Susie Bright life and biography

Susannah "Susie" Bright, also known as Susie Sexpert is an American writer, speaker, teacher, audio-show host, and performer, all on the subject of sexuality.

She is one of the first writers/activists referred to as a sex-positive feminist.

Susie Bright was active in the 1970s in various left-wing progressive causes, in particular the feminist and anti-war movements. She was also one of the founding members of Teamsters for a Democratic Union, and wrote under the pseudonym Sue Daniels.

Bright co-founded and edited the first women's sex-magazine, On Our Backs, "entertainment for the adventurous lesbian," from 1984 to 1991. From 1992 to 1994 she was a columnist for San Francisco Review of Books. She founded the first women's erotica book-series, Herotica, and edited the first three volumes. She started The Best American Erotica series in 1993, which she publishes to this day. She was the choreographer/consultant for the Wachowski Brothers film, Bound (in which she also had a cameo appearance). Bright also appeared as herself in an episode of the HBO series Six Feet Under.

Bright was the first female member of the X-Rated Critics Organization in 1986, and wrote feminist reviews of erotic films for Penthouse Forum from 1986–1989. Her film-reviews of mainstream movies are widely published, and her comments on gay film history are featured in the documentary film The Celluloid Closet.

She has one daughter, Aretha Bright, and lives with her partner, Jon Bailiff. She currently resides in Santa Cruz, California. Her father was the linguist William Bright.

Author of books:

As editor:

Totally Herotica, Book-of-the-Month Club, 1995
Herotica, Herotica II, Herotica III, Down There Press and Penguin USA, 1988, 1992, and 1994
Best American Erotica, Simon and Schuster, 1993–2008
Nothing But the Girl: The Blatant Lesbian Image (as co-editor and co-author), Cassell, 1996
Three the Hard Way: Three Novellas by William Harrison, Greg Boyd, and Tsaurah Litzky, Simon and Schuster, 2004
Three Kinds of Asking For It: Erotic Novellas by Eric Albert, Greta Christina, and Jill Soloway, Touchstone, 2005
"X: The Erotic Treasury", Chronicle Books, 2008

As author:

Angry Women (featured artist), RE/Search, interview by Andrea Juno, Fall 1991
Susie Bright's Sexual Reality: A Virtual Sex Reader, Cleis Press, 1992
SexWise, Cleis Press, 1995
The Sexual State of the Union, Simon & Schuster, 1997, trade edition, 1998
Herotica, 10th anniversary edition, with Afterword by the editor, Down There Press, 1998
Susie Sexpert's Lesbian Sex World, 2nd edition with three new chapters, Cleis Press, 1998
Full Exposure: Opening Up to Sex and Creativity, HarperSanFrancisco, 1999
How to Write a Dirty Story, Simon and Schuster, 2002
Mommy's Little Girl: Susie Bright on Sex, Motherhood, Pornography, and Cherry Pie, Thunder's Mouth, 2004
Big Sex, Little Death: A Memoir (2011)

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