Lux Sugar's Perez Hilton cupcake is delicious

Did you hearthat the fabulous Lux Sugar sells a super yummy Perez Hilton cupcake? Strawberry cake and strawberry frosting! So good. Catch them every Saturday in Williamsburg at Artists and Fleas and on their website and blog. Oh, and they ship nationally too!


image via Miami New Times

The infamous Sex and the City Magnolia Bakery scene

Just because...for more about cupcakes, visit Cupcakes Take the Cake

Let's talk about sex

Actually, as you might have surmised, I'm a little sick of talking about sex (perhaps because that's all I do lately, write and talk about sex, in lieu of, uh, having it) but I love these ladies and had a great time (and got to bring cupcakes) doing Ladies Night for the podcast Man and Wife. Check us out:

True Sex Confessions tonight (with Slut Machine!)

No, I have not forgotten - In The Flesh is tonight!

It's such a killer lineup, and it's crowd favorite, True Sex Confessions Night (so get ready for some anonymous audience participation). And not to play favorites too much because I know all my readers will be fabulous, but...Tracie Egan! aka, Slut Machine from Jezebel. You know you want to hear her read. She has been kicking ass lately with some amazing posts that totally wowed me:

"The Sexist Business of Sex Writing"

"Why I Never Write Here, And Other Things That Are Wrong With Me"

And a piece that I am hoping to publish in Best Sex Writing 2009 from Vice a while back:

"One Rape, Please (to go)"

IN THE FLESH EROTIC READING SERIES
TRUE SEX CONFESSIONS NIGHT
THURSDAY, May 15th at 8 PM
AT HAPPY ENDING LOUNGE, 302 BROOME STREET, NYC
(B/D to Grand, J/M/Z to Bowery, F to Delancey, http://www.happyendinglounge.com)
Admission: Free
Happy Ending Lounge: 212-334-9676

Our third night of True Sex Confessions promises lots of revealing, naughty, crazy sex stories. Featuring Andrea Askowitz (author of the memoir My Miserable, Lonely Lesbian Pregnancy), burlesque babe Cherry Bomb, Will Doig (Editor, Nerve.com), Tracie Egan (Editor, Jezebel.com, One D at a Time), Ilona Paris (author of You Know You Love It), and comedian Giulia Rozzi (Stripped Stories). Free candy and cupcakes will be served. Hosted and curated by Rachel Kramer Bussel (Dirty Girls, Yes, Sir, Yes, Ma’am). Free candy and cupcakes will be served.

In the Flesh is a monthly reading series hosted at the appropriately named Happy Ending Lounge, and features the city'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, 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, Philadelphia City Paper, Time Out New York, Gothamist, Nerve.com and Wonkette, and has been praised by Dr. Ruth. This is not Amanda Stern’s Happy Ending Reading Series.



Andrea Askowitz is the author of the just released book My Miserable, Lonely, Lesbian Pregnancy (Cleis Press). You gotta read it. She is also the producer of the true stories reading series, Lip Service in Miami, Florida. And she's sometimes an adjunct professor at Florida International University. And she's a mom.
http://www.andreaaskowitz.com



Rachel Kramer Bussel is Senior Editor at Penthouse Variations, conducts interviews for Mediabistro.com, and wrote the popular Lusty Lady column for The Village Voice. Her erotic stories have been published in over 100 anthologies, including Best American Erotica 2004 and 2006, and she’s edited numerous anthologies, most recently Rubber Sex,Yes, Sir, Yes, Ma’am, Dirty Girls, and Best Sex Writing 2008. Rachel has also written for AVN, Bust, Cosmopolitan, Gothamist, Mediabistro, Metro, New York Post, Punk Planet, San Francisco Chronicle, Time Out New York, Velvetpark, and Zink.
www.rachelkramerbussel.com

Conceived in the throes of a passionate one-night stand between bell hooks and RuPaul, art, activism, and a love of glitter is built into Cherry Bomb's sordid DNA. She currently holds the crown as The Bad Girl of Brooklyn Burlesque, and you can catch her raising eyebrows at the likes of The Slipper Room, Mo Pitkins, and with Wasabassco Burlesque. She also writes dirty/sexy/emo at her blog, The Queen of Cream, at www.cherrybombnyc.com.

Will Doig is the editor of Nerve.com. His work has appeared in New York magazine, The Advocate, Out, and Highlights for Children. He lives in Brooklyn.

