Andrew Boyd on "How to Cuddle"

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Originally uploaded by brianvan.

It was another fabulous In The Flesh on Wednesday, with a great, enthusiastic crowd, lots of yummy treats, and a really hilarious, sexy lineup of readers. Andrew Boyd wowed us with his great story "How to Cuddle," about wanting to cuddle with a woman while she wanted to fuck. It was tender and sweet but also sexy, and is part of a work in progress.

Thank you to all the readers and all the audience members (one of whom brought me a huge box of Hershey's Kisses!). Check out moren In The Flesh photos by Brian Van right here.

In The Flesh on YouTube

An oldie but goodie, and yes, I need to get November's birthday comedy show up here - someday soon, but for now, check this out:

Wednesday 2/21 means free smut and cupcakes!

IN THE FLESH EROTIC READING SERIES
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 21 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
http://inthefleshreadingseries.blogspot.com

February means love, lust . . . and dirty words! Join Andrew Boyd (Billionaires for Bush, Life’s Little Deconstruction Book), Reen Guierre (Best Women’s Erotica 2007 contributor), D.L. King (The Dominant’s View), and Dahlia Schweitzer (Seduce Me), along with host and curator Rachel Kramer Bussel, who will be celebrating the publication of her kinky new erotica anthologies He’s on Top: Erotic Stories of Male Dominance and Female Submission and She’s on Top: Erotic Stories of Female Dominance and Male Submission. Free candy and mini cupcakes will be served and erotic books will be given away as door prizes.

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 Andy Horwitz, Lily Burana, Jessica Cutler, Polly Frost, Maxim Jakubowski, Emily Scarlet Kramer of CAKE, Edith Layton, M.J. Rose, Lauren Sanders, Danyel Smith, Cecilia Tan, Carol Taylor, and many others. The series has gotten press attention from Escape (Hong Kong), The L Magazine, New York Magazine, Philadelphia City Paper, Gothamist, Nerve.com and Wonkette. This is not Amanda Stern’s Happy Ending Reading Series.

Andrew Boyd is the co-founder of the satirical political campaign Billionaires for Bush and author of several ironically serious (or is it seriously ironic?) books: Daily Afflictions⎯The Agony of Being Connected to Everything in the Universe and Life's Little Deconstruction Book⎯Self-Help for the Post-Hip, both from W.W.Norton. He's at work on two others, from which he will read tonight.
andrewboyd.com

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 80 anthologies, including Best American Erotica 2004 and 2006, and she’s edited 13 erotica anthologies, including Caught Looking: Erotic Tales of Voyeurs and Exhibitionists and Naughty Spanking Stories from A to Z 2. Her latest kinky anthologies, He’s on Top and She’s on Top, will be published in February 2007 by Cleis Press. Rachel has also written for AVN, Bust, Cosmo UK, Metro, New York Post, Punk Planet, Time Out New York and Velvetpark.
www.rachelkramerbussel.com

Reen Guierre (pronounced Gee, hard G + air, accent on air) is a typical MILF (look it up) whose story, “To Serge (soft g) With Love,” made it into Best Women’s Erotica 2007. If you want to preview the story, check out Amazon’s Look Inside feature⎯if it hasn’t been censored by the time you read this. Another couple of her stories can be found on the internet in their entirety. The weirdest thing about writing are these bios, which are traditionally in third person, so I’ll just say, “I’m looking forward to being in New York again where the people are so nice, they won’t hesitate to yell at you if they think it will help.”

D. L. King lives somewhere between The Big Wheel at Coney Island and The Chrysler Building and has a passion for roasted chestnuts sold on the street, as long as they aren’t burnt. When they are, she’d like to roast some nuts herself. Her first novel, The Melinoe Project, has just been accepted for publication. Find stories by D. L. King in print from Justus Roux, in e-book by Logical Lust and on line at The Dominant's View and Inky Blue Allusions.
www.dlkingerotica.com

Dahlia Schweitzer spent most of her life in New York and Tel Aviv, where she lived, loved, and worked as a writer, artist, and photographer. But it was in Berlin where she found fame, transforming herself into a singing, dancing, stripteasing queen of electrocabaret. Now Dahlia lives in Los Angeles, just in time to celebrate the publication of her first American publication, Seduce Me. These erotic short stories recount illicit affairs, intimate secrets, forbidden passions, and obsessive hungers⎯and the sad, funny, startling, revelatory places our sexual desires can take us.
www.thisisdahlia.com

