Another new one. Hotel erotica is now closed and this one and the erotic spanking anthology are open. Please support my books so I can keep editing more anthologies - this will be my 50th!
Call for Submissions
Bisexual Women themed erotic anthology (title TK)
Edited by Rachel Kramer Bussel
To be published by Cleis Press
Deadline: September 1, 2011 (earlier submissions preferred)
Editor Rachel Kramer Bussel is looking for erotic stories featuring bisexual women in all their diversity. The more creative, memorable and hot, the better. Please avoid clichés, or if you're going to use them, turn them on their heads. I will leave the definition of "bisexual" up to you; the final anthology will feature a range of characters, settings and scenarios, from those in monogamous relationships to those in open relationships, single women, bicurious, etc. Plots centered around identity politics are not desired; these are erotic stories first and foremost. Please keep in mind that with an anthology centered around a theme such as this, my job as editor is to create a widely varied collection, so the more unique your story, the better its chances. Stories can be told in first, second or third person POV, but should focus on the experience of a bisexual woman (whether she identifies as "bisexual" or not). Though less desired, stories from the viewpoint of the partner of a bisexual woman will be considered. Authors of all genders and sexual orientations are welcome. Please see any of my previous anthologies, such as Orgasmic and Fast Girls, for an idea of the kinds of stories I'm looking for.
Payment: Contributors will receive $50/story and 2 copies of the anthology on publication. Contract is for one-time rights.
How to submit: Include story title and byline at top of first page. Send double spaced Times or Times New Roman 12 point black font Word document (.doc only, NOT .docx) OR RTF of 1,500-4,000 word story. Indent the first line of each paragraph half an inch and double space (regular double spacing, do not add extra lines between paragraphs or do any other irregular spacing). US grammar (double quotation marks around dialogue, etc.) required. Include your legal name (and pseudonym if applicable), mailing address, and 50 word or less bio in the third person to biwomenantho@gmail.com. If you are using a pseudonym, please provide your real name and pseudonym and make it clear which one you’d like to be credited as. I will be accepting stories on a rolling basis so the sooner you submit, the better. Cleis Press has final approval over the manuscript so you can expect a final answer by February 2012.
I’ve been seeing numerous recent submissions that do not conform to my guidelines. They are there for a reason and submissions not meeting these guidelines will not be considered. Please read and follow them or risk your submission being rejected or returned for reformatting. If you have any questions, please contact me at biwomenantho@gmail.com
About the editor: Rachel Kramer Bussel (http://www.rachelkramerbussel.com) is the editor of 38 anthologies, including Gotta Have It, Surrender, Best Bondage Erotica 2011, Bottoms Up, Spanked, The Mile High Club, Do Not Disturb, He’s on Top, She’s on Top, Tasting Him, Tasting Her, Crossdressing, Dirty Girls, and is Best Sex Writing Series Editor. She is Senior Editor at Penthouse Variations, writes a column for SexIs Magazine, and hosted and curated In The Flesh Reading Series in New York for five years. Her writing has been published in over 100 anthologies, including Susie Bright’s X: The Erotic Treasury, Best American Erotica 2004 and 2006, and Zane’s Purple Panties and the New York Times bestseller Succulent: Chocolate Flava II. She has written for Cosmopolitan, The Daily Beast, Fresh Yarn, Mediabistro, Newsday, New York Post, Penthouse, Time Out New York, Zink and other publications.
Showing posts with label bisexuality. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bisexuality. Show all posts
New column: "I'm Still Bisexual Even Though I'm Dating a Guy"
The more I type that column title, the more "duh" and obvious it sounds but still, it was something I felt was worth writing about. I'm always casting about for new column topics - one will definitely deal with Joan Price and her new book Naked at Our Age: Talking Out Loud About Senior Sex and elder sexuality. Maybe I can find something in London to write about! Still working on my Weinergate kinky sexting essay which I might just blog instead of going through the pitching rigamarole.
In some ways, my embrace of bisexual is also about a rejection of heteronormativity, of all the parts of straightness that feel oppressive to me. Yes, there are privileges accorded to straight people, but I feel there are also burdens; it’s assumed that you want to get married and become a parent and be monogamous. Stepping outside any of those roles messes with the dominant culture’s plans for you. I’d like to think being part of the LGBT community has made me more open and empathetic, and showed me how people are, in fact, so much more than any label.
