Queer Memoir

Join us for this special salon in Philadelphia on Saturday, March 5 @ 8pm!

The Free Library of Philadelphia invited Queer Memoir to create a special salon as part of One Book, One Philadelphia, and inspired by themes in the writings of author Sherman Alexie.  Queer and LGBT storytellers of all ages will be sharing that night on the theme of “Growing Up.” The salon will be hosted at the local William Way LGBT Center.

Storytellers include:
Chris Bartlett – Executive Director of the William Way
Leyla Eraslan – writer
Staci Priano – Nurse/writer Philadelphia native
R. Eric Thomas – Playwright and First Person Arts story slam winner local
TS Hawkins- Author/Performance Poet
Queer youth from the Attic Youth Center!

BIOS
CHRIS BARTLETT is the Executive Director of the William Way Community Center and a gay men’s health community organizer. Throughout the 1990s he directed the SafeGuards Gay Men’s Health Project in Philadelphia. He also led the LGBT Community Assessment in Philadelphia, a project that gathers data about LGBT communities in order to make recommendations regarding community organizing, health, housing, and economic development. He co-facilitates the Gay Men’s Health Leadership Academy, and has helped to convene the Gay Men’s Health and LGBTI Summits. He can be found on Twitter at http://twitter.com/harveymilk.

LEYLA ERASLAN owes her unrepentant weirdness to a South Jersey upbringing and reading too many books. Currently an employee of a Philadelphia arts education nonprofit, Leyla lives in South Philly, or so it is rumored. In 2008, she wrote, directed and co-produced “Love After Death” for the Philadelphia Fringe Festival. She frequents the Walking Fish Theatre Open Mic and has participated in The Five Minute Follies. She has been involved in a smattering of artistic endeavors, and likes the word ’smattering’. Leyla’s passions include art, helping people, and drawing lips in the corners of her notebook.

STACI PRIANO is a 45 year old Lesbian, Nurse, Mom, perpetual student, slightly twisted looker at life, and a Grandmom to boot. She’s been around the block a time or two and has gathered very little moss but has retained a tale or two about the journey; cautionary, maybe, interesting, hopefully. Poignant, funny, gripping? Well, you’ll be the judge.

R. ERIC THOMAS is a playwright, storyteller and essayist. He is the author of the plays “Lost Boy”, “The Spectator” (Run of the Mill Theater Company, 2005), and “The Affair” (LateNite Theater, 2001). He recently won Best Presentation at the First Person Arts Summer Grand Story Slam for his story “My Mother Hates The Facebook”. He is delighted to be reading at his third Queer Memoir and is starting Philly’s own LGBT literary salon this summer. Presently, Eric is working on plays about time travel, Santa Claus, bureaucracy and swimsuit models; cyber-stalk him here: enormouslyawkward.blogspot.com.

TS HAWKINS is an internationally recognized author and performance poet. Her previous publications, Sugar Lumps and Black Eye Blues and Confectionately Yours have been well received in print and radio media since 2007. Expanding her writing skill set, Hawkins will release her first book for teens titled Black Suga: diary of a troublesome teenager, which will debut in early 2011 along with Mahogany Nectar. Recently featured on the Authors Under 30 Book Tour, she is grateful to have traveled around Canada and the United States to share her work with other talented performers/writers. Taping into her theater foundation, Hawkins has been traveling with the American Family Theater for their national tour of Black Journey! For more detailed information, visit www.tspoetics.blogspot.com

RSVP on Facebook!

We’re really excited about our upcoming One Year Anniversary Show, with the theme Hello/Goodbye.  We have some amazing storytellers, including Suzanne Kogan, Kay Ulanday Barrett, Jonathan Hollingsworth, Emy Moya, Akiva Penaloza  and Tara Shuai. There will be some awesome edible treats in celebration of our event birthday as well as many more surprises!

Queer Memoir CRUSH is going to be one of our best events yet.  Yeah we say that every time. And it’s true every time!

For more info about the storytellers and the latest updates, check out the event on facebook.

Ah family! In this special holiday edition of Queer Memoir, storytellers will share about about the folks we call family…and the families we make ourselves.

QUEER MEMOIR: SUBWAY
With storytellers: Danielle Abrams, Kelli Dunham, Michele Hunt, Shareef Hadid Jenkins, Bryn Kelly, Genne Murphy and Charlie Vázquez

Saturday, November 13 & 8:30pm. $5-7 suggested donation. Please note there was NOT a wheelchair accessible room available this day, so for this ONE TIME ONLY this is not a w/c accessible event, although it is all ages.

