My op-ed on my first pandemic concert and pandemic socializing

For the Philadelphia Inquirer, I wrote about attending my first pandemic concert and pandemic socializing. Hope you'll check it out. Also, since I wrote it, I've gotten my first pandemic haircut!

New essay on bingo, debt, finances, freelancing and anxiety

I'm very happy that my essay on why spending $2,000 playing bingo was totally worth it is up now at The Goods in their Best Money I Ever Spent series. It covers my pretty much nonstop anxiety, debt, personal finance, freelance and how bingo plays a role in all of those.



Firstly, I love The Goods and read it every day. Their reporting is super smart and interesting. Secondly, this series has been wonderful, whether it's about a US work visa, the TSA or a rose gold trash can or a vibrator. It's a delight because we all spend money, but we do so differently. I also wrote for The Goods earlier this year about bookstore crawls and Independent Bookstore Day.

I'm also honored that my essay got a custom illustration! Click here to see it. I think that's a career first. Yes, I know: Anyone who plays bingo will easily see that the numbers allocated under B-I-N-G-O are not all accurate to the game. But that's okay. If it gets people to read it, I'm all for it (I didn't see the illustration until the article when live this morning).

My Washington Post Solo-ish essay on sleeping in separate bedrooms

I haven't written an essay since November, so it feels wonderful to be back at the Solo-ish section of The Washington Post today with this essay on why I prefer sleeping in separate bedrooms, and how that's not a sign of how a relationship is doing, whether we're talking about the President and First Lady or anyone else.

Washington Post Solo-ish essay on baby fever and why I want to be a mom

I wrote about the subject I think about every day, and an incident recently that made me think about it in a new way: wanting to be a mom, and why being childless feels worse than being single ever did, for the wonderful Solo-ish section at The Washington Post. If you're not a regular reader, I recommend it; I learn a lot from the pieces I read there, which are always insightful (I don't mean that as a brag, humble or otherwise; I'm referring to the other writers, like Nicole Hardy on being a "female bachelor" in her forties and travel as her suitor and Laura Barcella on being a "crazy cat lady" and all the bylines you see there).

Here's a snippet of my piece:

In the minute or so that I helped her to those gulps of water, which still managed to spill down her dress despite my carefulness, I felt an overwhelming urge to pull her close and give her a hug. Her mix of delicateness and strength, her ability to communicate nonverbally, her gorgeous eyes staring back at me as if we weren’t strangers, all completely sucked me in.

If I could feel so much for a child I didn’t even know, who belonged to someone else, how much love would I have for a child I named and fed and cared for every day? That question haunts me.

Read the whole essay

My Refinery29 essay about being a "domestic failure" is up now

I got personal over at Refinery29 for my essay, "I’m A Feminist, But I Feel Guilty For Being A Domestic Failure." The title pretty much says it all, although the day before it ran, I wound up getting our couch cleaned and it looks amazing, if I do say so myself. Sweetest thing ever: my boyfriend told me he didn't like my essay, because I didn't give myself credit. He thinks I'm a great sous chef and kitchen helper. He already had my heart, but that totally sealed the deal.

Baring my soul about trying to get pregnant at 40 (plus advice for those like me whose writing gets rejected)

Last year was a wonderful one for me in terms of writing for new markets; I broke into a lot of publications I'd wanted to write for, ranging from print ones like The New York Times and O, The Oprah Magazine to online publications such as DailyWorth and The Kernel. I believe the total was between 12-15, but life got busy and I never wound up doing a post rounding those up, so I can't say precisely. I can tell you that every time, it felt like a giant victory, like I'd cracked a code I'd been trying to analyze and solve. Each of those victories in turn spurred me on to keep pitching, keep brainstorming and keep writing.

I've decided to continue my goal of writing for 12 new publications a year in 2016. So far, I'm on track, aided by a very personal essay up now at Ravishly, a site I encourage you to bookmark, entitled "Trying to Get Pregnant at 40 Is The Hardest Thing I've Ever Done."



I wanted to share a little backstory and encouragement: I originally wrote this for a prompt (though I don't remember the exact wording) for The Mix, Hearst's series of daily prompts for their assorted sites, and it was rejected. I submitted it to a dream publication, one I've wanted to write for for years. The day I met with my publisher and heard that Best Women's Erotica of the Year, Volume 2 would be happening, I got an email saying this dream publication wanted to publish the piece, with some edits. I was over the moon!

