My January and February 2011 events

I'm still working on descriptions and jpegs and all that, but a heads up about my January and February events:

January 19, 8 pm - panelist at Gameshow Speakeasy at Le Poisson Rouge, NYC

January 27, time TBA - reading with Donna George Storey and others, Good Vibrations, Berkeley, CA

January 28, 7:30 pm - reading with free cupcakes at Booksmith, San Francisco, CA

Award-winning local writer and sexpert Violet Blue (Best Women’s Erotica 2011, Seal It With a Kiss) and New York-based erotica author and editor Rachel Kramer Bussel (Orgasmic, Fast Girls) join forces to bring you an evening of sexy smut! Featuring local Orgasmic contributors Susie Hara, Dusty Horn, and Donna George Storey, plus free cupcakes, this promises to be a steamy night of sensuous stories.

February 1, time TBA - Reading at Coco de Mer with Eden Bradley, Pamela Madsen and Oriana Small (aka Ashley Blue), Los Angeles, CA. Free cupcakes and champagne!

February 14, 7 pm - Hosting and curating erotica reading, Bluestockings, NYC

February 17, time TBA - discussion at McNally Jackson, NYC

After that, working on events in UK, Minneapolis, possibly LA again, Seattle in June and hopefully Denver, Madison, Milwaukee, down the road. Cities I'd love to visit and do events in (if you're the type who can make that happen, email me at rachelkramerbussel at gmail.com) : Santa Fe, Chicago, Washington, DC, Boston. And Russo's Books in Bakersfield, California is on my list.

I'm torn about events, because they are fun to do and organize, but extremely stressful. Even with In The Flesh, which had a steady audience, you are competing with all the other events in town, rushing to get press, to draw people in, to spread the word, and I'm talking here about free events. Readings are a hard sell, especially, imo, in bookstores, and I think draw a certain type of audience member. They can be a publicity boon and it's a wonderful chance to meet people you wouldn't otherwise meet, but the question I keep coming back to, as someone who pays for all my own travel, therefore not actually making money off these trips is, at what cost? It's something I have been doing despite the cost for the last few years, but as I'm getting older and also just don't have that disposable income, I have to truly consider. So in my ideal world, I'd love to hit all those places. In real life, with the constraint of money and limited time off, I am not sure how many I'll get a chance to visit. I'm already having qualms about taking 4 days at the start of the year, but will have to budget my time much better than I have in the past few years. So maybe the cities I don't get to, I go to in 2012. Because no way am I giving up on my dream of a real vacation, at the beach, by myself. That's what gets me through the tough days.