What’s interesting to me is that this title, bisexual, is important to me, It's something I feel I carry no matter who I’m dating, or not dating, whereas “poly” and “kinky” are not intrinsic parts of my identity. They are things I have been at various times in my life, or rather, my relationships have been. Bisexuality is different for me, perhaps because it feels more primal than either being poly or kinky — not that they need to be pitted against each other. I used to struggle with the word “bisexual” because it implies there are only two sexes or genders, which is not something I believe, but it’s a shorthand that, in general, works for me.
My bisexuality has also played itself out in almost all of my relationships in some form. Often the form it takes is in talking dirty, and sometimes it’s gone beyond that. One girlfriend, who was pretty much exclusively into women, indulged my interest in a male friend of ours with a threesome. With most of the straight men I’ve dated, not surprisingly, they’ve been interested in fantasizing aloud about me with another woman or hearing about my own fantasies. I certainly feel freer when I have a boyfriend sharing my fantasies about women, real or imagined, than I do about other men.
Read the whole column (and if you like it, I'd love it if you'd "like" it on Facebook at the top and/or tweet, blog, etc. - all that really helps!)
In some ways, my embrace of bisexual is also about a rejection of heteronormativity, of all the parts of straightness that feel oppressive to me. Yes, there are privileges accorded to straight people, but I feel there are also burdens; it’s assumed that you want to get married and become a parent and be monogamous. Stepping outside any of those roles messes with the dominant culture’s plans for you. I’d like to think being part of the LGBT community has made me more open and empathetic, and showed me how people are, in fact, so much more than any label.
What’s interesting to me is that this title, bisexual, is important to me, It's something I feel I carry no matter who I’m dating, or not dating, whereas “poly” and “kinky” are not intrinsic parts of my identity. They are things I have been at various times in my life, or rather, my relationships have been. Bisexuality is different for me, perhaps because it feels more primal than either being poly or kinky — not that they need to be pitted against each other. I used to struggle with the word “bisexual” because it implies there are only two sexes or genders, which is not something I believe, but it’s a shorthand that, in general, works for me.
My bisexuality has also played itself out in almost all of my relationships in some form. Often the form it takes is in talking dirty, and sometimes it’s gone beyond that. One girlfriend, who was pretty much exclusively into women, indulged my interest in a male friend of ours with a threesome. With most of the straight men I’ve dated, not surprisingly, they’ve been interested in fantasizing aloud about me with another woman or hearing about my own fantasies. I certainly feel freer when I have a boyfriend sharing my fantasies about women, real or imagined, than I do about other men.
Read the whole column (and if you like it, I'd love it if you'd "like" it on Facebook at the top and/or tweet, blog, etc. - all that really helps!)
Bisexual guy + voyeur girlfriend in "The Female Gaze" in Sweet Confessions
Lately I've had some kind of issue with writing. I miss it, I think about it a lot, I come up with scenarios and titles, I start stories and essays and pitches but...I don't seem to quite finish them. Maybe I start too many, or maybe I sleep too late, or maybe I just need a vacation. It sucks, though, because I know those ideas could've been worthy and would've had a good chance of being accepted. I do have a few stories pending that my fingers are (virtually) crossed on, but I don't want to keep making that mistake over and over. It does mean that the stories I have sold, I'm extra proud of. One is "The Female Gaze," which will be in Violet Blue's July 1st Cleis Press anthology Sweet Confessions: Erotic Fantasies for Couples.
Below is all the sneak peek you're gonna get...you should pre-order the book so you can read the whole thing! The title was inspired by the seemingly umpteen times I had to read people like Laura Mulvey and John Berger and Michel Foucault in my women's studies classes at UC Berkeley. My politics were very different but one thing I think I can safely say remains the same is that I'm not an academic and never will be. The male gaze is an interesting concept but I think when it comes to erotica and sexuality so many of these topics can be played with, fucked with, if you will. No offense if you dig those writers; my point was my title played on that, and also the idea that "men are more visual than women," which I think is such a broad stereotype as to be useless. I'm totally a voyeur, much, much more so than I am an exhibitionist. I also kindof wanted to turn the straight guy + bisexual women trope on its head a bit. And I did (well, you can be the judge).
The Female Gaze
by Rachel Kramer Bussel
Ever since they’d started dating three years before, Alex had been telling Rory about the boys who hit on him--the men, the bears, the daddies, the ones who looked like they were barely legal, the silver foxes, the shy boys who found in him a kinship, or just a look, a lust, an impulse. “The bartender comped my drink, then slipped me his number. Do I have to put on a wedding band before they get the picture?” he’d ask, chuckling as he kissed her lightly.