Long story short, that publication wound up not wanting the essay. Was I upset? Of course. Who wouldn't be? But I decided that the topic is too important to me to simply shove the essay aside and move on to the next one. Ravishly was another dream publication, so I sent it to them, and they said yes. They've even sponsored the post on Facebook, which makes me happy not because I get paid more, but because it shows they believe in my essay and believe that it will resonate with their readers, which I certainly hope it does.

Especially when you're writing about your most intimate thoughts, it can be daunting to keep submitting, to not give up even when you have no guarantee you'll be successful. Part of why I pushed myself is that I'll be launching a blog dedicated to this topic soon, because having a baby is uppermost on my mind these days and what I'm devoting myself to in 2016, so it seemed natural to write about it on a regular basis. That it's also something on the minds of other people I know, largely but not exclusively women, has been borne out by the feedback I've received, which has been encouraging and thoughtful and full of resources I hadn't come across before. I'm thrilled that I stuck with this essay, because as it turns out, the reactions on Facebook have been priceless.

For some reason, I actually held off on posting it there for a few days because this is a topic that makes me nervous. I worry about being judged or scolded or railroaded into trying every old wives tale remedy or potion. I worry about judging myself for having waited so long, for procrastinating on charting, for not having unlimited financial resources to try any medical means necessary of getting pregnant...really, there's no shortage of reasons I judge myself for not being a mom yet. But I've come to realize that it's okay to have those worries and fears, and that releasing them into the world simply makes me feel better. It doesn't erase them, but it eases them, and also gives me new insights and information I didn't have before. I now have a research list of methods and supplements and reading about fertility that I only got from friends because they'd read my piece.

It's perhaps a circuitous way of sharing, in some ways; I do talk to my friends who are moms about fertility but often I can be my most raw and real on the page. Yes, writing is my job, but it's also my calling. It's how I figure out what I'm doing and feeling and where I want to go next.

I share all that by way of encouragement for any writers who are reading this and feeling stuck or frustrated or unsure. If you're struggling with rejection, no that nobody likes rejection, but it's an inevitable fact of writing, and sometimes a given piece just hasn't found the right home yet, and sometimes, it takes time to match a piece of writing with its intended audience. There's nothing wrong with using trial and error, and taking those rejections as learning opportunities and chances to spread your wings, and your words.

My proudest accomplishment of 2015

I achieved a lot in 2015, things I truly never though I could or would, and I will be recapping the highlights of this year's writing and editing on my blog in the next two days. But the accomplishment I'm most proud of is about my actions behind the scenes. I'd been encouraging my grandfather to write an op-ed about what's needed to help veterans, specifically those suffering from PTSD, an area he's a double expert in, based on his own experience as a POW in WWII (which you can read about in his memoir) and his work helping veterans file claims for benefits owed to them. Every time I would read about a similar issue in the news, I would let him know and gently nudge him to write something, but as I know well, nobody can ever "make" you write anything. That's not how our minds or creativity or impulses work.

So when I sold my hoarding essay to The Washington Post's Post Everything section, I realized the section might be a good fit for what I envisioned from my grandfather. I'd of course been reading Post Everything to get a feel for what they were looking for, and the more I read, the more that connection leapt out at me. I did something that gave me butterflies in my stomach, because it bordered on, and perhaps was, rude and unprofessional, but felt worth the risk: I asked my editor if she'd be open to him sending her a pitch. Specifically, I wrote:

Also, can I pass your email address on to my grandfather? I know that sounds very "I have a friend who wants to be a writer" but I promise it's not. He's 91, wrote a memoir about being a POW in WWII and now helps recent veterans file PTSD related claims so has a fascinating, and sometimes heartbreaking, perspective. Yes, I'm biased, but I do genuinely think he has a unique take on it. I've been encouraging him to write an essay or op ed about the types of issues he sees, including addiction and alcoholism, homelessness, joblessness and how the VA and government could better serve these vets. Just didn't want you to think I'm passing around your info indiscriminately.

I got an immediate, enthusiastic response, followed by another one, which I passed on to him, and he took it from there, and on February 27th, a few weeks after my essay was published, his essay "Meet the 91-year-old whose wartime PTSD makes him the perfect guide for today’s veterans" was published.



I really can't express how thrilled I was, because I believe his story is unique and relevant to what's happening in the world today, two qualities I look for when I teach writing classes and whenever I say to someone "You should write an essay about that." It's an oft-repeated refrain from me, but again, I get the sense that many who have brilliant essays lurking inside them are hesitant to unearth them, which is understandable. It can be emotionally challenging, heart wrenching work, especially work done on spec ("on speculation," meaning without guarantee of publication or payment). It can seem overwhelming to cram what feels like your life story into 700 or 800 or 1,000 or 1,200 words, or even into 2,000 or 3,000 words. But what about this thing that happened, and that thing? Aren't they important? It can feel treacherous to be pushed to delve deeper into certain areas, or leave others out. And that's all before a piece is even published; once it is, you're subject to the whims of anyone who wants to comment in any way at all, good, bad, indifferent, rude, ill informed, etc.

