Rachel Kramer Bussel

Month

March 2011

The Happiness Project Foreign Cover Gallery → happiness-project.com

One of my goals for this year (okay, I’ll take any time but let’s just say 2011 because that would make my year) is to sell a book to another country. I just think having a book translated would be the coolest thing ever. So checking out these covers of Gretchen Rubin’s NYT bestseller The Happiness Project made me, well, happy. I think what I like is the idea of one book becoming many, because of course it’s not exactly the same in another language and the actual product, including the cover, may get tweaked or fully revamped.

Feb 28, 20111 note
Feb 28, 2011

6 weeks without sex I have to say, I don’t really miss it…maybe I would if I were in any way more ahead with my work, if that weren’t perched on my shoulders like a weight, along with guilt, and a very sad bank account. Or not. Hard to say, but right now it seems like there are more important things to worry about than trying to find “the one.” Not that I really believe in “the one” but I’m using that as a shorthand for someone I could fall in love with and vice versa who wants to have children and be all adult and boring together.

I do miss massages, but those I can pay for…when I get some checks I’m waiting for. My back has this amazing way of reacting to stress by tensing up in really specific spots that are hard to reach. I could use my Hitachi Magic Wand but I think I need a high-powered back massager. I see the wisdom of the whole one day at a time mindset when it comes to this sex and dating break. In some ways November seems far away, but it’s more that I wonder if training my mind not to miss that kind of intimacy will mean that come November I don’t actually miss it, that I’m happier on my own. We shall see…I am happy to be sans that kind of drama. I have enough stress and deadlines to substitute for drama. And I could have hot sex without drama, pretty much anytime. There is a part of me that feels extra mature for turning that down, and part of me that feels kindof dumb about it. Mostly I just feel overwhelmed by life, like there are just endless tasks and for the most part, I’m only doing them because they’re on the to do list, because I said I would, not because I get some major satisfaction out of them, which is a little sad. Thankfully there are a few bright spots on the writing horizon that feel a little more exciting than checking something off a list.

I’ll get through it, even if I don’t get to all the things I said I would. In the past I’d use that as an excuse to get nothing done, but now I’m just barreling through, trying not to emulate my dad and think things like, “If only back in 1998 I’d attended class, I could have a JD.” True, but utterly irrelevant.

Feb 28, 20111 note

February 2011

Sex Diary: The Single Guy Juggling Five Girls in One Week → nymag.com

Scroll down to the end of the diary for info on submitting your own sex diary!

Feb 28, 2011
Housing Works Bookstore Cafe: Happy International Day of Bookshop Tumblr Celebration! → housingworksbookstore.tumblr.com

Happy Birthday, Rachel and Sam!

housingworksbookstore:

February 28th is The International Day of Bookshop Tumblr Celebration! I just declared this essential worldwide holiday for two basic reasons:

1) Bookshop tumblrs are objectively The Best.

2) Sam of McNally Jackson fame and I have the same birthday.

Please celebrate this reverent day of joy…

Feb 28, 201149 notes
Free erotica by me #3: "The Depths of Despair" → erotica-readers.com

From Spanked: Red-Cheeked Erotica, the book I made my first book trailer for and, so far, my bestselling Cleis Press anthology! Yes, lots of you out there like to read about spanking as much as I do.

Table of Contents

Introduction: “A Fantastic Kind of Pain”

Spanking You Rick Roberts
Perfect Bound Shanna Germain
Betty Crocker Gone Bad Alison Tyler
Laser Tag Madeline Glass
A Rare Find Donna George Storey
Game, Set, Match Sage Vivant
Tied Down Andy Ohio
Through a Glass, Sharply Elizabeth Coldwell
Reunion Madlyn March
Riding the Storm Thomas Christopher
The Breeding Barn L. Elise Bland
Pink Cheeks Fiona Locke
Page by Page Laura Bacchi
Fiscal Discipline Simon Sheppard
Pre-Party Thomas S. Roche
Still Life with Infidels #56 M. David Hornbuckle
Indulgences Tenille Brown
Logan Rosalind Christine Lloyd
Daddy’s Girl Teresa Noelle Roberts
The Depths of Despair Rachel Kramer Bussel

