Sex for America: Politically Inspired Erotica (27 page)

JAMI ATTENBERG
is the author of the short story collection
Instant Love
and the novel
The Kept Man
. Her fiction and nonfiction have ap- peared in
Print
, Nerve, Salon,
Nylon
,
Jane
,
Pindeldyboz, Spork,
the
San Francisco Chronicle
, and elsewhere. Visit her online at www.jamiatten berg.com.

NICK FLYNN
’s book
Another Bullshit Night in Suck City
(Norton, 2004) won the PEN/Martha Albrand Award for First Nonfiction, was shortlisted for France’s Prix Femina, and has been translated into thirteen languages. He is also the author of two books of poetry,
Some Ether
(Graywolf, 2000) and
Blind Huber
(Graywolf, 2002), for which he received fellowships from, among other organizations, the Guggenheim Foundation and the Library of Congress. Some of the venues his poems, essays, and nonfiction have appeared in include
The New Yorker
,
The Paris Review
, National Public Radio’s
This American Life
, and the
New York Times Book Review
. His film credits include “field poet” and artistic collaborator on the film
Darwin’s Nightmare
, which was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Feature Documentary in 2006. One semester a year he teaches at the University of Houston, and he then spends the rest of the year elsewhere.

JAMES FREY
is originally from Cleveland. He lives in New York.

AVITAL GAD-CYKMAN
is the author of stories published in
McSwee- ney’s
,
Michigan Quarterly Review
,
Other Voices
,
Glimmer Train
,
Prism International
, and anthologies such as
Stumbling and Raging.
She lives on an island in Brazil and hopes to publish a collection and a novel soon.

DAPHNE GOTTLIEB
is the author and/or editor of six books of poetry and fiction, most recently
Kissing Dead Girls.
She lives in San Francisco, where she teaches at New College of California.

LIZ HENRY
is a blogger, literary critic, poet, translator, and geek. She is a contributing editor for BlogHer.org. You can find her online at www
. bookmaniac.net. “Capitol Punishment” was originally published in
Sus- pect Thoughts: A Journal of Subversive Writing
.

KEITH KNIGHT
is an award-winning cartoonist and rapper whose two weekly comic strips,
the K Chronicles and (th)ink,
can be found in more than thirty-five alternative weekly, ethnic, political, and college publica- tions nationwide. He is also a regular contributor to
MAD
and
ESPN the Magazine.
His semiconscious hip-hop band, the Marginal Prophets, will kick your ass. His new
(th)ink
collection,
Are We Feeling Safer Yet?
, can be seen at www.kchronicles.com.

TSAURAH LITZKY
believes the only thing left that might take Amer- ica collectively higher is increased appreciation of the joys of sex. This inspires her to keep writing raunchy stories. Her erotica has appeared in more than sixty-five publications. Simon & Schuster published her erotic novella,
The Motion of the Ocean
, as part of
Three the Hard Way
,
a series of erotic novellas edited by Susie Bright. Litzky’s prize-

winning course,
Silk Sheets: Writing Erotica
, is now in its ninth year at the New School in Manhattan.

LYDIA MILLET
is the author of six novels, most recent
How the Dead Dream
(2008),
Oh Pure and Radiant Heart
(2007), which was short-list- ed for Britain’s Arthur C. Clarke Prize. Her 2002 novel,
My Happy Life
, won the PEN/USA Award for Fiction. She is also an essayist and critic and works as an editor at the nonprofit Center for Biological Diversity.

RICK MOODY
’s most recent publications are
The Diviners
(2005), a novel, and
Right Livelihoods
(2007), a collection of three novellas. “Notes on Redevelopment” was first published, in a somewhat different form, on Nerve.com in 2006.

MISTRESS MORGANA
is an experienced San Francisco–based BDSM professional and sex educator. Her workshops on BDSM have delighted thousand of kink-curious people of all persuasions, and she is the co- writer and host of the instructional video
Whipsmart: A Good Vibra- tions Guide to SM for Beginning Couples.
Her writing has appeared in
The Best American Erotica 2005
and
Politically Inspired.
Mistress Morgana believes that the current Bush administration is neither safe, sane, nor consensual and could learn a great deal from the ethics of BDSM play.

