Annabeth Leong Goes All the Places

Guys! You have so many chances to see me this month!

On Friday, February 12th, I will be at AS220 in downtown Providence performing a piece called "Lovefool." It's about my first girlfriend, contains Spice Girls references, and is super vulgar (partly because a point I'm making is that people often seem to want to turn attraction between women into something sweet and harmless). Sticky Stories is a really awesome event, and you should come for so many reasons, not just me. Also, you should come to find out what I mean when I say, "I want to braid her hair."

You can buy tickets here.

***

If you miss Sticky Stories, though, never fear. You have two chances to catch me at the Fetish Fair Fleamarket in Warwick on February 13th, the very next day!

I'll be reading from some of my kinky work at the authors readings at 10:45 a.m. in room 623 and 8 p.m. in Barrington.

Expect to hear from Challenge Accepted, Heated Leather Lover, The Passenger, or maybe something else surprising! Also expect to shiver with delight at the sight of Laura Antoniou and Cecilia Tan in the flesh and reading to you.

You can get tickets to the Flea here. You can learn more about the event here.

***

On February 26th, from 7-9:30 p.m., I'll be in New York City at Bluestockings Books, a radical bookstore and activist center focused on feminism, queer studies, and a lot of other cool topics. I think it is a sign that my life is going in the right direction that I've been invited here. I'll be reading there from "Give and Take" alongside other authors from the 20th anniversary edition of Best Lesbian Erotica. Come count which of us have alternative lifestyle haircuts, and discover which stories turn you on to an uncomfortable degree in a public space! Also, this event is free!

More information about the event is here.

***

On March 26th, from 2-4 pm, I will be reading at my beloved Center for Sexual Pleasure and Health in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. It will, of course, be awesome to hear stories from the 20th anniversary edition of Best Lesbian Erotica, but you should come for the world's largest collection of antique vibrators, and the extensive library of books on sexuality, and the oddly cuddly stuffed representation of the herpes virus. Also free lube samples. If that description doesn't make you mark your calendar, I don't know what will.

The address is:
The Center for Sexual Pleasure and Health
The Grant Building, Unit 1/Box 11
250 Main Street, Pawtucket RI 02860

This event is too new to have an official listing yet, but it's happening, baby. And if you want to know more about the CSPH, you can visit their website here.

***

That's it for now, but there's a possibility I'll be appearing at a certain clean, well-lighted purveyor of sex toys in Brookline, MA, sometime in May. I'll keep you posted.

Here Again Temporarily

I know it's been a long time since I posted here. I've returned, though, at least temporarily, because my new website was hacked recently, in a way that I'm having trouble fixing. :(

That is a huge bummer, because it's a very beautiful website. And if you went to look at it with your naked eye, you'd still see a very beautiful website. However, hackers have injected some gross racially charged pornographic references into the file structure, which shows up when search engines go to my website, or when something grabs a preview of it.

(I found out about the hack while communicating with someone who uses hotmail. If you have seen a preview like this, I promise you that I absolutely do not endorse the gross racially charged porn that is unfortunately associated with my name at the moment.)

Anyway, this means that I'll be blogging here for the next little while. My books and links are out of date. But I keep my Amazon author profile fairly accurate and updated. Check it out! And thanks for sticking with me.

Charlotte Howard Answers My Questions

Over at annabetherotica.com, I've interviewed Charlotte Howard, author of The Black Door. I asked Charlotte about women expressing anger, motherhood and sexuality, and many other things. You can read the interview here.

Summer Loving

Over at annabetherotica.com, I've reviewed Justine Elyot's "Night Swimming," one of the twenty sizzling stories in Summer Loving, an anthology edited by Alison Tyler. I'd love to see this book do fantastically well—it's been put together as a labor of love to benefit the brilliant, creative Sommer Marsden and family as they deal with cancer.

But you don't have to read it out of charity—you could just read it because it includes a truly stunning list of authors.

You can read my review here. And this will tell you where you can pick up the book.

Street Harassment Essay, Part III: On Dealing With the Horror of Innocent Men

I've posted the third part of my street harassment essay over at the new website:

I look forward to getting old partially because I look forward to going outside and being somewhat invisible. I am scared I will never get that freedom, though, because my hair is going gray and I'm not slim anymore and yet I still get harassed all the fucking time. I am beginning to understand down to my bones that this whole thing has nothing to do with my "beauty" and everything to do with reminding me that the street doesn't belong to me.

This essay means a lot to me, and I'd appreciate it if you took the time to read it.

You can find it here:

Part I: On Being Harassed and Having to Thank Him For It

Part II: On Putting Me in My Place

Part III: On Dealing With the Horror of Innocent Men

If you missed the video that inspired all this, I've pasted it in below.

Street Harassment Essay, Part II: On Putting Me in My Place

I've posted the second part of my street harassment essay over at the new website:

I have been harassed while I was in a dress and while I was in sweatpants. I have been harassed while wearing a pushup bra, while wearing a sports bra, while wearing no bra. I know that it doesn't matter what I was wearing—I know that intellectually—but the first thing I do every time I get harassed is worry about what I was wearing, what I was doing, where I was walking, how I was walking.

This essay means a lot to me, and I'd appreciate it if you took the time to read it.

You can find it here:

Part I: On Being Harassed and Having to Thank Him For It

Part II: On Putting Me in My Place

Street Harassment Essay, Part I: On Being Harassed and Having to Thank Him For It

This week, one of my afternoons was interrupted by a piece of writing that grabbed me by the throat and wouldn't let go. I've been wanting to write for a while about street harassment, and a video I watched unleashed the floodgates.



(Hat tip to Jon Pressick at Sex in Words).

That video's not going to tell you anything you don't know if you're a person who experiences street harassment, but the way it was shot and cut underscored how common this is, how similar the experiences are, and how angry it makes me. Over at my new website, I've divided the essay I wrote into three pieces. The first goes up today.

It means a lot to me, and I'd love for you to take the time to read it.

Here's a snip:

But what bothers me is that my "thank you" was insult to injury. What it really meant was, "Thank you for scaring me. Thank you for treating me like a piece of meat. Thank you for interrupting me when I was busy. Thank you for making me feel threatened."

You can read the whole thing here.