking, and being told, about sex—some wondrous, some heartbreaking. This is not a one-handed read, but it is a book that will stimulate your largest sex organ: your brain. Whether you live and breathe sex, you are curious about sex, or somewhere in between, I hope Best Sex Writing 2012 informs, incites, and inspires you. I hope it inspires you to write and tell your own sexual story, because I believe the more we talk about the many ways sex moves us, the more we work toward a world where sexual shame, ignorance, homophobia, and violence are diminished.

I’d love to hear your thoughts about this book and what you think are the hot topics around sex. Feel free to email me at rachel at bestsexwriting.com with your comments and suggestions for next year’s anthology.

Rachel Kramer Bussel New York November 2011

Win vibrators and Women in Lust in Tuesday's Twitter chat!

Join me tomorrow night from 7-8 pm EST for a Twitter chat in which you can ask me anything! Follow me @raquelita as well as @EdenFantasys and @cleispress to see what we're up to, or just look up the hashtag #womeninlust.





You can win a copy of Women in Lust as well as these vibrators below, which are for sale from EdenFantasys (if you didn't know, EdenFantasys publishes SexIs Magazine, where my biweekly Secrets of a Sex Writer column is published).

Apple, labor, technology, consumer responsibility and The Agony and The Ecstasy of Steve Jobs

Now through October 15th, there's a contest to win tickets to The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs at The Public Theater...and a $250 Apple gift certificate. The show is largely about the working conditions at the Foxconn factory in Shenzhen, China, where numerous electronics are made, including Apple products, the company that's the focus of the show. I questioned @PublicTheaterNY on the (il)logic of that on Twitter:







I still think it's an odd choice, especially after one sees the show. Yet they are right; technology is part of most of our worlds, certainly anyone reading this. I had my iPhone on my trip to Vermont and one of my little cousins said, "You're on that thing a lot. It's like your friend." She was totally right. I don't know what I'd do without my iPhone or my laptop, how I'd work or communicate with people. I wasn't suggesting that nobody buy any Apple products, just that the juxtaposition struck me as off message.

From The Newcastle Herald:

Daisey reserves particular disdain for the Apple fanboys who accuse him of singling out Apple when the rest of the technology industry is just as guilty, and of ignoring the fact that the suicide rate at the Foxconn factories is lower than the reported official average in China.

"These Apple fanboys have the most amazing moral and ethical equivalency that I've seen," said Daisey.

"All they would have to do is raise the blinders just a little bit and see with human eyes and they could be an enormous force for actually getting real change to happen. So when they choose instead to remain children playing with toys it's infantilism of the highest order."

He said the official suicide rate figures released by the Chinese government cannot be relied upon and that if there was a spate of suicides at a Western factory - as occurred at Foxconn recently - there would be a mammoth public outcry.

"It's an unbelievably pathetic defence to say my company's responsible for atrocities but so are other companies," he said, adding Apple should lead the industry into a more ethical approach.

"Apple has long prided itself on being a leader, it speaks constantly about being a leader in the field, they're very proud of that and they take huge advantage of it in their PR. Well, this is what comes with being a leader ... suck it up and start acting like one."

I'll be posting more about my reaction to seeing the show in January, and why I'm seeing it again, and if you're in New York, I strongly encourage you to see it (use the code iFriend for $50 tickets). It runs from October 11th to November 14th. The vividness of the imagery about the working conditions, lack of union organizing and underage labor is hard to ignore after you've seen the show.

But the idea of awareness makes me wonder what we, as consumers, are meant to do about this issue, aside from thinking about it. Thinking about it is important, but part of my impetus to see the show again is to figure out what to do with that information. It's not The Public Theater's or anyone else's job to tell me what to do with that; I have to figure that out. I've brought it up with people who were considering buying iPads, wondering about the delays.

I will say I have been thinking about it ever since I saw the show, especially when I wound up buying a new laptop at the Apple Store in Emeryville the next day. It was an uncomfortable feeling, like I was directly supporting those kind of working conditions. At the same time, I know that so many of the products I wear, use, consume, are likely made in awful conditions. Sara Bongiorni wrote a memoir, A Year Without "Made in China": One Family's True Life Adventure in the Global Economy, I haven't read yet, but that's about precisely this:



I don't know the answers, or any answer. I don't think ignorance is an answer, but what to do with that knowledge is a tougher question.

See also:

Today's New York Times interview about the show

"Why Apple is Nervous About Foxconn," Bloomberg Businessweek

From "Fire Breaks Out at Foxconn Plant," PCmag.com, about a different Chinese Foxconn factory:

The fire was first spotted by a microblogger at Chinese Internet portal Sina.com and picked up by Sina's news service. Coincidentally the day before, Chinese officials ordered police to engage more in "public security microblogging" but only through government-monitored channels.