Tracie Egan is an editor at Jezebel.com and writes the blog One D at a Time.



Dominatrix and therapist Ilona Paris holds a master's degree in counseling psychology from Cambridge College in Massachusetts ad is the author of You Know You Love It: Lessons in Sexual Mischief. She has a private practice outside Boston, where she specializes in alternative sexual lifestyles. She is on the advisory board committee for the National Leather Alliance Domestic Violence Project.
http://ilona-thekinktherapist.blogspot.com/2007/06/accepting-your-kink.html

Giulia Rozzi is a NYC based comedian, writer, and actress originally from Boston. She is the co-host/producer of the popular sex-themed monthly storytelling event Stripped Stories at Comix NY and has been seen on Mtv, Vh1.com and in sketches on Jimmy Kimmel. As a writer she's contributed to Playgirl, Glamour, Lifetimetv.com, Huffingtonpost, 236.com, and Gawker. She is also a co-producer of the East Coast incarnations of the hit national show Mortified and was an associate editor and a contributor for Mortified books.
www.giuliarozzi.com

Dear Writing, a love/hate letter

Dear Writing,

I miss you. I miss the way you used to make me feel, all warm and fuzzy. I loved to hate you, because I was always just kidding. I’d complain about you but then seek solace in your arms. You could make me feel better, always. Until, well, you couldn’t. Or I wasn’t sure of that and that not being sure has made me not even try.

Back then, whenever that was because it seems so long ago I don’t even remember, I knew you’d be there for me even in the moments, like now, when you’re the last thing I want to deal with, and the one thing I must. But lately I don’t even know what kind of relationship, if any, we have. I don’t know if I love you or if that’s just a foolishly romantic notion because I want to love you, because we’re stuck with each other.

I don’t know which kind of ex you remind me of. The one I not-so-secretly still think about, whose very name sends chills up my spine, who if we chance to meet makes my heart pound? Well, kindof, except that you I see way more frequently. Or are you like a crush, where I’m all giddy about you for a few minutes or hours or days or weeks, then you fade into oblivion once I realize you don’t really like me like that?

I miss the way we used to just flow, like you were just inside me waiting to get out. The piece I’m going to read at In The Flesh was like that, almost like the event in question happened so it could be written about. Yet I also know that the story goes on even after my story ends, and that worries me too. It’s like I want to present myself in the best possible light and if I can’t be 100% sure I’m doing that, I turn my back on you.

I spend all my days with books trying to disappear - oh, how I wish to write something someday in my life half as meaningful as Elizabeth Elmore’s lyrics. But I also know that I can only take inspiration from Elizabeth and Mary Lou, as much for the beauty of their words as their example. Or whoever, however. (I don’t think it was just random that I heard that Alanis Morrisette “Thank You” song today with that how bout unabashedly bawling my eyes out line.)

I remember and sometimes still have visions of the beauty we can create. When we just get it right, creating work that doesn’t make me cringe. I know I keep pushing you away, even when you invade my head and demand to be dealt with. I tell myself “later,” that I’ll remember those sentences you whisper so seductively. And I wonder how much beauty and money are connected. Or rather, I feel a disproportionate sense of dread the more money I’m paid for you. I’m a terrible whore/businesswoman/whatever. I know that part of it is not thinking I deserve it, but it’s also that I love and will always love what we create out of simply wanting to do it, for no reason beyond that.

I miss waking up and wanting you so badly, wanting to run to you and dance with you and work together. I miss using you to figure me out. I miss those moments when everything just clicks. Instead, I sleep. Or email. Or blog. Oh, evil evil blogging.

I really don’t think of myself as an exhibitionist. Some may differ on this, but with you even more than with sex, it’s become a bit of an issue. With so many people watching us, how can I pretend they don’t exist? How can I go where I need to go with you and keep what we have pure and solid when it’s not just about us? Don't worry; those are just rhetorical questions. I don't expect a response because that part I have to find a way to handle. It's ironic, kinda, because don't we want an audience? Isn't that the whole point? And yet the more of one I have, the more nervous I get, weighing every word until none will do.

Are we codependent? Because I’ve been thinking a lot about codependency lately, what it means, what it’s worth, whether there’s good kinds of codependency and bad kinds. It’s a tricky topic, like so many, and I get further bogged down. So if we are codependent, is that really so bad? I hope that there’s a reason I can’t quite get rid of you, despite my best efforts.

