The best of the best The hottest of the hot To mark its fifteenth anniversary, the top-selling erotica series achieves a scorching new climax with a special edition showcasing standout stories from the entire series as well as never before published pieces -- plus interviews with the authors and, for the first time, a hot and edgy piece from Susie Bright herself. In Susie Bright's own contribution, "Story of O Birthday Party," she recounts her lover's elaborately orchestrated birthday gift: a re-creation of Pauline Réage's classic S/M tale with Susie at the center of the action. Joe Maynard enters a love/hate relationship with a two-million-dollar sex toy in "Fleshlight." Greta Christina's "Are We Having Sex Now or What?" asks the provocative question of what defines authentic sexual connection and experience. Thoroughly electrifying -- and thrillingly eclectic -- the 2008 edition promises to open new doors with its exhilarating, equal-opportunity approach to erotic writing. Straight or gay, dominant or submissive, romantic or sadistic, Bright's selections run the gamut -- and push all the right buttons.

The reigning mistress of erotica, Susie Bright, has expertly chosen 40 of the hottest stories ever written: breathtaking new stories as well as the most sought-after stories from The Best American Erotica series. Luminaries like Carol Queen and Robert Olen Butler contribute to the stories about all kinds of lovers: heartbreakers, foxes, maniacs, romanticists, hell-raisers, and utter bandits. This delicious collection is certain to satisfy.

There is a deep tradition of eroticism in American poetry. Thoughtful, provocative, moving, and sometimes mirthful, the poems collected in The Best American Erotic Poems celebrate this exuberant sensuality. These poems range across the varied landscapes of love and sex and desire -- from the intimate parts of the body to the end of an affair, from passion to solitary self-pleasure. With candor and imagination, they capture the delights and torments of sex and sexuality, nudity, love, lust, and the secret life of fantasy. David Lehman, the distinguished editor of the celebrated Best American Poetry series, has culled a witty, titillating, and alluring collection that starts with Francis Scott Key, Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman, and Hart Crane, encompasses Frank O'Hara, Anne Sexton, John Updike, Charles Simic, Billy Collins, Kevin Young, and Sharon Olds, and concludes with the rising stars of a whole new generation of versifiers, including Sarah Manguso, Ravi Shankar, and Brenda Shaughnessy. In a section of the book that is sure to prompt discussion and further reading, the living poets write about their favorite works of erotic writing. This book will delight, surprise, and inspire.

From bookstores to the Internet to Susie Bright's own tremendous success with the BEST AMERICAN EROTICA series, we are clearly reading and writing erotica more than ever. Now Susie Bright shows readers how to heat up sex scenes in everything from traditional novels and romances to science fiction and horror. She guides aspiring writers in reading erotica to discover the elements and styles that work. Then she walks them through the writing process: how to get hot ideas, devise steamy plots, use language like a pro and bring the story to a memorable climax. Each chapter features writing exercises and suggestions for non-writing activities that will galvanise the imagination and flatten any hurdle. Drawing on her own experiences, Bright explains how to find an agent, work with an editor, choose a publishing company and sell the work.

Susie Bright brings together love's darkest arrows in this shiver-inducing collection of 15 gothic erotic short stories,with original stories from legends such as author Francesca Lia Block and Supernatural screenwriter Sera Gamble. Delicate illustrations weave throughout the lush package, and printed edges make the baroque book an object to behold. Open alone or share with a lover and devour the mystical characters, forbidden sexual relationships, and private pleasures.

Ignore the weather report—there's a heat wave coming! Author, editor, blogger, and former sex columnist for the Village Voice, Rachel Kramer Bussel presents seven titillating tales guaranteed to steam up your bedroom windows in the midst of Mother Nature's seasonal chill. A lusty collection of scintillating erotic dreams from some of the best writers in the field, here is a sexy and sure cure for the winter blues! Two uptight Manhattanites discover a hotspot in frigid Minnesota where they can shed their inhibitions and explore their most intimate fantasies . . . A billionaire recluse and a beautiful paparazzo generate some serious heat in a snowbound cabin in the Colorado Rockies . . . Combine a blizzard, a romantic old castle, a burglary, and a breathtakingly sexy devil—her perfect recipe for dangerous lust . . . In the unfamiliar chill of a New York winter, a California sun bunny discovers the secret to igniting her boyfriend's inner erotic fire . . . Stuck with a man she despises on her sister's wedding day, a distraught beauty resolves to be civilized—until her studly adversary lures her into a forbidden place with no rules or taboos . . . A husband and wife whose marriage has stalled get their pistons pumping once more when a sudden winter storm strands them in their car . . . Though she's been taught all her life never to beg, her insatiable desire for him is bringing her to her knees . . .

A collection of very erotic, unrestrained and up close adventures. Stories viewed from different aspects, showing that sex can be eagerly enjoyed by both the young lithe bodied swingers and those amongst us with the more fuller figure and the experience of age. Very erotic and stimulating it certainly is, but the art of sex is treated with the respect and tenderness that the subject deserves. The dialogue, though explicit, is not gratuitous and is in keeping with the passion of the moment. If you only ever read one book like this in your lifetime; make it this one.