By Salma Rios
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In the world of literature, one topic that seems to be taboo is sexuality, in particular the discussion of female sexuality. Women in literature are expected to be chaste and have to hide their sexual desires. However, author Carmen Maria Machado breaks the mold and dashes the taboo to pieces.

On Nov. 3 at 7 p.m., Machado read from her book of short stories Her Body and Other Parties at Prairie Lights, 15 S Dubuque, to a packed and enthusiastic audience.

Machado, an alumnus of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, has had her work appear in numerous publications such as Granta, The New Yorker, Guernica, NPR, Electric Literature, and more. She has been nominated for a Nebula Award and Shirley Jackson Award, a finalist for the Calvino Prize, and is a finalist for the 2017 National Book Awards in Fiction.

For her reading, Machado read a small portion of her book Her Body and Other Parties called “The Husband Stitch”. She also read from an unpublished short story she is currently working on called “Coming”, which is about a woman’s thoughts on her previous sexual relationships during a sexual act.

Hearing Machado read in person was incredible. Her voice was smooth and easily conveyed emotion and passion for the subject of the reading.

The thing that most stood out about the reading was Machado’s bluntness about female sexuality. In her work, she never shies away from talking about women wanting sex or sugar coating sex scenes, she embraces it and speaks freely about it.

Women in Machado’s works are not chaste or all heterosexual. The women in her stories are allowed to express their sexual desires with members of both the same sex and opposite sex.

After the reading, Machado discussed with the audience her new projects and her motivations for writing.

She revealed that the only person she thinks of writing for is herself.

“To me, I have a responsibility to myself, to be true to myself and to write that truth in fiction,” she said.

She also has a number of new projects she is working on as well.

“I’m also working on a series of stories based in various historical times in which the Solo 9 [a mysterious celestial body in the sky] returns a certain number of years.”

Machado’s use of women and female sexuality is what sets her apart from her peers and really changes the game of literature.