Gina

I am so very excited to announce…

Girl Talk 2013!

Now in its fifth year, Girl Talk is a critically acclaimed multi-media performance show promoting dialogue about relationships of all kinds between queer transgender women, queer cisgender women, and genderqueer people. Queer cis women, queer trans women, and genderqueer people are allies, friends, support systems, lovers, and partners to each other every day — from activism that includes everything from Take Back the Night to Camp Trans; to supporting each other in having “othered” bodies in a world that is obsessed with idealized body types; to loving, having sex, and building family with each other in a world that wants us to disappear. At Girl Talk, trans and cis women and genderqueer artists create a wide range of artistic work about their relationships of all kinds – sexual and romantic, friendships, and chosen and blood family. Join us for a night of performance and conversation dedicated to building sisterhood and queer community for ALL women.

June 27
Girl Talk
Curated by: Gina de Vries, Elena Rose, & Julia Serano
Show Location: African-American Arts & Culture Complex (762 Fulton Street @ Webster, San Francisco)
Time: 7:30pm
Price: $12 – $20 sliding scale online; $15 – $20 at the door. (A limited number of Nobody Turned Away Tickets are available by writing to Gina at queershoulder[@]gmail[.]com, and a few work-trade for tix positions might also become available.)
Web Home: http://queerculturalcenter.org/NQAF/performance13/girl-talk/
Buy Tickets: http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/377312
Facebook Event Page: https://www.facebook.com/events/331871970271565
“Like” Girl Talk on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GirlTalkShow
Twitter: @queershoulder (Gina de Vries) and @JuliaSerano (Julia Serano).

ARTISTS’ BIOS

Dominika Bednarska holds a PhD in English and Disability Studies from U.C. Berkeley, and her new book of poetry, Smothered Breath, is forthcoming from Tulip Pulp Press. Her writing has appeared in The Bellevue Literary Review, Petrichor Machine, Blast Furnace, A Bad Penny Review, B (A Barbie Anthology), Journey to Crone, Avatar Review, Storm Cellar, Palimpsest, Muddy River Poetry Review, Wordgathering, Ghosting the Atom: Reflections After the Bomb, What I Want From You: An Anthology of East Bay Lesbian Poets, Cripping Femme, The Culture of Efficiency: Technology in Everyday Life, and Nobody Passes: Rejecting the Rules of Gender and Conformity, a Lambda nominee. Her show My Body Love Story kicked off the National Queer Arts Festival in 2012. For more information, go to dominikabednarskaspeaks.blogspot.com or become a fan on Facebook.

Gina de Vries is a genderqueer femme, a queer Paisano, a devout pervert, and a writer, performer, activist, and cultural worker living, writing, and loving in San Francisco. Ze is the founder and co-curator (with Elena Rose and Julia Serano) of Girl Talk, and is thrilled to see the show going strong in its fifth year. Gina has performed, taught, and lectured everywhere from chapels to leatherbar backrooms to the Ivy Leagues to community colleges. Her university appearances include Harvard, Yale, Reed, The Pacific School of Religion, UW-Madison, and Hampshire. Ze is the founder and facilitator of Sex Workers’ Writing Workshop, a writing class for current & former sex workers at San Francisco’s Center for Sex & Culture (where she also serves on the Advisory Board).

Gina’s publications include That’s Revolting!, Bound to Struggle, Baby Remember My Name, The San Francisco Bay Guardian, $pread: illuminating the sex industry, Curve, Coming & Crying, Take Me There: Trans & Genderqueer Erotica, The Revolution Starts at Home, and Why Are Faggots So Afraid of Faggots. Ze is currently pursuing her Master of Fine Arts in Fiction Writing at San Francisco State University, where ze is at work on How To Have A Body, a book of experimental prose about, well, how to have a body. Find out more at ginadevries.com, and keep track of hir on the daily at queershoulder.tumblr.com and howtohaveabody.tumblr.com.

DavEnd is a tenderhearted, genderqueer, accordion wielding songwriter, performing artist and designer based in San Francisco.  DavEnd has released two studio albums (How To Hold Your Own Hand, Fruits Commonly Mistaken For Vegetables) and for the past 6 years, has been touring extensively in the U.S., performing at queer teen centers, theatres, festivals, colleges, and backyards. Between tours, Ms. End designs costumes, and most recently has been producing a new musical, costume designing and dancing in production numbers for songwriter Kimya Dawson, appearing in Taylor Mac’s epic 5 hour play “The Lily’s Revenge” and touring the US with Sister Spit. DavEnd’s current project, “Fabulous Artistic Guys Get Overtly Traumatized Sometimes: The Musical!”, brings together the worlds of music and radical performance art in a theatrical extravaganza, exploring the effects of heterosexism and street harassment on the development of queer and trans identity. Photo: Photo: Amber Gregory

