Published Work

Dirty Words: A Literary Encyclopedia of Sex

Soon to be featured in Elle, Nylon, Playboy, Self and O!
Check the June issue of Penthouse for an interview with Ellen!

	Coming in June 2008 from Bloomsbury Pre-order from Amazon Pre-order from Barnes & Noble Pre-order from Powell's

Antonya Nelson pays lip service to the blow job. Phillip Lopate ruminates on duration. Martha McPhee waxes poetic about hermaphrodites. From sexual relationships to sexual positions, from the classics to contemporary twists, Dirty Words collects the most titillating and provocative definitions of the most outlandish and often unspeakable sexual terms, as defined and explained by some of today's most exciting writers. With additional contributions from Jonathan Ames, Thomas Beller, Maud and Nell Casey, Pagan Kennedy, Stephen McCauley, Elissa Schappel, Katharine Weber, and many others, Dirty Words steps in where time-honored discussions of the birds and the bees fall short.

A Handful of Lust
ORGY IS A WORD that fills your mouth like a wild oyster that's just a little too big to (comfortably) swallow." That's one of many juicy-or unpalatable, depending on your point of view-revelations in Dirty Words: A Literary Encyclopedia of Sex, edited by Ellen Sussman (Bloomsbury). This compendium of highly personal definitions runs the gamut from A, Adultery to W, Wet Dreams, and includes stories and essays by the likes of Joshua Furst (Cybersex), Patricia Marx (Vibrator), and Elissa Schappell (Exhibitionist). Among the stellar celibates listed under C, Celibacy: Isaac Newton, Carol Channing, Antoni Gaudí, and Sigmund Freud, who swore off sex from about the age of 41. This little book of predilections would have knocked him off his couch.
— O magazine

Ellen Sussman has compiled the outrageous book we all wish we could've snuck into our school bookbags. — Penthouse