This month’s theme is MASKS, starring:
Broch Bender (Seattle Spit)
Kelli Dunham (Queer Memoir)
Natalie Illum (Mothertongue)
Mardi Jaskot (Queer Conventions)
Maymay (KinkonTap)
Sarah Schulman (Ties That Bind)
RSVP on Facebook!
About the Readers:
Broch Bender promotes queer visibility, expression and grass roots community building through writing, filmmaking and boylesque performance. This native New Yorker produces, performs, emcees and speaks at LGBTQ events all over the Pacific Northwest, including keynoting at the 2010 Seattle Dyke March. Broch co-produces “Seattle Spit,” Seattle’s longest running monthly queer spoken word event, and is a member of the Producers Collective, an intentional artist and producer community that values social justice, camp, and diversity. Broch is published in “Tales of Travelrotica: Volume 2,” “Penetalia,” and has two self-published zines “Hello, my name is Broch Bender,” and “Truth 1.”
Kelli Dunham (kellidunham.com) is a nerdy stand-up comic, Wisconsin farm girl gone very wrong and the author of four books of humorous nonfiction, including two children’s books that are used in the Sonlight conservative Christian homeschooling curriculum. She has appeared nationwide at colleges, clubs, the occasional livestock auction, on Showtime and the Discovery Channel. She is the co-founder and co-curator of Queer Memoir, a NYC based LGBT storytelling event. On October 23, she’ll be celebrating the 15th anniversary of leaving the convent by telling the story of her nun failings at the Bad Habit Brunch.
Natalie E. Illum is an activist, poet and federal employee. Natalie is a founding board member of mothertongue
(www.myspace.com/mothertonguedc) a spoken word and creative writing non-profit for women and young girls for since 1998. She was a featured poet in the 2010 Split This Rock Poetry Festival of Provocation and Witness (www.splitthisrock.org). Natalie is honored to be one of the poets included in WordWarriors: 35 Women Leaders of the Spoken Word Revolution (Seal Press, 2007), an anthology edited by Alix Olson. in the Full Moon On K Street (Manic D. Press, 2010), an anthology that features poems about Washington DC from 1950 to the present. Natalie competes on the National Poetry Slam circuit. Her unpublished memoir, Spastic, is being adapted for the stage by Spoken Word legend Regie Cabico.
Mardi Jaskot received her BA in creative writing from the University of Puget Sound. Currently she is working towards a MFA from The City College of New York, where she is an adjunct professor and where and she also won the Graduate Award for Children’s Literature. She teaches poetry to children in Brooklyn’s public school system through a program called Poetry Outreach. In addition to having her work appear in Promethean, Queer Conventions, and SynApse, she was selected to participate in City College’s Archer City Writer’s Retreat in Texas and invited to read in the Turnstyle Reading Series.
According to his Twitter profile, Meitar “maymay” Moscovitz is a “technology geek, sexual freedom and community activist, prickly blogger, and general free spirit.” He makes his living as an Internet technology professional, providing web development, social media consulting, and other technology services. He is the co-author of Foundation Website Creation and AdvancED CSS, and a semi-regular blogger at SitePoint.com. He has lead sessions at conferences such as Sex 2.0, often speaks on the intersection of technology and sexuality, is the co-founder of the BarCamp-style sexuality unconference series KinkForAll.org, and co-host of the increasingly popular KinkOnTap.com smart sexuality netcast. “Maymay” also keeps several blogs about personal and sexuality issues, including the influential MaleSubmissionArt.com photo blog.
Sarah Schulman is a native New Yorker. Her novels, nonfiction books, journalism, films and plays reflect people whose points of view and experiences are rarely represented in the mainstream arts. She is the author of nine novels, including THE MERE FUTURE (2009), THE CHILD (2007), RAT BOHEMIA (1995), EMPATHY (1992) and PEOPLE IN TROUBLE (1990). Her nonfiction books include, THE TWIST: FAMILIAL HOMOPHOBIA AND ITS CONSEQUENCES (2009) THE GENTRIFICATION OF THE MIND: Witness to a Lost Imagination (forthcoming in 2011), STAGESTRUCK: Theater, AIDS, and the Marketing of Gay America (1998). In film Sarah has collaborated with director Cheryl Dunye on THE OWLS, which was selected for the 2010 Berlin Film Festival, and the upcoming MOMMY IS COMING. She is now working with director Deborah Kampmeier on a movie about the southern writer Carson McCullers.