March 21st In The Flesh lineup

IN THE FLESH EROTIC READING SERIES
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 21 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

This month, join Cheri Crystal (Erotic Interludes 3, 4, 5), Gwendolyn Joyc Mintz (Down & Dirty 2, Velvet Heat), Joel A. Nichols (Dorm Porn 2, Travelrotica 2), Carol Novack (Mad Hatters’ Review), memoirist Suzanne Portnoy (The Butcher, The Baker, The Candlestick Maker), who’s making an appearance all the way from London, and Claire Thompson (Golden Boy, Slave Castle), along with host erotica writer and editor Rachel Kramer Bussel (He’s on Top, She’s on Top, Caught Looking) for hot stories from across the sexual spectrum. Free candy and mini cupcakes will be served and authors’ books will be available for sale.

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, Andy Mo Beasley, Lily Burana, Jessica Cutler, Stephen Elliott, Polly Frost, Gael Greene, Andy Horwitz, Debra Hyde, Maxim Jakubowski, Emily Scarlet Kramer of CAKE, Josh Kilmer-Purcell, Edith Layton, Sofia Quintero, M.J. Rose, Lauren Sanders, Danyel Smith, Grant Stoddard, Cecilia Tan, Carol Taylor, 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, Gothamist, Nerve.com and Wonkette and has been recommended 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 80 anthologies, including Best American Erotica 2004 and 2006, and she’s edited 13 erotica anthologies, most recently 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, Metro, New York Post, Punk Planet, Time Out New York and Velvetpark.
www.rachelkramerbussel.com

Cheri Crystal enjoys reading, writing, reviewing, eating, working out, and having sex—not necessarily in that order. Since appearing in Erotic Interludes 3: Lessons in Love, Cheri has erotica in other Bold Strokes Books, Cleis Press, and Alyson anthologies. When she’s not busy raising a family or working in health care, Cheri is putting the finishing touches on her first novel, A Closet in Syosset.

Gwendolyn Joyce Mintz is a fiction writer and poet. Her work has appeared in various online and print journals as well as several anthologies. Though new to the erotic genre, Mintz has had work published in the online journal Clean Sheets as well as Down & Dirty 2 and Velvet Heat from Pretty Things Press. A very short work received an honorable mention in a contest at Katy Terrega's Sex-writers.com.

Joel A. Nichols was born and raised in Vermont. This year stories of his will appear in Dorm Porn 2, Travelrotica 2, Second Skin, Fast Balls, Distant Horizons: Queer Science Fiction (Haworth Positronic), C is for Co-ed (Cleis), Got A Minute (Cleis), and Sex by the Book: Gay Men's Tales of Lit and Lust (Green Candy Press), and have appeared in Alyson's Full Body Contact, Just the Sex, Ultimate Undies, and Sexiest Soles. An excerpt from his novel in progress won second place in the Brown Foundation Short Fiction Prize 2005. In 2002, he was a Fulbright Fellow in Berlin. Joel studied German at Wesleyan University and has a Creative Writing M.A. from Temple University. He lives in Philadelphia with his boyfriend and works for an internet porn company.
www.joelanichols.com

Carol Novack's writings can & will be found in many publications, including The Penguin Book of Australian Women Poets, American Letters & Commentary, Del Sol Review, Diagram, First Intensity, 5_Trope, La Petite Zine, LIT, & Notre Dame Review. She publishes the e-journal Mad Hatters' Review.

Suzanne Portnoy has been an entertainment publicist for twelve years. Divorced and with two children, aged 13 and 15, she is formerly from New York and now lives in London. Attractive and finally a size 8 after twenty years of yo-yo dieting, she is happily single and spends her spare time writing, having sex and acting as a one-woman car pool service. Her first book, The Butcher, The Baker, The Candlestick Maker: An Erotic Memoir, is published by Virgin Books.
www.suzanneportnoy.com

Claire Thompson has written erotic fiction since 1995. Much of her work focuses on the romance of erotic submission, as well as the darker exploration of BDSM. Her most recent work focuses on the male/male romance and erotic submission. Claire has published numerous novels and short stories, both in print and ebook format. Says a reviewer for eCataRomance, “…Claire Thompson draws a compelling, graphic picture of a loving dominant/submissive relationship. Erotic and confronting, yet tender and intimate.” Visit her website for a listing of all Claire’s novels, upcoming releases, and more information.
www.clairethompson.net