50 Shades of Hot: A Night of Erotica to Make You Blush

Join Harvard Book Store and local Boston authors Jon Papernick, Steve Almond, and Lana Fox this Valentine's Day for a look at some of their more unrated work. 

Jon Papernick is the author of the short story collections The Ascent of Eli Israel and There is No Other, as well as the novel Who by Fire, Who by Blood. His mini-anthology Five Stories High and Rising is available exclusively from the Harvard Bookstore. He is Senior Writer-in-Residence at Emerson College. Papernick is also known by his pushcart bookselling alter-ego Papernick the Book Peddler. The five stories in his latest collection, XYXX, are shot through with lust, adultery, desire, sex and all of the struggles and complications of eros in the modern world.

Steve Almond is the author of ten books of fiction and non-fiction, many published with the help of our very own Espresso Book Machine. 

Lana Fox is an author and activist whose stories about sex and sexuality have been published in numerous books and magazines. She is the author of Confessions of a Kinky Divorcee. Her literary erotica has been featured in several anthologies including Best Women's Erotica 2011 and Best Bondage Erotica 2012. She is the Senior Editor and Publisher of Go Deeper Press. 

From Steve Almond's "WHY I WRITE SMUT: A MANIFESTO":

1. Because I’ve devoted perhaps eighty percent of my adult waking hours to thinking about sex, and it seems dishonest to pretend otherwise in my work.
2. Because human beings are never more alive to their own hope and shame and fear than when they are naked and aroused, and because the same must therefore be true of our characters, who are nothing more than poorly disguised versions of ourselves.
3. Because I’m really tired of seeing sex used to sell SUVs and underarm deodorant and crappy light beer, rather than being portrayed as a natural and sometimes even holy human endeavor.

[read more on The Rumpus]