Kimberlee Auerbach on integrity

I liked this a lot. Catch Kimberlee's weekly Thursday vlogs at Crucial Minutiae.

Chocolate & Vicodin - the book deal

So happy for Jennette and can't wait to read this book. Also, she quit her job and launched her web design company Make My Blog Pretty. Check it out.

From today's Publishers Marketplace:

NON-FICTION: HEALTH
Author of Half-Assed: A Weight-Loss Memoir, Jennette Fulda's CHOCOLATE & VICODIN: AND OTHER FAILED CURES FOR THE HEADACHE THAT WOULDN'T GO AWAY, in which the author humorously explores the twisted maze of eastern and western medicine as she visits doctors, acupuncturists, and chiropractors, and ingests pills, pot, and obscene amounts of ice cream, all in search of the elusive cure for her chronic pain, to Jennifer Heddle at Pocket, by Holly Bemiss at the Susan Rabiner Literary Agency (world).

Octopus at La Barra Cevicheria

I'm probably not the most fun dining companion, unless you're also a food blogger, because I'm constantly all "Wait, I need to take a picture." Or even more annoying, "Wait, I need you to take a picture." Nevertheless, my dinner date patiently took this photo at La Barra Cevicheria the other night, before we dug into the delicious octopus. Also awesome: their spicy guacamole. We ordered the $20/person special and it was all very good, but way too much food. I recommend some guac, maybe the octopus and maybe a taco. Here's their dinner menu. Perfect place to dine after In The Flesh Reading Series (now with its very own URL), as it's just down Broome Street about 3 blocks.

Glasses glasses glasses

I finally got my new green glasses from Facial Index today! I'm waiting to get a really good shot in them, but gotta say, I'm happy with them, very much so.

Here are some I didn't choose, but that store makes me want to collect glasses:

Balloon dildos and other kinky balloon art from Come As You Are

I have more to post about Toronto's totally awesome sex toy store (and worker-owned cooperative) Come As You Are, where I'm planning to do an event probably in September, and they've been incredibly supportive of my book Do Not Disturb: Hotel Sex Stories. And Come As You Are is @caya_coop on Twitter.


photos reposted with permission, via Come As You Are Co-operative on Flickr (specifically, these are from their Toronto Arts & Crafts Fair 2007 set)


Balloon bra from Exotic Knitwear


A balloon skirt!!!

One of their worker/owners is the fabulous Cory Silverberg, pictured below, who also writes About's Sexuality blog.


photo by Adam Smith

True Sex Confession: My first strip club lap dance

"Lap Dance Lust," which I read in the video below from In The Flesh, is also one of the very first erotica stories I ever wrote, set way back in 2001, written, I think, in 2002. If you like it, do make sure you come out to True Sex Confessions Night on July 16th at In The Flesh Reading Series. It's FREE and I'll be reading a snippet of a hot story I wrote for my 2010 book Please, Sir about choking. All true! Plus you can even anonymous confess your own sex stories. Do join us!

2010 Books I Want to Read

I already have an official list on Amazon to help me keep track, though so far there are only five items (I definitely want to read Kim Brittingham's Read My Hips, but it's not there yet!).

In random order, books I'm looking forward to in 2010:

The Art of Eating In: How I Learned to Stop Spending and Love the Stove by Cathy Erway

I Don't Care About Your Band: Lessons Learned from Romantic Disappointments by Julie Klausner

I really like Julie's cover:



From the Dutton catalog copy:

“A Friend with Benefits is Like a unicorn that Craps Cupcakes. Fun to imagine, but not real.”

(Dutton is also publishing Lori Gottlieb's Marry Him: The Case for Settling for Mr. Good Enough on February 4th - just in time for Valentine's Day! - please note sarcasm there)

For You, For You I Am Trilling These Songs by Kathleen Rooney

And the Heart Says...Whatever by Emily Gould

Post Punk Cupcakes: 100 Eye-Popping, Mouth-Watering Recipes that Reinvent the Cupcake by Michelle Garcia

If you have recommendations (present or future), I'm all ears. I'm such a huge book nerd it's not even funny.

