INSIDE STORIES PODCAST 06: EROTICA WRITER SUSIE BRIGHT

LISTEN TO THE PODCAST ONLINE HERE, OR BETTER YET SUBSCRIBE TO THE FREE PODCAST ON iTUNES HERE. 

This week on the podcast, erotica writer and editor Susie Bright. May I just take a moment to nominate Susie for the Niftiest Person of the Year award? She's awesome. You may know her as the former longtime editor of "The Best American Erotica" series, or as a super-fab blogger and producer of her own audio program "In Bed With Susie Bright," or as Susie Sexpert, or as a co-founder of "On Our Backs" magazine, as a consultant to the movie "Bound," or from any number of other things.

This week on the podcast, Susie chats with me about the sexual imagination, and a couple friends of mine read snippets of stories in an anthology Susie edited called "X: The Erotic Treasury," which was published earlier this year by Chronicle Books. The book is sexy, and not to mention a gorgeous object, with a sort of velvety red slipcover. Check it out. The podcast episode contains talk of sex, of course, but doesn't have any swearwords or graphic descriptions of sexual activity. It's more like, talk about sex writing and writing workshops. 

Some things that Susie said, both that are included in the podcast episode or that I didn't include for reasons of time, are about erotica on the margins, pressing in at the mainstream. Whether it's how the zeitgeist gets captured in erotica writings people would submit for her consideration, or the hidden meanings in porn films, or the obscene "forage" paintings on the edges of pages of Plato's "Republic" or the Bible or other books -- sex is not just at the center of culture, but also plays around the edges in some fascinating ways.