But I'm not here to detail the umpteen reasons why people might not want to write about their lives; I know them intimately, and likely, you do too. I'm here to tell you that I felt so overjoyed that my instincts had been right, that the response my grandfather received was incredibly positive, warm and welcoming, precisely because, in my opinion, he did not shy away from his own darkest times, his own suffering, but he also showed how he uses those experiences to help others. I was happy because it brought his perspective to a while new audience, including Captain Sully Sullenberger, especially those who'd also been affected by WWII specifically.

I wanted to write this post to highlight his essay in case you missed it when it originally ran, and remind myself of what I want to do more of going forward: encourage other writers, which I've done in my calls for submissions, in my classes, in my private online group for my writing student alumni, and will be doing more of in the new year with a newsletter focused on writing advice and tips, plus with coaching writers and polishing their words before they submit them (stay tuned!). If you take anything away from this post, it's that if you have a story to tell, I strongly, strongly urge you to tell it, if you can get over all the mental and emotional and other hurdles that takes, not only because there are people who need to hear it but also, and most importantly, because you will be changed for the telling.

When you write the thing you need to read, or my heart tattoo essay at HelloGiggles

You may have read my essay "Wearing My Tattooed Heart on My Sleeve" in my ebook Sex & Cupcakes, but whether you have or not, I have a new essay, "My heart tattoo is my romantic compass," up at HelloGiggles. The first essay is more about the backstory of my tattoo, while this one is about what it's taught me since I've gotten it.


I believe this was taken right after getting inked at Sanctuary Tattoo in Portland, Maine

What amazes me is that I wrote this a few weeks ago and it went up today, a day when I've been facing some major questions about whether to follow my heart or do what's "practical." As I get closer to 40, I've been trying very hard to turn my life around from my previously wasteful, impulsive ways and be more of an adult, as befitting someone almost in their forties. But sometimes what stand between you and the only thing you think you need to complete your life is, in many ways, impractical. So I've been wrestling with that today, and when I saw this went up, I had my answer. I'm gonna follow my heart, even if it disrupts a few things along the way. Because otherwise it's just some random letters on my arm, right?

Read my latest sex essay in O, The Oprah Magazine

I mostly write online, but in the October issue of O, The Oprah Magazine, I have a short essay about my sex life on page 126, as part of a longer package on sex that's all fascinating. I don't know if it'll also be online, but I encourage you to check it out. What's funny is that I saw the magazine on Wednesday when flying out to L.A., and meant to post about it earlier. So much has happened in the past few days that to me this is almost "old" news, although of course it's not. More when I've had a chance to catch up and think through all the amazing things that went on this weekend. I feel energized and excited and so glad I got to meet new people and connect with old friends and learn more about my role in the sex positive community. I feel ready to tackle so much that's ahead, personally and professionally, and am happy to be winding up my thirties with my words in a magazine I've been reading for years, subscribe to, and even tore an essay out of when I was moving a few months ago and kept because it spoke to me.

My Good Housekeeping debut on why I love clutter

Yes, that's my byline on Good Housekeeping's website, for my essay "I'm Happy With My Clutter, Thank You Very Much." I am, and I'm also very happy to be published somewhere I never thought I'd be, given that I'm so far from being a housekeeper. I also wrote about moving three times in three years for Omni, a new imprint at Medium, with my essay "What I Want in a Home vs. What I Need."

Why my dad isn't my financial role model

I wrote my first piece for DailyWorth, an essay titled "I Learned How NOT to Handle Money From My Dad." It's a pretty personal piece, but one I felt was important for me to write as part of my journey in figuring out my money. I'm usually not one to read comments, especially when I'm being vulnerable with my writing, but the comments so far over there have been very interesting and prove my theory that when you share from an intimate, personal place, others will too. Here's the beginning:

For my bat mitzvah, my dad gave me a check for a thousand dollars, a gigantic sum for a suburban teen in the ’80s. It was extravagant, and I was appropriately giddy, plotting exactly what I would use it for. Until it bounced.

That’s one of many examples of the ways my father, while offering me unconditional love, failed me as a financial role model.

