Would someone please give Rachel Kramer Bussel her own imprint already? I was thinking it could be called "The Orgasm Factory" (if that's not taken) or "Frost My" and there would be a small picture of a cupcake. Just give her an imprint and pay her a regular wage to publish erotica anthologies, please someone do this. (Random House, I'm looking at you.) I think I've reviewed eleven thousand of her books and all have been winners, whereas I've reviewed ten erotica anthologies by other editors and all have left me cold.
Bussel just put out a pair of oral sex anthologies, one for women (Tasting Her), one for men (Tasting Him -- yes, this will be next week's Sticky Pages review) and so far, so delicious.
I'm pretty sure Bussel read my mind as she was editing Tasting Her because as I was reading the story "The Goth Chick" by Lisette Ashton, I was thinking, why do all of these anthologies have one seriously hardcore SM story that never fails to make me uncomfortable? "The Goth Chick" is set at a swinger's weekend and the eponymous chick has her vagina laced closed. As much as I wanted to enjoy the great oral scene between the chick and the female narrator, I just kept hearing a voice, which sounded an awful lot like my mother's, saying, "that is very unhealthy and unsanitary."
After I finished "The Goth Chick" and tried to remember it's just fiction, it's just fiction, I began the story "The Dominance of the Tongue" by Teresa Noelle Roberts. It's about a couple dabbling in SM. They go to a pool party and the wife has to submit to the husband all day. He tells her to get out of the pool and they go inside the house to find a room in which to get it on.
Read on at Bookslut for an excerpt from Teresa Noelle Roberts' story "The Dominance of the Tongue."
I sat on my first scooter on Sunday, while being interviewed by the lovely and corseted Jincey Lumpkin of the new queer girl social networking site DigiRomp (go check it out - worth logging in for Jincey's vlogs and sexy KFC photos). Anyway, I didn't ride the scooter, but it was purple and gorgeous and I got to sit on it and talk about Spanked, which you can watch September 3rd at DigiRomp as part of the Spanked virtual book tour! Working on lots and lots of other stuff too.
I think it's just cause I'm up way too late, as usual, that I wrote that subject line. Anyway, please come out tonight and tell your friends - we have a very special In The Flesh, with a showing of the Spanked book trailer, readers from the book, and other special guests. And snacks! And giveaways! And my new sparkly silver dress. Anything could happen...okay, that may be a bit of an exaggeration but I promise it'll be fun. And sexy. And apologies for lack of updates - more soon, I promise.
Summer heats up as In The Flesh celebrates the release of host Rachel Kramer Bussel's latest anthology Spanked: Red-Cheeked Erotica, with readings from contributors M. David Hornbuckle,Andy Horwitz, and Madlyn March. Also featured are novelist Jessica Anya Blau (The Summer of Naked Swim Parties), comedian and playwright Julie Klausner (Wasp Cove), erotic poet Monica Day (host of A Taste of Sex) and filmmaker Tony Comstock. Copies of Spanked will be available for sale and the book trailer will be shown. Hosted and curated by Rachel Kramer Bussel (Spanked, Rubber Sex, Dirty Girls). Free candy and cupcakes will be served.
