3 bylines, including my first in Marie Claire

I'm heading to Maine today, to visit an old friend, and will be there for most of next week to teach erotica writing Wednesday in Portland at Nomia. Therefore, I'm going to quickly link to and mention my latest writings. First and most exciting: I have two short pieces in the new November issue of Marie Claire, with Lea Michele on the cover. It's part of a porn package with articles by Amanda de Cadenet and Cindy Gallop (founder of Make Love Not Porn), and there's a piece I tore out by Carrie Brownstein about fun things to do in Portland. See pages 236 and 237 for my interview with feminist porn director Erika Lust and my porn picks. After you read my interview, if you're in Chicago, you can hear Erika Lust speak at the Chicago International Film Festival. I don't know if my pieces will run on their website, but if they do, I'll share them.





In the online world, this week I wrote about Playboy's decision to stop publishing nude photos for Salon, with musings by a Playboy contributor, the former executive editor of Penthouse and others.

Lastly, I got personal at Lady Smut, musing about my "vanilla" sex life and my very much not vanilla, kinky book of BDSM erotica, Dirty Dates: Erotic Fantasies for Couples, which pubs on my 40th birthday, November 10th. Yes, I love dropping that tidbit because over 50 books in, I've never had one come out on my birthday!

One thing I actually like about New York: New York Sports Club

Lately, New York is not really my favorite place. Or rather, my favorite place to live (Freudian slip that I first wrote "leave?"). I am mentally fantasizing about others, though me and New York may not ever be able to break up. I'm good here for the next year or two, but then, who knows? That's why I'm squeezing in as much travel as I can, because I can appreciate New York more when I get away. Boston this weekend, Minneapolis the next.

But one thing I am loving about New York is my New York Sports Club membership. Last night I worked out next to my first home in NYC, 240 Mercer Street. I always have to laugh at how dumb and naive I was, thinking I could be a lawyer, thinking I had the stamina, the smarts, the whatever it takes to make it. I may have failed as a law student, but I hope I've made it as a New Yorker. Anyway, that gym had great machines and is open til 11 Monday-Thursday (I think, it was last night, anyway), and I had new sneakers and reading material for inspiration (interesting pieces on Amazon.com/Jeff Bezos/e-books and the chain that owns Olive Garden and Red Lobster in Fast Company, and Jill Soloway interviews Diablo Cody in BUST).

SXSW plans and "Super Glossy!" opens March 9th

I'll be going to Courtney McLean's solo show "Super Glossy!" on March 9th, before heading off to Austin for SXSW Interactive on March 10th. The one productive thing I did last week was book my plane ticket, so I'm in Austin March 10-13, my panel "Do You Blog on the First Date?" is Monday, March 12th at 5 pm. Full Interactive schedule is posting tomorrow night. Also, my friend Rachel Fershleiser of SMITH is looking for a place to crash during SXSW Interactive - if you have space on your hotel room floor or something like that, email her at rachelfershleiser at gmail.com - thank you!

Anyone wanting to meet up or join me for probably a Sunday trip to Babycakes, please get in touch. Sex blog types I know are going are Violet Blue, Cory Silverberg, and Seska Lee, and my fellow panelists, Alyssa Shelasky, Emily Listfield, and Melanie Boyer, though I'm not sure all would call themselves "sex bloggers." I guess Tucker Max too, but my one interview with him was probably more than enough to suffice, though I do want to check out his panel on turning blogs into books, especially since we need to bust our collective asses ASAP to get out cupcake blog a book deal. I'm also very excited to get to meet Rebecca Woolf of Girl's Gone Child, go to one of Neal Pollack's panels, and hang with Annalee Newitz for more than five seconds. I'm really hoping some of the Happy Corp. crowd will be out there as well. They are everywhere, including showing up at Sexytime Comedy on Friday night and being some of the most enthusiastic audience members.

I will definitely be blogging my way through my first SXSW. Anyway, do check out Cory's (he's the co-author of The Ultimate Guide to Sex and Disability and also a co-owner of Canadian sex toy store Come As You Are) response to this week's Village Voice cover story "Something In The Way He Moves." (I'll join Cory in not even llinking to it, I'm sure you can easily find it yourselves.)

Here's Courtney's show info:

Get tickets for "Super Glossy!" here

And here are the dates/times:
Friday, March 9 @ 9pm
Saturday, March 10 @ 2:30pm
Sunday, March 11 @ 8:30pm
Thursday, March 15 @ 6pm
Saturday, March 17 @ 8:30pm

Tickets are a measley $10. TELL EVERYONE!!

Cosmopolitan (the magazine and the drink – 3 or 4 of them) meets The
Stepford Wives meets The Venture Bros in this science fiction satire on
women’s magazines. “Super Glossy!” is the story of Jane Fuller, a
self-proclaimed adversary of the beauty industry who finds herself in a
downward spiral after a “chance” meeting with the extremely famous
husband of Melinda D’Alteo, uber-celebrity and Jane’s middle school
best friend. Inspired by Heather Woodbury’s living novel plays, “Super
Glossy!” is told through the context of a women’s magazine, complete
with Reader’s Letters, advice columns, and advertisements for useless
beauty products.