Author, book doctor, raker of muck

David Henry Sterry

Tag: Sex Worker Literati Page 1 of 2

Antonia Crane Talks About Sex Work, Slut-Shaming, Biting Matthew McConaughey and Her New Book: Spent

To read on Huffington Post click here.

I met Antonia Crane when I was putting together an anthology I did about sex work & sex workers. From our first correspondence it was clear she was smart, articulate, funny, talented, ballsy and didn’t take herself too seriously. I knew she had a book in her. Now the book is out of her and into the world. It’s called Spent, and I’m happy to say it’s smart, articulate, funny, talented, ballsy and didn’t take itself too seriously. So I thought I’d pick her brain about sex, money, work, stripping and moms.

David Henry Sterry: I noticed that a lot of pieces in your new memoir Spent were published in other places first. How did that happen? Did it help you become a better writer? Did it help you get your book published?
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Antonia Crane: I started writing nonfiction in grad school about being a sex worker and raging about my mother’s death. I was grieving. I was doing sex work. I have been braiding those two narratives for a while and that texture/tone became the basis for my book. The first great thing that happened was I pitched a column to Stephen Elliott for The Rumpus and he said Yes. Stephen is a Yes man. He seems like he wouldn’t be — but he is such an energy source: an innovator and loves fresh ideas and voices. I sent out essays to a gazillion places, hungry for more yesses. What I got were hundreds of no’s but I kept trying. I kept pushing. I kept writing and I got better. That’s what happens when you work hard.

DHS: How did you learn to become a writer?

AC: By becoming a voracious reader. I have always been in love with books and in love with stories. As a youth, it probably began with Dr. Suess and then Lewis Caroll’s “Alice and Wonderland.” Then I went crazy for Mary Shelly’s “Frankenstein” and fell in love with J.D. Salinger’s “Franny and Zooey.” To become a writer, I simply had to write badly until it gradually got better.

DHS: You reveal such intimate personal things about yourself, stuff that is forbidden in our culture, things that make people uncomfortable. Were you worried about how people would react? Have you gotten any slut-shaming as a result of this book?

AC: The slut-shamers have been disconcertingly quiet. Frankly, the part I was worried about the most was not the sex or sex work at all. I am a grown-ass woman who made her decisions: good or bad. The euthanasia chapter was my biggest concern because there are legal issues and personal issues regarding who was in the building; who was in the room with my mother and I. My step-father was amazing about it. He is a good man who does great things and he and I are on the same page politically. Also, I wondered how my actual Dad would respond but he’s been very supportive. Right after a therapy session recently, I flat-out asked him not to read it.

DHS: There’s long been a raging debate about whether sex work is tantamount to slavery, or on the other end of the bell curve, empowering. Where do you stand on this?

AC: I’m so glad you asked that question. It’s a hard question and one I have been thinking about and writing about for a long time. In fact, this article just came out in <a href=”http://www.thenation.com/article/179147/why-do-so-many-leftists-want-sex-work-be-new-normal#” target=”_hplink”>The Nation</a> that I plan to respond to this week. The article criticizes the “sex work as ‘normal’ work” battle cry of many educated feminists, of which I am one. And I don’t fully buy into that line of thinking either. Some sex work is slavery, for instance, when it is. That line is not confusing to me. Sometimes women are enslaved and this is a horrific tragedy that needs to end. Because, the picture of the woman on a billboard who graduated from Mills College and is a sex worker looks really different from a girl sold by her family into prostitution or a young girl from the tracks here in LA. When it’s a choice, Sex work can be empowering, validating, fun, sad, lonely, humiliating and lucrative. So can waiting tables. But, they are very different jobs because when you throw sex into the mix, all of a sudden people get uncomfortable and threatened. People don’t go get a plate of pasta in a restaurant because they are dying of loneliness. But they will come to women in the sex industry for that reason. It’s a troubling enigma. I stand in the crossroads of this debate and think you should ask a sex worker if she thinks it’s slavery. Then go ask an employee of Walmart and compare answers.

DHS: The stuff in your book about your mom is so vivid and beautiful and sometimes excruciatingly painful. I’m not ashamed to admit that I cried when I was reading parts of it. Was it hard to write? Was it liberating? Painful? Or all of the above?

AC: I love tears. I am glad you cried and am honored my writing had this effect on you. I love reading stories that make me feel strongly. My writing sucks when I am not crying while writing it. Tears are my jam. It makes writing in public places embarrassing for my friends.

DHS: It’s really hard to write a good sex scene, but I really like your sex scenes in the book.  They seem so real and vivid. How do you go about constructing a sex scene?

AC: Thank you. I’m always trolling for good sex scenes. Sex is dirty, messy and awkward. There’s this crazy moment in Miranda July’s story “Roy Spivey” where he asks her to bite him out of the blue and he’s a celebrity, like Brad Pitt or Matthew McConaughey (who I would totally bite). I love that moment so much because it’s strange. I think about what was awful and what was awkward and then what I felt like in my gut and go from there. Steve Almond writes great sex scenes because he seems most interested in that little box of shame that happens whenever two people get naked together. I try to remember that and make him proud.

DHS: Is it harder to be a sex worker or a writer?