In the last 12 months, Foxconn's reputation has taken a nosedive thanks to reports of explosions, worker suicides, and alleged slave-like working conditions. In May it briefly shut down operations after a deadly explosion in Chengdu, prompting Foxconn and its partners to pledge to make a number of reforms at the manufacturer's facilities. A recent report from watchdog group Students & Scholars Against Corporate Misbehaviour (SACOM), however, found that most employees are working long hours for little pay, battling exposure to dust and harmful chemicals, and undergoing "military style" training sessions.

And Foxconn suicides has its own Wikipedia entry, separate from Foxconn. From 2009, about the suicide of Sun Dan-yong: "Fell from apartment building[18][20] after losing an iPhone prototype in his possession.[21] Prior to death, he was beaten and his residence searched by Foxconn employees.[21]"

Joel Johnson wrote a cover story for Wired about visiting Foxconn and summarized it with a response I've seen a lot of: it's not as bad as other jobs in China.

That 17 people have committed suicide at Foxconn is a tragedy. But in fact, the suicide rate at Foxconn’s Shenzhen plant remains below national averages for both rural and urban China, a bleak but unassailable fact that does much to exonerate the conditions at Foxconn and absolutely nothing to bring those 17 people back.

But the work itself isn’t inhumane—unless you consider a repetitive, exhausting, and alienating workplace over which you have no influence or authority to be inhumane. And that would pretty much describe every single manufacturing or burger-flipping job ever.

For me, though, the key point in that article was this one, which I think says infinitely more about what Foxconn thinks of their workers than any other detail in that piece, bolding mine:

Although the company disputes some cases, evidence gathered from news reports and other sources indicates that 17 Foxconn workers have killed themselves in the past half decade. What had seemed to be a series of isolated incidents was becoming an appalling trend. When one jumper left a note explaining that he committed suicide to provide for his family, the program of remuneration for the families of jumpers was canceled.

So, no, I have no answers. I do think awareness is important, but as I type this on the laptop I bought in Emeryville in January, I don't know that my awareness is moot if I'm not trying to be part of the solution.

Twitter party about Obsessed September 5th, win Babeland prizes!

For more information, see the Cleis Press Tumblr. See you on Twitter Monday night! Or anytime @raquelita (and @cupcakeblog, where we're inching toward 20,000 followers!). More free erotic romance excerpts from Obsessed coming soon, and I just finalized the table of contents for Irresistible and my 2012 oral sex anthology Going Down! But first, the books that are out.

We’re having a Twitter Party with Rachel Kramer Bussel Sept. 5, 7-9pm EST!

The hashtag will be #obsessedbook, and Rachel will be on hand to answer your pressing questions about the anthology, writing/editing, and who knows what else? There will be prizes for best questions: something fun donated by Babeland, and a copy (or three) of Obsessed - sent right to you. All you have to do is tweet!

Virgin America, canceled flights and Twitter

On Friday, as I was waiting for a cab that never arrived, I got a call from someone at Virgin America saying my flight the next day from SFO to LAX was canceled, and that I was immediately rebooked on the next available flight. That gave me a little more time to get ready in the morning and I didn't mind the delay. It also made me think that Virgin America was very on top of their customer service and I'd be notified of any flight delays or cancellations. I booked my 3 flights (JFK to SFO, SFO to LAX and LAX to JFK) via Orbitz, all on Virgin.

However, on Tuesday, I didn't get any notification of the cancellation of my flight due to the weather. I called Virgin, was on hold for about half an hour, and was told that I could input my phone number and they'd call me back if I didn't want to wait. I did that, and two hours later, there was no call. I Tweeted and very soon after got a DM (direct message) apologizing and asking for my reservation number. In short order, Virgin had rebooked me on my flight today, scheduled to leave LAX at 1:45 and arrived at JFK at 10 pm. This meant two extra days I had to take off work, effectively meaning 7 total days off instead of 4, which means fewer trips in 2011, but I understand about the weather delay. I don't understand why Virgin never notified me of the cancellation and wonder, had I not been on Twitter, when I would have gotten notice of being rebooked.



So I think Twitter is definitely a game changer when it comes to travel. I could then log into my Virgin America Elevate account and see the new reservation. That original Tweet was at, I believe, around 4:30 in the afternoon on Tuesday, and I responded at 9:12 pm saying to book me on the flight I'm on, since that was the earliest I could get.

