In The Flesh rocked

spanking with a hardback book
Originally uploaded by candiedyams.

Seriously. Despite the stupid strike, a cozy group of us descended on Happy Ending last night for a fabulous mixed up reading from my fortchoming book Naughty Spanking Stories from A to Z 2. There were only 3 people there when I got there - this guy Leon from Pennsylvania (who happened to be in the city and had heard about it), Derek from venonhaus.tv, who taped and will be podcasting the reading, and Syd Bernstein, who we'd met at The Jenny Vaudeville Show.

Nichelle arrived looking a little tired, as she should be, from so much walking, and Heidi got there a short while later and asked for as many drink tickets as I could spare. Tsaurah Litzky arrived ready to read, and we were eventually joined by Matt C., Allison, Mindy Raf, and two of Tsaurah's friends. Daily News reporter Derek Rose made it out right after we'd finished, after a day of covering the strike.

We started at 8:30 and had so much fun. I read Shanna Germain's "Waiting for a Spanking" because I deemed my own stories in the book "too dirty." Then Nichelle read Heidi's, aka Bette Taylor's, story "Underwater Surprise," aka Chunnel porn. Tsaurah did an excellent job enunciating all sorts of naughty words that made us crack up, then Heidi read Nichelle's "Hit Me With Your Best Shot." But Syd was really the star of the night, reading "Marina Saint"'s story "Most Unexpected" with such passion and authenticity. It's, um, a very hot story, possibly true, and pretty much one I will never be able to read aloud. Key phrase "butt's bullseye." All in all it was a super fun night filled with candy and spanking stories (but sadly, no spanking, perhaps because Cheryl wasn't there. Also, free drinks for us! I love having such awesome friends who'll come out during a transit strike and be so much fun.

Come to the next one on January 18th and I'll be posting here about a real reading from Naughty Spanking Stories from A to Z 2 when the book's actually out.

IN THE FLESH EROTIC READING SERIES
WEDNESDAY JANUARY 18th at 8 PM
AT HAPPY ENDING LOUNGE, 302 BROOME STREET
(B/D to Grand, J/M/Z to Bowery, F to Delancey, www.happyendinglounge.com)
Admission: Free

Stay warm this winter with the hottest and juiciest words in the city! January welcomes a stunning mix of performers, including romance novelist Edith Layton (Gypsy Lover), fiction writer Danyel Smith (Bliss), and erotic storytellers Iris N. Schwartz (Stirring Up a Storm) and Rob Stephenson (Best Gay Erotica), along with a naughty tale from host Rachel Kramer Bussel.

In the Flesh is a new 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 Village Voice sex columnist and 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. Future themed nights include travel tales, fetishes, true confessions and erotic memoirs.

Rachel Kramer Bussel is a New York City-based author and editor. She is Senior Editor at Penthouse Variations and a Contributing Editor and columnist for Penthouse and writes the Lusty Lady column for The Village Voice. Her erotic stories have appeared in over 50 anthologies, including Best American Erotica 2004, and she’s edited her own collections, including Naughty Spanking Stories from A to Z 1 and 2. Rachel has also written for AVN, Bust, Metro, New York Post, Punk Planet, Time Out New York and Velvetpark. www.rachelkramerbussel.com

Edith Layton is the author of over 30 novels, including Alas, My Love, The Return of the Earl, To Tempt a Bride, The Devil’s Bargain, and her latest, Gypsy Lover. She has received she received a Lifetime Achievement Award from Romantic Times, and excellent reviews, awards and commendations from Library Journal, Romance Readers Anonymous and The Romance Writers of America.

Iris N. Schwartz is a fiction writer, poet, and editor whose story, “Hedonics,” is included in the anthology Stirring Up A Storm: Tales of the Sensual, the Sexual, and the Erotic. Her novella, The Fruits of Her Labors, is in That’s Amore! Her erotic fiction has also been anthologized in The Big Book of Hot Women’s Erotica 2004, Down and Dirty 2003, and elsewhere. She’s had poetry anthologized in An Eye For an Eye Makes the Whole World Blind: Poets on 9/11, and in the U.K.-based Listening to the Birth of Crystals. In addition, her writing has appeared in on-line and print publications such as Ducts Magazine, Erbacce, Ludlow Press, Pikeville Review, and Vernacular. Iris is Articles Editor for the Web site Littleviews.com. She has performed her work at many venues, including Bowery Poetry Club, Collective Unconscious, KGB Bar, and The Knitting Factory, as well as on WBAI, WBAR, WNYE, and WSTR radio stations, on-line, interactive TV, and cable TV.

Danyel Smith is a former ed-at-large for Time Inc. and a former ed-in-chief of Vibe. She writes around for Elle, Cosmo, Essence, wrote once (!) for the New Yorker, will show up in Rolling Stone sometimes, still reps in spirit for the San Francisco Bay Guardian, and wrote concert/album reviews for the New York Times back in the day. Smith is the author of the San Francisco Chronicle-bestselling novel, More Like Wrestling, and she wrote the introduction for the New York Times-bestseller Tupac Shakur. Her second novel, Bliss, was published in July 2005.

Rob Stephenson's writing appears over fifty publications Rob Stephenson's writing appears in over 50 publications online and in print including: Skin and Ink, Between the Palms, Blithe House Quarterly, BUTT, Dangerous Families, Problem Child, Best Gay Erotica, Best Bisexual Erotica, Tough Guys, and Perspectives on Evil and Human Wickedness. He is co-founder of the Erotic Authors Association.