RSVP on Facebook HERE.

BIOS :
DANIELLE ABRAMS is an interdisciplinary artist who works in performance and video. She is a monologist, talk-show host, ballroom dance teacher, ballerina, and a stand-up comedian of yesteryear. Family and social histories are the material Abrams kneads to create contemporary moments with people and places. She channels a multiracial cast of family members, and incites participatory extravaganzas. Abrams’ characters wax poetic from park benches, barbeque “butch burgers”, and lead Conga lines through a Borscht Belt mirage. She utilizes the tropes of personae to inquire about social relationships and cultures, challenge our reliance upon origin and biography, and reveal the frolic, poignancy, tensions, and revolutionary potential that is created at the intersection of diverse communities.

KELLI DUNHAM is a ex-nun, butch-identified stand-up comic and author of four books of humorous non-fiction, including two children’s books being used by a 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. To celebrate her 15 year anniversary of leaving the convent, her one woman show “Bad Habit” (sistermercy.com) which premiered at the Fresh Fruit Festival will be returning to New York on 10/23 as the Bad Habit Brunch. This time there will be dancing girls.

SHAREEF HADID JENKINS has been writing plays since the 2nd grade but never finished a single one. One day in his senior year at Temple University, Shareef woke up at 5am from a dream of 3 Women telling their stories of mothering one boy whom they loved and raised the best way they could. When Shareef woke up from that dream the women were still talking and his first play “The Three Mothers of Zachary”, was born. Shareef currently lives and writes on Harlem, New York, and is Artistic Director of Gladys Productions. His latest play, Crystal-meth, 2 boys and a Tranny It’s all about “Getting Your Life” debuted in last years Philly Fringe Festival and you can “FOLLOW” Shareef’s work every day on his blog www.shareefHadidJenkins.blogspot.com

MICHELE HUNT Michele Hunt lived in NYC from 1999-2007, experiencing the wonders of the subway pretty much every day while working in the jewelry district of Manhattan (along with a brief period of working on the Upper East Side). Now living in Portland, Oregon, she works in a new career as a banker (!) and practices on her photography.

BRYN KELLY is a theater artist, producer, writer and musician living in Brooklyn, New York. She recently wrapped a production of ANTIGONE with an all-transgender cast (Theater Transgression); played Rosalind in AS YOU LIKE IT at the Nuyorican Poetry Cafe with a cast of Manhattan Community College drama students; and, most recently, will have played Shelby in a very emotional presentation of a scene from STEEL MAGNOLIAS at Sugarland under the direction of avant-auteur Heather Acs. Though she has given public memoir readings before, this is the first time she has presented in the dramatic idiom *(with the exception of that piece about sucking dick in the stacks of the Ohio State University library system, which received rave reviews) Let’s just hope for the best, shall we?

GENNE MURPHY is a Philadelphia native, playwright, and arts educator. She is the co-founder, with Kelli Dunham, of 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.

CHARLIE VAZQUEZ is a radical Bronx-bred writer of Cuban and Puerto Rican descent. His fiction and essays have been published in various anthologies and have appeared in print and online publications such as The Advocate, Chelsea Clinton News, New York Press, and Ganymede Journal. Charlie hosts a monthly reading series called PANIC! (in the East Village), which focuses on unusual and original fiction and poetry. He is a former contributor to the Village Voice’s Naked City blog and a retired experimental musician and photographer. His second novel Contraband, was published by Rebel Satori Press in spring 2010, and his third, Corazón, is wrapping up for future publication. He is also working on a short story collection and co-editing a gay Latino fiction anthology with novelist and cultural producer Charles Rice-González. Info: http://www.firekingpress.com/

LGBT Community Center
208 W 13th Street
New York, NY

$5 – 7 suggested donation at the door.

Announcing the line-up in our first regular salon as part of the 2010/2011 series. Featuring, for the first time, solo *and* collaborative memoir/storytelling!

JOIN STORYTELLERS:Stacy Bias and Kelli Dunham (collaborative memoir)
Diana Cage
Ignacio Rivera
Genne Murphy and Kelli Dunham (collaborative memoir)
Lea Robinson and Elizabeth Whitney (collaborative memoir)
R. Eric Thomas

Theme: FRIENDS, LOVERS, and EXES.

$5-7 suggested donation at the door, no one turned away for lack of funds.

(We no longer have a free space, so it’s much appreciated!)

