Carnal Nation

Sex, once the great unspoken, is now regularly commodified and prepackaged for wide consumer consumption, on TV, in films, on billboards. In this context in which nothing is shocking--no boundary too sacred to cross--what does sex mean, particularly to those born under these conditions? Carnal Nation collects stories about sex by an exciting new generation of writers who boldly push the narrative envelope. These are not your typical bump-and-grind tales, but stories written in a startling new language, bringing fresh meaning to the term "polymorphously perverse": from a high-school deflowering on the hood of a car by a dildo-wielding girl who calls herself a guy, to a talented male stripper who demonstrates his ability to open a Coke bottle with no hands, to suburban porn watching as a precursor to racial harmony.

The thirty-two contributors include some of the most provocative and interesting young writers working today. Carnal Nation is cunning, shocking, and brazenly cocky.

Contributors include: Alison Acheson, Sonja Ahlers, Diana Atkinson, Michelle Berry, Carellin Brooks, Clint Burnham, Natalee Caple, Martine Delveaux, Tamas Dobozy, Tess Fragoulis, Camilla Gibb, Sky Gilbert, Robert Gray, Steven Heighton, Michael Holmes, Larissa Lai, Elise Levine, Annabel Lyon, Judy MacDonald, Mark Macdonald, Suzette Mayr, Derek McCormack, Hal Niedzviecki, Andy Quan, Rachel Rose, Michael V. Smith, Erin Soros, Nathalie Stephens, Anne Stone, Michael Turner, R.M. Vaughan, and Marnie Woodrow.