I want your sex...essays

I need a few perfectly fabulous, memorable, excellent essays about sex for Best Sex Writing 2010. They can be unpublished (actually, that's preferred) and this isn't a call for submissions because I can't say exactly what I want, just I'll know it when I see it. Would love something from a guy or three about their sexuality/fetishes/fantasies (the large, large majority of first-person pieces I get are from women), would love to see someone explore Natalie Dylan selling her virginity, the Obamas and race and sexuality, elder sexuality (perhaps tying in 74-year-old Japanese porn star Shigeo Tokuda), etc. But mostly I want something I never could conjure up on my own. I want something that tells me something, some feeling, some experience about sex that I've never heard before. That may be vague, but so be it. I want something that'll blow people away.



I'm actually pretty open; I have a piece by a married woman about why she plans to have an affair and what the difference is between married sex and non-married, I have Diana Joseph's chapter "The Girl Who Only Sometimes Said No" from I'm Sorry You Feel That Way about talking to her teenage son about sex/reflecting on being a "slut." I have an article on sex laws and one on vaginaplasty and a rumination on pubic hair.

So! I need these pieces ASAP, by July 20th at the latest, as I'm already late with the book, making me, oh, just an eensy bit stressed.

Send completed, double spaced Word documents to bestsexwriting2010 at gmail.com WITH a bio of 50 words or less. If you have a query, try me at that address. My publisher, Cleis Press, has final approval of my manuscript, and I thank them for sending me back to the drawing board on this one because we're determined to make it the best book it can be. I'll be launching bestsexwriting.com hopefully next month too with some examples, but see Best Sex Writing 2008 and Best Sex Writing 2009 to find out the kinds of pieces I look for.

And I haven't responded to people who submitted the first time around because, as I stated above, I'm back to the drawing board, but I will be responding soon.

Please, Sir and Please, Ma'am ponderings

I'm wrapping up my own stories for Please, Sir and Please, Ma'am and reading the last few stories, before I hopefully wrap them up next week. I'm eager to get these anthologies wrapped up fast so I can move on, and am trying to figure out what my next steps would be.

But I did want to again share some thoughts on the nature of BDSM erotic anthologies and anthologies in general. I think it's the nature of themed anthologies that there will be overlap, but what authors submitting to my books need to understand (I obviously can't speak for anyone else) is that it's not just about picking the 20 best stories, but the 20 best stories that fit well together. This means that I'm going to have to reject some excellent stories, because they read pretty much like the next excellent story. Again, this is not about any specific story, but about what I've read so far as a whole.

Please, Sir and Please, Ma'am were always working, tentative titles for me, which I realize in retrospect I should've made clearer in the call, or even just said "Untitled BDSM anthology from sub's POV." Because that is what I was looking for, not the honorifics "Sir" and "Ma'am" plastered all over my books, as if there to satisfy some quota. That gets old very, very fast. Because the fact is, not all tops or masters or dommes or whatever you want to call it are going to be "sir" or "ma'am." That terminology isn't always right. Sometimes it's not so formalized, or there are other words, or actions, or ways of showing the submission/dominance.

I was looking for those other ways, for the feelings, the sensation of submission to the be the through line in these books, not the language. In some cases, it's there and it works. Some have perfected it, and the Sirs and Ma'ams come alive. I can envision them as people, individuals. But in many, it detracts, it makes them seem just like all the others, especially when I'm facing a giant pile of stories to read, and especially won't make sense with a different title. I'm thrilled with some of the stories, especially a few new-to-me authors, who gave me wholly original pieces that took me somewhere I never would've expected to go with this type of book, who took the theme and ran with it. As soon as I can, I'll share my introductions with you (probably by October).

I found this interview with a domme at the blog Yes, I'm a submissive man! that I liked a lot because it gets the point across that it's not a one size fits all fetish.

What's the greatest attribute a submissive man can offer?
The ability to communicate clearly and the willingness to learn. Ok, that's two, but they are equally important. I need to know what you are getting out of this experience and what is and is not working so that I can guide it accordingly. If you're allergic to dish soap I need to know that, if you love everything about service but can't get into that head space if I use your name instead of calling you "slave" I need to know that. Likewise I need you to remember the instructions I give and get a sense for how I like things done and then do them....

