Born in the basement of a San Francisco nonprofit dedicated to helping sex workers, this anthology was created from a weekly writing workshop run by best-selling memoirist David Sterry. The only thing the participants had in commo: they’ve all exchanged sex for money. Contributors include post-porn priestess Annie Sprinkle, “Diary of a Manhattan Call Girl” author Tracy Quan, sex activist and musical diva Candye Kane, European Sex Work Conference organizer Ruth Morgan Thomas, girls participating in the Sexually Exploited Youth Summit, as well as women and men straight from the streets. With writers ranging from PhDs to dropouts, soccer moms to jailbirds, and $2,500-a-night escorts to $10 crack whores, this book lends voice to a diverse, under-represented and misunderstood population that is simultaneously reviled and fetishized. Sex is a billion-dollar industry -- here are some of the real people who have worked in the penthouses and the trenches. 2009, 288 pp.