Jessica Anya Blau's debut novel, The Summer of Naked Swim Parties, was recommended summer reading in The New York Post, New York Magazine, and The Today Show. She has published over twenty-five short stories and optioned a screenplay. Currently, she is teaching at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore where she graduated from The Writing Seminars. www.jessicaanyablau.com/
Rachel Kramer Bussel's most recent edited anthologies include Spanked: Red-Cheeked Erotica, Rubber Sex, Dirty Girls, Yes, Sir, Yes, Ma'am and Best Sex Writing 2008. She is Senior Editor at Penthouse Variations and wrote the popular Lusty Lady column for The Village Voice. Rachel has also written for AVN, Bust, Cosmopolitan, Gothamist, Mediabistro, Metro, New York Post, Punk Planet, San Francisco Chronicle, Time Out New York and Velvetpark. She also co-edits the cupcake blog Cupcakes Take the Cake. www.rachelkramerbussel.com
Tony Comstock came to New York City in the early 90's as a journeyman commercial photographer and advertising copywriter. In short order, New York City decided his talents were better suited to film and video, and over the course of the next dozen or so years he directed films for Fortune 500 companies, international relief agencies, and circled the world several times on both commissioned and self-financed documentary projects. In 1995 he and his wife Peggy began shooting experimental erotic shorts that were to become the conceptual and technical foundation for Comstock Films. When not shooting or editing he enjoys spending time with his family and splashing in the sea. His sixth erotic documentary feature, Bill and Desiree: Love is Timeless, is slated for release in early Winter '08. http://www.comstockfilms.com
Monica Day wears many hats: entrepreneur, mother, writer and poet, performer, coach, trainer, and community leader. Her new online publication, The Sensual Life, features erotic writing and ideas about how to infuse your day-to-day life with more intimacy, sensuality – and yes, raw, hardcore sex. She is a sensuality coach who works with both couples and individuals. She also hosts "A Taste of Sex," an erotic poetry open mic night at the OneTaste Urban Retreat Center in New York on the first Wednesday of every month.
M. David Hornbuckle is a full-time writer and musician, originally from Birmingham, Alabama. His fiction has been published in McSweeney's Internet Tendency, Isms, Peek, Air in the Paragraph Line and Astarte. His novella The Salvation of Billy Wayne Carter was published as an e-book by Cantarabooks in October 2007. Hornbuckle now lives in NYC where he is finishing up a novel and is the leader of the M. David Hornbuckle Dixieland Space Orchestra. www.mdhornbuckle.net
Andy Horwitz is a writer/performer/producer in NYC. He has performed his comic monologues and spoken word pieces to sold out houses all over New York in such venues as P.S.122, Dixon Place and Here Arts Center. His writing has appeared frequently at Nerve.com, Heeb Magazine and other outlets. In 2005 he ran for Mayor of NYC, a campaign which is documented in the film The Promise of New York. He is the founder and editor of Culturebot.org.
Julie Klausner is a comedian, writer and actor whose writing has appeared in the New York Times, New York Magazine.com, and Salon. Her TV credits include TV Funhouse on Saturday Night Live and The Big Gay Sketch Show on LOGO, and, with Rachel Shukert, she's the creator and co-star of Wasp Cove, the monthly live soap opera, Season Two of which returns in October. She recently sold a memoir, I Don't Care About Your Band, to Penguin, scheduled for release in Spring 2010. Her website is, predictably, julieklausner.com.
Madlyn March is the pseudonym of a writer whose work has appeared in the anthology First-Timers, Spanked: Red-Cheeked Erotica, Black Table, AfterEllen, AfterElton, Complete Woman, The New York Post, Time Out New York, and others.
And a bonus - book trailers for The Summer of Naked Swim Parties and The Salvation of Billy Wayne Carter respectively.
Well, maybe The Frisky wouldn't have liked it if I&8217;d called it that (right, Amelia?) but that's basically what my new piece for them is about, this dude I slept with 2 days or something after S. and I broke up in late 2006. Met him at Happy Corp (happy hours, I miss you) and all was going well until he told me he hates talking during sex. Any talking.
The Spanking Group at TES, where I've spoken before, is fabulous. And tonight, I'll be there reading from Spanked and...spanking people! I will even bring my new paddle I got at Dark Odyssey (well, I got two, but one is MIA). Please join us - I'll also be reading from Spanked and selling copies! I was looking for a photo of me spanking someone, and sadly, I don't have any! Will have to rectify that on Saturday. :)
Join us for an evening of spanking fun as author & Penthouse Variations editor Rachel Kramer Bussel will both spank & read excerpts of her new book 'Spanked: Red-Cheeked Erotica'. Rachael is both a fine spanker as well as writer and it's sure to be a great evening. Cupcakes may even be served.
