I cannot even begin to describe how excited I am to be guest curating an evening of Queer Memoir, NYC’s only LGBTQ storytelling series and to have it be Leather adds a whole nother layer of excitement and importance for me on a deep personal level as well as an artist. On March 3rd I’ve brought together some awesome voices to share stories about Leather as special Queer Memoir benefit for Toni Amato’s Write Here, Write Now!!! The evening is going to be filled with kickass stories and don’t forget your cash at home, because we’ll even have a bake sale!!!
RSVP on Facebook or Fetlife !!!
Bios for Storytellers:
Sara Vibes a black, polyamorous, queer, kinky, dandy, macho femme princess born and raised in New York City. She is The 25th International Ms Leather 2011 and an active member in The Leather, BDSM, Poly, and LGBT communities in New York City and beyond. She has taught at Playhouse in Baltimore, Dark Odyssey, and International Mr. Leather and many other events and places during her title year. She will also be a contributor of the Perverts of Color Anthology and Salacious Magazine. Her mission is to make sex education accessible to everyone. She hopes to rip the veil off of the shame surrounding sex and sexuality through self love and exploration with people that care about each other.
Sinclair Sexsmith runs the award-winning personal online writing project Sugarbutch Chronicles: The Gender, and Relationship Adventures of a Kinky Queer Butch Top at sugarbutch.net. With work published in various anthologies and websites, including Take Me There: Trans and Genderqueer Erotica, she is the guest editor of Best Lesbian Erotica 2012, and her first full-length erotica anthology, Say Please: Lesbian BDSM Erotica, will be published by Cleis Press in April 2012. Mr. Sexsmith writes, teaches, and performs focusing on the subjects of sex, gender, and relationships. More information on her at mrsexsmith.com.
KELLI DUNHAM is a ex-nun, genderqueerious stand-up nerd comic and author of four books of humorous non-fiction, including two children’s books being used by Sonlight conservative home schooling association in their science curriculum. She has appeared on Showtime, the Discovery Channel and was once asked to emcee a livestock auction. Her website is kellidunham.com. She is the co-founder, with Genne Murphy, of Queer Memoir. Her hilarious new family-secret revealing show, Normal at Nite: Good Times & Family Matters with Perfect Strangers (a collaboration with R Eric Thomas) is debuting February 18th at NYC’s Stonewall Inn.
Ignacio Rivera aka Papí Coxxx identifies as a Queer, Trans, gender-fluid, polyamorous, kinky, Black-Boricua. Ignacio, who prefers the gender-neutral pronoun “they,” is a lecturer, activist, wanna-be-filmmaker, sex educator, sex worker, and performance artist, sharing spoken word, one-person shows, and storytelling internationally. Their work has appeared in ColorLines, Ebony, Yellow Medicine Review and in their chapbooks, Las Alas, co-authored by Maceo Cabrera Estévez; Ingridients; and Thoughts, Rants and What Some Might Call Poetry. A proud mom of a 21 year-old daughter, Ignacio is the recipient of a Marsha A. Gómez Cultural Heritage Award from LLEGÓ: The National Latina/o Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Organization
They are also the founder of Poly Patao Productions (P3), which is dedicated to producing sex-positive workshops, performances, educational opportunities and events that are specially geared toward queer women, transgender, multi-gender, gender queer, gender-non-conforming and gender variant folx of color.
Ignacio has been facilitating workshops, doing lectures and creating events for kinky, kinky-curious Queer/Trans POC’s and their white queer and trans allies for over a decade. http://polypataoproduc
Emily Millay Haddad is an independent filmmaker, writer, director, activist and media professional living and working in Brooklyn, New York. She had the words to call herself a “feminist” when she was five, a “white girl” when she was nine, a “lesbian” when she was 17, a “bisexual” shortly after that, and a “queer” when she was 19. At 20, she was “polyamorous;” at 21, she learned about “kiki” dykes in the butch/femme spectrum of 1950s dyke bars and finally had a word for her gender. By 24, she had the words for “kinky” and “switch.” And at 27, she learned the hard way that being “working class” was more than just her history or an economic label. She brings all these words and many more, as well as the life experiences they inadequately describe, to her labor and her yearning as an artist and a lover.
Sassafras Lowrey is an international award winning queer author, artist and activist and has been involved in leather community for nearly a decade. Sassafras’ prose have been included in numerous anthologies and ze tours to colleges, universities and community centers across the country facilitating workshops that support LGBTQ/leather people in telling their stories. Sassafras lives in Brooklyn, New York with hir Daddy. You can learn more about Sassafras at www.PoMoFreakshow.com
Since 2001, Write Here Write Now has been dedicated to providing safe, supportive, and financially accessible services and spaces for LGBTQQIA people in the Boston (metro) and Western Massachusetts area. WHWN also serves national and international communities through the use of the internet and other electronic and social media. Because members of the LGBTQQIA community are often marginalized and at risk, especially young LGBTQQIA people, many of the traditional forms of literary support and development are not accessible to these writers. Write Here Write Now offers a variety of writing classes and resources. The backbone of these offerings is a series of weekly creative writing workshops based on contemporary generative writing models. From this starting point, the offerings have expanded to include dozens of craft, publication, and performance focused classes and workshops.All of these services are offered on a sliding scale with no writer turned away for lack of funds. Many of the participants might not otherwise have had the opportunity to study the craft of writing in a safe and supportive community of peers.