Introduction: “A Fantastic Kind of Pain”

Just as I have a seemingly endless capacity to bare my ass and get it smacked soundly or make a squirming bottom hover on the edge of erotic oblivion with loud, ringing, stinging whack after whack, I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of reading stories about spanking. There was a time when I wasn’t sure I could say that; after all, just how much is there to say about bending over and letting a firm hand connect with a pertly offered-up bottom? Or striking a pretty pair of buttcheeks so well the person beneath you moans in ecstatic agony? Well, as I’ve learned while editing this collection, there are an infinite number of ways to talk about the pleasures of getting spanked or spanking someone. While the actions may look alike, we all experience them differently and have different motives for indulging in this beloved kinky activity.

Me? I get off on just thinking about bending over for that special someone. Maybe I’m wearing panties, and only part of my bottom is visible. Maybe I’m not, and my spanker can see everything, including my wetness. I get wet at the mere idea of offering up my entire body to a lover to play with, tease, spank, and arouse. I’ve also had plenty of eager bottoms spread before me, offering asses that just begged to be spanked, whether they speak words to that effect or not. But for me, and for many others, spanking is about much more than just the physical. It’s about what that sensation creates inside of us. Spanking breaks down our barriers in ways even sex sometimes doesn’t; it stirs up emotions; it makes us whimper or cry, or be proud of just how much we can take. It’s primal and powerful, not to mention incredibly popular. I was thrilled to see spanking make an appearance on Showtime’s Californication, where the bratty, bossy bottom of a secretary demands that her boss spank her for any office infraction. “Hit Me Baby One More Time,” indeed.

And those who bestow spankings, whether with hands, paddles, hairbrushes, or other devices, relish that power to bring pleasure and pain mixed together, to completely undo the person they are spanking with just a few (or possibly many) whacks.

The authors included here get just how intense spanking can be. Reading these stories took my breath away, and, even more so than my previous collections (Naughty Spanking Stories from A to Z 1 and 2), made me instantly horny. They’ve tapped into the beauty of spanking in a way that newbies, seasoned spankophiles, and those who are simply curious will be able to understand in an instant.

Rick Roberts opens this anthology with “Spanking You,” a story I’ve read and reread numerous times, mesmerized by its rendering of a man so entranced by the vision he makes when he spanks his girlfriend, you imagine he could do it all night, every night, and never tire of it. He even offers up a little bit of a how-to for those would-be spankers looking for the courage to simply turn him or her over and begin this sensual process:

I used to tease you at the beginning of every spanking. As you’d kneel before me on the bed, not a stitch of clothing on your tan body, I’d fake the first blow—stopping just short of your ass, letting the air kiss your skin—and then place an affectionate caress onto your behind. By removing the certainty of whether the next sensation would be soft or a stinging slap, I’d keep you centered in the moment, keep you waiting and vulnerable, and your anticipation for the spanking grew. I would look down at you and smile, knowing that your desire for the first slap on your ass was growing unbearable by the moment.

Part of the thrill of spanking someone is being able to dangle what they most desire before them, to see them there waiting, panting, asking for it with body and soul, to know (or at least, fantasize) that they can’t get off any other way than by the “punishment” you are about to deliver. Elizabeth Coldwell paints a portrait of a true top in “Through a Glass, Sharply,” when she writes, “You have never really known power until the man you love is at your feet, naked or very nearly so, helpless and vulnerable, while you remain fully dressed and completely in control.”

Madlyn March describes a first-time spanking in a way that will be familiar to any who have gasped, trembling, as they realized they not only can take, but crave, a whole lot more spanking than they’d initially expected:

I remembered how it felt when Mimi did it to me. At first, you’re surprised someone’s hitting you, even if you’ve asked her to. Then you’re excited. Then you’re in pain, but it’s a fantastic kind of pain. Each slap makes you want more, as much as you can take, until you can’t take any more, and you’re shaking, more than ready to have an orgasm, the kind that can only be gotten from a woman diving headfirst into you with her wet tongue licking rapidly.

