Join us at Sideshow on March 8th with readers Arianne Benford, Beth Greenfield, Genne Murphy, LOVE the Poet and Fran Varian
Sideshow: The Queer Literary Carnival – Spring Fever
Hosted by Cheryl B. & Sinclair Sexsmith
Tuesday, March 8th @ The Phoenix
447 East 13th Street @ Avenue A
Doors, 7:30pm. Reading, 8pm
Free! (We’ll pass the hat for the readers)
RSVP on Facebook
About the Readers:
ARIANNE BENFORD is a Poet, Producer and Visual Artist, whose work is rooted in text and its creative applications for social change. She seeks to create an ongoing discourse between the public and the private, the forgotten and the canonized, sensual and the everyday. A proud native of Chicago IL, since 2008 Arianne has worked as a producer with WOW CafeTheater (the oldest anarchist run women and trans theater in the country), www.wowcafe.org and Rivers Of Honey (a cabaret theater for women and trans artists of color) riversofhoney@gmail.com. She is also a member of the Urbana Poetry National Team, Spoken Word Poetry Almanac Project (SWAP), and was recently honored by the Fresh Fruit Festival for her poetry. Arianne is an established poet and essayist on the LGBT performance circuit and is currently she is completing work on her first collection of writing, portrait of a rebellious landscape/ a mix-tape.
BETH GREENFIELD received her M.A. in journalism from New York University and has since written about travel, entertainment, gay culture, andparenting for publications including the New York Times, Lonely Planetguidebooks, Out, Time Out New York Kids, and Time Out New York, where she is currently a staff editor. She lives in New York City and Provincetown with her partner and their daughter.
GENNE MURPHY is a Philadelphia native, playwright, and arts educator. She co-produces the New York based storytelling salon Queer Memoir (queermemoir.com). She’s passionate about the intersection of the arts, social change, and community-building. Genne works for Philadelphia Young Playwrights, a local arts education non-profit, and is involved with initiatives to expand new play development in her hometown. In Philly she has had readings or performances of her plays and monologues with Azuka Theatre Company, Flashpoint Theatre Company, Madhouse Late Night Cabaret, the Cardboard Box Collaborative, the Philadelphia Fringe Festival, and on the radio through LIVE at Kelly Writers House. Her play HOPE STREET AND OTHER LONELY PLACES (2011 Eugene O’Neill National Playwrights Conference semifinalist) will be produced in Philadelphia in 2011-12.
Michelle Antoinette Nelson, also known as LOVE the poet, is a prominent poet/author on the national performance and literary art scenes, and in the field of creative writing education. She has appeared on CNN as a speaker at the Jena 6 rally in Washington, D.C., co-produced and appeared in “Passion Fruit Tea” (a short film based on her poem with the same name), author of book “Black Marks on White Paper”, released multiple spoken word CDs, and has performed on college campuses nationwide. Michelle is also an active member of the Maryland Speaker’s Bureau, a member of the Punany Poets (as seen on HBO), the creator of Live Lyrics! Creative writing workshops, founder/host of BE FREE Fridays (monthly open mic series), and an active member of Poetry for the People Baltimore. For more information visit www.lovethepoet.com
FRAN VARIAN is a writer, comedian, host and community activist who has has performed and curated events at dive bars and art festivals throughout the country. She began her career in 1999 as part of Seattle’s National Poetry Slam Team. Since then she has featured around the country, including the 2010 Femme Conference. Her work is published in various anthologies, including “Without a Net: The Female Experience of Growing Up Working Class,” “It’s So You: 35 Women Write About Personal Expression Through Fashion and Style,” and: “Gender Outlaws: The Next Generation,” and online at Lodestar Quarterly, ourchart.com and hipmama.com, and she is an associate editor for the fabulous Synchronized Chaos Magazine. She is currently writing her first full length book: a collection of essays, poems and creative non-fiction. Fran is thrilled to announce that this Sideshow reading is the official launch for the Fran Varian 2011 Femme Dominion Tour! For booking queries please contact FemmeDominionTour(at)gmail and please keep checking franvarian.com for tour dates, merchandise, and poems. She has been battling late stage lyme disease for the past 15 years but most seriously in the past 5 years. Unfortunately, insurance companies will not pay for any treatment for late stage lyme patients and the estimated cost to bring us back to around 80% of our former capacity is somewhere between $100,000-$120,000. So if you like what you hear or read please pass the word and please visit franvarian.com to purchase some of Fran’s work – or happily invite her to come sing for her supper, and her health. To learn more about Lyme Disease and its effect on the lives on an estimated 500,000 people currently living with it please visit helphealfran.net for information and resources.