Best Lesbian Erotica 1998

by Jenifer Levin (Compiler)

Celebrating sexy, literate queer writing, Best Lesbian Erotica features the steamiest, most thought-provoking sexual writing of each year. Guest judges selected from the queer literary world select and introduce the collections, which represent a wide range of styles and voices. The series is edited by Tristan Taormino. Best Lesbian Erotica 1997 is selected and introduced by guest editor Jenifer Levin, author of Water Dancer and The Sea of Light. "There's a new generation of queer women writing unabashedly about the truth, pain, and fun of the queer sexual experience-in all its variety, its surprising twists and turns, its rich psychological depth," writes Levin. "These gals are not afraid to just go out and get it. And when opportunity rears its pretty head, they tend to ask 'Why not?!' instead of 'Why?' Ah. The calling card of youth"

Genres: Erotica, Anthologies

141 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1998

About the author

Jenifer Levin is known for her novels Water Dancer (nominated for the PEN/Hemingway Award), Snow, Shimoni’s Lover, The Sea of Light (nominated for the Lambda Literary Award in Fiction), and her short story collection Love and Death, & Other Disasters. Her essays and short fiction are widely anthologized. She has also contributed feature articles to the New York Times, The Washington Post, and Rolling Stone, among others. One of the first openly gay authors to be published in the mainstream press, The Washington Post named her part of the “lesbian literati”.

Levin graduated from the University of Michigan with a BA in Comparative Literature, subsequently studying Medical Anthropology and South Asian history. She traveled widely in Europe and Southeast Asia, lived and worked in Israel, and studied Tibetan Buddhism for 10 years. A former competitive swimmer, she has coached women’s running and weight-training and completed several marathons.

Levin has two sons whom she adopted as toddlers from Cambodia. Her essays about Cambodia—a country devastated by war, poverty, and genocide—before and after the intervention of the United Nations, and her experiences adopting and raising special needs children, have appeared in several anthologies.

She and her family live in New York City.