Any time an author can make me hot for something that in real life actually unnerves me, I’m sold. I’m not usually a fan of Daddy/girl stories, but in Teresa Noelle Roberts’ excellent story, simply entitled “Daddy’s Girl,” she renders that role-playing relationship and its spanking potential perfectly, dissecting her characters’ motivations while maintaining the magic they each hold so dear about their arrangement.

For some people, spanking is playful, almost sillyæsexy in a way that makes you laugh as you come. This spirit is alive and well in L. Elise Bland’s “The Breeding Barn,” where a cheese paddle does double duty on the ass of an unsuspecting but happy boy bottom. And for the woman who goes by the name “Pink Cheeks” in the story of the same title, her fantasy comes true, to the letter, though in a setting she’d never have expected.

What I love most about this book is that while there are plenty of naughty boys and girls, that potentially clichéd setup never gets boring, because the authors take you right there, into the heart of a punishment spanking, letting you know that, on some level, each of these naughty boys or girls doesn’t just deserve but needs to be spanked for his or her own reasons. The authors play around with these tropes, recreating the act of spanking until it morphs into something endlessly entertaining, just as a good top can keep a bottom on the edge, smacking harder and harder, then backing off, drawing out the play.

While I’ve subtitled this book, “Red-Cheeked Erotica,” what happens on the surface of the skin is just the beginning when it comes to spanking. There’s an elegance, a poetry, a beauty to spanking that is much more akin to making love than fucking. It’s a rhythm, a beat, a gracefulness, a way two people can connect without saying a word. These elements come together in M. David Hornbuckle’s simple yet powerful “Still Life with Infidels #56,” in which a planned kidnapping is set against the sparse backdrop of a steel mill as two recently reunited lovers attempt to recover what they’d lost.

The thrill of erotic spanking is nothing new, even if each time can make even the most experienced bottom feel like a blushing virgin all over again. James Joyce wrote a series of spanking-loving letters to his beloved wife Nora in December 1909 (and for a lesson in the art of sensual, utterly kinky yet romantic erotica, look up Joyce’s naughty letters online). I cannot legally quote him here, though believe me, Joyce was a fullon spankophile according to these missives, understanding precisely what it means to submit (and to willingly struggle).

As I already told you, when it comes to spanking, I simply can’t get enough. I hope these stories turn you on, inspire you, and spark your own imagination about just how hot a spanking from someone who knows exactly what he’s doing can make you.

Rachel Kramer Bussel
New York City

s, and story excerpts

Feb 28, 20112 notes
Free erotica by me #2: "Chilly Girl" → erotica-readers.com

From my book all about naked ladies: Smooth!

Smooth: Erotic Stories for Women; is an erotic anthology edited by Rachel Kramer Bussel, was published by Cleis Press in September 2010.

The caress of skin against skin, the warmth of another’s touch, relishing the sight that few others get to see — these are the reasons that disrobing before sex can be so gratifying. The stories in Smooth, collected by award-winning erotic editor Rachel Kramer Bussel, capture the heat of being stripped bare, of flaunting your body, and of reveling in pure sensuality. Read along as women get tattooed, become “the sushi girl” at a restaurant, strip on the subway, go commando, host tea parties, enjoy sploshing, and much more. Featuring stories by Donna George Storey, Heidi Champa, Angela Caperton, Charlotte Stein, Louisa Harte, Jacqueline Applebee, Susan St. Aubin and other leading erotica writers, these adventurous characters have more to reveal than just being naked.