AC: Writing is the hardest thing in the world. I just got 3 big rejections this week that stung. And the writing is not only excruciatingly hard work, it’s impossible to get paid for it and it’s never done. I was just telling my publisher, Tyson Cornell over coffee that I am too good at stripping and it makes it hard to leave. Sex work is a hard job, but I have clocked in my 10,000 hours so I suppose that makes me an expert. Maybe I should write a self-help book for strippers: A Stripper’s Guide to Making a Killing Every Night.

DHS: You say that you became addicted to sex work. What do you mean by that?

AC: Sex work has saved me so many times in my life and this pattern can become addicting. Stripping and sex work has bailed me out, provided me with sexual validation, attention, money, filled me with desire, made me feel confident, smart and pretty. Also, in terms of direct service, this is a service job, when I make others feel desired and good, I feel like I have purpose. It’s a lot of topless 12-stepping lately, meaning, I find myself babysitting a lot of rich drunk men. I call them cabs and they send them away. Offer me their father’s planes or golf trips to Ireland. But sometimes they cry in my arms. Sometimes it gets very very real. Sometimes I kind of fall in love with them for their vulnerability and I take that into my actually pretty great big life and learn from it.

DHS: I hate to ask you this, but what advice do you have for sex workers?

AC: Do something else. While you are there, save your money and invest in your future. Play the long game. Try to remember to be of love and service.

DHS: I hate to ask you this, but what advice do you have for writers?

AC: The best way to serve your writing is to read. The best way to serve other writers is to actually help them in a solid way. The only way to become a better writer is to write every day like your hands are on fire. Write and dig deep. Deeper. Deeper still.

Antonia Crane is a writer, performer and visiting professor at UCSD. She’s a columnist on The Rumpus and editor at The Weeklings and The Citron Review. Her work can be found in: Playboy, Cosmopolitan, Salon, PANK magazine, DAME, Slake Los Angeles, The Los Angeles Review and several anthologies. Her memoir, Spent is published by Barnacle Books/Rare Bird Lit.
You can Tweet her @antoniacrane and find her book here: Spent.

David Henry Sterry is the author of 16 books, a performer, muckraker, educator, activist, editor and book doctor.  His anthology was featured on the front cover of the Sunday New York Times Book Review.  His first memoir, Chicken, was an international bestseller and has been translated into 10 languages.  He co-authored The Essential Guide to Getting Your Book Published with his current wife, and co-founded The Book Doctors, who have toured the country from Cape Cod to Rural Alaska, Hollywood to Brooklyn, Wichita to Washington helping writers.  He is a finalist for the Henry Miller Award.  He has appeared on National Public Radio, in the London Times, Playboy, the Washington Post and the Wall St. Journal.  He loves any sport with balls, and his girls.

Rosabelle Selavy Dirty Dances the Naked Wild Thing

Conceived & performed by the dancer herself!

Legendary Jo “Boobs” Weldon Gets Big Mike to Tittie Tassel Twirl (Bonus: hot pix)

This must be seen to be believed, as two New York City legends do head to head and boob to boob.

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Jessica Rabbit in the Sexiest Naked Dance Ever @ Sex Worker Literati

Rev Jen, America’s Sexiest Elf, on Learning How to Squirt

Hysterical story by East Village legend Rev Jen, the sexiest elf on the planet & author of Live Nude Elf, tells how she learned to squirt.

Master of Ceremonies: I Watched Doublemint Twins Blow Chippendales Dude @ Sex Worker LIterati

When I was Master of Ceremonies at Chippendales Male Strip club I hardly ever got laid. But I sadly watched on as sexy sexy people all around me were banging boffing & boinking.

to buy Master of Ceremonies

Dear John Letters: An Anthology of Stories from Hookers, Customers, and Assorted Sex Workers

Interview with David Henry Sterry for Johns Marks Ticks & Chickenhawks in San Francisco Weekly by Chris Hall

http://bit.ly/10uB55x
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Johns Marks Tricks & Chickenhawks Beautiful Review from Publishers Weekly

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johns coverThis collection of personal essays by sex workers and their clients vacillates    wildly from hilarious to depressing but never strays from being utterly captivating. Among the more amusing stories are a client with a “sweater fetish”, a woman who paid for her family’s Christmas presents by stepping on a man’s testicles in a pornographic film, and the dominatrix who got fired because she could not remove a client’s tooth. The phone sex operator asked to do cartoon animal voices for a caller is also not to be missed. Candid essays cover everything from the anonymous “captain of industry” with an appreciation for transsexual prostitutes, to the human misery of a pimp who turned out his own girlfriend. Some pieces are more meditative: Fiona Helmsey recalls meeting a kind client at a bachelor party who later died on 9/11, while Dr. Annie Sprinkle discusses her 40 years in the sex industry and her wish for “a more compassionate sex-positive society” in which “prostitutes and johns would be government-subsidized”. Though obviously not for the faint of heart, this book contains some courageous, raw, and intelligent writing that breaks taboos and smashes misconceptions. (Apr.)

http://v2.publishersweekly.com/978-1-59376-507-1

to buy the book: http://amzn.to/Yg0Lp8

book trailer: Who Really Buys & Sells Sex

 

David Henry Sterry @ RISK! on Being a Sex Maniac & a Crackhouse Smackdown

Storytelling event RISK! I tell a story about getting clusterfucked in a crackdown smackdown.  True story!

Sex Worker Literati: Toni Bentley Gets Paid for Sex

Rosabelle Selavy Takes Her Clothes Off @ Sex Worker Literati

Big Black Stud Does Monkey Love: Sex Worker Literati Presents Stephen Lloyd

Hos, Hookers, Call Girls and Rent Boys Gets Big Love

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Hos, Hookers, Call Girls and Rent Boys featured on the cover of the Sunday New York Times Book Review.  Written by Toni Bentley. To buy the book click here.


