Events

Sex Worker Literati

To celebrate the release of Johns Marks Tricks & Chickenhawks

May 8, 7:30 PM, BOOKSMITH, Haight Ashbury, San Francisco, with Kitty Stryker, Madison Young, Alvin Orloff, Dr. Carol Queen, Sherril Jaffe, Sam Benjamin, Chris Moore, dhamiboo, Richard Martin, Dylan Ryan

The Art of the Novel

To celebrate the release of Mort Morte, with illustrations by Alain Pilon

May 3, 2 PM, KEPLER’s, Menlo Park, California  David Henry Sterry, Alice LaPlante, and Sherril Jaffe: The Art of the Novel: Novelists Discuss Writing & Selling

May 9, 7 PM, BOOKS INC

Art of the Novel: DAVID HENRY STERRY, TAMIM ANSARY, SHERRIL JAFFE, & ANNA GHOSH at Books Inc Opera Plaza

May 11, 3 PM, BOOK PASSAGE – Art of the Novel: Sherril Jaffe, Danielle Svetcov – All writers get to pitch! Class limited to 20 people

Bonus Content: A stick figure demonstrates how to NOT pitch a book.  My first foray into the world of cartoons:

2 Pitchapaloozas in 24 hours. 3,000 miles apart.  They said it couldn’t be done.  They were wrong.

It all started on a beautiful Virginia Saturday afternoon at the James River Writers Conference, in the shockingly excellent city of Richmond.  JRWC came into our lives as the result of brutal failure.  Two years ago I set up a DC area mini-tour for an infamous book I put together.  My girl Shawna Kenney (whose memoir I Was a Teenage Dominatrix–which is about when she was a teenage dominatrix) was just optioned by Vince Vaughn) booked us into Poets & Busboys in Washington (packed to the rafters!), Atomic Books in Baltimore (filled to the gills!), and Chop Suey in Richmond.  When Shawna and I walked into Chop Suey, there were exactly 0 customers in the store.  There were

about 15 folding chairs.  None of them had audience asses in them.  Just as we were ready to call it a day, in walked a couple of brave souls who looked like they actually wanted to be there.  One of them was a colleague and dear friend of Shawna Kenney named Valley Haggard.  A ridiculously intimate show like that can actually be liberating, because let’s face it, since there are only four people, it really doesn’t matter, and you can just let loose.  So I actually had an ecstatic rhapsodic performing experiences.  This is one of the reasons I do it.  Afterwards, Shawna and I went out with Valley Haggard.  First of all, is that not the greatest name ever?  Valley Haggard.  Born to be an author.  Or a country singer.  Second of all, she was so smart, and funny, and generous, and goofy.  At a certain point she told me she was part of a writing group: The James River Writers.  I told her about Pitchapalooza and BOOM! Next thing you knew, we were on a beautiful Virginia Saturday afternoon about to unleash Pitchapalooza on Richmond.  Beautiful old buildings, a rabid writing community, and the sheer NICENESS of the people make it a go-to destination.  And I am not being paid by the Richmond Visitors Bureau to say that.  Although if they did want to pay me, I would certainly take their money.  One of the cool things about doing a writer’s festival is that you get to actually hang out with lots of pretty spectacular authors and writers.  Plus, I did about a dozen seven-minute consultations. 

It’s shocking how fast get to know someone in seven minutes.  So it was fun to see all these people that we had connoitered with, filling the auditorium.  By the time we started it was pretty much full, 150 writers and those who love them waiting in breathless anticipation.  We had a very funny and savvy panelist, Michelle Brower, from the Folio Literary Management.  As we do at every Pitchapalooza, we heard many crackerjack pitches.  A middle-age dragon (Michelle said that a menopausal dragon would be hysterical, and in doing so brought the house down).  I Do, I Did, I Don’t, a novel about a society where marriages have to be renewed every 10 years.  Dystopian apocalypses, literary opusi, zombies, werewolves, vampires and hard-boiled dicks.  But our winner was a cut above.  He’s a veteran of the war in Afghanistan, where he worked very closely with trained military dogs.  Dogs of war.  His novel, Boots on the Ground, Paws on the Ground, about soldiers battling in life and death circumstances, and their relationships with these brave, loyal, and extraordinary canines brought Arielle to tears.  In 1 minute.  Plus, his man’s-man lantern jaw, buff hulking hunky humble manner, and his AWESOME story made him an absolute crowd favorite.  Hurt Locker meets Rin Tin Tin, it just seemed to have bestseller written all over it.  And it was just one of many pitches that screamed: BOOK!

As soon as Pitchapalooza Richmond was done, and I had said heartfelt thanks to my new Richmond peeps, I whipped back to the hotel, grabbed my baggage, got the kind of hug only a four-year-old can give from Olive, kissed Arielle a fond adieu, and was whisked away to the airport.  It was a mad blast to have Olive with us, but we had decided she would go back with Arielle on the train, while I would fly solo to San Francisco, and do Pitchapalooza in San Francisco all by myself.

Having been awakened that morning at 7 AM by Olive begging me to play Biting Piggy (a game we made up about a month ago), I stumbled, mumbled, bumbled and numbled my way off the plane at 1 AM (4 AM EST!), feeling like someone had inserted nozzles into my ear holes and blown cotton candy into my skull.  Red-rimmed pupils, baggage under my eyes bigger than the suitcase I was lugging, guts rumbling from too much bad trail mix and caffeine, I shuffled through the disorientating post-midnight fluorescence of SFO.  I don’t know if it’s because I’ve heard too many zombie pitches lately, but being in an airport in the wee, wee hours will totally make you believe in zombies.  As I threw myself into bed at 2 AM (5 AM EST!)  I felt the sting of a tickle catch in my throat.  A cough barked out of me.  Followed by another cough.  Then another.  I could actually feel a flu bug attacking my larynx.  HACK!  HACK!  HACK!  Knowing that the thing I needed most in the world was a good deep night’s sleep, I tossed and coughed through a miserable night’s stupor.  In my fevered dreams, zombies were pitching me books about werewolves, vampires, hard-boiled dicks, and yes, zombies.  All while eating chunks of my flesh.  It’s so depressing when you get out of bed in the morning, and you’re more exhausted than when you got in the night before.

Lead-headed, wheezing and sneezing, I coughed my way out the door.  Luckily it was a rare robin-egg-blue sky day in Baghdad-by-the Bay, and a brisk but toasty breeze blowing lifted my spirits.  Once I got to North Beach, I found, to my surprise and delight, that the massive annual street fair was raging.  Columbus Avenue shut down, tables four deep set up on sidewalks outside restaurants, revelers and tourists and looky-loos cramjampacked in one of my favorite neighborhoods in the world, where Old Italian cannoli/espresso/gelato culture rubs elbows (and many other body parts) with drunken scruffy post-Beat writer types who scribble away in notebooks.

The fair was madness, in the best sense of the word.  A WWII-type float with Andrews Sisters-look-alikes singing Roll Out the Barrel; a high-stepping marching band from Oakland rocking their synchronized syncopation; Chinese slow-motion tai chi masters; kilted-up bag piping bad boys; American flag flying, Harley hog-riders; wild west cowboys on a high-stepping horses, and cowgirls decked out in sparkly costumes that looked like a cross between Dale Evans and Liberace.  It made me so happy to be alive.

I made my way to the Vesuvio’s, where I was going to be doing a reading for Litquake, the seismographic orgy of books that blows up San Francisco every October.  For those of you who don’t know, Vesuvio’s is right across the alley from City Lights Bookstore, the beating heart and pulsating brain of San Francisco literati for 50 years.  Everyone from Dylan Thomas to Lenny Bruce to Jack Kerouac have gotten polluted, plastered and plonkied while waxing poetic at Vesuvio’s.  I felt a great wave of history as I walked in, an overpowering sense of honor, humility, and gratitude to be reading at this shrine where so many great writers have drunk until they passed out.  The readers performed from the second floor balcony, looking down as if from Mount Olympus on the pulsating, hooch-fueled throng, shoehorned in wall-to-wall, cheek-by-jowl, the body heat wafting upwards, a crackling electromagneticity rocketing around the room, and ricocheting off those hallowed walls, which have seen so much literary history made over the years.  I was up first, and my adrenal glands were spitting fire, my central nervous system all jacked up, while my heart felt like a hare being chased by the hounds.  The din of the crowd was so loud it sounded like someone had turned the volume up to 11.  I was worried that they wouldn’t shut up and listen to me.  I underestimated the power of MC extraordinaire Mr. Alan Black, master of the pregnant pause and the growling punchline, a man who made his bones running shows at the Edinburgh Castle, where the Tenderloin sits like a festering sore on the bum of San Francisco.  Like a lion tamer who uses a Scottish brogue and slashing wit as his whip and chair to control a room full of wild beasts, he subdued the crowd in 1.2 seconds.  I love that feeling of a tightly packed mass of humanity waiting silently for the performer to try and conjure magic out of thin air.  I took a deep breath, relished the moment, and plunged in.  It was such a joy riding those words in that crowd through my story.  Ridiculously gratifying.

Sadly I had to bolt as soon as I was finished, so I missed the show, and as I strolled back down Columbus Avenue toward the Pyramid Building, the adrenaline speed wore off and I was struck dumb by a numbing wave of exhaustipation.  I had quite forgotten how depleted and drained my battery was, and I worried I’d have to call AAA to jumpstart me before Pitchapalooza Litquake, which was set to start in 20 min.  Caffeine! my brain screamed.  I collapsed into Starbucks.  I coughed.  I hacked.  I wheezed.  I drank.  I made it to Market Street, rejuvenated, just in time to find the organizers starting to seriously worry that I wasn’t going to show up.  It was my great good fortune to have two publishing stalwarts, Sam Barry and Kathi Kamen Goldmark (Write That Book Already!) as my copilots.  They arrived like the cavalry providing reinforcement for my battle weary troops.  And we were off!  A meta-post-modern novel about a writer battling his own book.  A rich girl getting back at her bad dad.  A juicy, gossipy guide to the London Olympics.  An Australian graphic novel about fast food workers who are actually crime fighters: fries and spies!  Dystopian apocalypses, literary opusi, zombies, werewolves, vampires and hard-boiled dicks.  But again, the winner was a cut above: a hysterically told tale set in Liverpool, where soccer is a combination of religious obsession and drunken life-and-death spectacle, and a woman finds she can predict the outcome of matches before they happen.  Madcap antics ensue.

Suddenly it was over.  I staggered in a stupor out onto Market Street, wrung out like a ragged rag, but wildly satisfied.  That night I collapsed into bed moaning and groaning, wracked by hacking spasms.  Slept for 12 hours.  Next night I slept 12 more.  When I awoke, the bug, the tickle, the hack and cough were miraculously gone.  I’m on the plane going back to my Jersey hearth and home.  Happily anticipating the kind of kiss only a four-year-old can give from Olive, and snuggling into my own bed with my lovely and talented wife.

To see all pictures click here.

“They Walk Among Us” is something from a ‘50’s space invaders movie, a tag line from the McCarthy era, and an accurate description of sex workers in clubs. The oldest profession thrives in late night venues, where liquored-up potential Johns with about as much chance of scoring as the New York Jets are easy marks. Tables filled with big spenders invariably attract ladies of the evening, especially when they’ve already been agitated by waitresses who in some quarters have been described as “half-hookers.” The man who just laid out $5,000 on sticky liquids probably isn’t going to get laid after all, and there lies an opportunity.
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There are plenty of people looking for opportunity in this big city. After all that Beau Joie champagne, opportunities seem to present themselves. The girls, and sometimes the guys, walk among us. They are the models or actors who never get up early for a casting, are between agents. They are the beauties with no visible means of support other than the ones provided by Victoria’s Secret. It’s done with a whisper and a touch. It’s advertised by word of mouth. It’s everywhere. Some are actual escorts looking for one last score to top off the night. These working girls slip past door people with a wink and an air kiss. The door people wink back and watch them slip back into the night a half hour later with their prey in tow. There are unspoken and spoken rules of behavior, but the pros know how to handle business and the people working in clubs understand how things work.

In Vegas it’s all around, as obvious as the neon, but here you have to squint a little, ignore the lights and sound to see it. The clubs are filled with the unemployed, who wear nice shoes, live in apartments, and stay out late every night. Some actually have parental support or have their own money, but many depend on the kindness of strangers.

