STANDBY ONLY: Walter Mosley and John Rechy: Between the Sheets: Sex, Literature, and the Future of Erotic Fiction, moderated by Marsha Kinder FREE February 15, 2007

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“Between the Sheets:
Sex, Literature, and the Future of Erotic Fiction”
Moderated by Marsha Kinder, author and cultural theorist

In a society in which sex is both a major obsession and a major taboo, what is the function of erotic literature? Is there a new receptivity to thinking and writing about the sexual dimension? Join two award-winning American writers for a provocative discussion.

Walter Mosley is the author of more than twenty-five critically acclaimed books, including the bestselling mystery series featuring Easy Rawlins. His work has been translated into twenty-one languages and includes literary fiction, science fiction, political monographs, and a young adult novel. His short fiction has been widely published, and his nonfiction has appeared in the New York Times Magazine and the Nation, among other publications. He is the winner of numerous awards, including an O. Henry Award, a Grammy, and the PEN American Center's Lifetime Achievement Award. He lives in New York City.

John Rechy is the recipient of two coveted Lifetime Achievement Awards: PEN-USA-West's 1997 Lifetime Achievement Award and The Publishing Triangle's William Whitehead Award for Lifetime Achievement. In September 2000, a CD-Rom of his life and works--"Memories and Desire: The Worlds of John Rechy" (produced through the Annenberg Center at the University of Southern California)--debuted at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles to an overflow crowd. Last August, Rechy's eagerly awaited novel The Coming of the Night appeared as # 2 on the Los Angeles Times' Bestseller List. His 12th novel marks the author's return to some of the scenes and themes of his now-classic first novel, City of Night.

Greeted with controversy when they first appeared, Rechy's books have in recent years been singled out for major prominence. This year City of Night was named as one of the 25 all time "best gay novels" by the Publishing Triangle in New York. His The Sexual Outlaw: A Documentary was included by the San Francisco Chronicle Book Review as among the 100 Best Non-Fiction Books of the century.

Rechy's first novel, City of Night, was an international bestseller, and is now taught in contemporary-literature courses throughout the country, along with others of his books. His The Miraculous Day of Amalia Gomez is required reading in many Chicano Literature courses. His second novel, Numbers, was also a national bestseller, as was his nonfiction documentary, The Sexual Outlaw. In addition, he has written, This Day's Death, The Vampires, The Fourth Angel, Rushes, Bodies and Souls, Marilyn's Daughter, and Our Lady of Babylon. He teaches literature and film courses, for writers, in the graduate division of the University of Southern California.

Marsha Kinder began her academic career as a scholar of 18th century English Literature at Occidental College. Since 1980 she has been a Professor of Critical Studies in USC's School of Cinematic Arts where she has been teaching international film, narrative theory and new media. In 1997 she founded and has subsequently directed The Labyrinth Project, a USC research intiative on interactive narrative and database documentary, developing new models of digital scholarship and cultural history. With Labyrinth media artists Rosemary Comella, Kristy Kang and Scott Mahoy, Kinder has been producing database documentaries that have been exhibited at museums and festivals worldwide and have won major awards (the Jury Award for New Narrative Forms at Sundance, best overall design from New Media Invision, and the British Academy Award for best Interactive Design in the Learning Category). She is now developing on-line constructivist courseware on Russian Modernism, with a role-playing game at its center called "Montage," and interactive science education projects that address the interplay between biology and culture. Also a cultural theorist and film scholar, Kinder has published over 100 essays and ten books, including Blood Cinema, Playing with Power, and Kids' Media Culture. She was the founding editor of the award winning experimental journal Dreamworks (1980-87), and since 1977 has served on the editorial board of Film Quarterly. In 1995 she was awarded the USC Associates Award for Creativity in Research and Scholarship. In recognition of her innovative transdisciplinary research, she was named a University Professor in 2001 (one of only seventeen in USC's history) and in fall 2005 was appointed USC's Associate Vice Provost for Research Advancement in the Humanities.

Official Website: http://www.lfla.org/aloud/php/a.calendar.bioText.php?month=02&year=2007&day=15