August 16, 8 pm (doors at 7:30) Paddles, 250 W 26th Street, Basement (between 7th and 8th Avenues.,side door next to the parking lot) $4 for members; $8 for non-members Click here for directions
Really, lesbians and cupcakes, but I just like saying that.
photo of Linsey Pecikonis for The Washington Blade by Henry Linser
(Sorry, not a porn movie&8230;yet.) But this Washington Blade article came out at the perfect time, good synergy with an idea I&8217;ve had bubbling around in my brain. Oh and there is no hyphen in my name, but it&8217;s okay, I&8217;m used to it being spelled wrong. Also, fun RKB trivia: Shar(lene) Rednour published my very first erotica story, &8220;Monica and Me,&8221; in her anthology Starf*cker way back in 2000, launching this smut writing career of mine (though at the time I had no idea I had so many more dirty stories in me!).
Rachel Kramer-Bussel started her popular blog, Cupcakes Take the Cake, in December of 2004, and two friends joined her blogging efforts the following February. Kramer-Bussel, who is bisexual, says that although there's "nothing specifically queer about cupcakes," she has seen some parallels between lesbians and the little desserts.
"I've been seeing them in the queer community at gay marriages, and there are also Gay Pride cupcakes. You can very easily decorate them to match any color or theme, and do things with them that you can't do with cookies."
But there's more to the queer cupcake relationship than decorating them.
"There's a segment of my blog readership that comes from the indie-craft world, and I see an overlap between people who go to craft fairs, and who are lesbian or bisexual," she says. "I think that's coming from the 'do it yourself' mentality. We can make our own, and we're taking back some of those traditionally feminine skills by doing them in a feminist kind of way … It's kitschy cool. Even though cupcakes are very mainstream, if we make Pride cupcakes and bring them to the parade, then there's a reclaiming of that as something valid for women without it capitulating that idea that women have to cook."
Sharlene Rednour, a California-based writer and filmmaker, became a stay-at-home mom after adopting two children through a foster-to-adopt program, and she also started her own cupcake company, Sharlene's Babycakes.
"I have always been a foodie and when I became a mom, I couldn't do creative things by myself," she says, "Baking cupcakes was something I could do with the kids and I always got a lot of compliments on them."
IN THE FLESH EROTIC READING SERIES AUGUST 21st at 8 PM 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) Admission: Free Happy Ending Lounge: 212-334-9676
Summer heats up as In The Flesh celebrates the release of host Rachel Kramer Bussel's latest anthology Spanked: Red-Cheeked Erotica, with readings from contributors M. David Hornbuckle,Andy Horwitz, and Madlyn March. Also featured are novelist Jessica Anya Blau (The Summer of Naked Swim Parties), comedian and playwright Julie Klausner (Wasp Cove), erotic poet Monica Day (host of A Taste of Sex) and filmmaker Tony Comstock. Copies of Spanked will be available for sale and the book trailer will be shown. Hosted and curated by Rachel Kramer Bussel (Spanked, Rubber Sex, Dirty Girls). Free candy and cupcakes will be served.
Jessica Anya Blau's debut novel, The Summer of Naked Swim Parties, was recommended summer reading in The New York Post, New York Magazine, and The Today Show. She has published over twenty-five short stories and optioned a screenplay. Currently, she is teaching at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore where she graduated from The Writing Seminars. www.jessicaanyablau.com/
Rachel Kramer Bussel's most recent edited anthologies include Spanked: Red-Cheeked Erotica, Rubber Sex, Dirty Girls, Yes, Sir, Yes, Ma'am and Best Sex Writing 2008. She is Senior Editor at Penthouse Variations and wrote the popular Lusty Lady column for The Village Voice. Rachel has also written for AVN, Bust, Cosmopolitan, Gothamist, Mediabistro, Metro, New York Post, Punk Planet, San Francisco Chronicle, Time Out New York and Velvetpark. She also co-edits the cupcake blog Cupcakes Take the Cake. www.rachelkramerbussel.com
Tony Comstock came to New York City in the early 90's as a journeyman commercial photographer and advertising copywriter. In short order, New York City decided his talents were better suited to film and video, and over the course of the next dozen or so years he directed films for Fortune 500 companies, international relief agencies, and circled the world several times on both commissioned and self-financed documentary projects. In 1995 he and his wife Peggy began shooting experimental erotic shorts that were to become the conceptual and technical foundation for Comstock Films. When not shooting or editing he enjoys spending time with his family and splashing in the sea. His sixth erotic documentary feature, Bill and Desiree: Love is Timeless, is slated for release in early Winter '08. http://www.comstockfilms.com
Monica Day wears many hats: entrepreneur, mother, writer and poet, performer, coach, trainer, and community leader. Her new online publication, The Sensual Life, features erotic writing and ideas about how to infuse your day-to-day life with more intimacy, sensuality – and yes, raw, hardcore sex. She is a sensuality coach who works with both couples and individuals. She also hosts "A Taste of Sex," an erotic poetry open mic night at the OneTaste Urban Retreat Center in New York on the first Wednesday of every month.
