Susie Bright, author of "X": An Erotic Treasury (February 1-14)

Please welcome Susie Bright, author of X: The Erotic Treasury. Susie will be on hand to answer questions and talk to readers until (the very appropriate) Valentines Day.

Guess this is my Susie Bright morning. I was adding you on Facebook and started to write you a little message about how your encouragement to write a blog as part of your writing class at New College actually ended up getting me married (and a significant improvement in getting laid -- both quantity and quality). You'll be happy to know that X is on the bedside table and my new bride and I will occasionally break it out and I'll read her a story. We had actually read the Robert Olen Butler story before you read it on your Audible podcast. Robert Olen Butler has a couple of spots on the nightstand too with his Intercourse and Severance books.

Let me see -- I've plugged your Facebook page, your Audible show, X The Erotic Treasury and your blog (http://susiebright.blogs.com/susie_brights_journal_/) -- twice now --so I must tell all the readers of this author's chat -- I'm not a shill.

Thanks for the bliss, Susie.

Hi there, everyone! I had a little "Internet snafu" in the snow, and am only just now back online, late to my own party!

Thanks for dropping by, and I'd be happy to answer any questions you have about my new book— or anything else I've been up to.

"Tropico," thanks for the red carpet welcome! Now I'm wondering what your name was, in my class. What a trip, that it ended up being the catalyst that led you to meeting your wife.

So what new books are you reading? I've been seeing a lot of temptation lately because I've been touring my new book at various booksellers'. I saw a nonfiction book about the heyday of the Patty Hearst kidnapping, which I'd like to read. At the time, anyone who had the remotest connection to the SLA, in California, was under surveillance, and that included me because I had been tangentially part of a "bake sale" against apartheid with Bill and Emily Harris, who later were SLA cadre. I was followed for weeks around Los Angeles, and then of course the whole bloody showdown took out a neighborhood block in Compton when the SWAT squad killed the remaining members. It was such a bizarre chapter.

BTW, I'm going to be at BOok Passage in Corte Madera, in Marin County, this Friday... so I'm sure I'll get sidetracked by another book there! I've also been combing through my old John UPdike and correpondance with him, so this has been an interesting time!

SUsie

My name is Kent Winward. I was in the on-line class with New College. The blog I started as a result of that class was indeed the catalyst for meeting my wife, so thanks again. Steve Harsin was in that class too. While I had my blog up, he and I followed each other's blogs. I ought to go check his out -- I haven't visited it in awhile.

I envy that you had correspondence with Updike. I've always enjoyed his books. Didn't you have some of his work in BAE? Wish I could come to a book signing, but Utah is a little bit of a jaunt.

I just finished reading Brian Greene's pop-science book, The Elegant Universe, on string theory, relativity and quantum mechanics. Now, I'm quickly re-reading Dicken's Great Expectations so I can intelligently discuss it with my daughter in high school. In the past few months, I managed to get through all of Philip Roth's Zuckerman books which was a humbling experience. I think I read too much, work too hard and write too little.

Doing any book signings in March? I'll be in the Bay Area during the first of March.

Just wanted to say "hi." So, Hi!

I haven't actually read any of your books yet, but I do plan to. I also visit your blog on occasion. I would like to thank you for participating here at LibraryThing.

I'm one of those people who sit and try not to be noticed at author signings, etc. Apparently, I don't do much better in the online arena. I will mention this chat in a couple of LT groups that I think will be interested in it, so hopefully some more people will drop by.

Thanks again, Cheers, and Happy Reading!

Susie...you had correspondence with John Updike? How extraordinary! We'd love to publish it...have you ever thought of sharing it? We're doing some interesting things to celebrate him over at Flatmancrooked (www.flatmancrooked.com) - would love to get submissions from you on this or other topics. Take a look at the t's we've designed and tell me what you think. Maybe pick one up - they're even going to places like Japan!

Best place to pick up a copy of your book is? I am a reviewer for FMC and Sacramento Book Reviews, and would like to work it in. Find me at tracy@flatmancrooked.com.

Tracy Saville

SUsie...we would love to see your correspondence with Updike - possibly even share it with our readers under the blog or features - we're doing a celebration thing on him right now - check us out at www.flatmancrooked.com. I'll be looking for your book "X" now.

Tracy Saville tracy@flatmancrooked.com.