“An eye-opening, occasionally astonishing, brutally honest and frequently funny collection from those who really have lived on the edge in a parallel universe…unpretentious and riveting — but don’t worry, their tales are also graphic, politically incorrect and mostly unquotable in this newspaper…”

“Lele,” a piece by Jodi Sh. Doff, who “grew up in the suburbs as someone else entirely,” recalls Henry Miller’s in-your-face exposition. She tells of a night at Diamond Lil’s on Canal Street, where “Viva’s sitting onstage, legs spread wide.” While her customer is buried and busy, she holds a cigarette in one hand, a drink in the other, and chitchats with a girlfriend about another girlfriend. “Every two minutes or so Viva taps him on the head and he hands her a 20 from a stack of bills he’s holding, never looking up.” We see in this wonderful set piece the whole money/sex connection enacted with raw charm and an immediacy that reaches far beyond this strip club, as the man’s stack of 20s, one by one, becomes hers. Multitasking Viva holds them “folded lengthwise in her cigarette hand.”

“Very brave, very moving.”

“This collection is a wonderful reminder that good writing is not about knowing words, grammar or Faulkner, but having that rare ability to tell the truth, an ability that education and sophistication often serve to conceal. While we are all, I suppose, in the business of surviving, some really are surviving more notably than others. The collective cry for identity found in this unsentimental compilation will resonate deeply — even, I suspect, with those among us who pretend not to pay for sex.” – New York Times


“Sterry — who has written a number of other books, such as “Chicken: Self-Portrait of a Young Man for Rent” and “Unzipped: A True Story of Sex, Drugs, Rollerskates and Murder” — spoke with Express about his idea for the collection, America’s most commonly held misconceptions about the sex industry and whether the book should go in the ‘entertainment’ or the ‘educational’ portion of your bookcase.” –Express interview in the Washington Post 


“’Hos, Hookers, Call Girls and Rent Boys: Professionals Writing on Life, Money and Sex’ is graphic in nature, but full of raw, unfiltered and enlightening tales regarding a side of life not many want to know about; the sex trade. What’s so fascinating and downright addicting is that many of the entries are from individuals one would wrongfully assume to be illiterate, stupid or unworthy to hear from. While proving the stereotype wrong, each contributor delivers his or her side of a lifestyle with poise, passion, nuance and heart.

Real and undeniably shocking, “Hos, Hookers, Call Girls and Rent Boys…” made its debut to encore readers last winter, and I haven’t been able to get it out of my head since. So, it’s one of the most impacting reads yet to strike my world. It widened my eyes, opened my heart and oddly made me want to listen to Madonna’s “Human Nature”—and that’s a good thing.” -Tiffanie Gabrielse, Top Five Reads: Tiff ranks her fave favorite page-turners Encore Online


“This kaleidoscopic portrait of sex work in America is all the more striking for its breadth.” –SF Weekly


The sprawling project offers insight into seemingly all aspects of the sex trade: high-profile celebrities like Xaviera “Happy Hooker” Hollander and Nina Hartley make notable contributors, but it’s the unknown writers who will stick. The selections from the book’s closing section alone, written by members of a writer’s workshop for sex workers, range from triumphant to harrowing, making up for a lack of style or form with passion. Aside from exposing the complex web of relationships among phone sex operators, dancers, massage parlor workers, prostitutes and their customers, the book is heavy with raw emotions ranging from celebratory to shameful, giving armchair sociologists plenty to ponder. It’s not all dark and heavy: Sterry’s own account of his experience as a birthday present for an 82-year-old grandmother is touching and sentimental; veteran performer Annie Sprinkle is characteristically blunt, funny and honest. This volume houses some real gems.” – Publishers Weekly


“The prose in this volume is fresh and the tales are both heart-rending and hilarious, sometimes simultaneously. What’s most striking about the volume is how relevant these intimate and detailed chronicles are for any reader, whether they’ve sold their bodies or just their souls. It’s not just about sex. Rather than ghettoizing prostitutes, strippers and porn actors, editors David Henry Sterry and R.J. Martin have brought together essays from a broad sampling of sex workers, keeping it balanced. There are gripping accounts of writers who struggle to pay bills and get their lives together, who have families, who are human beings. How this crew differs from the straights is they all opted for sex work rather than a drone job.” – New York Press


“In these dark days of brokedom, who amongst us hasn’t lingered a bit too long in the Etc. section of the Craigslist job postings? I mean, I do have dainty feet with nicely trimmed toenails, and if I could make my rent just by stepping on some random businessman’s face, well who’s to judge?? Granted, I am not brave enough (or hard up enough) to go through with such an evening’s work (just yet), but the selection of writers featured in the anthology, Hos Hookers, Call Girls, And Rent Boys were not only brave enough to do it, and keep doing it, but were equally brave enough to write about it.  The first hand accounts, interviews, and poems featured in this book are so well written and organized, that the fact that they all center around the exchanging of sex for money falls into the background, and what’s left is an intimate offering of on-the-job gossip and late night horror stories that have you wanting to spend more time with the writer than the three or four pages a pop you’re given with each one.” – Kelly McClure, Bust Magazine