Last week I said I was having a Barbie moment while laboring over my first Radar piece and just said “Writing is hard.” And it is. And I wonder if I’d like you any better if you were easy? Because you have been, before, and maybe that’s why I left the way-too-hard world of the law for you, even if I didn’t know it at the time. I felt so stupid and out of place there, because I was, or at least, I couldn’t make myself go there. I was scared to fail, and I’m scared like that all over again. I keep wishing I had some fall-back plan, some other career or calling, but I don’t think I do. It’s you and me.

I was at a lunch and this girl said that she used to read my column in college and it gave her a sense of New Yorkness (my word, not hers). That was maybe just the ego boost I needed, but it also made me feel old. I struggle so hard not to feel like a failure as a sex writer. Will I always be just some dumb girl who once wrote a column for The Village Voice or is that just the voice in my head talking? I sometimes think everything would be okay if I could just score another column, then sometimes wish I could evict the word sex from my vocabulary forever.

Because as much as I hate the hate mail like the one I got yesterday, as much as I know in my heart they are wrong, it gets to me. I hate the hiding, the feeling of never being quite normal. I just want to hide away somewhere and make babies, but I know that wouldn’t be the end. It couldn’t be. I don’t really want to get rid of you, I know that. Maybe I’m scared we’ll run amok and just go on and on forever, that I’ll never be able to get away from you. There are worse things, though.

Every book I read lately has death all over it. Moms who’ve committed suicide, grandparents dying, bad, sad stuff. Yet I’ve fallen in love with these books, with the way each author has taken their tragedy and made something of it. Not made something good necessarily, but something. I love those books and in an odd way, they make me miss you all the more, which sounds grandiose to me, because I’m no Trey Ellis or Rachel Shukert, but the toughest lesson about all of this is that I will never be anyone else other than me. And that sucks sometimes; I don’t want to be that person much of the time, yet I also know I have to figure out what it is about myself I don’t like and try to change that, or change my environment, and make better choices going forward. And I swear, I can’t do that without you.

I also saw an editor who pushed me to create a story that is not my best, but made it into an anthology, a very pretty waterproof one that I got paid very well for. I know I need people to kick my ass because I clearly can’t do it myself. I don’t want to be some temperamental prima donna, but at the same time, it literally feels like I cannot find my way back to you, like maybe we’re just done for good, we’re breaking up and I didn’t even get a warning or a chance to say goodbye. But I don’t think so.

So anyway, I miss you. Writing this, like so many other things I do and think about lately, is making me cry. The truth is, I miss you, but I’m scared. I’m scared to try and I’m scared to face the things that just don’t seem to come no matter how much I work on them. I cheat on you with other kinds of media which make me giddy in a different way.

But I don’t just miss you. I need you. I have no other "marketable skill" but even if I did, I'd still need you. And I want you to want me too. I don't just want to shove myself at you over and over until you give in. That's no fun. I want you to remember, too, the good times and the bad, and help me. I hope, maybe, in some small way, you need me too. A long time ago, after a particularly treacherous day, I was told that you and I are dating. If that’s the case, it’s been a very long on and off relationship. I don’t expect us to always get along swimmingly, really. I worry, though, that I’ve pushed you aside for so long that you’re not going to return to me, like that sappy “if you love something set it free” saying. I’m not setting you free though, not like this. I’m hiding you and not letting you make a sound, like a kidnapping, except I love you even when I don’t want to. I feel weak for even admitting this, but I’m kindof at the end of my rope. I need you to come back, keep me company, just sit with me silently even if you can’t be fully present.

love,

Rachel

Pre-order my grandfather's memoir

Please pre-order my grandfather Norman Bussel's memoir, My Private War: Liberated Body, Captive Mind: A WWII POW's Story. (Yes, I am aware that there are two semicolons in the title; personally, I hope that gets resolved because I think it looks a bit strange, but regardless, I'm so excited to read this book I've read in chapters via email in hardcover, and am on a personal campaign to get my grandfather blogging about veterans' issues, which are only going to get more timely the closer we get to November's presidential election.) It comes out from Pegasus Books in November. And you probably know this, but Amazon now offers 5% off across the board for any pre-ordered books (that's in addition to the usual discount they give). I'm going to be the guest blogger on MySpace Books for the week of May 19th and will be talking more about coming from a writing family (my uncle Bob Bussel is also a published author and my cousin Fred Abrahams has written extensively about human rights issues).