What turns you off about submissive men?
I like submissive men. They are the complement to my own sexuality after all. However, I am not a robot, nor was I sent down by central casting. There are many different parts to my life and being dominant or even just kinky is only one of them. I get turned off by submissive men who only see me as a step towards their sexual gratification. I'm a human being after all; don't start conversations with "may I kiss your feet mistress" until you know my name.

It's not about some stereotypical idea of what a Master or Domme is, but about individuals. Especially for the type of anthologies I'm editing, I need stories that will be varied and complex, and for me personally, as a reader and editor, I was longing for stories that got into the psychology as much as, if not more than, the kinky acts. I think/hope I have done what I set out to do, but we shall see once I hear back from my publisher in the fall. In the meantime, I have some hints about how to go about asking for what I want in my future calls for submission (I hope to do more kink-themed books in the future).

And I hope it's clear that I realize this is all easier said than done, which is why I'm scrambling to finish my stories for these books!

Black Lace and Nexus to suspend 2010 publication

Sad news in eroticaland; I was just wrapping up some stories to submit to Black Lace, after having sold my first 3 to them for Sexy Little Numbers (out in August) and The Affair (out in November). Hopefully they'll be back in 2011!

From Thebookseller.com:

Virgin Books will not publish any new titles in its Black Lace and Nexus erotica lists next year, although the publisher has said the imprints will remain "active".

John Sadler, m.d. of Virgin Books, said: "As part of our strategic planning for 2010 we will be prioritising our rapidly growing non-fiction list and as such have decided not to add to our erotica list for that year." As a result of the development the publisher has entered into a period of consultation with one member of staff, said a Random House spokesperson.

Black Lace was founded in 1993, and celebrated its 15th anniversary in 2008. It describes itself as the leading imprint of erotic fiction for women. Nexus Books is the UK's longest-running imprint of erotic fiction.

Virgin blackberry mojito courtesy of Heidi

Virgin blackberry mojito courtesy of Heidi
Originally uploaded by rachelkramerbussel.com

Katherine Center's beautiful words written on the body project

Novelist Katharine Center created this art project, and has instructions/suggestions on how you can recreate it:





And I highly recommend her novel Everyone is Beautiful (and her first one, The Bright Side of Disaster):



Here's one suggestion from her, a quote from Everyone is Beautiful:

And here, after all that, is what I have come to believe about beauty: Laughter is beautiful. Kindness is beautiful. Cellulite is beautiful. Softness and plumpness and roundness are beautiful. It’s more important to be interesting, to be vivid, and to be adventurous than to sit pretty for pictures. The soft tummy of a woman is a miracle of nature. Beauty comes from tenderness. Beauty comes from variety, from specificity, from the fact that no person in the world looks exactly like anyone else. Beauty comes from the tragedy that each person’s life is destined to be lost to time. I believe women are too hard on themselves. I believe that when you love someone, she becomes beautiful to you. I believe the eyes see everything through the heart, that nothing in the world feels as good as resting them on someone you love. I have trained my eyes to look for beauty, and I’ve gotten very good at finding it. You can argue and tell me it’s not true, but I really don’t care what anyone says. I have come at last to believe in the title of the book: Everyone Is Beautiful.

There's also a video:

Crowdsourcing my erotica brainstorming

I posed this question on Twitter yesterday, as I am currently trying to think about what to work on after the current crop of erotica books I'm editing are turned in.

Here are some of the responses I got. If you buy/read erotica books, I'd love to hear what you think too (rachelkramerbussel at gmail.com):

SoHo Michael Jackson window and other browsing

So I bit the bullet and forked over for green glasses at Facial Index. I was trying to explain exactly what color green they are last night, and failed, so you'll just have to wait and see. To me, they make me look "brainy," which I suppose is what I was going for. I also heard that you can get glasses at Costco (you have to join, but it's still worth it financially), so next year, I may do that if I need another pair.

I hope to have them Monday. As soon as I do, I know I will feel so much better about myself, like the difference between wearing lipstick or not. Wearing my old black glasses feels wrong, ugly, and like I am just not myself, which makes it hard to socialize, work, etc. I'm not saying I can't socialize or work, I just feel off.