“In a reading that brought down the house at Busboys and Poets, Sterry’s rendition of “I Was a Birthday Present for an Eighty-Two-Year-Old Grandmother” was both incredibly funny and a fascinating anti-ageist commentary on the things we’re all afraid to ask for (namely, women asking for oral sex).” – Allison McCarthy, Womanist Musings


“Sterry and Martin have managed to bring together a crazy quilt of essays, and work the fabric of the anthology into a rich tapestry… Some of the narratives are polished and savvy, some are as hard and rough as drug addiction that dogs a body and soul. Others reveal a tarnished realism about the painful truths of being in the life. The most compelling are those which give voice to the most vulnerable, in the chapter written by sexually exploited youth. Helping Daddy Pay the Rent is a devastating indictment of societal neglect and despicable acts of parental desperation combust in one abused child that will tear at your heart… The writing is diverse and eclectic, a mirror into the nature of the industry itself. Sex workers with advanced academic degrees, porn stars and anonymous phone operators, exotic dancers in various states of gender and undress, have more in common than sex for money; they are united in their courage to tell their stories. They unabashedly relate their emotions, actions and reactions, in situations from victimization to domination, hunger to satiation; size twelve stiletto wearing cross dressers, full body massage providers, plaster casted exhibitionists all tell their tales in gripping first person I-live(d)-it-so-there’s-no-sugar-coating-it manner. Hearts, heads and other assorted body parts, seedy strip joints, broken down bars and spirits, upscale hotels and high rollers are exposed with unflinching candor and gritty authenticity, bringing to light the world of industrial sex workers.  This book is more than an interesting and affecting read. In its entirety, in its insistence that the gamut of personal histories about sex/money/power/frailty is a reflection of the human condition, it speaks to a broad audience. A bit of paraphrasing may serve to place the content in its most valuable context: Roman philosopher, Terence, said nothing in humanity can be alien to man; and renowned psychoanalyst Carl Jung said that light is revealed by uncovering shadow. HHCG&RB presents the universality of ancient archetypal themes playing out in modern day scenes, and in doing so, uncovers shadow for all.”  –Barnes & Noble.com


“Hos, Hookers, Call Girls and Rent Boys is an extremely valuable and necessary book, not because it tells you what your perspective ought to be, but because it provides more perspectives than pretty much any other book on the topic. It covers more ground than I would have imagined possible. What I love is the fact that, for once, so many different voices are represented within the same space…I can’t help but feel that it should be required reading… precisely because it addresses, head-on, so many of the issues and schisms that have kept those conversations stalled for so long.” – Tiger Beatdown


“There’s something unique about being a member of the sex worker club, an instant camaraderie that bonds one to people who would otherwise be strangers, and this chemistry is something of which Sterry can’t get enough. You might be one of those people who doesn’t believe that sex workers are interesting. You may downright resent the cultural fascination with those who take money to titillate and masturbate strangers. Maybe you’re convinced that the only thing these men and women have going for them are passable looks and a wildly miscalibrated moral compass, and that paying attention to their déclassé life of the body glamorizes underachieving and turpitude.
If you belong to this camp, you probably don’t actually know any sex workers—at least none who would come out to you, and why would they? You’ve made up your mind about them already. You say things like: “Stripping is 1) a way to make a lot more cash than other “unskilled” service jobs [and] 2) incredibly degrading,” then add, “I’ve never been a stripper and I don’t know any strippers.” Never, for that matter, will you actually ever know anything about strippers, because they aren’t going to talk to you. Sex workers just don’t feel comfortable around you. But many do feel comfortable with David Henry Sterry, a former gigolo best known for his memoir Chicken, and what they share with him should convince even the grouchiest non-believers that sex workers are an engaging, unusual tribe. In Hos, Hookers, Call Girls, and Rent Boys, Sterry and co-editor R.J. Martin have assembled an array of poems, interviews, and essays in a professed attempt to humanize sex workers. The mission is an admirable one, but raises the question of how many individuals who don’t already believe in sex workers’ humanity are going to pick up this hefty anthology. It also masks the true motivating energy behind the collection, which is Sterry’s exuberant love of his fellow pros and his desire to celebrate their histories and personalities. There’s something unique about being a member of the sex worker club, an instant camaraderie that bonds one to people who would otherwise be strangers, and this chemistry is something of which Sterry can’t get enough. He refers frequently to this sense of kinship and stresses the uncommonness of his access to such candid and diverse workers. (This bragging about connections ultimately seems a little silly, given that many of the book’s contributors are well-established go-to writers like Audacia Ray, Annie Sprinkle, and Xaviera Hollander.) Sterry’s enthusiasm also manifests as frequent, ill-advised introductions to pieces written by individuals whom he personally knows. As he details first meetings with contributors such as Surgeon and mochaluv, the focus is directed on himself rather than the person he’s touting, and it creates the impression that the writing itself isn’t good enough to hold one’s attention—that without knowing how beautiful Lorelei Lee or Carla Crandall or April Daisy White are, we won’t care about their essays. We do care, though, because in addition to being porn stars and prostitutes, many of these people are talented writers with strong voices and precise observations. They’re natural born storytellers who manage to encapsulate an aspect of their experiences in wonderfully succinct (Sebastian Horsley: “Brothels make possible encounters of extreme intimacy without the intervention of personality.”) and stark, unsentimental ways (Brenda: “I have been arrested eight times for prostitution. It messed up my life.”) Among the most effective pieces is Melissa Petro’s “Mariposa,” an essay on her time spent in Mexico as a white American stripper, an unforgettable script-flip of the highest order (our girls go there to make money?)  Candye Kane reminisces about her sweet and genuine childhood friendship with an exotic dancer, while Sadie Lune explores the decadent excitement that comes from self-consciously inhabiting the role of an archetypal whore. Sterry himself reflects on his session with an 82-year-old woman, an encounter he initially dreads but eventually delights in: ‘I am making this happen. I have such a sense of joy and satisfaction.’ The standout offering, however, is Juliana Piccillo’s “Vice,” an exploration of her relationship with an invasive and needy client that rendered her alternately gratified and repulsed. Piccillo relentlessly mines the conflicting emotions that come with clients who want to play the white knight, a common but relatively undiscussed topic in most sex worker literature. “His fatherly concern co-existed with his hard-on,” she writes. “He left me to reconcile this.” She also admits to coming unintentionally (and practically unwillingly) while working in a job that generally disgusts her, and not wanting to leave in spite of hating the routine—paradoxes that many prostitutes shy away from acknowledging. Some of these essays barely even explicitly address sex work, particularly those culled from SAGE (Standing Against Global Exploitation) workshops. The focus is instead on struggles with addiction, particularly clear and affecting memories, and current personal relationships. The inclusion of these selections may be the book’s greatest, albeit most subtle triumph. It serves as an invaluable reminder that hos and rent boys aren’t as prone to filtering their complex lives through the sieve of clients’ orgasms as are the civilians who debate about and condemn them.” – The Rumpus