You can read an excerpt at Memoirville. Here's the start of the excerpt:

On April 29, 1944, my B-17 Bomber crew flew a fatal mission from Rattlesden, England to Berlin. Four members of our crew were killed that day. Six of us survived and became prisoners of war for a year.

I promised myself that if I were lucky enough to return home, I would write a detailed account of this calamitous event so that the families of those who were killed would know exactly what happened to their loved ones on that fateful day.

More than 60 years have now passed, but I have been unable to set forth a single word about that mission, although the minutiae are still as vivid in my mind as ever.

Keep reading

Minneapolis so far

More later because I'm off to be interviewed for the Sex is Fun podcast.



My hotel is beyond amazing, which is good because while I've been having a good time here, yesterday was pretty rough emotionally and I had a little freakout (aka huge crying bout) and a huge cozy soft bed is good for that. I've been to Bryant Lake Bowl, Hell's Kitchen, a totally amazing restaurant that makes its own peanut butter, sampled cupcakes from two local bakeries, met a bunch of local bloggers, picked up many copies of Vita.mn with my Q&A with Alexis McKinnis, who also writes a sex column there, (this one's about The Shocker, which has come up shockingly often this trip) did a really fun workshop at Smitten Kitten, which is such a fabulous sex toy store I can't even tell you (tonight I plan to purchase one of the vibrators I was ogling yesterday), then had yummy sushi with Courtney and Emily where we discussed anal sex and the funand trails being a mom (separately) before hanging out at our hotel and making new, gay friends. In a nutshell. I guess I did a lot in less than two days, huh?


Me with Miel y Leche baker Sheela, who makes some totally kickass cupcakes

Photo by Aaron Landry via Flickr.

Minneapolis, here I come

I'm going to Minneapolis this weekend to see friends, eat cupcakes, and do 2 events at Smitten Kitten. If you know anyone there or you yourself live there, please pass this on/come say hello. As if Smitten Kitten weren't beyond awesome already (they are also mentioned in Tristan Taormino's "Dangerous Dildos" columns which I reprinted in Best Sex Writing 2008), they've ordered 2 dozen cupcakes from Cupcake for tomorrow's workshop! Erotica tips and cupcakes - where else are you gonna get that?

I also recommend checking out my awesome friend Courtney McLean in Rock Star Storytellers tonight. I'll be there. I'm also looking forward to meeting sex columnist Alexis McKinnis and blogger/fellow cupcake enthusiast Aaron Landry.

Also, the local press has been kind enough to do two interviews with me (these are the online versions, both print versions are also running stories):

Vita.mn interview (by the aforementioned Alexis McKinnis)

And I'm staying at this awesome sounding (and NYT-endorsed) hotel The Chambers (Allison will be thrilled it has a 24 hour gym - I vow to use it at least once!). Here's a photo of its balcony by Flickr user Chuckumentary: (also a blogger, because who isn't?)



City Pages by Jeff Shaw (in which I give a shoutout to my memoirist, and Lusty Lady reader, grandfather)



May 3, 7 pm - 8:30 pm

Erotica 101 Workshop
Professional erotica author and editor Rachel Kramer Bussel will take you through the ins and outs of modern erotic writing, from getting started, finding your voice, writing against type, erotic love and lust letters, to submitting your work keeping up with the thriving erotica market. You'll learn how to incorporate everyday scenarios as well as outlandish fantasies into your writing, and make them fit for particular magazines and anthologies. Whether you're writing to that special someone, penning longtime fantasies, or want to earn cash for your dirty words, this workshop, taught by the editor of over a dozen erotic anthologies, is for you. Paper and writing implements will be provided.
Cost: $15, limited sliding scale tickets available upon request
Location: Smitten Kitten, 3010 Lyndale Avenue South, Minneapolis, MN 55408
RSVP: Pre-registration required as space is limited. Call (612)721-6088

May 4, 6 pm - 7:30 pm

Best Sex Writing 2008 and BDSM Erotica Reading
Hear acclaimed erotic author, editor, and sex journalist Rachel Kramer Bussel (Best Sex Writing 2008, Yes, Sir, Yes, Ma'am) read from her latest sexy story collections, including the nonfiction Best Sex Writing 2008 and BDSM-themed Yes, Sir and Yes, Ma'am. Q&A period to follow.
Cost: Free
Location: Smitten Kitten, 3010 Lyndale Avenue South, Minneapolis, MN 55408
No RSVP required