VANESSA NORTON
was born and raised in Buffalo, New York. She has worked as a dietary aide in a nursing home, a waitress, a teacher, a house cleaner, a labor organizer, a puppeteer, a stripper, a bookstore clerk, and a vote canvasser. She currently resides in Eugene, Oregon, where she is completing her MFA in fiction at the University of Oregon.

SUSAN O’DOHERTY
is a writer and clinical psychologist who lives in Brooklyn, New York. She is the author of
Getting Unstuck Without Com- ing Unglued: A Woman’s Guide to Unblocking Creativity
(Seal Press, 2007). Her popular advice column for writers, “The Doctor Is In,
”
ap- pears every Friday on MJ Rose’s publishing blog, Buzz, Balls, & Hype. Her stories, poems, and essays have appeared in
Eureka Literary Maga- zine, Northwest Review, Apalachee Review,
and the anthologies
About What Was Lost: Twenty Writers on Miscarriage, Healing, and Hope
(Penguin, 2007) and
It’s a Boy!
(Seal Press, 2005). Her story “Passing” was chosen as the New York story for Ballyhoo Stories’ ongoing
Fifty States Project
and will be distributed in chapbook form in bookstores throughout New York State.

ERIC ORNER
is a cartoonist and animation artist whose comics and graphic short stories have appeared in
Newsweek
,
The New Republic
, and
McSweeney’s.
He has worked on a number of animated productions, includ- ing a stint as an artist on Disney’s upcoming
Tinker Bell
movie. A feature film based on Eric’s widely syndicated alt-weekly comic strip,
The Mostly Unfabulous Social Life of Ethan Green
, was released nationally in 2006. The comic strip has been anthologized in four books from St. Martin’s Press.

PETER ORNER
is the author of the novel
The Second Coming of Mavala Shikongo
(finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize), and the story collection
Esther Stories
(recipient of the Rome Fellowship from the Ameri- can Academy of Arts and Letters). He has been awarded fellowships from the Lannan and Guggenheim foundations
.
Orner lives in San Francisco.

MICHELLE RICHMOND
is the author, most recently, of
The Year of Fog.

Her stories and essays have appeared in
Playboy
,
Glimmer Train
,
The

Missouri Review
, Salon.com,
The Kenyon Review,
and elsewhere. She lives in San Francisco and publishes the online literary journal Fiction Attic.

JERRY STAHL
has written a number of books, including
Permanent Midnight
and
I, Fatty
. “Li’l Dickens” originally appeared in his short story collection
Love Without.

ANTHONY SWOFFORD
is the author of the memoir
Jarhead
(Scrib- ner, 2003). A film adaptation directed by Sam Mendes was released in 2005. His novel
Exit A
(Scribner) was published in January of 2007. His writing has appeared in
Harper’s
, the
New York Times
, the
New York Times Magazine
,
The Guardian
, and
The Telegraph Magazine
, among other places. He has taught at St. Mary’s College, Lewis and Clark Col- lege, and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. His awards include the PEN Art of the Memoir award, for
Jarhead
, and a James Michener/Copernicus Society Fiction Fellowship. He lives in New York City, where he is at work on a new novel. “Escape and Evasion” was originally published in
ZYZZYVA
.

MICHELLE TEA
is the editor of four anthologies and the author of four memoirs, one collection of poetry, and the novel
Rose of No Man’s Land.
She runs Radar Productions, a literary nonprofit that stages performance events in San Francisco and elsewhere.

Called a “trollop with a laptop” by the
East Bay Express
and a “literary siren” by Good Vibrations,
ALISON TYLER
is naughty and she knows it. Her sultry short stories have appeared in more than seventy antholo- gies, including
Sweet Life
(Cleis),
Sex at the Office
(Virgin), and
Glam-