My story “Opera Gloves”, which was originally to appear in the canceled Alyson Books anthology Second Skin, will be appearing in the upcoming anthology Dirty Girls: Erotica for Women, edited by Rachel Kramer Bussel. It’s scheduled to be released April 2008, with parties and readings in New York and San Francisco, and the cover is extremely hot.
“Opera Gloves” is about a lesbian sexual encounter in a box at the Wiener Staatsoper, and features a pair of very long, very shiny black PVC gloves.
With yesterday’s post being more personal and emotional than most on this blog, I’ve been trying to sort out what exactly I’m doing with this parcel of internet space.
The most obvious reason to have a blog, as an author, is to simply own the space, make sure you’re the first google result, and give people something to look at if they want to see what you’ve done and what you’re up to. That’s how I’ve been using the blog this last while, keeping it for announcements and updates and not including a lot of content not directly related to my writing.
The most interesting blogs, however, have another component, whether it be provocative personal confessions or sheer enthusiasm for its niche. Those are the kind I most enjoy reading, and when I think to myself, “I would like to have a blog” it’s something more like that, something that someone might find exciting to page through.
For some reason, writing on the internet is much more intimidating to me than writing for print publications. I’m not sure why this is. Perhaps it’s because the potential response is so much more immediate and unfettered - someone can write a vicious comment or email within minutes of any posting, and things said about your writing can be dug up so easily, even years after the fact. Perhaps it’s just that I have been obsessed with the internet for far too much of my young life, and have assigned it some sort of mythic importance. Regardless of the reason, it would be a good thing to tame my anxieties surrounding having my words on the internet.
So, maddystuart.com is what it is, technical issues and sporadic posts and all. I don’t imagine there’s a lot of interest in what I thought about the COC Ring Cycle, although my reference to photoshopped pictures of muscled baritones still gets hits. We’ll see what this blog becomes.
Last night’s In The Flesh was a lot of fun. It was my first time reading any of my writing — let alone sex writing — in public, so I was nervous going in, but once I began reading and the audience started responding, I really started enjoying myself and everything went smoothly.
It’s always like that with “public performances” for me - the piano exams, the debate tournaments, the class presentations. A sense of general nervousness leading up to the event, that intensifies into a knot in the gut just before going on…and then the knot immediately releases once the performance actually starts and everything from that point on is bliss.
The other readers were great - all very different and intriguing and funny. I was delighted to meet some new people as well.
With any luck, photographs will be forthcoming. Stay tuned.
This will be the first time I read my writing publicly. The last few weeks were spent picking out an already-published story to read while simultaneously hoping I could write a new and better one. Although the new story is taking shape nicely, I’ll be reading an excerpt from my story Can I Help You? which appeared last year in Sexiest Soles: Erotic Stories about Feet and Shoes.
The other participants look very interesting and I’m looking forward to the entire evening, so be sure to come out!
WEDNESDAY, JULY 18TH 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
July heats up with a mix of today’s hottest erotic writers delivering sexual demons, erotic fairy tales, and other naughtiness. With Louisa Burton (House of Dark Delights), Myriam Gurba (Dahlia Season), Aimee Herman (If These Thighs Could Talk), Lillian Ann Slugocki (The Erotica Project), Maddy Stuart (Sexiest Soles) and host and curator Rachel Kramer Bussel (He’s on Top, She’s on Top). 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 PortnoySofia Quintero, M.J. Rose, Lauren Sanders, Danyel Smith, Grant Stoddard, Cecilia Tan, Carol Taylor, Dana Vachon, Veronica Vera, Susan Wright, and many others. The series has gotten press attention from 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.
Rachel Kramer Bussel is Senior Editor at Penthouse Variations, conducts interviews for Gothamist.com and 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 erotica anthologies, most recently He’s on Top: Erotic Stories of Male dominance and Female Submission, She’s on Top: Erotic Stories of Female Dominance and Male Submission, Caught Looking: Erotic Tales of Voyeurs and Exhibitionists and Naughty Spanking Stories from A to Z 2. Rachel has also written for AVN, Bust, Cosmo UK, Gothamist, Mediabistro, Metro, New York Post, Punk Planet, San Francisco Chronicle, Time Out New York and Velvetpark. www.rachelkramerbussel.com
Louisa Burton is a novelist and the author of the Hidden Grotto series of epic erotic fantasy, in which the beings mythologists call “sexual demons”—incubi, succubi, satyrs, and the like—have lived among us for thousands of years.. The series grew out of Louisa’s fascination with Victorian erotica, history, and mythology. House of Dark Delights, which was released in February 2007, is also being published in Germany. The second book in the series, Bound in Moonlight, comes out in December, and Louisa is currently writing the third, Whispers of the Flesh. www.louisaburton.com
Myriam Gurba is a high school teacher who lives in Long Beach, California, home of Snoop Dogg and the Queen Mary. Her first novel, Dahlia Season, was published recently by Manic D/Future Tense Books. She graduated from UC Berkeley, and her writing has appeared in anthologies like Best American Erotica (St. Martin’s Press), Bottom’s Up (Soft Skull Press), Secrets and Confidences (Seal Press), and Tough Girls (Black Books). www.dahliaseason.com
Aimee Herman has been described as Woody Allen with a vagina. No subject is too risque for her to write. She currently has two chapbooks of poetry out (tastes like cheesecake, if these thighs could talk) and recorded a spoken word CD available through cdbaby.com/AimeeHerman. She does not believe in warnings or disclaimers. All words are meant to inspire/offend/induce perspiration nausea/ and indigestion. Comments, questions, and suggestions for new sexual positions may be sent to:
writerslashpoet@aol.com
Lillian Ann Slugocki, an award winning feminist writer, has created a body of work on women and their sexuality which includes fiction, non-fiction, plays and monologues which have been produced on Broadway, Off-Broadway, Off-Off Broadway and on National Public Radio. Her work has been published in books, journals, anthologies, and on-line; including Salon.com. She has been reviewed in The New York Times, The Village Voice, Art in America, The New Yorker, The Daily News, The New York Post, and recently in London; Time Out, The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph and The London Sunday Times.
Maddy Stuart paints and programs computers in a cold Canadian city. Her writing has appeared in Sexiest Soles: Erotic Stories about Feet and Shoes and Secret Slaves: Erotic Stories of Bondage, both in the Fetish Chest series. www.maddystuart.com
The other day I gave an interview to the Toronto Star, and they tell me the piece will appear on Tuesday January 16th. I talk a little about what life is like as a “computer programmer by day, erotica writer by night” sort of person. Watch for it! I will certainly be watching with trepidation, wondering how I will come across in print.
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