Call for submissions

Men in Bed: Women Writers on the Male Sexual Experience
Forthcoming from Other Voices Books

This groundbreaking anthology, edited by Stacy Bierlein, Kat Meads and controversial fiction writer Cris Mazza, notorious for her candid explorations of sexuality, will investigate the sexual experiences and identities of male characters as envisioned by female writers.

Throughout history, male writers from D.H. Lawrence to Phillip Roth have defined sex in literature, including female sexuality. Rare examples of women writers’ sexual explorations were either suppressed or treated as trivial. While women writers in a post-Erica-Jong era have claimed the female sexual experience for themselves, those attempting to explore sex from a male character’s point of view are still often challenged for their so-called lack of credibility, or for trying to push a feminist agenda.

Of course, great works of literature involve writers stepping far outside their own experiences—gender, age, social class, race, nation—to approach a wider envisioning and understanding of the world. In Men in Bed, today’s prominent women writers, alongside emerging talent, explore the provocative and historically pertinent sphere of writing sex through the male lens, thereby reaching a greater understanding not only of human sexuality but of literary tradition and the power of the creative imagination.


Guidelines:
Literary fiction only
Sexually graphic work welcome, but must have strong literary merit
All work should be self-contained and less than 10,000 words.
Previously published stories eligible if the author has retained rights
Submit work via email to [email protected]
Please include a brief biographical note.