With that in mind, it’s beginning to feel a lot like Christmas everywhere I ho. This Friday at 9pm at the Bowery Poetry Club, my pal Zoe Hanson will host her Sex Worker Literati Ho-Ho-Ho-Holiday Party. It’s readings from ho’s, hookers, call girls, and rent boys—with help from friends and allies. It is an xxxmas xtravaganza, with stories from Raff from Cycle Sluts from Hell, Michael Alago & Keith Caputo, and many more perverts or reformed perverts. Speaking of which, our favorite rabbit, Heather Litteer, is dancing. Zoe told me, “These monthly readings have picked up a rather nice following, and I enjoy hosting. I have a Sonny & Cher thing going with David Sterry, it’s rather amusing to take the piss out of him, which my audience finds hilarious! Of course done with kindness & just a touch of Zoe domination!” From the press release:

“Sex Worker Literati is the slutty child of the groundbreaking and internationally acclaimed anthology Hos, Hookers, Call Girls and Rent Boys, which shocked America by rocketing onto the front page of the Sunday New York Times Book Review, and gave voice to PhDs and high school dropouts, soccer moms and jailbirds, $5,000 a night call girls, $10 crack hos and hard-working rent boys. David Henry Sterry and Zoe Hansen will ride herd over an all-star lineup of the finest ho writer/performers money can buy.”

There will be a sex worker quiz and giveaway, and there’s no cover – the first time this crew hasn’t charged in decades. The press release comes with a tag line that sounds rather clever: “In the exchange of sex for money a window opens into the soul.” I will ask one of my ex-wives to explain it to me, they should know.

Besides David Henry Sterry, who is described as “Ex-teen manchild ho, ex-sitcom actor, Huffington Post muckraker, and author,” and Zoe “Ex-madame, ex-junky, ex-hooker, and memoirist,” readers will include Mary Raffaele, a former metal queen singer in Cycle Sluts From Hell, who wrote a memoir chronicling misadventures of a Midwestern girl who moved to New York to seek glamour in the lowest of places; Christina Cicchelli, a AVN nominee and Feminist Porn Award winner; Matthew Lawrence, a writer and curator who will tell tales of why he wasn’t a very good escort; Keith Caputo, ex-Life Of Agony front man who once worked with Flea & Red Hot Chili Peppers, Coldplay, Nine Inch Nails, Björk, David Bowie, and the Pixies; and Michael Alago, who is famous for discovering Metallica. Michael is a talent scout, producer and writer who worked with Nina Simone, Johnny Rotten, Rob Zombie and Cyndi Lauper. He also turned to photography and put out the book “Rough Gods.” This event will of course attract all the unusual suspects including sweet, innocent me. http://www.blackbookmag.com/article/ho-ho-hos-sex-at-the-holiday-party/23976

Some nice love from Abby Ehmann on NearSay

http://newyork.nearsay.com/nyc/east-village-les/arts-culture-sex-worker-literati-bowery-poetry-club-nov-28

http://newyork.timeout.com/arts-culture/books/593721/sex-worker-literati

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 prostitutes 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. http://www.davidhenrysterry.com/ http://www.facebook.com/sexworkerliterati

In Montclair a nip is in the air and the leaves are putting on a Technicolor light show: vivid violets, magnificent magentas, oppulent oranges, mellow yellows, and everything in between. Fall is falling, Olive is now officially 3 going on 19, & I’m glad to still be alive.

Just got back from Hollywood where we finalized a partnership between myself & Marta Kauffman (co-creator of the TV show Friends) to turn my groundbreaking anthology Hos, Hookers, Call Girls & Rent Boys (written w/ uber-mensch Richard Martin) into a modern dance piece, to bring to Lincoln Center. I am so excited to be embarking with on this endeavor with the brilliant, funny and large-hearted Ms. Kauffman.

I also had a power meeting at William Morris/Endeavor 2.0. I am overjoyed to announce that a great writer with a fantastic pedigree is penning a feature script of Chicken, my bestselling memoir. It has long been my dream to see a much better looking actor than myself portray the 17 year old me on the big screen.

The Essential Guide to Getting Your Book Published http://amzn.to/9BqJvf http://bit.ly/9khjDX is finally dropping November 4. It was a huge undertaking, interviewing everyone from Seth Goden to Margaret Atwwood to Neil Gamin about social media, twittification, facebooking, e-books, self-publishing, print-on-demand, kindles, nooks & i-pads. We’ve also started a company called The Book Doctors, which will be a 1-stop-shopping service for writers of all ilk who want to be successfully published. We help with everything from book proposal development, to hands-on editing, finding an agent or publisher, promotion & marketing, midwiving & emotional support, ghostwriting, to being interviewed. Our Facebook page is a constant font of insider info about writing and publishing, come join us: http://www.facebook.com/TheBookDoctors. Our amazing publisher Workman is sending us on a Pitchapalooza tour. It’s American Idol for books – only without Simon. You get your shot to pitch to a panel of publishing experts. And you get one minute. Afterwards, the judges critique everything from idea to style to potential in the marketplace and much, much more. It’s educational & entertaining. We have taught everywhere from Stanford to the Miami Book Festival to the world famous Stand Bookstore. The winner gets a free consultation & a chance to jumpstart your book career. We have helped dozens & dozens of talented writers become published authors. You could be next! Here’s what they said about us in Denver: http://bit.ly/9yG2on & in St. Louis: http://bit.ly/akI1Xg

Pitchapalooza Schedule:
http://on.fb.me/ctMkXG
Monday, October 25 NORTHAMPTON, MA Smith College, Poetry Center, Wright Hall 4:30 PM WORKSHOP: “How to Get Your Book Successfully Published”
Thursday, October 28 Place: CLINTON, NJ The Clinton Book Shop 7: 00 PM
Thursday, November 4th ARLINGTON, VIRGINIA Borders Bailey’s Crossroads 7pm
Saturday, November 6th PITTSBURGH, PENNSYLVANIA Joseph-Beth 2PM
Monday, November 8th CLEVELAND, OHIO Joseph-Beth 7pm
Tuesday, November 9th DAYTON, OHIO Books and Company 7pm
Thursday, November 11th MANHATTAN, NY Barnes & Noble 86th & Lexington 7pm
Saturday, November 13th LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA Book Soup 5:30pm
Monday, November 15th PASADENA, CALIFORNIA Vroman’s 5:30pm
Tuesday, Nov 16th PORTLAND, OREGON Powell’s City of Books (Burnside) 7:30pm
Wednesday, November 17th SEATTLE, WA Third Place Books (Lake Forrest Park) 7pm
Friday, November 19th TEMPE, ARIZONA Changing Hands 7pm
Sunday, November 21st MIAMI, FLORIDA Miami International Book Fair
Thursday, December 2nd HUNTINGTON, NEW YORK Book Revue 7pm
Saturday, December 4thBOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS Borders (Back Bay) 2pm
Thursday, January 6th CHICAGO, ILLINOIS Andersons
Monday, January 10th DENVER, COLORADO Tattered Cover 7pm
Wed, Jan 12th NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA Garden District Book Shop 5:30pm
WORKSHOP: Sunday, January 16th CORTE MADERA, CA Book Passage 1pm
Wednesday, January 19th CORTE MADERA, CALIFORNIA Book Passage 7pm
Thursday, January 20th SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA The Booksmith 7:30pm
WORKSHOP: Saturday, January 22nd STANFORD, CA Stanford University 10am
Monday, January 31, KANSAS CITY Rainy Day Books 7pm

Sex Worker Literati this month @ Bowery Poetry Club is Tricks or Treats, Sunday Oct. 24, with a breathtaking cavalcade of hos, hookers, call girls, rent boys, and those who love them. Zoe Hansen, the living legend, will be riding herd with me. Justin Jones, former rent boy-bear and ex-Olympic caliber diver. Aimee deLong, award winning writer & former hoochie coochie dancer. Dominick, ex-dominator hustler & performer extraordinaire. Tyler Knight, porn dude & performer/writer, will tell a SICK story of intense depravirt. Rosabelle Solavy, dancer to the stars, will rock the burlesque. September was a wild blast in our inaugural show at Bowery Poetry Club. Essence Revealed doing things with her ass that are illegal in many states: http://bit.ly/cdQFfL. Rev Jen learns to squirt: http://bit.ly/9M6Y38. Alex Kinney, Doctor of Pornlogy, doing the filthiest poem of the 20th century by WH Auden: http://bit.ly/aN1x4Y. Anne Hanavan telling about the cop/big who tried to do her while artporn plays in the background http://bit.ly/cOxwS9. Hawk Kincaid, an incredible spoken word master, spits fierce. http://bit.ly/dCEvue. Toni Bentleyon the art of surrender http://bit.ly/9eIyco. I do part of Chicken, on how I became a teenage manchild ho: http://bit.ly/dhXaLx.

I was on Fox News. http://bit.ly/c93mz4

And here’s your monthly fix of Olive pix: http://bit.ly/dlL1aQ http://bit.ly/c9JqcU

I am absolutely ecstatic to be reading at Litquake on Sports Night with my boy Alan Black, the Legend-in-his-own-time Jack Boulware, and an all-star cavalcade of San Francisco’s best and brightest.

http://litquake.org/events/sports

This is my Little League team I was eight years old in Hueytown Alabama.  Can you tell which one is me?

David Henry Sterry, Arielle Eckstut, Kathi Goldmark & Sam Barry will hear your book pitch & pick a winner.  Kick start your writing career!

http://litquake.org/events/litquake%E2%80%99s-pitchapalooza

Presented by Mountains & Plains Independent Booksellers Association.
Don’t miss this unique opportunity to participate in the first-ever writers’ conference sponsored by the independent booksellers who can help you sell your books! Working from the premise that you have mastered the craft of writing and are ready to take an active part in getting your book published, the industry
experts at this conference will prepare you to assess the publishing opportunities currently available and provide step-by-step guidelines that will help you get your book into print, into bookstores, and into the hands of readers.
As a bonus, attendees will enjoy an Author Luncheon and Author Banquet with some of the most successful writers of our time.
Saturday, September 25, 2010 Marriott Denver Tech Center
“Pitchapalooza” The “American Idol” for Books
Moderator/creator of “Pitchapalooza” is Arielle Eckstut,
author of THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO GETTING YOUR
BOOK PUBLISHED: How to Write It, Sell It, and Market It …
Successfully!, revised for 2010 from Workman Publishing.
Arielle is an agent-at-large at the Levine Greenberg Literary
Agency, the author of seven books, and a successful entrepreneur
whose iconic company, LittleMissMatched, grossed over
30 million in retail sales last year.
New York Times bestselling author Timothy Ferris (THE
4-HOUR WORKWEEK) says about THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE:
I started with nothing but an idea, and then I bought this book.
Soon I had an A-list agent, a near six-figure advance, and
multiple TV deals in the works. Buy it and memorize it. This
little tome is the quiet secret of rockstar authors.
This panel is a terrific opportunity for anyone who has an idea
for a book OR who has a finished book but needs help pitching
it to bookstores.
Everyone in the audience will benefit from the process, but only
the first 10 people to register and pay for the conference may
actually make their pitch and receive a critique from the panel
that includes Gayle Shanks, immediate Past President of the
American Booksellers Association, owner of Changing Hands
Bookstore in Tempe, AZ; Katie Schmidt, Small Publisher Liaison
for Tattered Cover Bookstore; and Phoebe Gaston, Sales
Rep for Workman Publishing Group.
The winner of Pitchapalooza receives a half-hour consultation

totally stoked about returning to happy ending w/ Litquake NY: amazing line-up of great readers/writers: Jack Boulware, Sean Wilsey, Bruce Weber, Cintra Wilson, Ben Greenman

http://litcrawl.org/events/litquake-rocks-new-york

I will be taking the how to get successfully published  dog and pony show to Find Grind on September 18 at 1 PM. now all I need is a dog and a pony.

http://www.thefinegrindcoffeebar.com/events/the-fine-print-%E2%80%9Chelping-talented-writers-get-successfully-published%E2%80%9D-with-david-henry-sterry-1pm/

Sex Worker Literati is moving uptown – and by uptown we mean the Bowery – for a lust-drenched 1 year anniversary cavalcade extravaganza.  After packing them in downtown every month for a year, Sex Worker Literati sheds its skin and reinvents itself at the great East Village landmark that has come to represent the finest in words: Bowery Poetry Club.  Besides our usual collection of stranger than fiction tales from the seething underbelly of America’s sex trenches, we’re adding ultra-live and brazen burlesque.  It hardly seems a year since the groundbreaking anthology Hos, Hookers, Call Girls and Rent Boys shocked America by rocketing onto the front page of the Sunday New York Times Book Review.  Come hear the hysterical, sad, crazy, heartbreaking, ballbreaking, mind-blowing stories from America’s shamed and glamorized, ostracized and glorified, reviled and worshiped sex workers.  PhDs and high school dropouts, soccer moms and jailbirds, $5000 a night call girls, $10 crack hos and hard-working rent boys, Sex Worker Literati is the living breathing embodiment of this internationally acclaimed anthology.  In the flesh.  David Henry Sterry and Zoe Hansen will be riding herd over an all-star lineup of the finest ho writer/performers money can buy.  & IT’S ALL STILL FREE!!!