Tara Hardy is the working-class queer femme poet who writes and teaches in Seattle, Washington. She is the founder and current creative director of Bent, a writing institute for LGBTIQ people based in Seattle. She is the writer-in-residence at Richard Hugo House in Seattle, and an alumnae of Hedgebrook. In 2002, she was elected by the people and named by the city council as Seattle’s Poet Populist, or poet of the people, and has appeared on seven National Poetry Slam stages. She holds an MFA from Vermont College in fiction writing, and an MSW from the University of Michigan in community organizing. Tara is a daughter of the United Auto Workers, and worked in the Battered Women’s Movement for 15 years. She has toured the United States with Michelle Tea in the Stromboli’s Island show, as well as with Oratrix, an all-girl, all-queer Seattle-based spoken word troupe. She is a member of the Bullhorn Collective, and has performed with the Rolling Thunder Democracy Tour, Vancouver’s Rock for Choice, various Sister Spit shows, the Washington Poet’s Association’s Burning Word festival, Portland’s Youth Pride, San Francisco’s Harvey Milk Institute, and at the Minneapolis Orpheum Theater on the National Poetry Slam team finals stage. Tara’s work appears in Without a Net, Sex and Single Girls, Fusion, Blythe House Quarterly, Brazen, Switched-on-Gutenberg, and her self-published chapbooks Vs and Rant-some. Recordings of her work can be found on Vox Populi Live (the best of the Seattle Poetry Festival), the Seattle Poetry Slam Live CD, and her self-produced CD Dirty River.

Dr. Carol Queen is a writer and cultural sexologist with a Ph.D. in human sexuality. She is a noted essayist whose work has appeared in dozens of anthologies. Her essay collection, Real Live Nude Girl: Chronicles of Sex-Positive Culture, was published in 1997 and reissued in 2002; it is read in university classes across America. Her erotic stories can be found in several Best American Erotica volumes, among many other anthologies; her erotic novel, The Leather Daddy and the Femme, was published in 1998 and won a Firecracker Alternative Book Award the following year. A “director’s cut” edition with new material came out in 2003. Her first book, Exhibitionism for the Shy, published in 1995, explores issues of erotic self-esteem and enhancement and was reissued with new material in 2009. She is co-editor of the anthologies Best Bisexual Erotica (volumes One and Two), Sex Spoken Here, Switch Hitters, and PoMoSexuals; the latter won a Lambda Literary Award in 1998. She’s also edited Whipped! and two volumes of 5 Minute Erotica, short-short erotic fiction.

Queen is the founding director of the Center for Sex & Culture in San Francisco (www.sexandculture.org) and works as staff sexologist and curator of the Antique Vibrator Museum at Good Vibrations, the women-founded sex toy and bookstore in San Francisco, where she has worked since 1990; she blogs for the Good Vibrations web magazine at www.goodvibes.com. She has addressed numerous scholarly and professional conferences, including the Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality, the International Condom Conference, the International Conference on Prostitution, and the International Conference on Pornography; she frequently addresses college as well as general and specialized audiences. In February 2009 she debated the question of promiscuity (“Virtue or vice?”) for the Oxford Union at Oxford University, England.

Carol Queen is active on behalf of progressive sex education and sexual minority issues. Perhaps most closely affiliated with the bisexual and sex work communities, she has been speaking publicly about non-mainstream sexualities, from lesbian to leather, for over 35 years. Her perspective in addressing sexual diversity incorporates personal experience, accurate sex information, and informed cultural commentary. For more information (including CV and bibliography) see her website: www.carolqueen.com.

Elena Rose, a Filipina-Ashkenazic mixed-class trans lesbian mestiza, rode stories out of rural Oregon and hasn’t stopped making words since.  Raised as a curandera troublemaker, she writes online as “Little Light,” travels the country as a preacher and poet, and has dedicated herself to the labor of radical love, monster theology, and justice for those who live at the edges.

In her third year as “Girl Talk” co-curator and fifth as a performer, Rose has also sweet-talked bloody microphones with the Speak! Radical Women of Color Media Collective, Seattle’s TumbleMe Productions, the Bay’s own Mangos With Chili, and in sold-out shows up and down the Pacific coast.  Her writing has been featured in Aorta and Make/shift magazines and everywhere from law school classrooms to bathroom mirrors, and her first book, “Mountain of Myrrh,” is forthcoming from Dinah Press.  She lives, works, and attends seminary in the East Bay, and haunts abandoned places on the weekends.”