I usually fly JetBlue, but Virgin had the cheapest prices this time around, and since I'd heard so many bad stories about stranded JetBlue passengers during the last storm, I'm grateful. I definitely will not plan to travel in winter months, because I just can't afford so many days off without screwing with other plans. I want to get back to Minneapolis this year, and maybe Milwaukee (and have a free trip on American Trans Air), and will be in Seattle in June and Eugene in August. That's about all I know of for now, but we'll see what comes along. I'd been toying with going to the UK but I think that may have to wait until next year. I need to leave days open for whatever random trips might come up, but I can also schedule trips around holiday weekends. My main focus the next few months is going to be maximizing my writing time so I can justify, if only to myself, the purchase of this laptop, which I am loving, but definitely cost a pretty penny. So that is my little travel story. Typing it from a warm, cozy sunny bedroom in Silverlake after pushing my friend's baby up and down the hills, feeling like I could stay here, if I didn't have obligations to get to, for a good long time.

These Brooks sneakers were made for walking...39 miles in 2 days!

This weekend I'm doing the New York City Avon Walk for Breast Cancer (want to donate? click here - you can still donate after this weekend, as there's a grace period). 39 miles in 2 days. And yes, of course I'll be Tweeting along the way.



I got these wonderful Brooks sneakers (now I just keep buying the same ones) at Jackrabbit Sports, where they have you run on a treadmill to test your feet (turns out mine pronate a little). The first pair were around $110, now I get a 10% discount on anything in the store for spending over $100 that first time. Excellent customer service, even if you don't run. Hat tip to my aunt Carole for recommending it to me.



Previous sneaker incarnations:

Some Girls kiss and tell very, very well

I know that was a cheesy rhyme, but I will have to write at another time about how amazing Jillian Lauren is. You should go read her book, Some Girls: My Life in a Harem, right now. And catch her on her book tour (this Thursday in NYC at Sex Worker Literati at Happy Ending Lounge, 302 Broome Street, 8 pm, for a start). I'll be there, bearing cupcakes (for Jillian, but she will probably share). Follow her @jillylauren on Twitter. Currently #98 on Amazon!!

FYI, I'd never heard of her before about a month ago when I picked up Bust (which has a great review of Best Sex Writing 2010 which I will post soon) and saw an interview with her by Shira Tarrant. I was intrigued, but the book wasn't out yet. Then that Monday, two days later, I got a copy in the mail, like magic, and was riveted, and emailed her to tell her how much I loved and was moved by the book, and we got to meet at the LA Times Festival of Books.

You can watch her appearance on The View here and read an interview with her at The Gloss here. There was a fabulous profile of her in LA Weekly and I will be blogging on a related note (about what happened when I went to Digg that piece) in "I Don't Care About Your Husband" (an homage to Julie Klausner in the title) soon.



I wrote this review on Amazon:

Some Girls is about, on the surface, Lauren's time spent in a harem in Brunei, but dig just marginally beneath that surface and you will see that this is a memoir that tackles major moments in both her life and one's that many women struggle with. Lauren leaves home at 16 to head out on her own at NYU, but soon finds the life of the theater and, later, escorting, more her style. She is young, brash and carefree, but Lauren never makes it as easy as "I was rebelling." She transposes her freewheeling time against her search for meaning--and her birth mother. Her descriptions of life in the palace, the over-the-top, almost sickening shopping sprees, and encounters with Prince Jefri vividly, including rivalry, jealousy, desire and boredom.

Some of the most moving scenes here, though, having nothing to do with the harem, even if they were informed by her time there. Her quest, and eventual success, in finding her birth mother is at the core of what it means to find oneself, and the ways that meeting falls short of Lauren's expectations are poignant. When she writes of her accidental pregnancy, the boyfriend who wasn't interested, and how she chose to deal with that, she starkly highlights the humanity within the debate around abortion in a way we truly need to see more of in our society. And when Lauren finds tattoo culture (fun fact: Ed Hardy once had a magazine called Tattootime, which becomes Lauren's bible), she writes of having found her people, and promptly gets a major tattoo that even her tattoo artist advises her against.

I found myself repeatedly marveling that the protagonist is only, at most, 19 or 20 when most of the scenes here take place. Lauren displays a maturity beyond her years in her self-assurance (though, again, beneath the surface much more than toughness bubbles up) as well as in the writing and self-reflection. This is a memoir in the truest sense of the word, not a dashed-off "I did this for a year" but a piece that flashes back and reveals her childhood piece by piece, showing why she had this restless yearning to travel so far and get involved with the Prince, even dreaming of having his child at one point. She complicates prostitution and her role in it, while never disowning or disavowing that word or the reality of what she did, and in doing so, has written an outstanding story that is both a fast, at times glamorous read, and one that is very likely to make you cry which, in my book, makes it a winner.