Anyway, I saw some interesting art as I was walking around, but I forgot the name of the gallery where the second and third images is from, will have to check when I go pick up my glasses.

Something to look forward to: September 17th

This has been a horrible week, but I do have a kickass September 17th In The Flesh to look forward to (other things too, but at the moment, I'm super excited about this). Proper release when I can do it, but for now, books you should check out, whose authors will be reading. Kerry Cohen is coming in from Portland and Diana Joseph is coming in from Minnesota! I'm beyond honored especially to have those two, and I'm hoping I can go read in Minnesota next year. If you haven't read Diana Joseph's memoir I'm Sorry You Feel That Way, please stop reading my dumb blog immediately and go check it out. It's one of those books I wish I could give to everyone I know. At the very least, check out her blog.

Sizes courtesy of Flickr/laziness, sorry, will make it pretty for the proper release.

I want to make love to this book cover

Kathleen Warnock told me last week that my story "Swollen" didn't make it into Best Lesbian Erotica 2010. It was the best possible kind of rejection - personal, a bit regretful, and she told me to submit it next year. I think that makes me 5 for 10 for the years I've been submitting to the series, basically every year since "Monica and Me" was in Best Lesbian Erotica 2001.

I'm disappointed, partly because I would've pulled off a Best Of hat trick, but mostly because this cover is one of the best, imo, I've seen Cleis do. SO hot. Plus a band (BETTY) is the guest guest judge, how cool is that?

Since I have to send out my own rejection letters soon, it makes it a little easier. There's always next year, which is the great thing about the annual series.

True Sex Confessions July 16th (with audience participation!)

This has been one of the most nightmarish In The Fleshes to book, which is sad cause I love True Sex Confessions Night, but seriously, I sometimes forget all the work that goes into running a reading series. But far the course in a week like this. August and September are booked with amazing lineups, and October is Comedy Sex Night and November is Spanking Night. And after that will be Sex and Food Night, and I plan to have snacks, like mini hot dogs and tater tots if I can figure out how to do it. Cause, well, those are sexy to me.

This is the rare chance for audience participation, and is also one of the highlights of True Sex Confessions Night. Please come, bring friends, pass this on. FREE FREE FREE!



IN THE FLESH EROTIC READING SERIES
TRUE SEX CONFESSIONS NIGHT
July 16th at 8 PM (doors at 7; we recommend arriving by 7:30 for a seat)
AT HAPPY ENDING LOUNGE, 302 BROOME STREET, NYC
(B/D to Grand, J/M/Z to Bowery, F to Delancey or F/V to 2nd Avenue, http://www.happyendinglounge.com)
Between Forsyth & Eldridge. Look for the hot pink awning that says "XIE HE Health Club."
Admission: Free
Happy Ending Lounge: 212-334-9676
http://inthefleshreadingseries.blogspot.com

In The Flesh is bringing back our most popular segment, True Sex Confessions Night! Featuring memoirist Mike Edison (I Have Fun Everywhere I Go), Melissa Gira Grant (Sexerati.com), Megan Carpentier (Jezebel.com), Blaise K (How I Learned Reading Series), Wickham Boyle (Pleasures, The Erotic Edge) and Maria Diaz (contributor, The Lust Chronicles). Hosted and curated by Rachel Kramer Bussel (Best Sex Writing 2009, The Mile High Club, Spanked). Free candy, cookies, chips and 100 mini cupcakes by Baked by Melissa will be served. Audience members will have the opportunity to anonymously share their true sex confessions throughout the night (via index cards that will be read aloud between readers). Free copies of the word game SexySlang will be given away.