Julia Serano is an Oakland, California-based writer, performer, and co-curator of Girl Talk. She is best known for her 2007 book Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity, which garnered rave reviews—The Advocate placed it on their list of “Best Non-Fiction Transgender Books,” and readers of Ms. Magazine ranked it #16 on their list of the “100 Best Non-Fiction Books of All Time.” Her other writings have appeared in anthologies (including Yes Means Yes: Visions of Female Sexual Power and A World Without Rape, Gender Outlaws: The Next Generation and Word Warriors: 30 Leaders in the Women’s Spoken Word Movement) and in feminist, queer, pop culture and literary magazines and websites such as Bitch Magazine, AlterNet.org, Out, Ms. Magazine blog, Feministing.com, and make/shift.

Julia has gained notoriety in feminist, queer and transgender circles for her unique insights into gender, and her writings have been used as teaching materials in queer and gender studies courses across North America. Her second full-length book, tentatively titled Excluded: Making Feminist and Queer Movements More Inclusive, is slated to be published by Seal Press in the Fall of 2013. juliaserano.com

Jos Truitt is a Boston native currently living in the Bay Area. She is an Editor at the popular blog Feministing.com. Jos has worked for the reproductive health, rights and justice movements as a student at Hampshire College and a national organizer in Washington, DC. She has spoken and trained at numerous national conferences and college campuses about trans issues, reproductive justice, blogging, feminism, and grassroots organizing. Jos is currently pursuing an MFA in Printmaking and an MA in the History and Theory of Contemporary Art at San Francisco Art Institute.

I am pleased as punch to announce this year’s Girl Talk cast. Please spread the word, and come to the show on March 29th!

Girl Talk: A Trans & Cis Woman Dialogue
Thursday, March 29th, 2012
7:00pm - 10:00pm
San Francisco LGBT Community Center - Rainbow Room
1800 Market Street between Octavia & Laguna
Tickets: $12-$20 (no one turned away)
WEB: http://queerculturalcenter.org/Pages/HealthyC/girlTalk12.html
BUY TIX HERE: http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/223538 (We strongly recommend that you get tickets in advance — we sold out very fast last year.)
FACEBOOK INVITE: http://www.facebook.com/events/217563091671401/

Curated by Gina de Vries, Elena Rose, and Julia Serano.
Generously supported by the Queer Cultural Center Healthy Communities program.

Queer cisgender women and queer transgender women are allies, friends, support systems, lovers, and partners to each other. Trans and cis women are allies to each other every day — from activism that includes everything from Take Back the Night to Camp Trans; to supporting each other in having “othered” bodies in a world that is obsessed with idealized body types; to loving, having sex, and building family with each other in a world that wants us to disappear.

Girl Talk is an annual spoken word show fostering and promoting dialogue about these relationships. Trans and cis women will read about their relationships of all kinds – sexual and romantic, chosen and blood family, friendships, support networks, activist alliances. Join us for a night of stories about sex, bodies, feminism, activism, challenging exclusion in masculine-centric dyke spaces, dating and breaking up, finding each other, and finding love and family.

Performer Bios

Charlie Anders hosts and organizes the award-winning Writers With Drinks reading series in San Francisco, which was namechecked in Armistead Maupin’s latest Tales of the City novel. She’s had stories in Best Lesbian Erotica 2010, Sex For America: Politically Inspired Erotica, Best Science Fiction and Fantasy 2009 and 2011, and Tor.com. She co-founded other magazine: the magazine for people who defy categories, and currently blogs at io9. She won the 2010 Emperor Norton Award for “extraordinary invention and creativity unhindered by the constraints of paltry reason.”

Dominika Bednarska is a postdoctoral fellow at U.C. Berkeley, where she completed her PhD in English and Disability Studies.  Her writing has appeared in Wordgathering, The Bellevue Literary Review, Nobody Passes: Rejecting the Rules of Gender and Conformity, The Culture of Efficiency: Technology in Everyday Life, What I Want From You: An Anthology of East Bay Lesbian Poets, Ghosting Atoms, and Cripping Femme. She is currently working on expanding and revising her solo show, My Body Love Story, that will be performed this spring and summer. For more information, go to dominikabednarskaspeaks.blogspot.com or become a fan on Facebook.

Gina de Vries founded and co-curates “Girl Talk” with Elena Rose and Julia Serano. She’s thrilled that the show is still going strong after 4 years. Gina has taught Sex Workers’ Writing Workshop since 2008, and you can find her work anthologized all over, from the San Francisco Bay Guardian to Coming & Crying. A graduate of Hampshire College, Gina is currently pursuing her Master of Fine Arts in Fiction Writing and Master’s in English at San Francisco State University. The Record, her experimental fiction novel about sex, adolescence, music, San Francisco, and growing up queer, should be hitting bookstores in 2013. Find out a whole lot more at ginadevries.com. Twitter: @queershoulder. Tumblr: queershoulder.

