CHATSWORTH, Calif.—It’s safe to say that life doesn’t suck for Asa Akira. She’s got a raft of AVN Awards on her trophy shelf, a critically acclaimed book, a contract with one leading adult studio, and a husband who’s got a directing deal with another. And now the Wicked Pictures contract star has inked a contract to write her second book, an untitled collection of essays for Cleis Press.
“I just signed a deal a couple weeks ago,” Akira said. “It’s gonna be a similar format to the first book. It’s a collection of essays, true stories from my life, not in any chronological order. Just funny little stories—things that I’ve found to be profound.
“I don’t have a title yet—I do know we’re aiming for a spring 2016 release, which is exactly two years after the first book.”
The first book, Insatiable: Porn—A Love Story (Grove Press), garnered Akira positive reviews, including a nod as a New York Post Book of the Year. (It’s available on Amazon, where apparently it’s “often bought with Eddie Huang’s Fresh Off the Boat: A Memoir”).
But for Akira, this book will be a more mature look at the world. “I turned 30 this year, which doesn’t sound old in the real world,” Akira said, “but as a female porn star I definitely feel the weight of my age. … It’s more of a coming-of-age book than the first one. I feel like I’ve matured a lot in the last couple years.”
According to Akira, “This next book will be 100 percent new material. I’ve published things here and here, but this book is all going to be new.”
Karen Thomas, publisher of Cleis Press, couldn’t be happier about working with Akira. She expressed admiration for Akira’s first book and lauded her writing skills, saying, “We’re happy to be on this journey with her.”
How on earth does a busy porn star and podcaster find time to write? Akira does it be being very disciplined. “I wake up at 6 in the morning and I write for two hours,” she revealed. Whether or not she’s satisfied with how the work is going—“even if it comes out like shit”—Akira sticks to the plan and writes for the full time.
“I’m lucky. My parents have always encouraged me to write a journal, and that helps me write about things that happened in the past, because it allows me to remember details.”
Those journals certainly served her well when she set out to write Insatiable. According to Akira, “The first book coming out affected my life a lot more than I imagined it would. I love sharing things, I like telling stories—it was just an extension of that. I didn’t set out to write anything … for lack of a better word, political.” But because she was writing abut porn, commentary on the book quickly moved into the political realm. People questioned whether she was a feminist, and what she thought about porn. “It became this whole thing bigger than me, that I didn’t expect.”
Akira in fact does consider herself a feminist. In fact, “When I set out to write the first book, I wanted my core audience to be women. My goal was to connect more with women. Growing up, I was a really, really sexual person, like hypersexual. But I was always really uncomfortable with that fact.” By writing the book, “I wanted to normalize female sexuality.”
For her second book, Akira is looking ahead rather than behind. “I think the main theme of this book is maturing, turning 30, becoming more of a woman while in porn.”
When asked to elaborate about what becoming a woman means, she said, “Kind of in every aspect. I’ve been married for a few years now. I guess I’m figuring out what it means to be a woman—whether that means wife, mother, completely independent. All those things.”
In addition, Akira said, “I’ve also been thinking about post-porn a lot.”
She quickly clarified, “By no means am I ready to leave the industry—I’m still having too much fun as a performer … but is life after porn going to be enough for me? … I consider myself so lucky to be able to do this for a living. Am I going to miss this when I leave?”
Right now, Akira said, “I’m in a really happy place in my life, but I’m in this weird place. … When I wrote the last book, I was peaking, I won [AVN Female] Performer of the Year, I had just started directing, I had just become a Wicked Girl.”
Having ascended those pinnacles, Akira explained, now she is “definitely past my peak, just past it.” Which explains why she’s more focused on maturity, on womanhood, on the reflection that comes with being a writer.
“I think in porn, we almost age in dog years. I mean 30 is really old in porn years,” she joked.
Contemplation of the future doesn’t mean she isn’t still fully invested in the present. As she talked with AVN, Akira was on her way to a shoot, which she explained was for the Wicked Pictures movie StarMaker, Brad Armstrong’s big drama for 2015.
Talking about the tweet she posted earlier today about her Cleis Press deal, Akira said, “I literally made the announcement while I was cleaning my asshole for a scene with Jessica Drake. This is the last shoot of the movie.”
And after working hard today, she exulted, “I’ll definitely be eating pizza tonight.”
In StarMaker, Akira plays “a woman who uses sex to get what she wants.”
She paused, then said, “I mean, I do that. But having sex in the thing that I want, so it works out. I say that jokingly but also 100 percent seriously. I feel lucky to be able to do that.”
In addition to today’s scene with Drake, Akira did another scene earlier this week. “I worked with Tommy Pistol for the first time, and he blew me away,” she said. “That guy is really good at fucking. And he’s a really good actor.”
Akira confided that acting was somewhat new for her when she started at Wicked. Working with the Wicked team has helped her grow, including the experience of working with this cast: “Tommy Pistol, Brad Armstrong and Jessica Drake—and Kurt Lockwood, he’s really amazing,” she said.
“Acting feels kind of like playing house,” Akira mused. “It’s only fun if everyone is 100 percent committed.”
And that, in a word, certainly describes Asa Akira.
Above, Asa Akira at the 2013 AVN Awards Show; photo by Stills By Alan
