Eight Writers Rose to the Occasion for Shanghai Erotic Fiction

Dena Rash Guzman got cold Shanghai all hot and bothered.

On Thursday, February 17^th, HAL teamed up with That’s Shanghai and pleasure object creators Lelo for Shanghai Erotic Fiction, a delightful evening of erotic fiction at Glamour Bar on the bund.  Spirited revelers kept their lips wet on appropriately themed drink specials and free vodka shots passed around throughout the night.  Eight erotica readers tickled the passions and funny bones of the bulging crowd of nearly 200 listeners.  Lucky draws from Lelo and Glamour Bar from artist and event promoter Bree Harrison’s sexy box kept the audience enraptured between readings.  At the end of the night, three deserving authors strolled away with elegant pleasure objects from Lelo.  Sam Gaskin won audience favorite for his piece “No Sexceptions,” which proved that no barrier can stand between a man and the southern hemisphere of his lover’s boob.  Yeah, that’s what he did.  Coming all the way to the [Lady of the Evening] of the Orient from Sin City, Dena Rash Guzman’s rapport with the audience won her best performance with an excerpt from her piece “Ballad of a Chinese Paper Fan.”  Those of us wondering if a powerful tartan-wearing man of the Scottish Highlands could woo a lady of the East as well as he would a lady of the West who picked up the latest Harlequin romance at the super market were treated to Sam Childley’s answer in “A Scottish Lord in Shanghai,” “That’s Shanghai’s” choice for literary merit.   Thanks to all who came and to those who showed up for a great evening with eight very talented writers.

Join us for more great nights in March for Shanghai BARd Fight—a series of three lit events in bars around Shanghai as a part of Split Works’ JUE Festival.

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Lesser Pandas

by Carrie Sanders

I had the best intentions when I applied to teach English in China.  I envisioned rapt students, heartfelt cultural exchange, making a difference. But, as with most things in my life, I was just too damn earnest.  I am a person that believes infomercials and PowerPoint presentations.  I am a person that thinks the best will happen, and because of this I am always early, overdressed, and embarrassingly eager.

Lacey had no such motivation.  The China program was just one of many she had lined up.  She was an International Studies Major at Georgetown, and her schedule for the last 2 years was just one foreign exchange program after another.  After the summer in China, she was going straight to Cairo for a semester.  She had spent her senior year in France, and last summer in a program in Guatemala.  Though she had traveled the world, Lacey seemed to have never learned much from her adventures.  It all seemed to be just scenery for her own international booze cruise. She brought a photo album from home as a teaching tool, and page after page was Lacey in a foreign bar, Budweiser in one hand, her other flashing a meaningless “V” of peace.

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Accompaniment

by Joshua Tintner

I remember building spaceships, guns, and cars as a child.  Chunky things, they all ended up resembling 1980s-era Volvos—but then you can’t expect Frank Gehry curves when you give a kid Legos.  Maybe that’s why I never made Lego buildings.  Erecting a building with Legos isn’t creating, it’s stacking. Turning boxes into bigger boxes.

Bat an eye, blink away 20-odd years, and I now live in one of those boxes-made-of-boxes.  I’m walking into one of these sad behemoths, shuffling past the teenage security guard who thinks he’s a soldier.  Above me, rows of windows rise like stale layer cakes into Shanghai’s “foggy” skies.

My girlfriend and I scamper into Building-12, one of its cavities being our current apartment.  Good timing, as we are only slightly damp from the famous Shanghai Autumn drizzle.  We’re both tired from the office, but I still notice a naughty smirk rising on my girlfriend’s glossy lips.

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I Heart KTV

by Sam Gaskin

Four out of five people become total dicks when they enter a KTV room. They queue up long lists of songs that no one else knows and sing in languages that no one else can understand. They skip over their best friends’ tracks and hide microphones in their handbags. Later, drinks are thrown, punches are caught, and less resilient friendships are dropped.

As loathsome as it is, when the people you’re with are wasted, it’s inevitable that someone will get all worked up about singing played out songs that are themselves drunk on reverb. Once the idea has been seeded, you have no choice but to run with it to avoid the Inception army of angry coercions to join.

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Hard Seat from Shenzhen to Shenyang Chapter 3

Middle Kingdom Field

by W.M. Butler

The old woman chuckled as the white girl got off the train, lugging her friend’s bag off onto the empty spit stained platform to stand staring aimlessly about. The train lunged forward a few jarring feet before finding its momentum, with the lurching grind of the engine, the old woman tapped the window with the baijiu bottle, the girl turned to watch as the grandmother screwed off the cap, held the bottle aloft, smiling and swigged the dregs down.

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Hard Seat from Shenzhen to Shenyang Chapter 2

Go Stop

by Renee Reynolds

He woke with a start. Tingles shot from the bottom of the feet to the center of the brain. From falling usually — or the body’s warning of it. What else. A dull pain in the right cheek. Another fight? Shenyang? The gear shifted to answer and he sat up with a grimace. That’d be a seatbelt in his face, he’d lost his train long ago and was nowhere near Shenyang.

He’d gotten off of the train somewhere in the dark. Baijiu, he whispered it like Rosebud.

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Hard Seat from Shenzhen to Shenyang

by Alice Giusto

Xiao Jiu is a nice man. Every morning he wears those funny dark blue ear covers that make him look like a pixie. And then he smiles to people. Oh my God, he has such an infectious, overwhelming smile. It seeps deep into your bones and you cannot forget his smile. It gives you that kind of energy that starts your day on the right foot, your hard working day in Shenzhen at 7.30 a.m.

I know this because I am part of him. We are close to each other. We never separate. Or this is what I once thought.

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Featured H.A.L. Artist: Christine Forte

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All I Want for Christmas

by Christine Forte

Several journalists have interviewed me about the events that happened in December 2010 and for the most part they’ve later gotten the story completely wrong. So I’ve decided to write my own account of what happened in an attempt to set the record straight. Any details that were left out have been done so because the editor deigned them not suitable to print. I say this to highlight the fact that I’m not trying mislead anyone about my innocence or role as a bystander, I simply want to tell the story from my point of view.

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EROTIC FICTION SHANGHAI

EROTIC FICTION SHANGHAI – A February Urbanatomy/HAL Event at the Glamour Bar

In keeping with HALs intergalactic mission to spread wholesome uplifting literature to enlighten the soul and cleanse the spirit we’re now turning our pens toward literary erotica. Get your rods out, fill ‘em with HB and blast something steamy and hot onto the old legalpad/A4 because we’re teaming up with That’s Shanghai and Glamour Bar for an evening of titillating readings. Tentative date is February 17th. Mad posh bling bling expensive sex toys provided by Lelo will be up for grabs. Pieces should be set in Shanghai, be of high literary merit and literally highly arousing.

No more than 1000 words.

Deadline for submissions is January 3rd.

Send to: editor@haliterature.com