Excerpts

Featured Books by David Henry Sterry

chicken-10-year-anniversary-cover-198x300 Master-ceremonies-cover-199x300 essential hos
johns mort HobbyistFinalPRINTCover5.375x8.25inchesCMYK300dpi confessions

Sex Worker Literati: Abiola Abrams & the Power of Big Thick Lust

Sex Worker Literati- Porn Star Lorelie Lee on Hard Drugs, Raw Sex, Girlfriends & Strangers

Sex Worker Literati Princess Paulina, Absolutely Fabulous Tranny, Dances Dirty & Dishes Dirt

One of my favorite trannies in the world, funny, fierce & fabulous Princess Paulina.

Sex Worker Literati: Mary Raffaele Does Random 80’s Rock Dude

Sex Worker Literati: Big Mike & Puma Perl Lap Dance

Puma Perl & Big Mike: Scissors, Cutting & Whoring @ Sex Worker Literati

Sex Worker Literati: Matthew Lawrence Comes Face-to-Face w/ a Mighty Mighty Cock

Sex Worker Literati: The Preacher & the Barker

Jesus, Big Dick, the Virgin Mary, & the Garden of Eden David Henry Sterry does a Preacher & a strip club barker battling for your soul & flesh.

 

Jodi Sh. Doff @ Sex Worker Literati on Hustling, Drugs & Death

Zoe Hansen Gets Fucked by a Trick @ Sex Worker Literati

X-madame Zoe Hansen makes love connection w/ trick who fucks her royally

Jessica Rabbit Dirty Dances for Santa @ Sex Worker Literati

Akynos Dances Extra Sexy

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New York Times Love, Heartache and Hollywood, & a Wild Thing Dirty Dancing

As 2010 turns into a bent shriveled old man, and 2011 prepares to be contracted out of the universe’s uterus, I’m filled with a profound sense of gratitude and happiness that I am not yet dead. Yes, it’s true, 2010 saw George Bush and Justin Bieber join Paris Hilton in the rank of best-selling authors. But on the upside, South Africa put on a glorious World Cup this summer, and I think it was a great sign that the beautiful delicate artistry of Spain triumphed over the rape-pillage’n’plunderism of the barbaric Vikings. Plus, California didn’t drop off into the ocean, and Olive somehow turned 3. So for me, that’s a good year.

The Essential Guide Pitchapalooza Tour is now halfway done, and while we had some soul sucking lows (the DC bookstore didn’t even know we were coming, and had 0 of our books on hand), we were lucky enough to end on a note of Xtreme triumph. In Huntington, Long Island of all places.

NY TIMES PITCHAPALOOZA ARTICLE: http://bit.ly/gw99nh

Book Revue is a very good bookstore. It has an astounding bookseller/event coordinator named Julianne Wernersbach. She hooked us up with a feature article in Newsday before the event. And a beautiful little mini-doc.

PITCHAPALOOZA MINI-MOVIE -TRY NOT TO CRY http://bit.ly/f8hH2F

WHITE KNUCKLES, CRIME & PUNISHMENT, & TRIUMPH IN LONG ISLAND: http://bit.ly/dVzatz

