When Daphne Gottlieb first found herself the character in someone else’s story she was intrigued; over time, as she appeared in more and more stories, she started to wonder about the implications of what was real and what wasn’t. Did it matter that there were published stories of her having sex in bathrooms, vacant parking lots, on the balcony at a party in an old bordello? Did it matter whether or not they were true?

This question sparked the idea for Fucking Daphne, a collection that blurs the lines between reality and fiction and begs the question “who is the real Daphne?” A pill-popping wild child? A soft place to fall with a broken heart? A dreadlocked vixen?

Contributors include Hanne Blank, Stephen Elliot, Sarah Katherine Lewis, and Ariel Gore, who describe, watch, and engage with a character that is not Daphne Gottlieb; Daphne is a projection, a fantasy, a zeitgeist. We are all a multitude of people in bed. We are all Daphne.

Harnessing the playfulness of the hoax, the seductiveness of literature, and the edginess of the avant-garde, Fucking Daphne is unique in a culture hungry for sex, information, and most of all, understanding.

San Francisco-based performance poet Daphne Gottlieb stitches together the ivory tower and the gutter just using her tongue. She is the author and/or editor of five award-winning books, with a sixth on the way.

Most recently, she was the author of the graphic novel, Jokes and the Unconscious, featuring the artwork of Hothead Paisan’s illustrator, Diane DiMassa. Released in Fall 2006 on Cleis Press, the book was promptly called “brilliant and unsettling” by Publisher’s Weekly. Gottlieb is best-known as the poet behind Final Girl (Soft Skull Press, 2003), Why Things Burn (Soft Skull Press, 2001) and Pelt (Odd Girls Press, 1999). Final Girl was the winner of the Audre Lorde Award in Poetry for 2003 from Publishing Triangle. Additionally, Final Girl was named one of The Village Voice's “Favorite Books of 2003.” Why Things Burn was the winner of a 2001 Firecracker Alternative Book Award (Special Recognition — Spoken Word) and was also a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award for 2001. Kissing Dead Girls, a new full-length book of poetry, is expected in Spring of 2007.

Gottlieb currently teaches at New College of California, and has performed and taught creative writing workshops around the country, from high schools and colleges to community centers. She received her MFA from Mills College.