DAVID HENRY STERRY – Ex-teen manchild ho, Huffington Post muckraker, sitcom actor, Chicken/Hos, Hookers, Call Girls and Rent Boys author. www.davidhenrysterry.com

ZOE HANSEN – Ex-madame, ex-junky, ex-hooker, and memoirist with twisted tales from the wild side.  http://lzhansen.com/

REVEREND JEN – Performer, painter, playwright, pervert, sex columnist, underground movie star, author, Whitney Museum of American Art/MoMA Library/Warhol Museum artist and elf. http://www.revjen.com/

HAWK KINCADE – Ex-rent boy/sex worker activist, award-winning poet, international man of mystery.

MISS MARY CYN – Classically trained BFA NYU actor who takes her clothes off in bars, founder/co-producer of Original Cyn, sex nerd.  www.marycyn.com

ESSENCE REVEALED – Dual degreed, former lap dance engineer of the upscale gentlemen’s club scene, from NY to Vegas and sweet, sticky places in between. http://www.facebook.com/essencerevealed

ANNE HANAVAN –Pussy Cat Lounge stripper, heroin ho, street walking-tricking-rape-robbery-jail survivor, hard-core art movie maker.

In the exchange of sex for money, a window opens into the human soul.

Take a peak.

http://www.facebook.com/sexworkerliterati

http://hoshookerscallgirlsrentboys.com

http://www.bowerypoetry.com/

THE GLORIOUS WORLD CUP: A FANATIC’S GUIDE
Alan Black & David Henry Sterry

The Glorious World Cup is a smash and grab must-have guide to South Africa 2010. World Cup villains and bloody national grudges, country and player profiles, bags of footie history, and lots more. For those who like their soccer with a side of brains, die hard soccer fanatic David Henry Sterry breaks down the divas and the divers, the winners and the whiners, the myths and the madness.

SATURDAY, May 15, 3:00
WATCHUNG BOOKSTORE – MONTCLAIR, NJ

Come and take part in:
GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAL!!! COMPETITION
Whoever screams GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAL! longest wins a free book!

BEAT THE GOALIE
A goal. A ball. You. & me. Take yer best shot. Winner gets a free book.

Did you know?
• More World Cup tickets have been sold in the USA than any other country outside of South Africa
• President Obama is a soccer fan and has met with FIFA executives at the White House. The USA is bidding for the 2018 Finals. Committee includes Henry Kissinger, Mayor Bloomberg and Drew Carey
.• USA v England on June 12, the second day of the tournament, marks the 60th anniversary of one of the World Cup’s most famous matches: USA’s shock 1-0 victory over England in 1950
• The first recorded soccer game in America took place at Plymouth Rock on what is now known as Thanksgiving. They used a pumpkin for a ball.
• Soccer is the most popular participatory sport in the USA, numbering more players than all the other major sports combined.
• America beat the number one team in the world, Spain, in last year’s Confederations Cup.
• Argentina’s Lionel Messi, pound for pound the best soccer player in the world, is just over 5’ tall.
• Andres Escobar, a Colombian who scored against his own team, was shot 12 times in his home country, while onlookers yelled, “Goal!”
• In Latin America, American players are regularly pelted with everything from batteries to baggies full of warm liquid waste.
• The World Cup Final is the biggest media event in the world, bigger than the Super Bowl and the World Series combined. One in four people in the known universe are expected to tune in.

KISMET PRODUCTIONS & SOF

Sex Worker Literati

Hosted by Audacia Ray & David Henry Sterry
Happy Ending, 302 Broome Street between Forsyth and Eldridge, in New York City
First Thursday of the Month. Doors at 7 pm, reading from 8-10
FREE
Portion of proceeds from the bar supports sex workers rights groups

Best-selling author David Henry Sterry and sexuality rights activist Audacia Ray, both former workers in the sex industry, are proud to announce Sex Worker Literati, a new free monthly reading series that features sex workers, former sex workers, and people with stories about the sex industry who will read, monologue, perform, and shimmy their ways into your hearts, minds, and naughty bits. The series kicks off at 8 pm on Thursday, August 6 at the Lower East Side staple Happy Ending (302 Broome Street), which fittingly enough was once an erotic massage parlor. On the first Thursday of every month, Sterry and Ray will showcase a diverse set of performers who have stories to tell about the business of sex.

The reading series is inspired by a new anthology edited by David Henry Sterry and RJ Martin, Hos, Hookers, Call Girls, and Rent Boys: Professionals Writing on Life, Love, Work & Money published in July 2009 by Soft Skull. After Sterry asked Ray to contribute a piece to the anthology, they began to discuss collaboration possibilities. The results are the Sex Worker Literati reading series and the website hoshookercallgirlsrentboys.com, which features writings by sex workers, sneak peeks at the book, and videos featuring anthology contributors.

The Sex Worker Literati inaugural reading on August 6 features six performers from all corners of the sex business. Blues diva and pinup girl Candye Kane, Times Square wild girl Jodi Sh. Doff, Scandinavian/African rent boy Damien Decker, and ex-teenage ho/ award-winning filmmaker Juliana Piccillo are all contributors to the anthology. They will be joined by renowned artist and former nude model Molly Crabapple, who is the illustrator and co-author of the graphic novel Scarlett Takes Manhattan and former go-go dancer and porn producer Sam Benjamin, author of Confessions of an Ivy League.

Those in far-away lands who are unable to attend the reading series in New York will be able to enjoy some of the performances online: videos, photos, and stories will be published on hoshookerscallgirlsrentboys.com. We are also planning events for the anthology around the country, so check the website or become a fan on Facebook to find out more.

T SKULL PROUDLY PRESENT

www.hoshookerscallgirlsrentboys.com

HO’S, HOOKERS, CALLGIRLS & RENTBOYS:

PROFESSIONALS WRITING ON LIFE, LOVE, MONEY & SEX

NOW AVAILABLE ONLINE

& AT YOUR LOCAL BOOKSTORE

The miracle is manifest. The anthology has hit the streets. Half a decade in the making, this love’s labor, the product of so much blood, sweat, tears and other assorted body fluids, has finally traveled down the birth canal, and has been delivered by an able-bodied team of midwives, editors, dulas, copy editors, birth coaches, art directors and sweaty worried nerve-wracked family and relatives. Below please find information about the website and events. Many thanks to all involved. We are very proud of this book.

REVIEW FROM PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

“The sprawling project, grouped loosely by topic (Life, Love, Money, Sex, etc.), 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 Sterry’s San Francisco writer’s workshop for sex workers, range from triumphant to harrowing… 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 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.”

Hos, Hookers, Callgirls, and Rentboys is a collection of short memoirs, whore war stories, confessions, nightmares, journalism and poetry. It contains new writing from sex worker literati: art-porn priestess Dr. Annie Sprinkle; the infamous Happy Hooker, Xaviera Hollander; author and LGBT activist Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore; star of The Devil in Miss Jones, Georgina Spelvin; best-selling memoirist David Henry Sterry and sex educator/movie star Nina Hartley. But it also includes crack hos, male hustlers, pimps and the teenagers they exploit. Funny, terrifying, tragic and inspiring, this collection of oral history, short memoirs, war stories, confessions, nightmares, social criticism and poetry is unprecedented because it includes people from all walks of the sex for money world.

From back-alley Tenderloin massage parlors, to glittering Beverly Hills hotels, to Times Square porn palaces, to the meanest streets in Harlem, Hos, Hookers, Call Girls, and Rent Boys is a collage of sex and money, shining light on this hidden underbelly of America, from sea to shining sea.

EVENTS

CELEBRATE THE LAUNCH

A cavalcade of tough guys, fast girls, bad boys and loose women sharing the wisdom of whores and spinning yarns of true love, fake orgasms and real-life true-crime murder.  David Henry Sterry, ex-teenage gigolo/rentboy/golf ho and author of best-selling memoir Chicken, will MC an all-star lineup of writers and performers from this groundbreaking anthology, followed by a very public discussion. Behind the bumps and the grinds, under the garters and the pasties, in between the booze fueled clients and the stiletto heels there is in the exchange of sex for money a power dynamic that opens a window into the soul.

COME LAUGH COME CRY JUST COME

Book Launch Party , Center for Sex and Culture

1519 Mission St between 11th and So. Van Ness SF, CA 415-255-1155

Sunday, July 26th at 6:30pm

Starring:

Candye Kane, Dr. Carol Queen, Carla Crandall, Alvin Orloff, Sam Formo, Justin Jones, Diana Morgaine, Berta Avila, Lilycat, Juliet November, RJ Martin, David Henry Sterry

Rent Boys Night, A Different Light Bookstore

489 Castro St. San Francisco, CA 94114 415-431-0891

Wednesday, July 29th at 7:30pm

Starring:

Alvin Orloff, Sam Formo, Justin Jones, RJ Martin, David Henry Sterry

Reading performance/signing, Good Vibrations Berkeley Store
2504 San Pablo Avenue (at Dwight Way) Berkeley, CA 94702 (510) 841-8987

Thursday, July 30th   6:00 – 7:00 pm

Starring:

Dr. Annie Sprinkle, Diana Morgaine, Berta Avila, La Tigressa, RJ Martin, David Henry Sterry

Sex Worker Literati event Modern Times

888 Valencia St San Francisco, CA 94110 (415) 282-9246

Tuesday, August 4th at 7pm

Starring:

Dr. Carol Queen, Lorelei Lee, Al Eros, Lilycat, Diana Morgaine, RJ Martin, David Henry Sterry

Sex Worker Literati, Happy Ending

302 Broome St, New York, NY 10002 212-334-9676

When: Thursday, August 6

Starring:

Candye Kane, Audacia Ray, David Henry Sterry, Jodi Sh. Doff, Damien Decker, Juliana Piccillo

(This will be a monthly series, we will do a book release party in October)

In the Flesh, Happy Ending

302 Broome St, New York, NY 10002 212-334-9676

Thursday, August 20

Starring:

Audacia Ray, David Henry Sterry, Jennifer Blowdryer, Zoe Hansen

Sex Worker Literati, Happy Ending

302 Broome St, New York, NY 10002 212-334-9676

Thursday, September 3

Starring: Audacia Ray et al

Reading/Discussion/Signing: Book Soup LA

8818 Sunset Blvd. W. Hollywood, CA 90069 310.659.3110

Thursday, September 3, 2009 7pm

Starring:

Nina Hartley, Georgina Spelvin, Dahlia Schweitzer,.Jennifer Blowdryer, Juliana Piccillo, April Daisy White, David Henry Sterry

In the Flesh Literary Night Hustler Bookstore

8920 Sunset Boulevard West Hollywood, CA 90069  (310) 860-9009

Wednesday, September 9th at 8pm

Starring:

Nina Hartley, Georgina Spelvin, Nica Noelle, Anastasia Antithesis, Sinnamon Love, David Henry Sterry

Sex Worker Literati Book Release Party Happy Ending

302 Broome St, New York, NY 10002 212-334-9676

Thursday, October 1,

Starring:

Audacia Ray David Henry Sterry, Shawna Kenney, Melissa Petro, Perry Brass, Jennifer Blowdryer, Zoe Hansen, Jodi Sh. Doff, Hawk Kincaid, Sinnamon Love, Lauri Shaw

The Art of the Memoir
November 12, Book Revue, Huntington, Long Island

November 15-16 Miami Book Festival

Happy Endings
November 20, Happy Ending Lounge, 302 Broome St, New York City

The Art of the Memoir
December 11, Moravian Book Shop, Bethlehem, PA stephanie@moravianbookshop.com

The Art of the Memoir with Arielle Eckstut
January 15 Clinton Bookstore 6 p.m.

Porn, Strippers and Murder with Georgina Spelvin and Stan Kent
January 22 Hustler Bookstore

Art of the Memoir
January 23, Vroman’s, Pasadena

Art of the Memoir with Katherine Harrison, Philip Lopate, Leonard
Lopate and David Carr
February 15 92nd St Y.