Which is all very odd because we’ve now done Pitchapaloozas from Dayton to Denver, Pittsburgh to Portland, Manhattan to Miami, Seattle to Tempe, Clinton to Pasadena, and Cleveland to Hollywood.
#1: The Essential Guide Rocks America Tour Kicks Off: http://bit.ly/dbk39k
#2: 1st Stop Washington DC: the Borders Incident: http://bit.ly/cQ11fj
#3: NPR Love in DC: http://bit.ly/9bCUcl
#4: Pat Conroy & Scarlet O’Hara On the Road to Pittsburgh: http://bit.ly/aVBAH5
#5: Death @ the Bookstore – The Murder of Joseph-Beth: http://bit.ly/dpYTnj
#6: Miss Ida, Daryl & Olive Chillin in Steel Town http://bit.ly/aLZS22
#7: The Beauty of Loganberry Books & the Universe’s Lollipop http://bit.ly/abOTPR
#8: Dawn Cracks Early in Cleveland http://bit.ly/axLCDP
#9: Finding Happiness @ Books & Co & the Dayton Airport Blues http://bit.ly/cwd6lo
#10: Stuck in Dayton on the Day That Would Never End http://bit.ly/cfipH1
#11: B & N Manhattan Pitchapalooza on Publishers Perspective. http://bit.ly/bcHFaZ
#12: I Love LA! –Hollywood Disaster & the Jewish Men-Skirt http://bit.ly/9Ci5dB
#13: Vromans Versus Dancing with the Stars, Riding a Dinosaur, & a Minnie Mouse Who Needs $ http://bit.ly/bXYdQ8
#14: Coming Home to Portland, Autumn Leaves, and Packing Them in at Powell’s http://bit.ly/fs326Q
#15: Seattle: Mexican Prisons, Sea-Salted Pate & Losing Your Innocence to Jimmy Carter http://bit.ly/fZKSiG
#16 Phoenix: Irving Berlin, Women Who Run With Wolves and a Random Act of Kindness http://bit.ly/gJRp0R
#17: Miami Book Festival: Versailles, Cheesecake Popsicles, and Sexo PARA Dummies http://bit.ly/dZsInz

We also did our first live Twitter event. Here it is on Huffington Post:

POPPING MY CYBER CHERRY ON TWITTER: http://bit.ly/dUtYck

We feel blessed to have met so many madly passionate writers and bravura booksellers. Already many of the writers who pitched to us are being wooed by agents and editors, which excites us no end. Because we are the Book Doctors, making books that are better one author at the time. We’re starting again on January 5. Here’s our schedule.

If you know of any group, association or venue with writers who’d like help getting successfully published, send them our way. We’re also offering this holiday special. For you, or as a gift for any writer you know, get a free consultation with the purchase of The Essential Guide to Getting Your Book Published. Either do it through our website and send us e-mail verification. Or call: 310-463-2068. Operators are standing by.

FREE $100 BOOK DOCTORS CONSULTATION W/ PURCHASE OF BOOK: http://www.thebookdoctors.com/buy-the-book/

SEX WORKER LITERATI: ZOE HANSEN’S HO HO HO HOLIDAY PARTY: http://on.fb.me/fA5lul.

Links for your viewing pleasure:
ROSABELLE SELAVY: WILD THING DIRTY DANCES http://bit.ly/i367iz
SCOTT UPPER: THE LONGEST HOUR EVER, TICKLING & THE TRICK’S MOM http://bit.ly/hysLrE
PUMA PERL & BIG MIKE: SCISSORS, CUTTING & WHORING http://bit.ly/eErCPO
DAVID HENRY STERRY: PAINFUL SEX@MY FIRST ORGY http://bit.ly/f7qBCt

Bonus material:
ME TALKING ABOUT SOCCER ON NPR. http://bit.ly/esGJrr

I hope everyone has a Happy Holiday, and a ravishing New Year. May all your dreams come true in 2011. xox D

Painful Sex @ My First Orgy from Chicken @ Sex Worker Literati

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“My Favorite Book: Chicken”

I’m an avid reader, but when trying to figure out something suitable for my favorite book entry, I had to think of something that I can read over and over again. My book shelf is overflowing with books that I love, and some of them I’ve read more than once. But most books, I read once, love, and then never read again. Other books I read, and then re-read some years later. But this book I’ve probably read a dozen times. This is the book I generally re-read when I run out of things to read.

It’s called (long title) Chicken: Self-Portrait of a Young Man for Rent, by David Henry Sterry. I don’t even remember how I came across this book. I don’t know if I bought it or it was given to me, but I know that I’ve never loaned it to anyone or sold it, because I just can’t part with it. Around the time I came across it, I was probably 19 or 20, and I only wanted to read edgy things, whatever that means.

It’s about a guy that moves to Hollywood to go to college and gets caught up in the world of male escort services. It’s not as bad as it sounds, really. It’s hilarious. The sarcasm written into the pages is unparalleled to anything I’ve ever read. Every single chapter makes me laugh out loud. The characters are unique, and each one of them has their own quirk.

The best part? It’s non-fiction. I highly recommend it for a good laugh, and just a good read.

Find Chicken at your local independent bookstore:  Indiebound chicken 10 year anniversary coverAmazon

http://www.luuux.com/entertainment/day-4-my-favorite-book

 

Time Out NY: The Perfect Sunday, Nov 28: Whitney, Blue Note & Sex Worker LIterati

Time Out NY

Give a nice shout-out: The Perfect Sunday Nove 28: go to the park, the Whitney, a Broadway show, the Blue Note, & Sex Worker Literati, @ Bowery Poetry Club, 7pm.

Rosabelle Selavy- Wild Thing Dirty Dances

The sultry sensual wild thing animal Rosabelle Selavy dirty dances at Sex Worker Literati.

