The Big Jewcy party tomorrow in Williamsburg

Tomorrow night I'm taking a break from deadline week mania (I finally, after much agonizing and slowness and frustration and nail biting, turned in Best Bondage Erotica 2012 and, if it gets approved, there will be foot caning and a mention of an ice cream pedicure, inspired by this one, and ice and corsets and all sorts of sexiness, but I will tell you more once the table of contents is finalized) to go to The Big Jewcy party at Brooklyn Winery in Williamsburg. I'm one of 100 people being honored and they are all worth checking out - a few recent ones are Adam Mansbach, whose Go The F**k To Sleep is hilarious and is a pretty big publishing phenomenon, Sarah Glidden, author of How to Understand Israel in 60 Days or Less and my friend Rachel Fershleiser, who talks about "broccoli and chocolate cake" and indie bookstores and reading and lots more. And you can read an interview with me.

Here's a snippet of Rachel Fershleiser's interview (her answer):

I talk a lot about this metaphor of broccoli and chocolate cake — it’s hokey but it’s important to me. Basically, I don’t think we need to convince people to read because they should, because it’s good for them. I don’t think reading a book is inherently healthier or nobler that watching a TV show or movie, especially a crappy book vs. a brilliant tv show. I also don’t subscribe to the “every time you watch The Jersey Shore, God kills a poet” school of pop culture. I read books because I enjoy the shit out of them. A great novel isn’t a wheat grass shot — it’s an ice cream sundae with whipped cream and hot fudge.

As someone who, um, owns two copies (ordered an extra by mistake) of Snooki's A Shore Thing, I say, rock on! A ranting aside - A Shore Thing was written by Valerie Frankel who, oddly, didn't get a mention in the recent New York Times article on ghostwriters, and that same article, while I'm mentioning it, talked about the Kardashians' forthcoming novel but not about the book shown in the photo of Kourtney, Kardashian Konfidential, which I was actually reading last November and brought to LA with me even though it's pretty big, and is actually a fun book. If that one's "ghostwritten" (much of it features lists of things like their favorite designers and foods and stories about their family) then I'm all for gossipy, scrapbook type books like this. I think the judgy-ness, wherever it comes from (and trust me, I have plenty of it within my own family), is stupid. Who cares what someone who's not you is reading? I actually wrote the Times a letter to the editor, going back to my teenage roots; they didn't publish it, but I thought that article not only barely said anything, it was disingenuous in its premise that people don't think these books are ghostwritten and that they'd care mightily if it were more open. It's not a secret; I literally learned that Valerie Frankel wrote A Shore Thing after I'd gotten the book and...read the acknowledgments.



Party is June 15, 6-10 pm at Brooklyn Winery, 213 N. 8th Street (where we held the 2010 Cupcakes Take the Cake anniversary party), Williamsburg, Brooklyn (right near the L to Bedford). Buy your tickets ($10) here.

Interview with me at Jewcy.com

I'm interviewed at Jewcy.com, as part of their profiles highlighting the 100 of us who are being honored for this year's The Big Jewcy. The party is next Wednesday, June 15th, at Brooklyn Winery in Williamsburg. Just to clarify - Best Sex Writing 2012, which I'm finishing this month, is going to be my 42nd anthology. I'm a dork and keep track of those things. It sounds like a lot. I guess it is (I almost said it wasn't, and also almost said it gets easier as you go along, which was true until right about now, when things are not easy at all).

Here's a snippet:

Why and when did you decide to become a sex writer?

I don’t think I ever decided to become a “sex writer” and it’s a label I struggle with; I’d much rather just be called a writer. But when I was in law school at NYU back in my early twenties, I was reading a lot of erotica and at one point thought, “I could try that.” And I did, and my fictional story about Monica Lewinsky, “Monica and Me,” was published in a book called Starf*cker. From there I went on to write probably over 100 short stories and then that led to a sex column in The Village Voice, and now one at SexisMagazine.com, and my full-time job as Senior Editor at Penthouse Variations. It’s funny because in college I was deciding between law school and journalism school and part of why I picked law was that I never thought I could make a living from words, and now I do.

Do you have any specific goals you’re trying to accomplish with your writing?

I don’t know if I’ve ever had goals per se. I feel like I fell into doing what I do and sometimes I look around and have to pinch myself that I get to do all the various things I do and make money at them. I want to try to be as rigorously honest with myself and my readers as I can; sometimes the allegiance to the work outweighs an allegiance to anything or anyone else, and that is a tough balancing act. I learn a lot about myself by writing both fiction and nonfiction, but I’m also aware that, especially around sex, I’m never just writing about me. So I try to keep that in mind. My goals are to not let my fears discourage me from even making the attempt at trying new things in my writing.