THE SELF-HELP, SCOTTISH BALLS & MURDER TOUR

An All-Star Who’s Who of memoirists will be rocking the Bay Area in October. Ex-track star best-selling fashion icon Beth Lisick, ex-pat Glaswegian literati kingpin Alan Black, and ex-industrial sex technician Disney screenwriter David Henry Sterry star in Art of the Memoir: Telling and Selling Your Life Stories. There will be performances revealing shocking intimate details about Richard Simmons, southern TV evangelists, and the greatest male stripping empire the world has ever known. Then the authors will reveal why they all felt compelled to spill their guts all over the page.

THE ART OF THE MEMOIR:

TELLING & SELLING YOUR LIFE STORIES

“Everybody wants to make their mark. Nowadays, that means everybody is writing a memoir.” – CNN, April 18, 2008

Find out what it takes to write and sell your life story from trained professionals who’ve actually done just that. David Henry Sterry, best-selling memoirist, book doctor and literary talent scout will emcee and read from a Master of Ceremonies: A True Story of Love, Murder, Roller Skates and Chippendales. Alan Black will brogue his way through Kick the Balls: and Offensive Suburban Odyssey. Beth Lisick will regale you with tales from Helping Me Hell Myself: 1 Skeptic, 10 Self-Help Gurus, and a Year on the Brink of the Comfort Zone. And then they’ll tell you how they did it. Is memoir the new 15 minutes of fame? What makes a good memoir? What makes a bad memoir? And how does a memoirist know when to shut up? All questions will be answered.

October 9 (Litquake) Hemlock Tavern

October 13 Book Passage, Corte Madera 7 PM

October 14 City Lights, San Francisco 7 PM

October 15 1st Congregational Church Berkeley, Berkeley Arts and Letters, 7:30 p.m.

October 18 Barnes & Noble Jack London Square, Oakland 10-12

October 20 Kepler’s, Menlo Park 7:30 PM

October 21 Lyon’s Books, Chico, 7 p.m.

You will laugh, you may cry, but you will never be the same.

DAVID HENRY STERRY

MASTER OF CEREMONIES: A TRUE STORY OF LOVE, MURDER, ROLLER SKATES AND CHIPPENDALES*

Smack dab in the middle of the cash happy/coke crazy 80s, when it was raining men and girls just wanted to have fun, David Henry Sterry became the MC at Chippendales. Find out what it was like working for Nick de Noia, who dreamed of a safe place where women could fondle, ogle and sexualize hot man flesh. And got assassinated for his trouble. Find out what it was like to find true love in the strangest place. Find out what it was like to be the ugliest man at Chippendale’s. Sterry’s first memoir, Chicken, is being made into a TV series by Showtime. “‘Master of Ceremonies’ is a dizzying, tender story resplendent with seedy glamour, hilarious backstage madness, and unflinching honesty… There are two underlying love stories, one between Sterry and a coworker, and one between Sterry and his craft..” – Library Journal “Sterry writes with comic brio…” – NY Times “Sterry’s prose fizzes like a firework. Every page crackles… laconic as Dashiell Hammett, viscerally hallucinogenic as Hunter S Thompson.” – Irish Times *anyone who buys this book will get a free consultation from a publishing expert.

BETH LISICK

HELPING ME HELP MYSELF: 1 SKEPTIC, 10 SELF-HELP GURUS, AND A YEAR ON THE BRINK OF THE COMFORT ZONE

Grappling with her lifelong phobia of anything slick, cheesy, or remotely claiming to provide self-empowerment, Beth Lisick wakes up on New Year’s Day finally able to admit to herself that she’s tired of having no savings account, feeling unorganized and chaotic, and realizing she last exercised regularly as a member of her high school track team twenty years ago. Beth decides to consult the multimillion-dollar-earning pros and national experts, not only reading their bestselling books but also attending their seminars and classes. Beth doesn’t think of herself as the typical self-help victim. But is she? “Lisick has created a hilarious, knowing tale of a year of willing ridiculousness.” — San Francisco Chronicle “Her accounts of everything…are not only hilarious but enlightening. Finding useful tips amidst the bunk, she distills the best from thousands of pages of self-help books. Readers will be inspired: If a woman in a banana suit can clean her closet and pay off her credit card debt, surely you can, too.” – People

ALAN BLACK

KICK THE BALLS: AN OFFENSIVE SUBURBAN ODYSSEY

An uproarious, fish-out-of-water account of a season in the life of a pee wee soccer team — introducing a laugh-out-loud new voice in American writing. A transplanted Scot living and working in California, Black commits to a season coaching the Dragons, a team of 8- and 9-year olds. For the parents of the players, fun is all that matters. But Black follows the words of Bill Shankly, the other legendary Scottish soccer coach, who once said, “Some people believe football is a matter of life and death. I can assure you it is much, much more important than that.” It doesn’t help, of course, that the Dragons display absolutely no skill at the game. Well, it’s a recipe for disaster. In the tradition of Trainspotting and Fever Pitch, KICK THE BALLS is a side-splitting memoir of grass stains and free kicks, and of a security-obsessed, late-night America few get to see, all delivered in a prose so sharp it could cut a soccer ball in half.

SEX WORKER LITERATI

CENTER FOR SEX AND CULTURE

OCTOBER17 – 8 p.m. 1519 MISSION ST.

www.sexandculture.org www.David HenrySterry.com

Spend the night with writers that helped insert the phrase “Sex Worker Literati” deep into the American vernacular. Take a peek behind the desperate housewives gone bad and desperate businessmen gone worse; the tidal waves of greenbacks slipped into envelopes and g-strings; the vanity, the humanity, the inhumanity, the mundanity, the ecstasy and the agony. David Henry Sterry, ex-teenage gigolo/rentboy/ho and author of Chicken and Master of Ceremonies: a True Story of Love, Murder, Roller Skates and Chippendales, will host a cavalcade of tough guys, fast girls, bad boys and loose women spinning yarns of true love, fake orgasms and real-life love. Because behind the bumps and the grinds, under the garters and the pasties, in between the booze fueled clients and the stiletto heels there is in the exchange of sex for money a power dynamic that opens a window into the soul. Come take a peek.

DR. CAROL QUEEN sexy ho

DAVID HENRY STERRY golf ho

MELISSA GIRA GRANT techno ho

RJ MARTIN badass ho

LORELEI LEE absolutely fabulous ho

SCOTT UPPER hunky ho

CARLA CRANDALL heart o’ gold ho

SAM FORMO sassy ho

ALVIN ORLOFF fashion ho

ALL QUESTIONS WILL BE ANSWERED

The Self Help Scottish Balls Murder Tour

BARNES AND NOBLES COLONIE CENTER ALBANY EVENT

Click here for the Press Release for Master of Ceremonies

STRAND BOOKSTORE 828 September 22, 2008, 7p.m.

www.strandbooks.com

THE ART OF THE MEMOIR:

TELLING & SELLING YOUR LIFE STORIES

“Nowadays, everybody is writing a memoir.” – CNN

Find out what it takes to write and sell your life stories from trained professionals who’ve done just that. Best-selling author and book doctor David Henry Sterry, and international storytelling sensation Mike Daisey will perform from their memoirs. Then they will discuss with James Levine, one of America’s literary agent superstars, the joys and perils of making a narrative out of your own life, dealing with issues of privacy and the lunacy of family, and figuring out how to navigate the stormy seas of publishing. All questions will be answered. And perhaps an audience member or two will get a chance to tell one of their life stories.

Want to write your life stories? Come find out how.

DAVID HENRY STERRY

www.davidhenrysterry.com

MASTER OF CEREMONIES: A TRUE STORY OF SEX, DRUGS, ROLLER SKATES & CHIPPENDALES*

1985. Smack dab in the middle of the cash happy/coke crazy 80s, when it was raining men and girls just wanted to have fun, David Henry Sterry became the MC at Chippendales, when it was the hottest show in the city that never sleeps. Find out what it was like to be the ugliest man at Chippendale’s. He has appeared on NPR, the BBC, and the Fresh Prince of Bel Air. His first memoir, Chicken, is being made into a TV series by Showtime.

“‘Master of Ceremonies’” is a dizzying, tender story resplendent with seedy glamour, hilarious backstage madness, and unflinching honesty… maximum entertainment value….” -Katherine Litwin, Library Journal.

*Anyone who buys this book will get a free 10 minute consultation on how to get a book published.

JAMES LEVINE

LEVINE-GREENBERG LITERARY AGENCY

www.levinegreenberg.com

James Levine is one of America’s great superagents, and the founder of Levine-Greenberg literary agency. He has spent decades putting together ideas, people, and money; identifying, nurturing, and marketing talent; and creating projects that make a difference. He is also the author of seven books and over a hundred articles, and has appeared on Oprah. He has helped dozens and dozens and dozens of writers become professional authors.

MIKE DAISEY

21 DOG YEARS: A CUBEDWELLERS TALE

www.mikedaisey.com

MIKE DAISEY has been called “the master storyteller” by the New York Times for his many monologues, which include How Theater Failed America, Great Men of Genius, and 21 Dog Years. Over the past decade he has performed at the Public Theater, the Spoleto Festival, Yale Repertory Theater, the Noorderzon Festival, and many more. He’s been a guest on David Letterman, his work has been heard on the BBC, NPR and currently he’s a commentator for PRI, and a contributor to Vanity Fair. His first film, Layover, is being distributed by Lars von Trier’s company Zentropa. He has been the recipient of the Bay Area Critics Circle Award, two Seattle Times Footlight Awards, and a MacDowell Fellowship.

David Henry Sterry

David Henry Sterry is a best-selling author, award winning
actor/comic, book doctor, and a man who has not worn matching socks in
thirty years. He is both writer of and performer in the one-man show
“Chicken”, based on his bestselling memoir Chicken: Self-Portrait of a
Young Man for Rent (ReganBooks/HarperCollins: 2002). In addition that
book has been translated into ten languages, and is being made into a
series by Showtime. His latest is Master of Ceremonies: a True Story
of Sex, Drugs, Rollerskates and Chippendale’s (Grove
Atlantic/Canongate, 2008). This was preceded by Putting Your Passion
into Print (Workman Publishing, 2005), based on the class he taught at
Stanford University for four years. His first book was an American
Library Association pick-of-the-year, Satchel Sez: The Wit, Wisdom &
World of Leroy “Satchel” Paige (Crown/Random House, 2001). His first
YA title, (written under the name Henry Johnson) is Travis & Freddy’s
Adventures in Vegas (Dutton/Penguin, April, 2006). In addition he
co-wrote: LittleMissMatched’s Pajama Party in a Box;
LittleMissMatched’s Marvelous and Fabulous Me (Workman, 2007);
LittleMissMatched’s The Writer in Me! and LittleMissMatched’s The
Author In Me! (Workman, 2008) His story in San Francisco Noir
(Akashic, 2005) was a finalist for the Henry Miller Award. He is a
contributor to Creative Non-Fiction, 2 Do Before I Die, 5 Minute
Erotica, and many other anthologies. His poetry has been published
everywhere from Santa Monica Review, to the Hungry Orangutan. He’s
also written for, among others, The London Times, The San Francisco
Chronicle, Penthouse, and The Scotsman. Plays performed at PS 122, the
West Bank Café, and the Duplex. Wrote screenplays for Disney, Fox, and
Nickelodeon Pictures.

David Henry Sterry is also a teacher, consultant and talent scout for
the Levine Greenberg Literary Agency. He taught writers about
publishing with Putting Your Passion Into Print at Stanford for three
years, and many of his students have book deals. PYPIP has now been
presented, in various forms, hundreds of times, in colleges,
universities, libraries, bookstores and festivals, writer’s workshops,
on TV, radio and in print. He’s also taught writing, performing, and
creating theater from life, everywhere from Reed College, to
University of New Orleans, to San Francisco State; and to teenagers in
NYC, SAGE in SF, and for the United States Department of Justice, in
Washington, DC. He is also a presentation coach and pitch doctor,
working with lawyers, models, architects, actors and writers, helping
them present themselves and their ideas with clarity and passion. As a
book doctor he has helped dozens of writers become published authors.

David Henry Sterry is also a performer. “Chicken”, the show, began at
the Marsh Theater in SF, and was named one of the Year’s Best Shows in
the SF Chronicle. It premiered internationally at the Edinburgh Fringe
Festival, and was named the UK’s #1 play. He’s performed “Chicken” all
over America from Manhattan to Hollywood, and all over the world, from
Amsterdam to Australia. As a stand-up comedian, performed with
everyone from Robin Williams to Milton Berle. As an actor, worked with
everyone from Will Smith to David Letterman to Michael Caine to Zippy
the Chimp. He was a TV pitchman for AT&T, Proctor & Gamble, and
McDonald’s, performed in over 750 commercials, winning 4 Clios.
Starred in HBO’s Emmy Award-winning Encyclopedia. Emceed at
Chippendale’s Male Strip Club in New York.