Sisyphus, Boy Prostitute in See-Through French Maid’s Outfit & Sexy Lesbians at Sex Worker Literati

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How Hos, Hookers, Call Girls & Rent Boys Ended Up in Bed with TV’s Friends Co-Creator

This story starts when I was 17, alone in Hollywood with $27 in the pocket of my nuthugging elephantbells.  I had just arrived to begin my collegiate career at Immaculate Heart College, where I planned to study existential under a bunch of radical nuns.  That night, while admiring Marilyn Monroe’s handprints in front of Grauman’s Chinese Theater, I was approached by a very charming man wearing a shirt emblazoned with the word: SEXY.  He invited me back to his place for steak.  Turned out to be the most expensive steak of my life.  The steak was drugged .  SEXY raped me.  I escaped with my life.  But the happy-go-lucky lad who breezed into that apartment died in that room.  SEXY killed him.  I sprinted out of there broken and bleeding.  Within the week I was in the sex business.  I didn’t know it at the time, but I was suffering from Posttraumatic Stress Disorder.  The part of my brain responsible for emotion was engorged, and the part responsible for communication shriveled.  I was a living breathing fully-loaded semi-automatic weapon just looking for an excuse to go off.  So given my economic situation, (making minimum-wage frying chicken), my alienation from my parents, and my newly acquired mental illness, it seemed absolutely like my best option.  I was in the sex business for nine months.  One human gestation period.  But it changed me forever, and in ways I wasn’t even aware of for years to come.  Certainly I had great times in that world, and made gigantic money for a person my age and with my work experience.  But I also downloaded the sexual trauma I encountered in that world, and it infected me like a virus.

I became a sex addict and a cocaine addict.  Which is not nearly as much fun as it sounds.  In my mid 30s I realized that if I didn’t change I was going to die, or my penis was going to fall off.  I’m not sure which scared me more.  I knew I had to find a panic mechanic.  Fast.  Since I was living back in Los Angeles, naturally I found a hypnotherapist.  She gave me some tools to stop my sick twisted behavior, and helped me unraveled the huge gnarly knots inside myself.  I was a professional screenwriter at the time, so she suggested I write about my experiences.  Thus was born my memoir Chicken.  Writing down the most miserable things that ever happened to me helped me understand why I became a man child rent boy.  It helped me embrace my inner ho.  See myself as the survivor not the victim.  Accept responsibility and not blame everyone else.  Appreciate the good and not obsess about the bad.  Do things that made me happy and healthy instead of miserable than sick.

When that book came out it changed my life and I was so grateful I was overwhelmed by a fierce desire to help somebody.  Be of service.  So I decided to start a writing program for people who’d been arrested for prostitution.  For two years every Tuesday me and my ex-literary agent/current wife would go down into a basement of a nonprofit organization and run a writing group.  The hos, hookers, call girls and rent boys we worked with wrote shocking, funny, smart, mind-blowing, jaw-dropping stories.  And they always left the workshop in a better mood than they arrived.  As did we.  Part of my mission became to put a human face on these people who are glorified and stigmatized, worshiped and reviled, spat upon and paid outrageous sums of money.  Thus was born the anthology, Hos, Hookers, Call Girls and Boys.

One of the great things about sex workers is that they are amazing networkers.  They pretty much have to be.  So I put out the word that I was looking for writing by people in the sex business.  Me and my partner Richard Martin were flooded with submissions.  I was already the author of a bunch of books by then so I started shopping the anthology.  I showed it to my agents.  Not interested.  I showed it to other agents.  Even less interested.  I showed it to publishers I knew at HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster, Random House, and lots of the big boys of publishing.  They laughed at me.  Or ignored me.  On to the small publishers.  Nothing.  University presses seemed like the next logical choice, since this is really a piece of American oral history.  No pun intended..  I actually got the head guy at Duke University on the phone.  He told me in a disdainful, dismissive, condescending, adenoidal and freezing cold tone that this was certainly not the kind of book published by Duke University.  He told me they preferred material that was much less vulgar, rude, crude and illiterate.  Finally I approached places like Joe’s Publishing Co., where you call the number listed on the website and a guy answers, “Hi I’m Joe, can I publish your book?”  Even Joe turned me down.

After a year my partner Richard was ready to give up.  I was furious.  I knew I had something valuable.  Even though “experts” from the top to the bottom of the food chain told me that I was a deluded, moronic ex-ho.  Objectively, in the face of universal rejection, I should’ve quit.  I did not.  Me and Richard worked our asses off to make the proposal better, refining, buffing and polishing.  Then I came up with the title.  I did it with this game that we use to come up with titles.  You get a bunch of your intelligent friends, if you have any, you get a bunch of drugs and alcohol, and you write down every single word you can think of related to your subject.  Then you just start mixing and matching.  That’s how I came up with Hos, Hookers, Call Girls and Boys.  And I kept asking every single person I knew, wherever I went.  Finally I got connected to a guy named Richard Nash, who ran Soft Skull Press. A week later we had a book deal.  They gave us such a tiny advance that by the time we ended up paying all the writers, me and Richard lost money on the deal.  But we were ecstatic.

We were even more ecstatic when our Little Ho Book That Could, the redheaded step-child nobody wanted, ended up on the front page of the New York Times Book Review. I happened to be in Hollywood doing my Sex Worker Literati show to promote the book, when I got a call from my agent.  Marta Kauffman, co-creator of Friends, wanted to talk to me about the anthology.  I was excited yet slightly confused.  Why was someone in the center of American culture interested in our book, which was so rooted in America’s dark, dank, filthy underbelly? I tried to imagine a show about a group of perky, attractive, funny, fresh-faced BFF-sex workers trying to deal with life, love and turning tricks.  Sure, I thought, why not?  As I drove up to our meeting, I was expecting much Hollywood slickness.  But Marta was just like people I worked with in the theater for 20 years.  After we had our getting-to-know-you chat she told me how taken she was by Hos, Hookers.  How she had a vision of the characters and stories being brought to life as a modern dance piece, realized by some breathtaking choreographers.  Would I be interested in something like?

