Thanksgiving sex I'm thankful for

This week's sex column is all about sex and gratitude and Thanksgiving. With a smidge of politics:

Firstly, I'm grateful to live in a country where homosexuality and abortion are legally protected — for now — and to have received decent, though not perfect, sex education.

Now, for the personal blessings. Unlike the Duggar family of reality TV show 19 Kids and Counting, I don't believe saving sex for marriage is the key to happiness. Instead, I'm convinced all my previous hookups, dates and relationships have shaped me into who I am today. They weren't all positive, but they did each teach me valuable lessons.

I'm truly grateful that while attending CatalystCon I got one of those magic career-boosting emails asking me to write this column, which in turn has brought me to Philadelphia a few times and given me the chance to explore a city that's so near and yet so far (about an hour and fifteen minutes by car, or, for this non-driver, four hours by public transportation).

So much of my sex writing career has happened that way, though in 2015, I plan to set goals and push myself to pursue new opportunities, including writing, editing and teaching, but this year, many of them came to me. I've learned that you never know how long a column will last, so as I cook up new hot topics (and welcome your suggestions at rachelkb at gmail.com with "City Paper" in the subject line), I'm grateful for it in the here and now, however long it lasts. Writing a weekly column requires a lot of planning as well as being able to respond to the news as it happens, and that's something I look forward to doing into the new year.

15 cities where my books sell best

On Amazon, that is. My book sales across the board (all 40+ that are still in print) have taken an extreme nose dive with no end in sight that I can see (though of course I would love to see that turn around, and will feel blessed and lucky and grateful if it somehow does), which means I am in job search mode and focusing on that, and probably not editing any more for a while after the latest batch, but I was still amused to check out this chart. Thank you, everyone who's bought or reviewed any of my books--every bit helps a lot, and I'm grateful to the people in these cities and everywhere else. I'd also love to hear if you see my books stocked at a bookstore (or other type of store) since I don't always know who has them. I've heard through the grapevine that my favorite of my books, The Big Book of Orgasms, is for sale at Charis Books in Atlanta and Green Apple Books in San Francisco. Booksellers who stock my books, you rock hard! If any stores would like postcards, I still have some left - contact me at orgasmantho at gmail.com As for this list, I've been to, I believe, every city but Dallas and Tampa, and will be visiting Tampa next month. I love that Amazon provides this info and it's a clue as to which cities might make good places for my next erotic writing workshop!

My best erotica anthology is more popular than John Grisham thanks to you!

A huge thank you to all 108 of you who posted reviews of my best (imo) anthology, The Big Book of Orgasms: 69 Sexy Stories! Thanks to you, my little book that could is currently the #1 top rated book of short stories on Amazon! Ahead of even A Time to Kill by John Grisham. This is pretty amazing for an indie book of sexy stories and I am over the moon. You can buy the book from Amazon in print or the Kindle ebook edition (click title in top row for all buying options, with the Audible audiobook narrated by superstar podcaster Rose Caraway coming soon), and can read more, including reviews and excerpts from every one of the 69 stories, on the book's official Tumblr and share your thoughts by Tweeting @BigBookofOrgasm.