In the Flesh is a monthly reading series hosted at the appropriately named Happy Ending Lounge, and features the country's best erotic writers sharing stories to get you hot and bothered, hosted and curated by acclaimed erotic writer and editor Rachel Kramer Bussel. From erotic poetry to down and dirty smut, these authors get naked on the page and will make you lust after them and their words. Since its debut in October 2005, In the Flesh has featured such authors as Laura Antoniou, Mo Beasley, Susie Bright, Lily Burana, Jessica Cutler, Stephen Elliott, Valerie Frankel, Polly Frost, Gael Greene, Andy Horwitz, Debra Hyde, Maxim Jakubowski, Emily Scarlet Kramer of CAKE, Josh Kilmer-Purcell, Edith Layton, Logan Levkoff, Suzanne Portnoy, Sofia Quintero, M.J. Rose, Lauren Sanders, Danyel Smith, Grant Stoddard, Cecilia Tan, Carol Taylor, Dana Vachon, Veronica Vera, Susan Wright, Zane and many others. The series has gotten press attention from the New York Times’s UrbanEye, Escape (Hong Kong), Flavorpill, The L Magazine, New York Magazine, New York Observer, Philadelphia City Paper, Time Out New York, Flavorwire, Gothamist, Jezebel.com, Nerve.com and Wonkette, and has been praised by Dr. Ruth.

Wickham Boyle, known as Wicki, wears many hats: writer, journalist, consultant and theater producer. As well as writing about sex and all things erotic, Boyle has written numerous articles on finance, parenting and travel for The New York Times, Savoy, National Geographic, Budget Travel, Real Simple, Gotham, Grace and the Downtown Express. She was one of the founders of Code Magazine, and editor-in-chief of Thrive, a magazine launched in late 2006 dedicated to the baby boom generation. Her essays can be heard on the AARP radio stations during their Prime Time show. Her erotic stories can be found in numerous collections published by Dutton, including the groundbreaking Pleasures and The Erotic Edge.



Rachel Kramer Bussel is an author, editor, blogger and reading series host. She is Senior Editor at Penthouse Variations and a former sex columnist for The Village Voice. She’s edited numerous anthologies, two of which (Up All Night and Glamour Girls) have been Lambda Literary Award finalists, most recently The Mile High Club: Plane Sex Stories, Do Not Disturb: Hotel Sex Stories, Best Sex Writing 2009, Tasting Him, Tasting Her, and Spanked. Her writing been published in publications such as Clean Sheets, Cosmopolitan, The Daily Beast, Fresh Yarn, Huffington Post, Mediabistro, Newsday, New York Post, San Francisco Chronicle, Tango, The Village Voice, and Time Out New York, and in over 100 anthologies, including Best American Erotica 2004 and 2006. She has hosted In The Flesh since October 2005.
www.rachelkramerbussel.com


photo by Hilary McHone

Megan Carpentier is a freelancer writer whose work has appeared on Jezebel.com, Wonkette, The Daily Beast, Glamour's blog Glamocracy, Foreign Policy's Madame Secretary blog, Ms., the Washington Post and Radar. Most of that was not about sex. Before she was an underemployed writer, she was an over-educated, mostly-inebriated lobbyist with a bad attitude and a foul mouth.
chaoticmegan.blogspot.com



Maria Diaz is a freelance pop culture and geekery writer based out of New Jersey and once in a while, New York City. She writes the blog BravoFan.com for b5media and is a contributer to British women's blog BitchBuzz. "Room 3025" from The Lust Chronicles was her first published story ever. She is currently working on a fiction zine of dark, sexy stories called Musical Beds. Her personal blog is at MariaDiaz.org.


photo by Amber Wolf

Mike Edison is the former publisher of High Times, a Hustler and Penthouse scribe, the former editor-in-chief of Screw magazine, and author of the memoir I Have Fun Everywhere I Go, plus 28 pornographic novel. In addition, he is known for his eclectic music career, and has collaborated frequently with noted wildmen Jon Spencer and GG Allin. He currently fronts his long-running gospel-blues-punk experiment the Edison Rocket Train, as well as his larger group, the Rocket Train Delta Science Arkestra. He lives and works in New York City.
www.mikeedison.com



Melissa Gira (“jee-rha”) Grant writes about sex & the internet at her award-winning blog, Sexerati. She is a contributor to Black Book and Gawker, and a columnist for $pread magazine. Her essays and reporting appear in Dirty Girls, Best Sex Writing 2008, Valleywag, RH Reality Check, and in Make: magazine & The Frisky. She lives in Brooklyn.
www.melissagira.com