My eyes popped while jaw dropped.  I would’ve never imagined this scenario in million years.  But I liked it.  Sex is, after all, the ultimate primal dance.  And when sex is exchanged for money, a window opens into the human soul.  What a great way to let people to take a peek.

Yes, I said.  Yes.

Writing down the worst thing that ever happened to me was the final piece of my odyssey from out-of-control self-destruction, working at Chippendales, acting on Fresh Prince of Bel Air, writing screenplay for Disney, living in a fancy house in the hills; to getting my head cracked open, almost dying from a massive coke overdose, having my house stolen, and going bankrupt; to making Ross, Rachel, Joey and Chandler end up in the same sentence as Hos, Hookers, Call Girls and Boys.

David Henry Sterry is the author, with Richard Martin, of the anthology Hos, Hookers, Call Girls & Rent Boys.  He runs the monthly reading series Sex Worker Literati, giving voice to sex workers telling their stories about the exchange of sex for money, at the Bowery Poetry Club in NYC. The next show is November 28, 2010. https://davidhenrysterry.pairsite.com/ http://www.facebook.com/sexworkerliterati

Annie Sprinkle on International Day to End Violence to Sex Workers

A public letter from Annie Sprinkle, and your invitation to join us.
“Green River Killer,” Gary Ridgeway said, “I picked prostitutes as
victims because they were easy to pick up without being noticed. I knew
they would not be reported missing right away and might never be reported
missing. … I thought I could kill as many of them as I wanted without
getting caught.” He confessed to having murdered ninety women. Sadly some
Seattle prostitutes, their boyfriends or pimps, knew the Green River
Killer was Gary Ridgeway for years, but were afraid to come forward for
fear of getting arrested, or the police didn’t believe those that did
come forward, or the police didn’t seem to care. Ridgeway’s killing spree
went on for over twenty years.

Violent crimes against sex workers go underreported, unaddressed and
unpunished. There really are people who don’t care when prostitutes are
victims of hate crimes, beaten, raped, and murdered. No matter what you
think about sex workers and the politics surrounding them, sex workers
are a part of our neighborhoods, communities and families.

When Ridgeway was finally caught, I felt a need to memorialize my whore
sisters that had died so horribly and needlessly. I cared, and I knew
other people cared too. So I got together with Robyn Few, Founder of the
Sex Worker Outreach Project, and SWOP members Stacey Swimme and Michael
Fowley, and we claimed Dec. 17th as the International Day to End violence
Against Sex Workers. We invited people to do memorials, vigils, and their
chosen kind of events in their countries and cities. We produced a vigil
at San Francisco’s City Hall. To date hundreds of people around the world
have done dozens of memorials, actions, and events of all kinds, and the
participation is growing. Won’t you join us? Here’s how.

TEN WAYS TO PARTICIPATE IN INTERNATIONAL DAY TO END VIOLENCE AGAINST SEX
WORKERS.
(EVERYONE IS INVITED)

1.    Organize a vigil/memorial/gathering in your town.  Simply choose a
place and time. Invite people to bring their stories, writings, thoughts,
related news items, poems, lists of victims, performances, and memories.
Take turns sharing.

2.    Organize or attend a candlelight vigil in a public place.

3.    Do something at home alone which has personal meaning, such as a
memorial bath, or light a candle.

4.    Call a friend and discuss the topic.

5.    Send a donation to a group that helps sex workers stay safer. Some
teach self-defense or host web sites that caution workers about bad Johns.

6.    Do let others know about any planned Dec. 17 events by listing them on the
site. (Although sadly this site is not current and I’m not sure if someone
is following through on this.)  There is also a wikipedia entry about Dec.
17 which you can read.

7.    Spread the word about the Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers
and the issues it raises; blog, email, send a press release, forward this
text to others.

8.    Attend a Dec. 17th Day to End Violence event/action/memorial.
Everyone is welcome.

9.    Organize a panel discussion about violence towards sex workers.
Procure a community space and invite speakers like sex workers, police,
and families of victims.

10. Create your own way to participate. People have done celebrations,
Xmas caroling, protests at jails, lobbying at City Halls, naked women
reading whore writings, performance art, visual art projects, and other
creative, fun and moving things.

Each year when I attend a gathering on Dec. 17 for International
Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers it is always a deeply
moving experience. I take some moments to feel grateful that I
worked as a prostitute for twenty years and came out alive and
well. I remember those who didn’t survive and I fear for those
who won’t until some real changes are made.

In San Francisco we are in the process of organizing a whole events for
Dec. 17.  A city hall press conference, a memorial ritual at Center for
Sex and Culture, and “Naked Women Reading” sex worker writings (Lady
Monster’s Event).

Start organizing now!  You’ll be glad you did.  The fact that sex workers
themselves organize the Dec. 17 day creates good press interest (it has
been in many papers including NY Times) and helps garner compassion and
understanding of how the bad, unfair laws against prostitution hurt so
many.  But then sex workers of all kinds (legal sex work) can be targets
of acts of violence as well.

In whore pride solidarity,
Annie M. Sprinkleare you

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