Monthly Archives: January 2010

PERFORMER BIOS:

Philadelphia, PA native Renair Amin is no stranger to the arts. As an author, she has written for various print and on-line publications including Gay Black Female Magazine, SABLE Magazine and DEEP HUES e-zine. She has been featured on the Nghosi Books, Femme Noir, Sistahs for Sistahs, Soulful Pen Xpressions and Kuma.com websites. Her work also appears in the Nghosi Books anthology, Longing, Lust & Loving. As a spoken word artist, Renair has performed extensively, gracing stages in Atlanta, Rochester, Los Angeles, Philadelphia and in New York City, where she hosts Speak Your Myne, a monthly open mic showcase of her creation and she recently joined the Punany Poets, a world-renowned performance collective.  . In 2006 Renair formed Pmyner, Ltd., a media and entertainment company created to provide services to the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender literary, visual and performance arts communities. Renair’s vast accomplishments have not gone unnoticed, garnering her an appearance on The Best Shorts, a BETJ offering that profiles the best in African American short films.  Later, Renair joined the OutFM Collective on WBAI (99.5 FM) radio as a host and associate producer. She currently resides in Far Rockaway, NY.Virginia Ahearn (aka ‘VA’) is a femme lesbian, anti-war and anti-nuclear activist, herbal medicine practitioner, women’s basketball fan, avid hiker and lover of lipstick. If she had to choose between giving up hiking or lipstick, the choice would be easy. She would give up lipstick. She came out as a lesbian in 1991, as a femme in 1999, and as a power femme in 2005, shortly after finding her home in the Butch-Femme Community.  Her claim to fame?  Founder of the Femme Parade at the Michigan Womyns’ Music Festival. Virginia’s first lesbian kiss was on a freezing cold night in December of 1987 in New Brunswick NJ.

An award-winning poet and writer, Cheryl B. has performed her humorous, narrative work at venues throughout NYC and abroad. Her poetry and prose has been published in numerous publications such as the literary journal Ping Pong and the anthology Word Warriors: 35 Women Leaders in the Spoken Word Revolution (Seal Press, 2007), among many others.  Her website is http://www.cherylb.com.

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.

Tara Shuai is a twenty-something biracial high femme New Yorker by way of DC and Richmond, VA. She’s written and blogged about fat, fashion, race, sex, love, and living fabulously on a dime for the past 8 years, and is a co-moderator of the fatshionista livejournal community, the fatshion and beauty correspondent on FemmeCast: The Queer Fat Femme’s Guide to Life, and contributes to both fatshionista.com and The Pretty Year. Among other things, she’s a wee bit obsessed with scrabble, foodie dilettantism, Joan Holloway-inspired fatshion, cat videos on Youtube, and the intrigue of international travel.

Taueret Manu is a New Yorker to the marrow. She loves the divine, sriracha, pitbulls, friction, hibiscus juice, pink prosecco, sexual currency, poetry, and rioting. She dislikes White Santa/White Jesus/White Male God, the prison industrial complex, and the NYPD. She is also the co-editor of the zine Glutton for Fatshion.

Genne Murphy is a Philadelphia native, playwright, and queer femme. She’s passionate about the intersection of the arts, social change, and community-building. Genne works for a Philadelphia-based arts education non-profit, and is involved with initiatives to expand new play development in her hometown. She is a graduate of NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, and has had readings or productions of her plays in Philadelphia and New York. Genne likes to hang out with fellow storytellers, dreamers, and schemers. Genne is a co-founder of Queer Memoir.

Joel Nichols was born in Vermont, studied at Wesleyan University and has an M.A. in Creative Writing from Temple University. His fiction has been published on Velvet Mafia, in Best Gay Love Stories, Ultimate Gay Erotica and in many other anthologies. He works as a Children’s Librarian and lives in Philadelphia.