Order Smooth: Erotic Stories for Women from:

Amazon.com

Kindle edition

Bn.com (Barnes & Noble)

Books-a-Million

Borders

Powell’s

IndieBound (find your local independent bookstore)

Cleis Press

Table of Contents

Smooth: Erotic Stories for Women
Edited by Rachel Kramer Bussel

Introduction: Naked Girls in All Their Glory

Löyly Angela Caperton
Her Brand New Skin Elizabeth Coldwell
Eden Molly Slate
Three Stops Away Heidi Champa
The Sushi Girl Anika Gupta (click here to read an excerpt)
This Night Suzanne V. Slate
Ink Jennifer Peters
Adornment is Power Teresa Noelle Roberts
Muscle Bound K D Grace
Shower Fittings Giselle Renarde
Clean Slate Lisabet Sarai
Live Action Susan St. Aubin
Chilly Girl Rachel Kramer Bussel
Stripped Clancy Nacht
The Tea Party Charlotte Stein
Rapunzel Jacqueline Applebee
Getting the Message Kay Jaybee
Ivy League Associates Donna George Storey
True Colors Louisa Harte

Feb 28, 2011
#snow #sex #erotica #Smooth #Chilly Girl #free smut
Free erotica by me #1: "Belted" → erotica-readers.com

I’m the guest author at ERWA (Erotica Readers & Writers Association), the best resource for erotica writers online, which I’m proud to say I’ve been using, as an author and editor, for over 10 years! I gave them 3 free stories and also plan to put more of my stories on my site when I get a chance. If you like “Belted,” I’m pretty sure you’ll like my book Surrender: Erotic Tales of Female Pleasure and Submission, which is on sale at Amazon for the super bargain price of $8.71 (it’s also in my book Orgasmic).

Feb 28, 20114 notes
#free smut #free erotica #BDSM #Belted
Call for Submissions: Best Sex Writing 2012

Please reblog and pass this on to anyone you know who might be a good fit - May 1st is a firm deadline!


Call for submissions: Best Sex Writing 2012
To be edited by Rachel Kramer Bussel, selected by guest judge Susie Bright, author of Big Sex Little Death
Publication date: December 2011
Deadline for submissions: May 1, 2011 (earlier submissions welcomed!)

Editor Rachel Kramer Bussel is looking for personal essays and reportage for inclusion in the 2012 edition of the Cleis Press series Best Sex Writing, which will hit stores in December 2011. Any non-fiction writing covering the topic of sex will be considered.

I like work that looks at sex in new and unusual ways (see Stacey D’Erasmo’s “Silver-Balling” in Best Sex Writing 2009 for a prime example, as well as “It’s a Shame About Ray” by Kirk Read and “Sexual Outlaw” by Betty Dodson in Best Sex Writing 2010), that challenges us to think about sex and our own sexuality, is thought-provoking and possibly disturbing. I want sex journalism that’s found in the most unexpected places and is as topical as possible.

No fiction or poetry will be considered.

Previous editions of BSW have featured authors such as Brian Alexander, Violet Blue, Susannah Breslin, Betty Dodson, Stephen Elliott, Gael Greene, Paul Krassner, Judith Levine, Michael Musto, Scott Poulson-Bryant, Mary Roach, Tristan Taormino, Virginia Vitzhum, and others.

Requirements: For reprints, story must have been published (or is slated to be published) between August 1, 2010 and December 31, 2011, online and/or in print (book, magazine, zine or newspaper) in the United States. Original, unpublished work is also welcome.

Authors:

Please send your double-spaced submission (1,500-4,000 words) as a Word document or RTF attachment to bestsexwriting2012 at gmail.com – you may submit a maximum of TWO pieces for consideration. You MUST include your full contact information, a 50-word or less bio, and previous publication details for reprints.

Include your name, email address, mailing address, phone number, and exact publication details (title of publication, date of publication, and any other relevant information). Only send work you own the licensing rights to.

Editors:

Submit up to three submissions from their publication, following the guidelines above. Provide the author’s contact information available upon request.

Email address (for queries and submissions): bestsexwriting2012 at gmail.com
Payment: $100 

Deadline: May 1, 2011 (earlier submissions welcomed and encouraged)
You will receive an email confirming your submission; after that you can expect to hear back from me by August 2011.