SUsie...we would love to see your correspondence with Updike - possibly even share it with our readers under the blog or features - we're doing a celebration thing on him right now - check us out at www.flatmancrooked.com. I'll be looking for your book "X" now.

Tracy Saville tracy@flatmancrooked.com.

Ummm...TracyKaye1...please don't spam here.

I published Updike in Best American Erotica 2006, an excerpt from his novel called "Villages." I highly recommend the whole novel, and the sexual tangles of the main characters, are, as you can imagine, first rate. As agonizing as they are erotic, because of course his protagonists get in piles and piles of trouble!

Kent, you would have died laughing about my last big tour of Utah... I wasn't traveling as an author, but rather as a union organizer. Being a union organizer is as shocking in Utah as a pornographer... maybe they're both thought of as the same thing. Sex equals communism and all that.

Anyway, I stayed with this cute activist hippie couple who raised bees in the shadow of the beautiful Rockies. They took me a potluck and I felt as if I didn't meet a Mormon all night... everyone laughed when I asked.

Now of course there are plenty of radical and thoughtful Mormons in my world. Look at Pat Califia. She once cracked me up by telling me that she really wasn't the strange one in her family; she was the only one of the whole tribe who hadn't personally witnessed a UFO.

Then there's that young fellow who wrote the Milk screenplay and is nominated for a Oscar this year!

I'm going to keep these posts short but keep on going...

I'm sure LibraryThingers are hip to this, but book tours cost a small fortune and publishers are very careful with their pennies. If they dont' think they can recoup the publicity in book sales, forget it. NOw of course there's exceptions, like "Mary Cheney's AUtobiography" and other nepotism/puff projects, but for ordinary authors, the financial burden is on us.

Otherwise, I'd be all over the map! I really like to go "non-celebrity" states cause everyone is so much more down to earth and thrilled to have an out of town visitor!

TRacy, if you're a reviewer, just contact my publicist at Chronicle Books and ask for a review copy.

You can buy it, of course, everywhere "books are sold." Ha! That's getting to be fewer and fewer physical locations!

My correspondence with Updike isn't remarkable, just polite back and forth. But I wouldn't publish it even if it were exciting... not right now. Seems a little raw and new. His family must be really suffering. I was totally taken aback when my dad had his life commented upon after his death by people I didn't know... he was a linguist, so it was a small world, but still!

Anyway, I try to err on the side of discretion.

I see that I am not causing a sensation over here in my LT interview, but not to worry! you know, most people come over to my blog, or to my Facebook and just blab blab blab, so I'll invite you all to do the same.

I'll "friend" anyone on FB who asks, just look up my name. I have a lot of fun there... my water cooler, for sure!

I don't think a lot of people do the LT "author chats" yet. You're a pioneer...just think of it that way! People don't know about the author chats unless you're already in their libraries, so it's tough. Me, I got the invite because I have How to Write a Dirty Story, in which you answer most of the questions I'd be asking anyway!

I had never heard of you or read any of your work until 1996, when I was newly divorced (after a 30-year marriage). I was just starting to make friends of my own, for the first time since college, and a new friend gave me a Good Vibrations catalog. I read something you wrote through their catalog and I realized I was normal after all. What a relief!
I really enjoy your Sexwise and Best Erotica books.

Thanks, Susie

Hi Susie,

I would like to get your opinion on the trend of modern authors feeling that they have to include scenes of explicit sex in their novels. Does this mean that erotica is coming out of the closet, so to speak?

Would you recommend that someone include said sex scenes in their book for it to sell?

Gilroy C, future pen name of science fiction and fantasy

*pouts as I never got an answer and her time is gone.*

Gilroy -

I think most people would tell you that "it depends." There was a bit of discussion on one of the agents blogs about writing sex and "what people will think" -- here: http://bookendslitagency.blogspot.com/2009/02/writing-sex.html

But, realistically, I've seen that question asked over and over, and the answer is always the same: especially in SF/F, no, you don't need to write sex to sell. Even in romance, you don't need to write sex--you need to write well in whatever subgenre, and there are romance subgenres that don't require sex.

>17 gilroy:
Another thing to remember are some of the pitfalls. The "Bad Sex Award" isn't serious but it addresses a real issue. Here's one link, and you can easily find more:
http://www.cbc.ca/arts/books/story/2008/11/21/sex-literature.html?ref=rss