Given that Eric Spitznagel named his blog after the famous scene from Kurt Vonnegut's Breakfast of Champions in which the author presents a simple drawing of his asshole*, perhaps it's not surprising that in the days following Vonnegut's death, Spitznagel has recruited several authors to render their own illustrations. But Spitznagel, whose own contribution can be seen at left, insists that the idea for the project emerged several months ago in a barroom conversation with other writers.

"The next day, a few of the writers took me up on my challenge and sent drawings of their assholes," he recalls. "No two were exactly the same, and some of them were downright fascinating. Before long, I decided to solicit asshole drawings from every writer I knew, asking them to contribute to my growing collection... I had planned on unveiling the entire 'Authors & Their Assholes' collection at some point this summer. But then Vonnegut died, and suddenly the whole thing had much more urgency." Among those who are sharing: Sandra Tsing Loh, Brad Listi, Elizabeth Crane, and Amy Guth, who presents four photographic self-portraits. Nothing in the collection so far is NSFW, except of course for the fact that the name for what they represent is sprinkled so liberally throughout the posts you'd think you'd walked in on a Mamet play.

*Yeah, it is kinda funny that I can say it in the post, but not in the headline. At least, I assume, based on running some of the other mediabistro.com blogs through Google, that I can get away with using the word in a discreet literary context.