Special Event February 13: Writing Sex Scenes with Steve Almond, Andrea Meyer, Sara Shukla, and Aube Rey Lescure

And yes, I'll be moderating these folks

It’s sex! How do you tackle one of the most intimate, and possibly embarrassing, yet often all-too-necessary scenes in your book? We’ll have teacher and writer-extraordinaire Steve Almond giving us pointers with a special pre-sale of his new craft book, Truth is the Arrow, Mercy is the Bow. Authors Andrea Meyer (Room for Love), Sara Shukla (Pink Whales), and Aube Rey Lescure (River East, River West) will each read short excerpts from their novels to help us put advice into practice. This special event will be moderated by yours truly and hosted by our favorite indie: Porter Square Books in Cambridge, Ma.

For more info, visit Porter Square Books website.

Steve Almond is the author of a dozen books, including the New York Times Bestsellers “Candyfreak” and “Against Football.” He’s the recipient of an NEA grant in fiction and teaches at Harvard and Wesleyan. His work has been published in the Best American Short Stories, the Best American Mysteries, and, on four occasions, Best American Erotica, as well as the New York Times Magazine. His first novel, “Which Brings Me to You” (co-written with Julianna Baggott) is now a major motion picture starring Lucy Hale. His second novel, “All the Secrets of the World,” is under development by 20th Century Fox. His new book, “Truth Is the Arrow, Mercy Is the Bow” is about craft, the struggle to write sex scenes, and where stories come from. More information at: www.stevealmondjoy.org.

Andrea Meyer has written creative treatments for commercial directors, a sex and the movies column for IFC, and a horror movie for MGM. Her first novel, Room for Love (St. Martin’s Press) is a romantic comedy based on an article she wrote for the New York Post, for which she pretended to look for a roommate as a ploy to meet men. The book was included in Cosmo’s “Lit We Love.” She completed her second novel—about a marriage reeling from unemployment, house renovations, and infertility sex—in the Novel Incubator program at Boston creative writing center, GrubStreet. A long-time film and entertainment journalist and former indieWIRE editor, her articles and essays have appeared in Elle, Glamour, Variety, Modern Loss, Interview, Pangyrus, and the Boston Globe. She teaches fiction and creative non-fiction writing at GrubStreet.

Sara Shukla is an editor for WBUR's Cognoscenti and a graduate of GrubStreet's Novel Incubator. Her debut novel, Pink Whales, will be released in June. You can find her writing at WBUR as well as the Los Angeles Review of Books, McSweeneys, and elsewhere. An alum of the University of Virginia, she lives in Massachusetts with her family.

Aube Rey Lescure is a French-Chinese-American writer. She grew up between Provence, northern China, and Shanghai, and graduated from Yale University in 2015. She worked in foreign policy before becoming an itinerant writer. Her debut novel, River East, River West, was released from William Morrow/HarperCollins in January. Her fiction and creative nonfiction have appeared or are forthcoming in Guernica, LitHub, Electric Literature, The Millions. WBUR, The Florida Review Online, Litro, and more. Her essay “At the Bend of the Road” was selected for Best American Essays 2022. She currently works as the Deputy Editor at Off Assignment. Two essays she edited are anthologized in Best American Travel Writing 2021, and four others were listed in Best American Essays Notables.

Photo by Joël de Vriend on Unsplash