Susie Bright is a writer, editor, and performer hailed by the Boston Phoenix as the "goddess
of erotica." In addition to having edited Herotica I, II, and III, the women's erotic fiction
series, along with The Best American Erotic 1993, '94, '95, '96 and '97, she is the
author of the national bestseller Susie Bright's Sexual State of the Union; Sexwise; Susie
Bright's Sexual Reality: A Virtual Sex Reader; Susie Sexpert's Lesbian Sex World; and Nothing
But the Girl: The Blatant Lesbian Image. She writes a column every other Friday for Salon magazine, as well as
other stories for them, like her feminist obit for Princess Di, her graham cracker recipes for
stress relief, and her nudist camp philosophies. Visit her new website at
www.susiebright.com.
Betty Dodson (site@bettydodson.com) has been a public
spokesperson for sexual freedom and masturbation for three decades.
She has taught thousands of women and men to enhance their sexual expression through her Bodysex
Workshops, her current book, Sex for One: The Joy of Selfloving, and her previous books,
Liberating Masturbation and Selflove & Orgasm. She recently contributed to the
collection Women of the Light: The New Sacred Prostitute. Dodson distributes her own erotic
sex education videos, Selfloving and Celebrating Orgasm, and manages her own web site,
www.bettydodson.com. Numerous sex educators,
national and international, have acknowledged her
pioneering efforts in the field of sexual self-help. Dodson is also a fine-artist who has had
noteworthy exhibitions of Erotic Art on both the East and West Coast. She lives in New York City
with her chosen family of sexual friends.
Nancy Friday is the author of seven books on sexuality and relationships: My Secret Garden
(1973), Forbidden Flowers (1975), My Mother/My Self (1977 and 1997), Men in Love(1980),
Jealousy(1985 and 1997), Women on Top(1991), and The Power of Beauty(1997). She recently
launched her own website (www.nancyfriday.com)
devoted to the issues and insights surrounding her
more than twenty-five years of research into beauty, sexuality, gender roles, aging, eroticism,
feminism, family, parenting, and love. She lives in Key West and Connecticut with her husband,
Norman Pearlstine, Editor-in-chief of Time Warner.
Daphne Merkin was with Harcourt Brace Jovanovich from 1986 to 1990, first as a senior editor and
then as the associate publisher. She began her career in magazine journalism in The New
Yorker's typing pool. Two years later, writing reviews for The New York Times Book Review
and The New Republic, she became the regular book columnist for The New Leader, and
was named their movie critic in 1984. Her reviews, essays, fiction, and journalism have also
appeared in Commentary, Premiere, American Film, Film Comment, The New York Times, and other
publications.
She first began contributing to The New Yorker in 1984, with a short story that later became a part of her 1986 novel, Enchantment, which won the Edward Lewis Wallant Award. She has since written criticisms and essays for magazine, including the much talked about "Unlikely Obsession," an examination of spanking in erotic life, which also appears in her latest book of personal essays, Dreaming of Hitler: Passions and Provocations (1997). And last September, she joined The New Yorker as a film critic and staff writer. Born and raised in New York City, she lives in Manhattan with her young daughter and is at work on a novel called The Discovery of Sex.
Sallie Tisdale is the author of five nonfiction books, including Stepping Westward and
Talk Dirty to Me: An Intimate Philosophy of Sex. She is a contributing editor at
Harper's and Tricycle, and has just begun writing a column for Salon. Her work
has appeared in The New Republic, The New Yorker, Spin, Traveler, and Antioch Review.
She is currently at work on a new book entitled Pigs in Blankets (although one might be
inclined to assume it's about sex, it's actually about food). Tisdale lives in the Northwest.
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