Blaise Allysen Kearsley (also known as Blaise K because she is lazy) is the creator, curator and host of the How I Learned Reading Series at Happy Ending. She is also a writer, photographer and veteran blogger (who doesn't really blog anymore, actually). She has appeared at PS 122, Lolita, Bowery Poetry Club, Freddy's, Lucky 13 and Collective Unconscious. Between her writing and photography she has been featured in Nerve, Vice, Gawker, Gothamist, The Morning News, The Black Table, Jetpac magazine and Playbill, among others, as well as in the books Mortified and Cringe. She believes 2009 might be the year she finally finishes writing her novel, but she also has a lot of YouTube videos to catch up on. You can still stalk her former blog persona at www.bazima.com. (Bazima rhymes with vagina.)

Megan Hart book cover hotness: Switch

OMG, Megan Hart's Harlequin Spice novels have seriously the hottest covers. I'm drooling over this one:



Switch will be out in January 2010, here's what's on her site:

Switch
• Paperback: ? pages
• Publisher: Harlequin Spice, January 2010
• Language: English
• ISBN-13: 978-0-373-60539-2

Don't think.
Don't question.
Just do.

The anonymous note wasn't for me. Don't get me wrong, I'm not in the habit of reading other people's mail, but it was just a piece of paper with a few lines scrawled on it, clearly meant for the apartment upstairs. It looked so innocent, but decidedly-- deliciously--it was not.

Before replacing the note--and the ones that followed --in its rightful slot, I devoured its contents: suggestions, instructions, summonses, commands. Each was more daring, more intricate and more arousing than the last... and I followed them all to the letter.

Before the notes, if a man had told me what to do, I'd have told him where to go. But submission is an art, and there's something oddly freeing about doing someone's bidding...especially when it feels so very, very good.

But I find that the more I surrender, the more powerful I feel--so it's time to switch up roles.

We play by my rules now.

The key phrase being "EZ pass to my pussy"

Or, yes, I hooked up with a stranger at the Hotlanta airport last year. And New York Press published my essay in their "Flavor of the Week" column. It's my first time being published there. I had sent it to Marie Claire because they have an excellent sex and love section with both reported and first-person pieces, but I never heard back. Not giving up; someday I'd love to have a piece published there. Big thanks to Jerry Portwood for including this and for the cool artwork.

Just as I found a spot to settle in, a very cute guy sat down across from me. “You were going to New York, too?” he asked in a sexy accent. He was from Costa Rica, making his virgin visit to The Big Apple, and in the same boat as I was. He planned to sightsee, and pick up gifts for his 6-year-old son. Even more than being drop-dead gorgeous, telling me you have kids is a way to make me instantly interested. It’s like the EZ Pass to my pussy, because it says all at once that you’re caring, protective, tender and loving—at least it does in my head. Whereas he’d only been a cute guy before, now he was a Cute Guy With a Kid. Not that I was planning to fool around with him, but I certainly trusted him more than I had when he sat down. We got snacks and kept on talking, and soon we wound up huddled in a far corner of the airport under a TV with CNN on an endless loop.



Been a long day, have to get some erotica out the door, promote In The Flesh which is now only two short weeks away (well, from tomorrow) and trying to wrap up Please, Sir. Got from WNYC asking me to go on tomorrow to talk about Mark Sanford, then calling back a few hours later saying they don't need me. Glad I didn't do too much research, but need to get my focus back. Though what I really really need is a long weekend on a quiet beach, but that'll have to wait a few months.

In other words, my nails are getting crazy bitten, I need to settle on new glasses this weekend, my royalty check is sadly smaller than the last one (despite more books being out, boo) and because I didn't do it last weekend, I fully intend to get myself to Greenhouse Holistic this weekend for a massage. Thank goodness it's a 3 day weekend.

I'm leaving it til the last minute as to whether I'm going to the RWA Conference. I've never been and frankly am a bit intimidated, plus it's rather pricey, but I'm leaning towards it. Anyway, no more blogging cause I can barely cross one tiny item off my to do list, but am gonna make an effort. Am also crazy sore from my first personal training session at my new gym, New York Sports Club. My trainer totally kicked my ass yesterday, and I'm seeing her again Tuesday. Was a reminder just how out of shape I am, and my legs are feeling it now.