DavEnd is a tenderhearted, genderqueer, costume designing, accordion wielding songwriter, performing artist and designer based in San Francisco. Ms. End has released two studio albums (How To Hold Your Own Hand, Fruits Commonly Mistaken For Vegetables) and for the past 5 years, has been touring extensively in the U.S., performing at queer teen centers, festivals, colleges, theatres and backyards. DavEnd’s current project, Fabulous Artistic Guys Get Overtly Traumatized Sometimes: The Musical!,brings together the worlds of music and radical performance art in a theatrical extravaganza, exploring the effects of heterosexism and street harassment on the development of queer identity.  

Thea Hillman is a mother, writer, and performer. Her book of poetry and fiction “Depending on the Light,” was published in 2001. Her Lambda award-winning memoir, “Intersex: For Lack of a Better Word” came out in 2008 and is taught at universities around the country.

Nomy Lamm is a writer, musician, performance artist and voice teacher.   Her band, nomy lamm & THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD, is a flexible platform for collaboration with everyone and everything, including other musicians, artists, poets, puppeteers, spectators, and the moon.  She performs regularly with Sins Invalid, creating musical dreamworld performance art about disability, sexuality and social justice.  She is currently working on her MFA thesis, a collection of short stories called “515 Clues,” and writes an advice column for Make/Shift magazine called “Dear Nomy.”

Emily Manuel is a Greek-Australian becoming-Jewish writer, blogger, editor, sometime academic, musician, partner, mother to four cats, and beekeeper.  She found a bee and she kept it - that’s the first rule of beekeeping.  She is editor-in-chief at Global Comment magazine, and her work has also appeared at Questioning Transphobia, Tiger Beatdown, Billboard magazine, Bitch magazine, and many others.  She has a PhD in English from Murdoch University in Australia gathering dust in the corner.

Elena Rose, a Filipina-Ashkenazic mixed-class trans dyke mestiza, rode stories out of rural Oregon and hasn’t stopped making words since.  In her second year co-curating “Girl Talk” and fourth as a performer, she writes online as “Little Light,” travels the country as a preacher and poet, and has dedicated herself to the work of radical love, queer theology, and justice for those who live at the edges.  Her work has turned up everywhere from college classrooms to bathroom mirrors to protest marches, in magazines including Aorta and Make/Shift, and on the acclaimed spoken-word album It Is Better to Speak!  Rose is currently finishing her first book, Mountain of Myrrh, forthcoming from Dinah Press, and attends seminary in Northern California, where she resides with her wife and a small but well-loved pomegranate tree.

Julia Serano is an Oakland, California-based writer, performer and activist. She is the author of Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity, a collection of personal essays that reveal how misogyny frames popular assumptions about femininity and shapes many of the myths and misconceptions people have about transsexual women. Julia’s other writings have appeared in anthologies (including Gender Outlaws: The Next Generation, Word Warriors: 30 Leaders in the Women’s Spoken Word Movement and Yes Means Yes: Visions of Female Sexual Power and A World Without Rape), in feminist, queer, pop culture and literary magazines and websites (such as Bitch, AlterNet.org, Out, Feministing.com, and make/shift), and have been used as teaching materials in gender studies, queer studies, psychology and human sexuality courses in colleges across North America.  juliaserano.com.

Jos Truitt is a Boston native and recent transplant to San Francisco. She joined the team at Feministing.com in July 2009 and became an Editor in August 2011. Jos attended Hampshire College where she coordinated the school’s annual national reproductive justice conference. After college she worked in the reproductive health, rights and justice movements in Washington, DC. Jos has spoken and trained at numerous national conferences and college campuses about trans issues, reproductive justice, blogging, feminism, and grassroots organizing. Jos is currently pursuing an MFA in Printmaking at San Francisco Art Institute.

Pidge Vera is a mixed-race queer femme writer, performer and choreographer, living an awesome and strangely grown up life in Oakland, CA. Her interests and activist work include, but are not limited to: self-care, feminism, sexual assault and interpersonal violence prevention and advocacy, storytelling, dance, queers, femmes, fashion, baking killer peanut-butter cookies, and passionate karaoke performances. She is currently adapting her research thesis on eating disorders, narrative construction, and embodied practice into a book, and will talk about it at length if you let her. Pidge resides with her wife and Cleis, the littlest of pomegranate trees.