Read the whole thing

On writing from the heart and reminding myself why I do this

Lately, whether between the move or my impending 40th birthday or who knows what, I've been feeling stuck creatively. Even though I have a to do list that seems to get bigger every day, I don't always know where to start, or, more importantly, why to start. What am I doing? What does it matter? I love putting my books out in the world, I love the process of crafting a specific set of writing and submitting it, but sometimes, I don't even get started before I'm questioning what the point is.

But this weekend, when The Mid published my essay "Why I'd Trade My Dream Career For A Baby", I was reminded that writing from the heart, writing our truths, matters. I've seen such an amazing, blossoming, fascinating discussion about it in the comments on my personal Facebook page, ranging from fertility options to whether adoption actually costs an exorbitant amount. I've had people share their fertility and pregnancy stories, good and bad. I've heard about adopting and fostering and advanced maternal age and gotten heartwarming advice.

Last night, I saw someone I haven't seen in person in maybe a decade. She was waving at me in a room full of people and I was actually certain she was waving at someone else, mostly because I wouldn't have thought she'd remember me. Lo and behold, she did and had read my piece and shared some encouraging information and I was so touched that someone who, because of my own insecurities, I think I'd have pegged as "too cool" to care about little old me was so genuine and heartfelt. My essay became a talking point, a moment of connection, a way of, via my own sharing of personal details, inviting other people to share theirs.

It reminded me that, while of course not all of my writing is about that kind of intimacy, that's what I want more of from myself, from my work. That's the guiding principle I want to strive for: deep truths, not partial ones. Risky ones, scary ones, truths that might unnerve or upset someone but that demand to be told. Truths that take courage, truths that invite others to tell theirs. I've missed that, been looking for it, been feeling listless and nervous about where I am, in my life, geographically, pretty much in every way. I don't have an exact plan of how to go from that restless, unfocused place to one where I tell deep truths every day and make a sufficient living, but that's where I'm heading, where I want to be heading, and I want to infuse the rest of what I do with that same passion. So thank you to everyone who read the piece, who took a moment to say something encouraging, who made me feel less alone.

Why all I want to do in my new home is get knocked up

While the title of this post is not strictly true, neither is the title of my first piece at The Mid, "I'd Trade My Dream Career for a Baby." More accurate would be the title I submitted it with: "I’m 39 and Sad That I Have Books Instead of Babies" but both are true in their way. If someone said to me, "If you stop ____, you'll get pregnant" and the blank was writing one of my columns or editing anthologies or, ahem, writing extremely oversharing personal essays that probably embarrass my boyfriend, I'd probably do it. After all, nothing else has worked so far, right?

But of course I have career goals, and this year one of mine has been to write for at least 12 new publications in 2015 (I'd love more, if you're an editor who wants to work with me!), an average of one a month. I've done my best to be both a specialist in the fields of sex and dating and erotica, but also a generalist, and am incredibly proud that my new work this year is mainly focused outside of bedroom activities because I have plenty of other interests. So I write about hoarding and Google alerts and libraries. I've got a few others in the works about my life and assorted passions, and for me, writing about an array of topics helps me not get burned out writing about sex and leads me down paths I wouldn't have discovered otherwise.

So no, I'm not only focused on having kids, because I know that certainly won't help, and some of what I've been reading about just how unhealthy stress is on the body, especially for pregnant women, has been quite sobering. That more than anything has made me think hard about how I want to live, how I want to work, what I want my days to look like. The last few weeks have been stress city between moving and money and what's felt like not enough time. The bottom line is that if freelancing isn't a good fit, I will have to find another way to make a living. I don't know yet and won't really know until the fall what the best path is. Some will depend on outside forces, but as a Serenity Prayer devotee, I'm trying to look inside and ask what I'm capable of, what feels right, and what's sustainable vs. what's pie in the sky. I don't know yet, but I do know "dream career" can't mean "work as much as possible, and think about work whenever you're not working." That hasn't been healthy and isn't worth it, and wouldn't be doable with a kid anyway. So I'm pulling back a little and trying to plan a summer that is fun and filled with love and friends and travel and searching and openness.

Not related to any of this, savor for love and enjoying the moment, because they made me smile yesterday, here are some heart shaped scones, which were very good (though I thought they were chocolate chip and they were actually blueberry, so had a little surprise bite the first time):

My Brooklyn life as a "crazy garbage lady"

I resurrected this essay, "How I Became a Crazy Garbage Lady," that never got published when I wrote it in 2013 because it's one of my favorites, falling into the "laughing at myself" and "truth is stranger than fiction" categories. Here's the opening:

This morning, I stepped outside my apartment on Williamsburg’s busy Metropolitan Avenue to find my worst nightmare come true: my discarded bra, t-shirt, gym shorts, empty CD cases and other bits of garbage I’d carefully placed in a plastic bag were strewn across the grate in front of my building, apparently not even worthy of being collected by New York City’s sanitation department. I’m not sure what I did to violate the rules, considering that I discarded dozens of CD cases and only a few were lying there, displayed like some bizarre conceptual art piece, but it’s precisely the fear of this scenario that’s turned me into a woman I jokingly call “crazy garbage lady.”