Rights bought:
Author hereby grants Editors, during the first term of the United States copyright, and any renewals thereof, in the “Work”:
a. The non-exclusive right to “publish” (i.e. print, publish, and sell) the Work as part of the Book in book and digital form in English in the United States and its territories; and
b. The non-exclusive right to “publish” and license the Work as part of the Book in book and digital form in English in other countries; and
c. The non-exclusive right to license translate and publish the Work as part of the Book in book and digital form in languages other than English in all countries.

Rachel Kramer Bussel (www.rachelkramerbussel.com) is an author, editor, blogger and event organizer. She is Senior Editor at Penthouse Variations, sex columnist for SexIs Magazine, and has edited 38 anthologies, including Gotta Have It, Surrender, Best Bondage Erotica 2011, Orgasmic, Fast Girls, Spanked, Bottoms Up and Best Sex Writing 2008, 2009 and 2010. She hosted In The Flesh Reading Series from 2005-2010 and writes for a variety of publications about sex, dating, books and pop culture.

Susie Bright (http://susiebright.com) is the author of the national bestsellers Full Exposure and The Sexual State of the Union, as well as The Best American Erotica and Herotica series, which ushered in women’s erotic publishing. She the host of Audible’s In Bed With Susie Bright, the longest-running sex-ed show in the history of broadcasting. She was co-founder and editor of On Our Backs magazine, and was the first journalist to cover erotic cinema and the porn business in the mainstream press. A progenitor of the sex-positive movement, Bright taught the first university course on pornography, and brought lasting sexual influence to her role in films like Bound and The Celluloid Closet. Her latest book is the memoir Big Sex Little Death.

Feb 28, 20116 notes
Feb 28, 2011511 notes
Feb 27, 2011
Feb 27, 2011
Feb 27, 2011
fiction time

I’m in the process of taking one of the worst nights of my life and using it very loosely to create an erotic story, or at least, create the setting/inspiration for an erotic story. I’ve got 800 words to go. Feels good to, in a way, take back the night, even though you can never literally get back time you’ve lost/misspent. If it gets into the book I’m submitting it to, I’ll let you know. And for those who are interested in erotica, soon I’ll have details about the erotic writing Learning Annex classes I’m teaching (it’ll be available for download).

Feb 26, 2011
Play
Feb 26, 2011
Feb 26, 20114 notes
Look, something new, a woman judging other women...oh wait

From The Guardian, a rant by Bidisha against pubic hair removal that, but of course, has to devolve into slamming women. Because that’s so fucking feminist. Oh wait, I’m so ashamed of my body…which is why I’m not having sex this year but I am getting my pussy waxed. Silly me. Maybe I should try to write something for The Guardian. I don’t feel up in arms about pubic hair or the lack thereof as an “issue” but women of the world, you really need to learn how to argue FOR something without tearing other women down. A shocking notion, indeed.

Will a woman really do everything she can to meet every passing fad, even if it’s uncomfortable, time-consuming, irritating, expensive, troubling, humiliating? And look at the reward: intercourse with a porn-adoring male who actually loathes women’s real, naked, hairy bodies?

Are women so ashamed of their bodies’ natural beauty, so unaccepting of things as they are that they will do anything at all, even if it’s degrading, to get some willy time? A man who withholds his attention and affection according to the follicle count of a lady’s crotch doesn’t deserve intimacy with a real-life woman. A man who likes a woman without pubic hair despises adult women so much that he wants us to resemble children. He should stay at home instead in front of a computer, masturbating alone to the hair-free images he reveres.

Feb 25, 201113 notes
#attackingotherwomenisthenewblack #pubic hair
Feb 25, 201122 notes
Feb 25, 201161 notes
Women and leanness → fortheloveofcookies.wordpress.com

I don’t believe there’s anything “natural” about “femininity” but do think this post and the comments are interesting…as a counter to pro-ana blogs, but by people, mostly women, who want to lose weight but do it in a healthy way.

Feb 25, 2011
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