Been featured in (among others): The New York Times, The London Times,
The Sunday Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, New York
Magazine, Details Magazine, BBC Radio, and NPR’s Morning Edition,
Weekend Edition, and Talk of the Nation. Chicken was published by
Canongate in the UK in April, 2003, Dutch (de Kern), German (Rowohlt,
2005), Spanish (Grupo Planeta, 2006), Croatian (Celeber, 2006), and
Russia (Red Fish, 2006), and is coming out in Italian (Adelphi, 2008).
He’s worked as a chicken, a chicken fryer, a soda jerk, a cherry
picker, a poet, a building inspector, a limo driver, a barker, and a
marriage counselor. He graduated from Reed College, and loves his
wife, his cat, and any sport involving a ball.

http://www.hoshookerscallgirlsrentboys.com/february-4-love-pain/

JANUARY 7 HAPPY ENDING LOUNGE 302 BROOME ST. 8 PM

http://newyork.timeout.com/articles/sex-dating/81687/winter-sex-and-dating-events-dec-31-jan-6

SEX WORKER LITERATI

MY FIRST TIME

There are many ways to pop a cherry.

Cum find out who how hos, hookers, call girls and rent boys popped theirs.

Lunacy, madness, insanity, depravity &

A true story of an anxious Virgin seduced by an English bulldog.

Behind the glitter and stiletto heels, beyond the bulging crotches and the rippling abs, there are human beings selling sex.  PhDs and high school dropouts, soccer moms and jailbirds, $2,500-a-night call girls and $25 rent boys.  Cum hear the shocking, hysterical, heartbreaking, ballbreaking, mindblowing stories from America‘s shamed/glamorized, ostracized/glorified, reviled/worshiped sex workers.  In the exchange of sex for money a window opens into the soul.  Cum take a peek. 

Hosted by DAVID HENRY STERRY: best-selling author Disney screenwriter AT&T spokesman ex-teen manchild ho; and AUDACIA RAY: new media maven professor activist sex geek ex-working class ho.

ZOE HANSEN

Runaway teen immigrant junky ho highclass madam writer mom. http://lzhansen.com/

CHELSEA G. SUMMERS

Ph.D. go-go dancer Penthouse writer award-winning blogger.  http://www.chelseasummers.com/

JENNIFER BLOWDRYER

Rock star smut peddler acclaimed author Colombia University survivor.  www.86edstories.com.

DAMIEN DECKER

African Scandinavian rugby stud writer professional cuckolder current rent boy.

JODI SH. DOFF aka Scarlett Fever

Cosmo writer cultural critic pre-Disney Times Square topless hustler/chronicler  http://thedirtygirldiaries.com/

CUM LAUGH CUM CRY CUM PARTY WITH HOS

FROM THE GROUNDBREAKING ANTHOLOGY HOS, HOOKERS, CALL GIRLS AND RENT-BOYS: PROFESSIONALS WRITING ON LIFE, LOVE, MONEY & SEX

“Eye-opening, astonishing, brutally honest and frequently funny… unpretentious and riveting — but also graphic, politically incorrect and mostly unquotable in this newspaper.”—The New York Times Sunday Book Review (front page review) a portion of every book sold goes to helping sex workers
www.hoshookerscallgirlsrentboys.com
www.happyendinglounge.com

Thursday, October 29, doors at 7pm, show at 8:05pm
What: Literary Death Match
Where: Bowery Poetry Club, 308 Bowery
David Henry Sterry

Thursday, November 5th, 7:30-10
Sex Worker Literati
303 Broome St, NYC

Friday, November 6th from 7-9pm
HOS, HOOKERS Reading with editor David Henry Sterry and contributor Shawna Kenney
Where: Atomic Books
3620 Falls Rd
Baltimore, MD 21211
410-662-4444

Sunday, November 8th at 1pm
HOS, HOOKERS Reading with editor David Henry Sterry and contributor Shawna Kenney
Where: Chop Suey Books
2913 W. Cary St.
Richmond, VA 23221
804-422-8066

Tuesday, November 10th, 6:30 to 8:00 PM
Hos, Hookers, Call Girls and Rent Boys: Professionals Writing on Life, Love, Money, and Sex
Co-sponsored by HIPS (Helping Individual Prostitutes Survive)
Featuring David Henry Sterry and Shawna Kenney
Busboys and Poets – 5th and K
1025 5th St. NW
WDC 20001
202-789-2227

Tuesday, November 17, 7:00
Hos, Hookers, Call Girls, Rent Boys event featuring David Henry Sterry and Xaviera Hollander
Where:
Museum of Sex
233 Fifth Ave, Suite 3B
New York, NY 10016
212-689-6337

Sunday, December 20th at 7pm
What: HOS, HOOKERS reading/signing
Where: KGB Bar
85 East 4th St / New York, NY 10003 / 212-505-3360
Featuring David Henry Sterry and NYC contributors

Thursday, October 29, doors at 7pm, show at 8:05pm
What: Literary Death Match
Where: Bowery Poetry Club, 308 Bowery
David Henry Sterry

Thursday, November 5th, 7:30-10
Sex Worker Literati
303 Broome St, NYC

Friday, November 6th from 7-9pm
HOS, HOOKERS Reading with editor David Henry Sterry and contributor Shawna Kenney
Where: Atomic Books
3620 Falls Rd
Baltimore, MD 21211
410-662-4444

Sunday, November 8th at 1pm
HOS, HOOKERS Reading with editor David Henry Sterry and contributor Shawna Kenney
Where: Chop Suey Books
2913 W. Cary St.
Richmond, VA 23221
804-422-8066

Tuesday, November 10th, 6:30 to 8:00 PM
Hos, Hookers, Call Girls and Rent Boys: Professionals Writing on Life, Love, Money, and Sex
Co-sponsored by HIPS (Helping Individual Prostitutes Survive)
Featuring David Henry Sterry and Shawna Kenney
Busboys and Poets – 5th and K
1025 5th St. NW
WDC 20001
202-789-2227

Tuesday, November 17, 7:00
Hos, Hookers, Call Girls, Rent Boys event featuring David Henry Sterry and Xaviera Hollander
Where:
Museum of Sex
233 Fifth Ave, Suite 3B
New York, NY 10016
212-689-6337

Sunday, December 20th at 7pm
What: HOS, HOOKERS reading/signing
Where: KGB Bar
85 East 4th St / New York, NY 10003 / 212-505-3360
Featuring David Henry Sterry and NYC contributors

Thursday, October 29, doors at 7pm, show at 8:05pm

What: Literary Death Match
Where: Bowery Poetry Club, 308 Bowery
David Henry Sterry

Thursday, November 5th, 7:30-10
Sex Worker Literati
303 Broome St, NYC

Friday, November 6th from 7-9pm
HOS, HOOKERS Reading with editor David Henry Sterry and contributor Shawna Kenney
Where: Atomic Books
3620 Falls Rd
Baltimore, MD 21211
410-662-4444

Sunday, November 8th at 1pm
HOS, HOOKERS Reading with editor David Henry Sterry and contributor Shawna Kenney
Where: Chop Suey Books
2913 W. Cary St.
Richmond, VA 23221
804-422-8066

Tuesday, November 10th, 6:30 to 8:00 PM
Hos, Hookers, Call Girls and Rent Boys: Professionals Writing on Life, Love, Money, and Sex
Co-sponsored by HIPS (Helping Individual Prostitutes Survive)
Featuring David Henry Sterry and Shawna Kenney
Busboys and Poets – 5th and K
1025 5th St. NW
WDC 20001
202-789-2227

Tuesday, November 17, 7:00
Hos, Hookers, Call Girls, Rent Boys event featuring David Henry Sterry and Xaviera Hollander
Where:
Museum of Sex
233 Fifth Ave, Suite 3B
New York, NY 10016
212-689-6337

Sunday, December 20th at 7pm
What: HOS, HOOKERS reading/signing
Where: KGB Bar
85 East 4th St / New York, NY 10003 / 212-505-3360
Featuring David Henry Sterry and NYC contributors

SEX WORKER LITERATI OCTOBER 1 HAPPY ENDING LOUNGE 8 PM

OCTOBER 1 HAPPY ENDING LOUNGE 8 PM

SEX WORKER LITERATI

CUM CELEBRATE THE OFFICIAL NEW YORK LAUNCH OF

HOS HOOKERS CALL GIRLS RENT BOYS

“Eye-opening, astonishing, honest and funny… riveting, graphic,
politically incorrect and mostly unquotable in this newspaper.” Toni Bentley, NY Times

CUM EXPERIENCE THE PHENOMENON
CUM PARTY WITH SEX WORKERS
David Henry Sterry – golf ho
Audacia Ray – geek ho
Justin Jones – surfer ho
Zoe Hansen – smack ho
Shawna Kenney – music ho
Jennifer Blowdryer – fabulous ho
Sinnamon Love – fierce ho
Perry Brass – man ho
Melissa Petro – heart of gold ho
Jodi Sh. Doff – Times Square ho
Lauri Shaw – problem child ho

CUM LAUGH CUM CRY JUST CUM
“It’s ho-licious!”
302 Broome St, New York City
a portion of every book sold goes to helping sex workers
www.hoshookerscallgirlsrentboys.com
www.happyendinglounge.com

Just a quick update on the overwhelming response to our new anthology. And news on upcoming bi (coastal) events. I think they will be packed, so cum early & cum often.  Thanks, David Henry Sterry
EVENTS:
Thursday Sept 3: LA Book Launch: BOOK SOUP 7pm 8818 Sunset Blvd
http://www.laweekly.com/events/david-henry-sterry-and-r-j-martin-jr-s-hos-hookers-call-girls-and-rent-boys-professionals-writing-on-life-love-money-and-sex–682734/
Thursday Sept 3:  Sex Worker Literati: Happy Ending Lounge 8pm 302 Broome St (NYC)
http://www.hoshookerscallgirlsrentboys.com/reading-series/
Wednesday Sept 9: In the Flesh: Hustler Store LA 8pm 8920 Sunset Blvd.
REVIEWS
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/23/books/review/Bentleyt.html?_r=2&8bu&emc=bua1
http://therumpus.net/2009/08/hos-hookers-call-girls-and-rent-boys-professionals-writing-on-life-love-money-and-sex/
http://tigerbeatdown.com/?p=448#more-448
http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6667888.html?
http://www.nypress.com/article-20211-the-happy-hook-book.html

NYTBR – 8/23/09

“It’s an eye-opening, occasionally astonishing, brutally honest and frequently funny collection from those who really have lived on the edge in a parallel universe.”

“Their writing is, in most cases, unpolished, unpretentious and riveting — but don’t worry, their tales are also graphic, politically incorrect and mostly unquotable in this newspaper.”

“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.”

Publishers Weekly – 6/29/09

“Offers insight into seemingly all aspects of the sex trade.”

“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.”

SF Weekly – 7/25/09

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

NY Press – 8/11/09

“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.”