This is how she signed my book in LA:

Sex writing panel today at UCLA, LA Times Festival of Books and Coco de Mer lust

I went to the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books
I'm impressed that there are signs all over to use the hashtag #latfob on Twitter and to log in on Foursquare:



I really enjoyed AWP, and BEA is my favorite part of the year, but there is really something to be said for a festival that is so welcoming of anyone. You don't need special knowledge of the authors, don't have to be up on all the latest literature. The room was packed for Memoir: All The Single Ladies yesterday, featuring Amy Alkon (I See Rude People), Julie Klausner (I Don't Care About Your Band), Giulia Melucci (I Loved, I Lost, I Made Spaghetti, which has a blurb by Mario Batali!) and Sascha Rothchild, whose memoir How To Get Divorced by 30: My Misguided Attempt at a Starter Marriage I bought and am enjoying. (She signed it, "Congrats on avoiding these steps!") I live Tweeted a lot of it so won't recap it all now.

From the Facebook invite I made, but apparently John Freeman is stranded by ash, sadly. Just go to the Ticketmaster booth at UCLA and tickets are totally free, no service charge. Love that. Panel is today, April 25, 3-4 pm. After, I'll be signing copies of The Mile High Club: Plane Sex Stories.

Panel at LA Times Festival of Books. Code: 2034. Moderated by Rachel Resnick (Love Junkie). Panelists: Susie Bright (Bitten, X: The Erotic Treasury), Rachel Kramer Bussel (Please, Sir), Stephen Elliott (The Adderall Diaries), John Freeman (editor, Granta). Free but must get ticket. See http://events.latimes.com/festivalofbooks/program-schedule/sunday-panels/#franz for more information.

Speaking of Granta, I swooned over the entirety of New York's Coco de Mer store at their sex issue release party. See all my photos here. Follow @Cocodemerusa on Twitter for special events and news.




Yes, Sir and Spanked were in the most gorgeous displays I've ever seen, complete with beautiful paddles.


Rulers, all the better to spank you with my dear...




I'd be hard pressed not to want to lick anyone wearing this stuff! It comes in an elegant bag with a risque quote on it and smells like coconut and fig and is meant to be for the bath but you can just wear it and smell edible all the time!


pussy lover plate

Late for umpteen important dates

I have so many long-overdue posts and links I want to share but...alas, no time. I'm perhaps more slammed then I've ever been and am barely keeping up. I leave for Denver Thursday night and in the meantime have umpteen deadlines. I'll bet there until Sunday midnight, then flying home for a crazy week which includes a photo shoot and In The Flesh.

So, yeah, I try...I tweet links and little things if you want to follow me there and I Flickr (yes, I'm making it a verb) and maybe on the plane/this weekend I will be able to properly share everything.

One cool thing: my books are part of the Naked Reader Book Club over at Sexis Magazine, and they are doing some amazing content to go with it. Also, there will be 100 free copies of Sexis at Thursday's In The Flesh (Nerd Sex Night!).

Do make sure to read this interview with Cleis Press co-founder Felice Newman. I'm continually inspired by Cleis' and Felice's example. From the article:

It was a slow start—maybe two books a year—but in the ’90s, things began to accelerate with the publication of Susie Brights’ Susie Sexpert’s Lesbian Sex World, a collection of essays the funny, intelligent and beloved Bright had written as the editor of On Our Backs magazine.

“That was where we crossed the line,” Newman says. “We say we got kicked out of the sisterhood. We got kicked out of the sisterhood again and again.”

Now that our culture embraces porn stars as celebrities and has celebrities that want to be porn stars, it’s easy to forget why the term “sex-positive” came into parlance.

This was the time of the sex wars,” Newman explains. “Sex-positive feminists against the rigidly conservative feminists, who basically saw pornography as a tool of the patriarchy so if someone published pornography they were just imitating the patriarchy. [Two influential figures], Andrea Dworkin and Catharine MacKinnon were huge voices in feminism, and it was about anti-pornography. So, certainly, what we were doing was crossing the line because we were publishing pornography in their eyes.”

I'm quoted in Liz Langley's Ars Erotica Part 1 and Part 2. You can follow them on Twitter too.

I did eat this from the banh mi truck downtown (delicious, for me and the six-month-old I shared it with):



And I got my nails done, cause I couldn't abide the peeling blue polish:

An apt summary of my life's madness in 140 characters or less

This galley went right to the top of my to-be-read "pile" (which is really more of a...bag unto itself, or bags).