My new collection of erotic short stories,Bitten, is very dark. It's the first time I've done a themed collection. My editor and I talked a lot about what "Gothic" means, because it's both as old as prehistory— and as newly curdled as a spoiled brat.
Gothic stories are the romantic roots of ecstasy and tragedy. They seek out magic in everyday life; they read the symbols instead of the fine print. The gothic storyteller doesn’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows. When I approached the authors in this collection for their original stories, I wrote a poem for inspiration.
This, I told them, was what I was searching for:
Perverse fairy tales
Erotic spirits
Sexually compulsive haunts
The baroque savage
Bohemian, post-punk, Dark Wave,
an obsession
sacred taboos
a mystical view of the sexual body
Elizabethan, Victorian, Cajun, Latin, African, and Catholic tastes
Give me lugubrious passion, unrelieved thirsts,
the lushness of black, the velvet hammer
Noir effects
“A marked preference for dark colors and sentiments”
Sexy-spooky, ethereal carnality,
Daily horror as subversive social critique
The erotic arc of the unconscious,
The bawdy kitsch and cocky comedy of horror
Les Fleurs du Mal!
Whatever served as their erotic muse, my writers performed as if flames were licking their ink. I hope you’ll enjoy their bent, and beautiful, instincts.
Write to me after you read it and tell me everything you think. I'll forward your comments to any of the authors you'd like to reach out to. They are: Sera Gamble, Anne Tourney, Shanna Germain, Donna George Storey, Allison Lawless, Tsaurah Litzky, Julia Talbot, E.R. Stewart, Jess Wells, Cate Robertson, Greg Boyd, Ed Falco, Patrice Suncircle, Francesca Lia Block, and Ernie Conrick.
Thank you so much. This is what allows me to find advertisers for my site, and thus, run the circus. Here's the info from last year, if you're curious.
Name that tune, you say? Okay, now name the erotic legend that goes with the tune...
I have a new book out for the holidays, a fancy-pantsy slip-covered hardback called X: The Erotic Treasury, with forty stories from my favorite erotic literary fiction authors.
I asked all my writers, "What song would you like to dedicate to your story?"
Twenty-three of them answered— fiends like me, who invoke a lyric to every new inspiration!
Above is my "jukebox," where you can hear snippets of all the songs.
Below is a list of all the stories, with the title, author, song, and synopsis.
I loved doing this... it gives me another insight into what each author was thinking as they twisted the short and curlies!
1. Wish Girls by Matthew Addison "Wished for You" by the Squirrel Nut Zippers
This autobiographical-based story was made into a film for the Canadian TV series Bliss, which is devoted to women's erotic memoir. Rita's song was used on the soundtrack.
Photos: Rachel Kramer Bussell hitting the bowl again, and P.S. Haven, coloring outside the lines.
Feel free to copy this post and its contents anywhere.
If you want the javascript to put my jukebox widget on your blog, just email me.
I recently got interviewed by Editrix. a blog "for editors, editors at heart, and anyone else who thinks grammar is hot."
Today, the Editrix veered off the path, slightly, to examine the origin of the word "dyke." I love stuff like this!
She also has a standard feature called "Five Questions," which asks authors to reveal their secret grammar-geek practices.
You should check out her whole list of victims, but so far, the interviews include authors like: Robert Olen Butler, Steve Almond, Frank McCourt, Tristan Taormino, Farhad Manjoo, Stacey Richter, Harry Shearer, and Abigail Thomas.
(I find it fascinating that is that I am acquainted with a majority of her interviewees because I've published their work in Best American Erotica. It just goes to show that behind every erotic stylist is a grammar freak).
Here's my entry:
FIVE QUESTIONS FOR SUSIE BRIGHT
Q: What is your preferred environment for writing?
I've often wondered about working at writing retreats; they sound so luxurious. But I've never been to one.
I can "disappear" with my writing in a crowd. I've worked at news desks (back when press rooms were crowded) and at airports, cafés, libraries.
What I don't like: working on planes. The commerical air systems today rub me the wrong way, every way. I have to take a Valium, read a trashy magazine, and listen to music. I feel about as original as a plank; creativity is impossible. My first priority is to keep from going into a rage.
Q: What punctuation mark are you fondest of?
A: Oh, do I ever love this question. In terms of its versatility—the em dash.
For handwriting, I always liked drawing question marks and ampersands.
In Spanish, I relish that you begin and end exclamations with the same thrilling bang!
Q: What punctuation, spelling, grammar, style, or usage error annoys you the most?
A: I'm not annoyed by anyone's first draft for themselves. My first drafts are obscenities of typographical errors and awkward constructions. When I compose, I'm in the "pouring out" stage.
What I object to, what galls me, is writers who think that THAT unholy mess is what you turn in to your editor.
There is no writing without self-editing. I wish I could drop cases of Elements of Style out of a helicopter over large student populations.
Q: If you weren't in your current line of work, what would you be doing instead?
A: My line of work has lots of costume changes. How many people get to hole up with a singular passion anymore? I'm a mother, publisher, adviser, blogger, editor, author, performer, teacher, organizer, chief bottle-washer.
When I was little, I liked to sing and dance when I wasn't reading and making up stories. My daughter's stage-managing a play right now, and I daydream about how fun it would be to grab one of those scripts. Sign me up for a Broadway musical.
Q: What drove you to become a writer?
A: Politics. I wanted desperately to convince people of something I was in a lather about. Outrage at an injustice. Wanting to share something hilarious. Argument. Poetry. Lyrics. I come from a long line of blabby, bookwormy, wordsmiths and hams.
This photo has an interesting story behind it. I love clothes and fabric with " just words" on them, so this was one of my favorite t-shirts back in the day. "Choose Sex" in Helvetica!
This was shot at the Women in Printconference in the late-80s, a conference on feminist publishing, back when there were dozens of women publishers! I was there to represent my magazine, On Our Backs.
The most prominent lesbian-works publisher took me aside— Barbara Grier from Naiad Press— and said, "I don't have a personal problem with what you're doing; I don't give a shit, but everyone else here has told me they think you should be assassinated."
I've also been keeping up with the WGA strike coverage on my comrade Lee Stranhan's blog. Lee's son has been on the picket lines every day, interviewing all kinds of people, and doing a much better job of covering the issues than the mainstream media... naturally!
He quotes Robert Towne in his first post: "Until a screenwriter has done his job nobody else has one."
I feel that line good and plenty, and I would take it even further… in any communication enterprise, there is no “there there” until the writer does their job. And yet writers are bamboozled into thinking they're “disposable.”
I support the WGA for many reasons, but one in particular is that we so rarely see a place where writing gets noticed at all, as if it is something of value.
Most writers who make money for others get paid: nothing. A tiny fraction of working writers get paid pennies for their hours (I'm in that club). And the only writers who have organized power are in the film/TV business, because of labor organizing that was hard-won decades ago, and would be difficult to imagine now. That's why the studios are so optimistic about union busting, and never paying a dime on new media profits.
But I still hope... I hope the WGA pins the studios to the wall, and that I get to see a “trickledown” effect!
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