Meet, Pay, Love
HOS, HOOKERS, CALL GIRLS, AND RENT BOYS
Professionals Writing on Life, Love, Money, and Sex
Edited by David Henry Sterry and R. J. Martin Jr
333 pp. Soft Skull Press. Paper, $15.95

By TONI BENTLEY
Published: August 20, 2009
Money and sex. Sex and money. Sounds dirty already. Is it the money that makes the sex dirty? Or the sex that makes the money dirty? Or, rather, the puritan strain that says they’re both dirty? How sexy! I mean, how inappropriate! And yet here we are again and again . . . and again. It’s former Gov. Eliot Spitzer of New York spending $80,000 on escorts, the parents (the parents!) of Senator John Ensign of Nevada distributing $96,000 to their son’s mistress and her family, Gov. Mark Sanford of South Carolina using taxpayer dollars to visit his South American “soul mate” and the $4 million rock on Kobe Bryant’s wife’s finger after his adulterous mishap. Money to get the sex, and money to make it go away.
Geoffrey Grandfield
Enlarge This Image

John van Hasselt/Corbis
If you are thinking this dynamic pairing is only for public figures, just contemplate your own divorce, past, present or future. And yet, still, it is taboo to regard sex and money as inextricably interwoven, to openly speak of them together. Why is sex supposed to be free? It never is. Ask anyone. Like Sebastian Horsley, England’s low-rent Oscar Wilde. “The difference between sex for money and sex for free,” he writes, “is that sex for money always costs a lot less.” Money is the elephant in every bedroom, making your parents’ constant presence look positively bourgeois.
But the connection is seeping into the mainstream. Witness Steven Soderbergh’s recent film, “The Girlfriend Experience,” which is about an expensive call girl and stars the real-life porn star Sasha Grey, and the new HBO series “Hung,” about a nice middle-aged dad who becomes a gigolo. The show, however, plays it safe, making him a financially strapped, reluctant gigolo and not, God forbid, a lusty one. Here, ironically, sex for money is more decent than sex for pleasure.
But if you want to know the real price of pleasure, ask the strippers, streetwalkers, Craigslist prostitutes, phone-sex operators, madams, pimps, drug addicts, porn stars and “performance artists” who offer themselves up in “Hos, Hookers, Call Girls, and Rent Boys,” a collection of essays, vignettes, rants and poems, edited by David Henry Sterry (who wrote the very good 2002 memoir “Chicken,” about his life as a young hustler) and R. J. Martin Jr., the director of development for the SAGE Project (Standing Against Global Exploitation) in San Francisco, which offers support of all kinds for sex workers. While good girls require dinner, trips, “commitment” or even an engagement ring for sex, here is a book by those who simply get the cash upfront.
From the unappealing title, you might think this is a truly trashy paperback. Far from it: it’s an eye-opening, occasionally astonishing, brutally honest and frequently funny collection from those who really have lived on the edge in a parallel universe. Their writing is, in most cases, unpolished, unpretentious and riveting — but don’t worry, their tales are also graphic, politically incorrect and mostly unquotable in this newspaper.
There are some well-known names here. Xaviera Hollander informs us that “it’s much harder to be a writer than a hooker,” and the ever-sprightly Annie Sprinkle gives “40 reasons why whores are my ¬heroes” and then asks, “Do you have what it takes to be a whore?” Probably not. (Easier to be a writer, I think.) But the joyous glibness displayed by Hollander and Sprinkle is nowhere to be found in the best of the entries.
“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.”
Audacia Ray, who now teaches human sexuality at Rutgers University, certainly earned her degree out in the field, having at one point paired up with a woman named Lily as a massage team offering happy endings. “Money got us hot and bothered,” she writes, and one evening, after Lily cashed a disability check from the federal government for $10,000 (she had no bank account, of course), she poured the money — “mostly $20 bills” — onto the bed. They shut off their phones, bathed together, got “very, very high” and then rolled around “naked in the cash. . . . Even now, when I think of the hottest sex we had, I think about currency stuck to her flesh.” Now there’s an image to promote the beneficence of Uncle Sam.
One online dominatrix, Sadie Lune, pooh-poohs all the knowing talk of the “natural power” of a domme making a “proud man” stoop — you know, the lawyer, doctor or judge who wants to clean toilets on a leash. “What we talk about, often off the Internet and out of leather, is the power of money. . . . More often than not the money tops the scene. . . . Money demands slow heavy bondage when all we feel like is smacking a grateful subject around. . . . The biggest trick is really coming to terms with the fact that money is the boss’s boss.” So which is more powerful, money or sex? I forgot.
There’s plenty of useful information in this book for those of you planning a little adultery or prostitution, or even just some old-fashioned phone sex. Lilycat describes the protocol of “Feed Me the Line”: “We couldn’t use any sexually explicit words or phrases till the caller used them first. . . . And strangely enough, getting a very horny man to talk dirty to you isn’t as easy as it seems.” The women were permitted to use medical names for body parts, but “Baby, I would like to do something pleasurable with your penis” was not — surprise, surprise — what the client wanted to hear (though it’s all you’ll get in this review). If the caller refused to talk dirty first, moaning was the fallback, and Lilycat reports the little-known fact that “if you moan for long enough you can become lightheaded and almost pass out” — “so baby, use your dirty, dirty words” and help the lady out.
The most devastating section of the book — its broken heart, its guts on the page — is found in a few horrifying stories that came out of a writing workshop Sterry gave for severely abused young women. For example, Jessica Bertucci writes about her “weekend visit with my dad”: “I begged my mom not to take me but she did anyways. Oh, by the way, my dad raped me when I was 2 years old.” After being blindfolded in a room with her father’s drinking, crack-smoking buddy, she heard her dad “whispering in my ear, ‘Don’t be scared, you’re helping Daddy pay the rent.’ Oh, by the way, I was 9 years old.”
Sterry, as editor, inserts himself considerably more than necessary, introducing many of the writers in such relentlessly lengthy and glowing terms as to patronize them. On the other hand, the actual bios for the contributors make for provocative reading and can leave one feeling like an unadventurous slacker. Berta Avila, “a Chicana from El Segundo Barrio of El Paso,” is now a translator but has been an “exotic dancer, escort service worker, brothel worker, waitress, medical-legal assistant and instructional assistant for elementary-school children.” Zoe Hansen “achieved stability through methadone maintenance and felt it was time to open her own brothel, Sterling Ladies, which was on Park Avenue and 21st Street. It was the first of five brothels she opened during the next three years.” (I’m starting to get a brothel-opening feeling myself.) Carol Queen “got a Ph.D. in sexology so she could impart more realistic detail to her smut.” (Dr. Queen writes about her “oral clairsentience,” but I can’t explain here.) While many, perhaps most, of these writers use pseudonyms, they are everything but anonymous.
Kirk Read tells the magnificent story of Ray, a rich, hairy, middle-aged Texan, who hired Read to be his witness as he methodically enclosed his entire body in numerous “stretchable layers, one upon another.” With the final touches of “gold gloves that reached up past his biceps” and a black spandex hood, “he turned and faced me, holding his hands up into the air like a victorious Mexican wrestler. Humble. Brave.” Very brave, very moving. The scene, in its inherent perversity, has the feel of a crucible, a kind of spandex crucifixion bestowing grace on one who has the courage to go “to the underworld” and find “erotic freedom by any means necessary.” The two men shook hands, the only time they touched, and parted ways, an encounter with more tenderness and dignity than many a marital one.
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.
Toni Bentley danced with New York City Ballet for 10 years and is the author of five books, including “Winter Season: A Dancer’s Journal” and “Sisters of Salome.” She is working on a book about Balanchine’s ballet “Serenade.”

http://www.laweekly.com/events/david-henry-sterry-and-r-j-martin-jr-s-hos-hookers-call-girls-and-rent-boys-professionals-writing-on-life-love-money-and-sex–682734/

Sex Worker Literati

Hosted by Audacia Ray & David Henry Sterry
Happy Ending, 302 Broome Street between Forsyth and Eldridge, in New York City
First Thursday of the Month. Doors at 7 pm, reading from 8-10

THURSDAY AUGUST 6, 8PM

FREE
Portion of proceeds from the bar supports sex workers rights groups

Best-selling author David Henry Sterry and sexuality rights activist Audacia Ray, both former workers in the sex industry, are proud to announce Sex Worker Literati, a new free monthly reading series that features sex workers, former sex workers, and people with stories about the sex industry who will read, monologue, perform, and shimmy their ways into your hearts, minds, and naughty bits. The series kicks off at 8 pm on Thursday, August 6 at the Lower East Side staple Happy Ending (302 Broome Street), which fittingly enough was once an erotic massage parlor. On the first Thursday of every month, Sterry and Ray will showcase a diverse set of performers who have stories to tell about the business of sex.

The reading series is inspired by a new anthology edited by David Henry Sterry and RJ Martin, Hos, Hookers, Call Girls, and Rent Boys: Professionals Writing on Life, Love, Work & Money published in July 2009 by Soft Skull. After Sterry asked Ray to contribute a piece to the anthology, they began to discuss collaboration possibilities. The results are the Sex Worker Literati reading series and the website hoshookercallgirlsrentboys.com, which features writings by sex workers, sneak peeks at the book, and videos featuring anthology contributors.

The Sex Worker Literati inaugural reading on August 6 features six performers from all corners of the sex business. Blues diva and pinup girl Candye Kane, Times Square wild girl Jodi Sh. Doff, Scandinavian/African rent boy Damien Decker, and ex-teenage ho/ award-winning filmmaker Juliana Piccillo are all contributors to the anthology. They will be joined by renowned artist and former nude model Molly Crabapple, who is the illustrator and co-author of the graphic novel Scarlett Takes Manhattan and former go-go dancer and porn producer Sam Benjamin, author of Confessions of an Ivy League.

Those in far-away lands who are unable to attend the reading series in New York will be able to enjoy some of the performances online: videos, photos, and stories will be published on hoshookerscallgirlsrentboys.com. We are also planning events for the anthology around the country, so check the website or become a fan on Facebook to find out more.

KISMET PRODUCTIONS & SOFT SKULL PROUDLY PRESENT
www.hoshookerscallgirlsrentboys.com

HO’S, HOOKERS, CALLGIRLS & RENTBOYS:
PROFESSIONALS WRITING ON LIFE, LOVE, MONEY & SEX
NOW AVAILABLE ONLINE & AT YOUR LOCAL BOOKSTORE

The miracle is manifest.  The anthology has hit the streets.  Half a decade in the making, this love’s labor, the product of so much blood, sweat, tears and other assorted body fluids, has finally traveled down the birth canal, and has been delivered by an able-bodied team of midwives, editors, dulas, copy editors, birth coaches, art directors and sweaty worried nerve-wracked family and relatives.  Below please find information about the website and events.  Many thanks to all involved.  We are very proud of this book.

REVIEW FROM PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

“The sprawling project, grouped loosely by topic (Life, Love, Money, Sex, etc.), 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 Sterry’s San Francisco writer’s workshop for sex workers, range from triumphant to harrowing… 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 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.”

Hos, Hookers, Callgirls, and Rentboys is a collection of short memoirs, whore war stories, confessions, nightmares, journalism and poetry.  It contains new writing from sex worker literati: art-porn priestess Dr. Annie Sprinkle; the infamous Happy Hooker, Xaviera Hollander; author and LGBT activist Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore; star of The Devil in Miss Jones, Georgina Spelvin; best-selling memoirist David Henry Sterry and sex educator/movie star Nina Hartley. But it also includes crack hos, male hustlers, pimps and the teenagers they exploit.  Funny, terrifying, tragic and inspiring, this collection of oral history, short memoirs, war stories, confessions, nightmares, social criticism and poetry is unprecedented because it includes people from all walks of the sex for money world.

From back-alley Tenderloin massage parlors, to glittering Beverly Hills hotels, to Times Square porn palaces, to the meanest streets in Harlem, Hos, Hookers, Call Girls, and Rent Boys is a collage of sex and money, shining light on this hidden underbelly of America, from sea to shining sea.

EVENTS
CELEBRATE THE LAUNCH

A cavalcade of tough guys, fast girls, bad boys and loose women sharing the wisdom of whores and spinning yarns of true love, fake orgasms and real-life true-crime murder.  David Henry Sterry, ex-teenage gigolo/rentboy/golf ho and author of best-selling memoir Chicken, will MC an all-star lineup of writers and performers from this groundbreaking anthology, followed by a very public discussion. Behind the bumps and the grinds, under the garters and the pasties, in between the booze fueled clients and the stiletto heels there is in the exchange of sex for money a power dynamic that opens a window into the soul.