Read the whole thing at Thought Catalog.

Ridiculous but true: "I'm addicted to Google news alerts"

My latest essay is titled "I'm addicted to Google news alerts" and is in the genre of "I do something weird and a little crazy but I can laugh at myself." It's for The Kernel's Essays issue, which has lots of other wonderful pieces you should check out too, such as H. Alan Scott's "What getting cancer looks like on social media" and Samantha Allen's Thank you, Internet, for giving me a vagina." For more about Allen, watch the documentary Inside Her Sex, the subject of my recent DAME column, "Why do we feel so ashamed about sex?

My essay collection Sex & Cupcakes is now an audiobook that's only $2.99

When I broached the idea of putting out an audiobook of my essay collection Sex & Cupcakes: A Juicy Collection of Essays to my publisher Thought Catalog Books, there was only one person I had in mind to narrate it: Rose Caraway. Why? Because she has a gorgeous voice and has been the most professional, wonderful and creative person who's narrated my audiobooks. She's turned my audiobooks for Gotta Have It and The Big Book of Orgasms into runaway bestsellers that have literally gotten me through otherwise tough financial times and brought the words of those authors to countless new listeners who wouldn't have found the print or ebook versions.

I've been so incredibly impressed by her work ethic, passion for her job and smartness, and I also knew she could do justice to these words that are so often about me at my most vulnerable. So now you can listen to her read my essays for just $2.99 (and only $2.09 if you're an Audible member!). Thank you for reading, and listening, and I look forward to collaborating with Rose again. Update: it's working. I'm thrilled to have this collection in the world in both ebook and audiobook formats.

My Washington Post essay on hoarding and love

I have a new essay up at The Washington Post's Post Everything section called "Old magazines, stuffed animals and sex toys: How hoarding shaped my relationship." I wrote the subtitle, they wrote the title, and I also included the photo below of my old Brooklyn apartment. Here's the thing: when you write personal essays, you need to go all in, in my opinion. Not just for your editor's sake, but for yours. I've struggled with writing about some of the worst of my hoarding, because I'd like to think I'm "past it," but as you'll see in the essay, I'm not. Also, this is one of my biggest bylines, so if you like the essay (or feel anything about it, or just want to support my writing career), I'd love it if you'd share it, either publicly or privately with someone who may get something out of it. Yes, I'm a hoarder, but I firmly believe hoarding doesn't only affect "hoarders," but all of us. It's about what we do with our stuff and how we value it, and even compulsively neat people are impacted by fear of becoming hoarders. Also, it's about love, and I am in love, big time.

In which I learn that living in a house doesn't mean you're rich

That's what I always thought growing up in an apartment. Now I live in a house, and here's my snow-covered swing and an essay all about it, including the vicious start to 2014 which led to the silver lining of moving into this cozy place that has skylights and a basement (!! after living in a Brooklyn apartment with no closets for 13 years, a basement deserves endless exclamation points), and the office where I'm now typing. My working title was "House Proud" but the title Thought Catalog went with was "How My First House Changed My Perspective Of Wealth And Contentment," which is also accurate.

I'm getting naked in this post

Actually, I'm writing about why I support women who take nude photos at YouBeauty, inspired by Kim Kardashian saying she'd support North West if she someday wanted to take it all off for the cameras. I also quote some women who've had wonderful experiences posing nude and give a shoutout to Substantia Jones's activist photo project Adipositivity, which produces an annual calendar I highly recommend if you like photos of sexy fat women (see my article for the link to them). What do you think? If you like my article, I'd love it if you'd pass it on.

Essay on dating a fat man at YouBeauty

Yes, size is something that comes up in a lot of my work, from my erotica, such as in my new story "Big Bottom" in The Big Book of Domination to my book Sex & Cupcakes. It's something that's personal and political and that I think touches so much of society. So my latest essay is "What I’ve Learned About Size and Body Image by Dating a Fat Man" at YouBeauty. It's my first piece for them, so if you like it, I'd love it if you'd share/comment there. Jessica Wakeman is an editor there now (formerly at The Frisky) and is bringing lots of fascinating content around looks, gender, body image and more.