She ran her hands through his thick black hair before telling him that a wedding ring had never been a deterrent to men hooking up with other men. Maybe she should have been bothered by people checking out her man, the one who’d once been a model and graced ads for Calvin Klein underwear and Brooks Brothers before deciding that he really preferred environmental law. But she didn’t mind, not really, and certainly didn’t begrudge these men their hungry stares, their heartfelt offers. The women she could do without, the ones who blatantly clocked her man while they walked down the street, the ones who she could tell would him into the bathroom for a quickie if they thought they could get away with it. Rory wasn’t sure why, exactly, the former amused her and the latter annoyed her, but there it was. Actually, it was more than that; the thought of these men kissing her boyfriend, running their hands all over his firm, muscular body, swallowing his cock, plundering his bottom as she’d only fantasized about doing, well, it turned her on.
She couldn’t help but wonder if they saw in Alex the same things she did. Was that possible? Were they clairvoyant--or just horny? Was he just another pretty face or did they want him to speak to them in that booming, low voice? Did they want him to order them around, like she did? “Touch yourself for me. Show me how wet you are. Fuck yourself with the vibrator I got you.” Would Alex be a top or a bottom in bed with a man? The more these men propositioned him, the more Rory found these naughty images creeping into her mind when she was alone, when she let her fingers wander between her lips and her mind go free.
Below is all the sneak peek you're gonna get...you should pre-order the book so you can read the whole thing! The title was inspired by the seemingly umpteen times I had to read people like Laura Mulvey and John Berger and Michel Foucault in my women's studies classes at UC Berkeley. My politics were very different but one thing I think I can safely say remains the same is that I'm not an academic and never will be. The male gaze is an interesting concept but I think when it comes to erotica and sexuality so many of these topics can be played with, fucked with, if you will. No offense if you dig those writers; my point was my title played on that, and also the idea that "men are more visual than women," which I think is such a broad stereotype as to be useless. I'm totally a voyeur, much, much more so than I am an exhibitionist. I also kindof wanted to turn the straight guy + bisexual women trope on its head a bit. And I did (well, you can be the judge).
The Female Gaze
by Rachel Kramer Bussel
Ever since they’d started dating three years before, Alex had been telling Rory about the boys who hit on him--the men, the bears, the daddies, the ones who looked like they were barely legal, the silver foxes, the shy boys who found in him a kinship, or just a look, a lust, an impulse. “The bartender comped my drink, then slipped me his number. Do I have to put on a wedding band before they get the picture?” he’d ask, chuckling as he kissed her lightly.
She ran her hands through his thick black hair before telling him that a wedding ring had never been a deterrent to men hooking up with other men. Maybe she should have been bothered by people checking out her man, the one who’d once been a model and graced ads for Calvin Klein underwear and Brooks Brothers before deciding that he really preferred environmental law. But she didn’t mind, not really, and certainly didn’t begrudge these men their hungry stares, their heartfelt offers. The women she could do without, the ones who blatantly clocked her man while they walked down the street, the ones who she could tell would him into the bathroom for a quickie if they thought they could get away with it. Rory wasn’t sure why, exactly, the former amused her and the latter annoyed her, but there it was. Actually, it was more than that; the thought of these men kissing her boyfriend, running their hands all over his firm, muscular body, swallowing his cock, plundering his bottom as she’d only fantasized about doing, well, it turned her on.
She couldn’t help but wonder if they saw in Alex the same things she did. Was that possible? Were they clairvoyant--or just horny? Was he just another pretty face or did they want him to speak to them in that booming, low voice? Did they want him to order them around, like she did? “Touch yourself for me. Show me how wet you are. Fuck yourself with the vibrator I got you.” Would Alex be a top or a bottom in bed with a man? The more these men propositioned him, the more Rory found these naughty images creeping into her mind when she was alone, when she let her fingers wander between her lips and her mind go free.
Looking for interviewees on female bisexuality
I'm writing a story for Penthouse about straight male/bisexual female couples, looking at different arrangements these couples have in terms of monogamy, etc. If you'd like to be interviewed (need men and women), email me at rachelkb at gmail.com with "Penthouse" in the subject line and your basic story and I'll be in touch. Thank you! To some degree, I'm looking to explore whether, for straight men, how dating a bisexual woman is different from (better? worse?) than dating a straight woman. All perspectives are welcome from couples that fit the above category. This pretty much includes almost every couple I know to some degree, and my curiosity about what relationships like some of my past ones have been like, hence the inspiration. Would need to talk to you by end of March, ideally sooner.