COME LAUGH COME CRY JUST COME
Book Launch Party , Center for Sex and Culture
1519 Mission St between 11th and So. Van Ness SF, CA  415-255-1155
Sunday, July 26th at 6:30pm
Starring: Candye Kane, Dr. Carol Queen, Carla Crandall, Alvin Orloff, Sam Formo, Justin Jones, Diana Morgaine, Berta Avila, Lilycat, Juliet November, RJ Martin, David Henry Sterry

Rent Boys Night, A Different Light Bookstore
489 Castro St. San Francisco, CA 94114 415-431-0891
Wednesday, July 29th at 7:30pm
Starring: Alvin Orloff, Sam Formo, Justin Jones, RJ Martin, David Henry Sterry

Reading performance/signing, Good Vibrations Berkeley Store
2504 San Pablo Avenue (at Dwight Way) Berkeley, CA 94702 (510) 841-8987
Thursday, July 30th   6:00 – 7:00 pm
Starring: Dr. Annie Sprinkle, Diana Morgaine, Berta Avila, La Tigressa, RJ Martin, David Henry Sterry

Sex Worker Literati event Modern Times
888 Valencia St San Francisco, CA 94110 (415) 282-9246
Tuesday, August 4th at 7pm
Starring: Dr. Carol Queen, Lorelei Lee, Al Eros, Lilycat, Diana Morgaine, RJ Martin, David Henry Sterry

Sex Worker Literati, Happy Ending
302 Broome St, New York, NY 10002 212-334-9676
When: Thursday, August 6
Starring:  Candye Kane, Audacia Ray, David Henry Sterry, Jodi Sh. Doff, Damien Decker, Juliana Piccillo

(This will be a monthly series, we will do a book release party in October)

In the Flesh, Happy Ending
302 Broome St, New York, NY 10002 212-334-9676
Thursday, August 20
Starring: Audacia Ray, David Henry Sterry, Jennifer Blowdryer, Zoe Hansen

Sex Worker Literati, Happy Ending
302 Broome St, New York, NY 10002 212-334-9676
Thursday, September 3
Starring: Audacia Ray et al

Reading/Discussion/Signing: Book Soup LA
8818 Sunset Blvd. W. Hollywood, CA 90069 310.659.3110
Thursday, September 3, 2009 7pm
Starring: Nina Hartley, Georgina Spelvin, Dahlia Schweitzer,.Jennifer Blowdryer, Juliana Piccillo, April Daisy White, David Henry Sterry

In the Flesh Literary Night Hustler Bookstore
8920 Sunset Boulevard West Hollywood, CA 90069  (310) 860-9009
Wednesday, September 9th at 8pm
Starring: Nina Hartley, Georgina Spelvin, Nica Noelle, Anastasia Antithesis, Sinnamon Love, David Henry Sterry

Sex Worker Literati Book Release Party Happy Ending
302 Broome St, New York, NY 10002 212-334-9676
Thursday, October 1,
Starring: Audacia Ray David Henry Sterry, Shawna Kenney, Melissa Petro, Perry Brass, Jennifer Blowdryer, Zoe Hansen, Jodi Sh. Doff, Hawk Kincaid, Sinnamon Love, Lauri Shaw

KISMET PRODUCTIONS & SOFT SKULL PROUDLY PRESENT
www.hoshookerscallgirlsrentboys.com

HO’S, HOOKERS, CALLGIRLS & RENTBOYS:
PROFESSIONALS WRITING ON LIFE, LOVE, MONEY & SEX
NOW AVAILABLE ONLINE & AT YOUR LOCAL BOOKSTORE

The miracle is manifest.  The anthology has hit the streets.  Half a decade in the making, this love’s labor, the product of so much blood, sweat, tears and other assorted body fluids, has finally traveled down the birth canal, and has been delivered by an able-bodied team of midwives, editors, dulas, copy editors, birth coaches, art directors and sweaty worried nerve-wracked family and relatives.  Below please find information about the website and events.  Many thanks to all involved.  We are very proud of this book.

REVIEW FROM PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

“The sprawling project, grouped loosely by topic (Life, Love, Money, Sex, etc.), 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 Sterry’s San Francisco writer’s workshop for sex workers, range from triumphant to harrowing… 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 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.”

Hos, Hookers, Callgirls, and Rentboys is a collection of short memoirs, whore war stories, confessions, nightmares, journalism and poetry.  It contains new writing from sex worker literati: art-porn priestess Dr. Annie Sprinkle; the infamous Happy Hooker, Xaviera Hollander; author and LGBT activist Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore; star of The Devil in Miss Jones, Georgina Spelvin; best-selling memoirist David Henry Sterry and sex educator/movie star Nina Hartley. But it also includes crack hos, male hustlers, pimps and the teenagers they exploit.  Funny, terrifying, tragic and inspiring, this collection of oral history, short memoirs, war stories, confessions, nightmares, social criticism and poetry is unprecedented because it includes people from all walks of the sex for money world.

From back-alley Tenderloin massage parlors, to glittering Beverly Hills hotels, to Times Square porn palaces, to the meanest streets in Harlem, Hos, Hookers, Call Girls, and Rent Boys is a collage of sex and money, shining light on this hidden underbelly of America, from sea to shining sea.

EVENTS
CELEBRATE THE LAUNCH

A cavalcade of tough guys, fast girls, bad boys and loose women sharing the wisdom of whores and spinning yarns of true love, fake orgasms and real-life true-crime murder.  David Henry Sterry, ex-teenage gigolo/rentboy/golf ho and author of best-selling memoir Chicken, will MC an all-star lineup of writers and performers from this groundbreaking anthology, followed by a very public discussion. Behind the bumps and the grinds, under the garters and the pasties, in between the booze fueled clients and the stiletto heels there is in the exchange of sex for money a power dynamic that opens a window into the soul.

COME LAUGH COME CRY JUST COME
Book Launch Party , Center for Sex and Culture
1519 Mission St between 11th and So. Van Ness SF, CA  415-255-1155
Sunday, July 26th at 6:30pm
Starring: Candye Kane, Dr. Carol Queen, Carla Crandall, Alvin Orloff, Sam Formo, Justin Jones, Diana Morgaine, Berta Avila, Lilycat, Juliet November, RJ Martin, David Henry Sterry

Rent Boys Night, A Different Light Bookstore
489 Castro St. San Francisco, CA 94114 415-431-0891
Wednesday, July 29th at 7:30pm
Starring: Alvin Orloff, Sam Formo, Justin Jones, RJ Martin, David Henry Sterry

Reading performance/signing, Good Vibrations Berkeley Store
2504 San Pablo Avenue (at Dwight Way) Berkeley, CA 94702 (510) 841-8987
Thursday, July 30th   6:00 – 7:00 pm
Starring: Dr. Annie Sprinkle, Diana Morgaine, Berta Avila, La Tigressa, RJ Martin, David Henry Sterry

Sex Worker Literati event Modern Times
888 Valencia St San Francisco, CA 94110 (415) 282-9246
Tuesday, August 4th at 7pm
Starring: Dr. Carol Queen, Lorelei Lee, Al Eros, Lilycat, Diana Morgaine, RJ Martin, David Henry Sterry

Sex Worker Literati, Happy Ending
302 Broome St, New York, NY 10002 212-334-9676
When: Thursday, August 6
Starring:  Candye Kane, Audacia Ray, David Henry Sterry, Jodi Sh. Doff, Damien Decker, Juliana Piccillo

(This will be a monthly series, we will do a book release party in October)

In the Flesh, Happy Ending
302 Broome St, New York, NY 10002 212-334-9676
Thursday, August 20
Starring: Audacia Ray, David Henry Sterry, Jennifer Blowdryer, Zoe Hansen

Sex Worker Literati, Happy Ending
302 Broome St, New York, NY 10002 212-334-9676
Thursday, September 3
Starring: Audacia Ray et al

Reading/Discussion/Signing: Book Soup LA
8818 Sunset Blvd. W. Hollywood, CA 90069 310.659.3110
Thursday, September 3, 2009 7pm
Starring: Nina Hartley, Georgina Spelvin, Dahlia Schweitzer,.Jennifer Blowdryer, Juliana Piccillo, April Daisy White, David Henry Sterry

In the Flesh Literary Night Hustler Bookstore
8920 Sunset Boulevard West Hollywood, CA 90069  (310) 860-9009
Wednesday, September 9th at 8pm
Starring: Nina Hartley, Georgina Spelvin, Nica Noelle, Anastasia Antithesis, Sinnamon Love, David Henry Sterry

Sex Worker Literati Book Release Party Happy Ending
302 Broome St, New York, NY 10002 212-334-9676
Thursday, October 1,
Starring: Audacia Ray David Henry Sterry, Shawna Kenney, Melissa Petro, Perry Brass, Jennifer Blowdryer, Zoe Hansen, Jodi Sh. Doff, Hawk Kincaid, Sinnamon Love, Lauri Shaw

KISMET PRODUCTIONS & SOFT SKULL PROUDLY PRESENT
www.hoshookerscallgirlsrentboys.com

HO’S, HOOKERS, CALLGIRLS & RENTBOYS:
PROFESSIONALS WRITING ON LIFE, LOVE, MONEY & SEX
NOW AVAILABLE ONLINE & AT YOUR LOCAL BOOKSTORE
The miracle is manifest.  The anthology has hit the streets.  Half a decade in the making, this love’s labor, the product of so much blood, sweat, tears and other assorted body fluids, has finally traveled down the birth canal, and has been delivered by an able-bodied team of midwives, editors, dulas, copy editors, birth coaches, art directors and sweaty worried nerve-wracked family and relatives.  Below please find information about the website and events.  Many thanks to all involved.  We are very proud of this book.

REVIEW FROM PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

“The sprawling project, grouped loosely by topic (Life, Love, Money, Sex, etc.), 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 Sterry’s San Francisco writer’s workshop for sex workers, range from triumphant to harrowing… 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 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.”

Hos, Hookers, Callgirls, and Rentboys is a collection of short memoirs, whore war stories, confessions, nightmares, journalism and poetry.  It contains new writing from sex worker literati: art-porn priestess Dr. Annie Sprinkle; the infamous Happy Hooker, Xaviera Hollander; author and LGBT activist Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore; star of The Devil in Miss Jones, Georgina Spelvin; best-selling memoirist David Henry Sterry and sex educator/movie star Nina Hartley. But it also includes crack hos, male hustlers, pimps and the teenagers they exploit.  Funny, terrifying, tragic and inspiring, this collection of oral history, short memoirs, war stories, confessions, nightmares, social criticism and poetry is unprecedented because it includes people from all walks of the sex for money world.

From back-alley Tenderloin massage parlors, to glittering Beverly Hills hotels, to Times Square porn palaces, to the meanest streets in Harlem, Hos, Hookers, Call Girls, and Rent Boys is a collage of sex and money, shining light on this hidden underbelly of America, from sea to shining sea.

EVENTS
CELEBRATE THE LAUNCH

A cavalcade of tough guys, fast girls, bad boys and loose women sharing the wisdom of whores and spinning yarns of true love, fake orgasms and real-life true-crime murder.  David Henry Sterry, ex-teenage gigolo/rentboy/golf ho and author of best-selling memoir Chicken, will MC an all-star lineup of writers and performers from this groundbreaking anthology, followed by a very public discussion. Behind the bumps and the grinds, under the garters and the pasties, in between the booze fueled clients and the stiletto heels there is in the exchange of sex for money a power dynamic that opens a window into the soul.

COME LAUGH COME CRY JUST COME
Book Launch Party , Center for Sex and Culture
1519 Mission St between 11th and So. Van Ness SF, CA  415-255-1155
Sunday, July 26th at 6:30pm
Starring: Candye Kane, Dr. Carol Queen, Carla Crandall, Alvin Orloff, Sam Formo, Justin Jones, Diana Morgaine, Berta Avila, Lilycat, Juliet November, RJ Martin, David Henry Sterry

Rent Boys Night, A Different Light Bookstore
489 Castro St. San Francisco, CA 94114 415-431-0891
Wednesday, July 29th at 7:30pm
Starring: Alvin Orloff, Sam Formo, Justin Jones, RJ Martin, David Henry Sterry

Reading performance/signing, Good Vibrations Berkeley Store
2504 San Pablo Avenue (at Dwight Way) Berkeley, CA 94702 (510) 841-8987
Thursday, July 30th   6:00 – 7:00 pm
Starring: Dr. Annie Sprinkle, Diana Morgaine, Berta Avila, La Tigressa, RJ Martin, David Henry Sterry

Sex Worker Literati event Modern Times
888 Valencia St San Francisco, CA 94110 (415) 282-9246
Tuesday, August 4th at 7pm
Starring: Dr. Carol Queen, Lorelei Lee, Al Eros, Lilycat, Diana Morgaine, RJ Martin, David Henry Sterry

Sex Worker Literati, Happy Ending
302 Broome St, New York, NY 10002 212-334-9676
When: Thursday, August 6
Starring:  Candye Kane, Audacia Ray, David Henry Sterry, Jodi Sh. Doff, Damien Decker, Juliana Piccillo

(This will be a monthly series, we will do a book release party in October)

In the Flesh, Happy Ending
302 Broome St, New York, NY 10002 212-334-9676
Thursday, August 20
Starring: Audacia Ray, David Henry Sterry, Jennifer Blowdryer, Zoe Hansen

Sex Worker Literati, Happy Ending
302 Broome St, New York, NY 10002 212-334-9676
Thursday, September 3
Starring: Audacia Ray et al

Reading/Discussion/Signing: Book Soup LA
8818 Sunset Blvd. W. Hollywood, CA 90069 310.659.3110
Thursday, September 3, 2009 7pm
Starring: Nina Hartley, Georgina Spelvin, Dahlia Schweitzer,.Jennifer Blowdryer, Juliana Piccillo, April Daisy White, David Henry Sterry

In the Flesh Literary Night Hustler Bookstore
8920 Sunset Boulevard West Hollywood, CA 90069  (310) 860-9009
Wednesday, September 9th at 8pm
Starring: Nina Hartley, Georgina Spelvin, Nica Noelle, Anastasia Antithesis, Sinnamon Love, David Henry Sterry

Sex Worker Literati Book Release Party Happy Ending
302 Broome St, New York, NY 10002 212-334-9676
Thursday, October 1,
Starring: Audacia Ray David Henry Sterry, Shawna Kenney, Melissa Petro, Perry Brass, Jennifer Blowdryer, Zoe Hansen, Jodi Sh. Doff, Hawk Kincaid, Sinnamon Love, Lauri Shaw

KISMET PRODUCTIONS & SOFT SKULL PROUDLY PRESENT
www.hoshookerscallgirlsrentboys.com

HO’S, HOOKERS, CALLGIRLS & RENTBOYS:
PROFESSIONALS WRITING ON LIFE, LOVE, MONEY & SEX
NOW AVAILABLE ONLINE & AT YOUR LOCAL BOOKSTORE

The miracle is manifest.  The anthology has hit the streets.  Half a decade in the making, this love’s labor, the product of so much blood, sweat, tears and other assorted body fluids, has finally traveled down the birth canal, and has been delivered by an able-bodied team of midwives, editors, dulas, copy editors, birth coaches, art directors and sweaty worried nerve-wracked family and relatives.  Below please find information about the website and events.  Many thanks to all involved.  We are very proud of this book.