A note about the venue:

The venue for this show is wheelchair accessible and all ages.

PLEASE NOTE CHANGE OF VENUE!

Queer Memoir is a salon for new work inspired by a monthly theme; a safe space to share memoir writing and performance; an opportunity to give voice to our collective queer experiences, and preserve and document our complex queer history; for writers, performers, and anyone with a queer story to tell. We attempt to provide an avenue to share queer lives and celebrate the ritual and community-building value of storytelling.

http://queermemoir.com/

STORYTELLER BIOS

STACY BIAS is the co-owner of the wind-powered web host Taproot Green Web Hosting in Portland, Oregon and the founder of DykeTees.com, which specializes in smartly designed LGBT t-shirts in sizes to 32/34. This entrepreneur and activist was also the brains behind TechnoDyke.com, which she founded in 2000 and was one of the most popular lesbian websites, with over 50,000 visitors a month until it closed in 2008. Bias helped create a number of size-positive activities in Portland such as ChunkyDunk swim parties, FatGirl Frock Swaps and was the founder of the FatGirl Speaks conference. She says, “It is my hope that I can help eradicate a little bit of shame from the lives of women by demystifying marketing tactics, encouraging compassion of self and others, facilitating heartfelt dialogue and sharing my own process of fighting through all the compare and contrast to simply love myself as I am.”

DIANA CAGE is the author of many hilarious and informative books on sex and relationships, including Girl Meets Girl: A Dating Survival Guide and Box Lunch: The Laypersons Guide to Cunnilingus. Her obsessions include high heels, fashion week, Luce Irigaray and extreme lesbian processing. She’ll pretty much talk about sex with anyone who asks.

KELLI DUNHAM is a ex-nun, butch-identified stand-up comic and author of four books of humorous non-fiction, including two children’s books being used by a 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. To celebrate her 15 year anniversary of leaving the convent, her one woman show “Bad Habit” (sistermercy.com) which premiered at the Fresh Fruit Festival will be returning to New York on 10/23 as the Bad Habit Brunch. This time there will be dancing girls.

GENNE MURPHY is a Philadelphia native, playwright, and arts educator. She is the co-founder, with Kelli Dunham, of 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.

IGNACIO RIVERA aka Papí Coxxx who prefers the gender-neutral pronoun “they”is the creator of Poly Patao Productions. Ignacio is a Black-Boricua gender fluid Trans-Former sex educator, sex worker, performance artist and new filmmaker.

LEA ROBINSON is a multi-talented butch artist. NYC credits include ROOM FOR CREAM (Two-headed Calf/La MaMa), BUTCH MAMAS (WOW Café), The Bulldyke Chronicles (Dixon Place), and The Femme Show. She recently shared a bill with Elizabeth Whitney in the HOT! Festival at Dixon Place in SYRUP IN OUR SHORTS, AND OTHER SOUTHERN PLEASANTRIES, and she is currently working on a new solo show, YOU AIN’T SPECIAL. She also organized and emceed Boxers Off! An Evening of Butch Burlesque at Stonewall—a benefit for the upcoming Butch Voices Conference. She was featured in GO Magazine’s 2009 Edition of 100 Women We Love. www.learobinsonactor.com.

R. ERIC THOMAS is a playwright, storyteller and essayist. He is the author of the plays “Lost Boy”, “The Spectator”, and “The Affair”. He recently won Best Presentation and Audience Favorite at the Philadelphia First Person Arts Summer Grand Slam for his story “My Mother Hates the Facebook”. Eric is currently working on a collection of non-fiction entitled “Enormously Awkward: (Mostly) True Stories + Things That Are Better Left Unsaid” and workshopping a new play. He can be cyber-stalked at enormousawkward.blogspot.com.

ELIZABETH WHITNEY is an actor and a writer/performer with a penchant for campy comedy who was most recently seen as “Patty” in THE SECRETARIES (Best Ensemble NYC Fringe 2010). Other recent performances include SHOWGASM (Ars Nova), The Bulldyke Chronicles and the HOT! Festival (Dixon Place), Drunken Careening Writers, the Famous Lesbian Comedy Road Show, and The Femme Show. This fall she will be in LET THEM EAT CAKE at Dixon Place, a new comedy about gay weddings by Holly Hughes and Moe Angeles and directed by Megan Carney. She is currently collaborating with her partner Lea Robinson and director Melissa Li to develop SYRUP IN OUR SHORTS, a very true love story about being a queer, interracial couple. www.elizabethwhitney.com