M. David Hornbuckle is a full-time writer and musician, originally from Birmingham, Alabama. His fiction has been published in McSweeney's Internet Tendency, Isms, Peek, Air in the Paragraph Line and Astarte. His novella The Salvation of Billy Wayne Carter was published as an e-book by Cantarabooks in October 2007. Hornbuckle now lives in NYC where he is finishing up a novel and is the leader of the M. David Hornbuckle Dixieland Space Orchestra. www.mdhornbuckle.net
Andy Horwitz is a writer/performer/producer in NYC. He has performed his comic monologues and spoken word pieces to sold out houses all over New York in such venues as P.S.122, Dixon Place and Here Arts Center. His writing has appeared frequently at Nerve.com, Heeb Magazine and other outlets. In 2005 he ran for Mayor of NYC, a campaign which is documented in the film The Promise of New York. He is the founder and editor of Culturebot.org.
Julie Klausner is a comedian, writer and actor whose writing has appeared in the New York Times, New York Magazine.com, and Salon. Her TV credits include TV Funhouse on Saturday Night Live and The Big Gay Sketch Show on LOGO, and, with Rachel Shukert, she's the creator and co-star of Wasp Cove, the monthly live soap opera, Season Two of which returns in October. She recently sold a memoir, I Don't Care About Your Band, to Penguin, scheduled for release in Spring 2010. Her website is, predictably, julieklausner.com.
Madlyn March is the pseudonym of a writer whose work has appeared in the anthology First-Timers, Spanked: Red-Cheeked Erotica, Black Table, AfterEllen, AfterElton, Complete Woman, The New York Post, Time Out New York, and others.
And a bonus - book trailers for The Summer of Naked Swim Parties and The Salvation of Billy Wayne Carter respectively.
I will post about my Minneapolis trip more over the weekend; quickie version - had a fabulous time, ate tons of cupcakes, a Jucy Lucy cheeseburger, hung out with some very amazing people, visited Mall of America, and missed my 5th flight of 2008 and had to sleep for a bit at the airport (if you are going to sleep at an airport, MSP was actually very comfy - go upstairs, and you will likely find fellow stranded passgenders).
Right now, I am insanely behind on many deadlines and have an annoying, persistent headache, which has made for, oh, a wee bit of stress (and by wee bit of stress, I mean, I'm pretty fried).
Anyway, I am thinking of buying a Kindle, mainly because some of my books are available in Kindle editions. It's not like I just have an extra $400 lying around, but...it might be worth it. I'd like to see how they look and try to market to Kindle and other e-reader users, if I can (haven't got that far in my brainstorming yet). Any ideas?
I mean, I could be reading this: (and there's actually a great chapter in Dagmar Herzog's Sex in Crisis about Every Man's Battle and Christian sex ed)
My family's pretty much all liberal; I was trying to think who the most conservative person I'm related to is, and I couldn't really. By not smoking pot, I'm probably more conservative than a lot of them. Anyway, this was one of my favorites of the My Yard Our Message campaign, found via clicking around at the Walker Art Center website. If you are ever in Minneapolis, you must go to The Walker.