REVIEW FROM PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

“The sprawling project, grouped loosely by topic (Life, Love, Money, Sex, etc.), 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 Sterry’s San Francisco writer’s workshop for sex workers, range from triumphant to harrowing… 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 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.”

Hos, Hookers, Callgirls, and Rentboys is a collection of short memoirs, whore war stories, confessions, nightmares, journalism and poetry.  It contains new writing from sex worker literati: art-porn priestess Dr. Annie Sprinkle; the infamous Happy Hooker, Xaviera Hollander; author and LGBT activist Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore; star of The Devil in Miss Jones, Georgina Spelvin; best-selling memoirist David Henry Sterry and sex educator/movie star Nina Hartley. But it also includes crack hos, male hustlers, pimps and the teenagers they exploit.  Funny, terrifying, tragic and inspiring, this collection of oral history, short memoirs, war stories, confessions, nightmares, social criticism and poetry is unprecedented because it includes people from all walks of the sex for money world.

From back-alley Tenderloin massage parlors, to glittering Beverly Hills hotels, to Times Square porn palaces, to the meanest streets in Harlem, Hos, Hookers, Call Girls, and Rent Boys is a collage of sex and money, shining light on this hidden underbelly of America, from sea to shining sea.

EVENTS
CELEBRATE THE LAUNCH

A cavalcade of tough guys, fast girls, bad boys and loose women sharing the wisdom of whores and spinning yarns of true love, fake orgasms and real-life true-crime murder.  David Henry Sterry, ex-teenage gigolo/rentboy/golf ho and author of best-selling memoir Chicken, will MC an all-star lineup of writers and performers from this groundbreaking anthology, followed by a very public discussion. Behind the bumps and the grinds, under the garters and the pasties, in between the booze fueled clients and the stiletto heels there is in the exchange of sex for money a power dynamic that opens a window into the soul.

COME LAUGH COME CRY JUST COME
Book Launch Party , Center for Sex and Culture
1519 Mission St between 11th and So. Van Ness SF, CA  415-255-1155
Sunday, July 26th at 6:30pm
Starring: Candye Kane, Dr. Carol Queen, Carla Crandall, Alvin Orloff, Sam Formo, Justin Jones, Diana Morgaine, Berta Avila, Lilycat, Juliet November, RJ Martin, David Henry Sterry

Rent Boys Night, A Different Light Bookstore
489 Castro St. San Francisco, CA 94114 415-431-0891
Wednesday, July 29th at 7:30pm
Starring: Alvin Orloff, Sam Formo, Justin Jones, RJ Martin, David Henry Sterry

Reading performance/signing, Good Vibrations Berkeley Store
2504 San Pablo Avenue (at Dwight Way) Berkeley, CA 94702 (510) 841-8987
Thursday, July 30th   6:00 – 7:00 pm
Starring: Dr. Annie Sprinkle, Diana Morgaine, Berta Avila, La Tigressa, RJ Martin, David Henry Sterry

Sex Worker Literati event Modern Times
888 Valencia St San Francisco, CA 94110 (415) 282-9246
Tuesday, August 4th at 7pm
Starring: Dr. Carol Queen, Lorelei Lee, Al Eros, Lilycat, Diana Morgaine, RJ Martin, David Henry Sterry

Sex Worker Literati, Happy Ending
302 Broome St, New York, NY 10002 212-334-9676
When: Thursday, August 6
Starring:  Candye Kane, Audacia Ray, David Henry Sterry, Jodi Sh. Doff, Damien Decker, Juliana Piccillo

(This will be a monthly series, we will do a book release party in October)

In the Flesh, Happy Ending
302 Broome St, New York, NY 10002 212-334-9676
Thursday, August 20
Starring: Audacia Ray, David Henry Sterry, Jennifer Blowdryer, Zoe Hansen

Sex Worker Literati, Happy Ending
302 Broome St, New York, NY 10002 212-334-9676
Thursday, September 3
Starring: Audacia Ray et al

Reading/Discussion/Signing: Book Soup LA
8818 Sunset Blvd. W. Hollywood, CA 90069 310.659.3110
Thursday, September 3, 2009 7pm
Starring: Nina Hartley, Georgina Spelvin, Dahlia Schweitzer,.Jennifer Blowdryer, Juliana Piccillo, April Daisy White, David Henry Sterry

In the Flesh Literary Night Hustler Bookstore
8920 Sunset Boulevard West Hollywood, CA 90069  (310) 860-9009
Wednesday, September 9th at 8pm
Starring: Nina Hartley, Georgina Spelvin, Nica Noelle, Anastasia Antithesis, Sinnamon Love, David Henry Sterry

Sex Worker Literati Book Release Party Happy Ending
302 Broome St, New York, NY 10002 212-334-9676
Thursday, October 1,
Starring: Audacia Ray David Henry Sterry, Shawna Kenney, Melissa Petro, Perry Brass, Jennifer Blowdryer, Zoe Hansen, Jodi Sh. Doff, Hawk Kincaid, Sinnamon Love, Lauri Shaw

92nd ST Y: The Art of the Memoir, SUN. FEB 15, 7:30pm

I am honored to be bringing my Art of the Memoir to the 92nd St. Y, with an all-star cast.  This started last year when I reached out to Kathryn Harrison and Phillip Lopate, asking if they’re like to appear on an Art of the Memoir panel with me.  Both said yes, but we couldn’t come up with a date.  That’s when I approached the 92nd St. Y.  They were so warm and nice. Jennifer Giunta Hausler brought the whole thing together, and I thank her for that. Anyways, hope to see you there in the flesh, or in spirit. Thanks, David Henry Sterry

SUNDAY, FEB !5, 7:30pm
The Fishel Lecture 92nd ST Y: The Art of the Memoir: David Carr, Kathryn Harrison, Philip Lopate and David Henry Sterry

Discover what compels writers to put their personal stories down on paper as a group of memoirists discusses the joys and perils, the agony and ecstasy of writing, as well as dealing with issues of privacy, the lunacy of family and navigating the publishing world.
Moderator Leonard Lopate is the host of WNYC’s Leonard Lopate Show.

David Carr is the author of The Night of the Gun.

Kathryn Harrison’s memoirs include The Kiss, The Mother Knot and The Road to Santiago.

Philip Lopate is the author of The Art of the Personal Essay and the novel, Two Marriages.

David Henry Sterry’s most recent book is called Master of Ceremonies: A True Story of Love, Murder, Roller Skates and Chippendales.

Date & Time: Sun, Feb 15, 2009, 7:30pm
Location: Lexington Avenue at 92nd Street Directions
Code: T-LC5CA04-01
Price: $27.00

Book signing to follow event

SEX WORKER LITERATI EVENT
KGB Bar 85 East 4th Street New York, NY
Fri Feb. 6, 2009 7pm

$EX AFTER THE CRASH
Myths, fairy tales, and real strategies for surviving when your body is your business. In a city recovering from Ponzi schemes, inflated earnings, and rampant exuberance, sex workers struggle to deliver essential pleasures – and pay their bills.
Reading, discussion, Q&A, book signing.**
Meet three local authors who insert the term Sex Worker Literati deep into the 21st century American vernacular.

Elisabeth Eaves, author of ‘Bare: The Naked Truth About Stripping,’ is deputy editor of the opinions section at Forbes.com.

David Henry Sterry, ex-gigolo, is the author of ‘Master of Ceremonies: a True Story of Love, Murder, Roller Skates & Chippendales.’

Tracy Quan’s latest novel is ‘Diary of a Jetsetting Call Girl’, her third Manhattan Call Girl adventure.

**For Valentine’s Day, give/get a personally inscribed copy of your favorite book. Share the love & be prepared!

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=50481171611

The Art of Memoir January 25: 12-5 PM  Los Angeles, CA. $125.00

What to Expect:
Bring your story and let David and Daisy help you craft and plot your own hero’s journey. Tell your story and leave with a plan toward putting it into print. No matter what structure, dramatic or prose, David and Daisy will help you find your voice.

David Henry Sterry, book doctor, talent scout for Levine Greenberg Talent Agency, and author of the best-selling memoir Chicken which is being made into a TV series by Showtime, and whose one-man show was named the #1 show in the UK when it premiered internationally at the Edinburgh French Festival; and April  Daisy White, whose one-woman show Sugar was hailed by the critics as, “Passionate, stunning, painful, funny, beautiful, heartfelt, I can go on and on…” will show you in a hands-on, up close and personal way what it takes to tell and sell your life story.  They will discuss the joys and the perils, the agony and the ecstasy of writing and selling the stories of your life. Making a narrative of events of your own life, dealing with issues of privacy and the lunacy of family, figuring out how to navigate the stormy seas of the publishing world, are all topics that will be bandied about. Bring your own stories, and find out how to tell them and sell them.
Please Contact for More Info: April Daisy White ADW Professional Coaching
(323) 944- 0749 ADWProfCoaching@aol.com www.adwprofessionalcoaching.com

David Henry Sterry www.DavidHenrySterry.com Sterryhead@gmail.com

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-henry-sterry/university-presidents-adm_b_156783.html 

DAVID HENRY STERRY

DOES LA

HUSTLER STORE, HOLLYWOOD: Porn, Strippers and Murder: True Stories of the Ugliest Man at Chippendales, and an Accidental Pornstar, with the legendary Georgina Spelvin, starring Stan Kent, the naughtiest madman in Hollywood, January 22*

VROMANS, PASADENA: Art of the Memoir: Telling and Selling Your Life Stories, with the amazing ELECTROBOY Andy Behrman, Friday, January 23

CIRCUS BOOKS, HOLLYWOOD: Starring the fabulous Georgina Spelvin, author of The Devil Made Me To It, a beautifully written hands-on, up-close-and-personal account of making the greatest porn movie in history.  And the goddess Nina Hartley, movie star, educator, entrepreneur and author of Nina Hartley’s Guide to Sex, January 24

Art of the Memoir

Find out what it takes to write and sell your life stories from trained professionals who’ve actually done just that.  Memoirists David Henry Sterry (best-selling author of Master of Ceremonies** and talent scout for Levine Greenberg literary agency); and Andy Berman (mental health activist and best-selling author of Electroboy, soon to be in a Cineplex near you) will discuss the joys and the perils, the agony and the ecstasy of writing and selling the stories of your life. Understand how to make a narrative of events of your own life, deal with issues of privacy and the lunacy of family, and figure out how to navigate the stormy seas of the publishing world.

.

ALL QUESTIONS WILL BE ANSWERED!

Master of Ceremonies:

A True Story of Love, Murder, Rollerskates and Chippendales

1985. Smack dab in the middle of the cash happy/coke crazy 80s, when it was raining men and girls just wanted to have fun, David Henry Sterry became the MC at Chippendales, when it was the hottest show in the city that never sleeps.  Find out what it was like to be the ugliest man at Chippendale’s.  Sterry’s first memoir, Chicken, is being made into a TV series by Showtime. He is also a book doctor who has helped dozens of first time authors get published; and the author of Putting Your Passion Into Print the definitive book on how to get published.

“‘Master of Ceremonies’” is a dizzying, tender story resplendent with seedy glamour, hilarious backstage madness, and unflinching honesty… maximum entertainment value… There are two underlying love stories, one between Sterry and a coworker, and one between Sterry and his craft..” -Katherine Litwin, Library Journal.

*NEARLY NAKED GO-GO BOYS & ALMOST NUDE GO-GO GIRLS

**Anyone who buys this book will get a free 10 minute consultation on how to get a book published.