it's not a lot, but it's what i got

[emchy]

Queer Open Mic Anniversary party shifts focus to benefit Hurricane Survivors.

The Queer Open Mic birthday / anniversary party slated for Septemer 9th has shifted from a celebration of founder Cindy Emch’s birthday, and the one year mark for the baby open mic, into a fundraiser to send money to LGBT friendly relief services.

QOM found Emch, a huge and devoted fan of the people, art, music, culture and soul of New Orleans knew, when the devastation in the Big Easy was only getting worse instead of better, that she had to do all she could to help. With the anniversary show one week away, and a host of San Francisco’s most famous and infamous queer spoken word folks preparing to wow the crowd, it seemed like a natural opportunity to raise some extra money for relief.

 “So many artists and queers exist on a subsistence level. I live check to check, most people I know live check to check, and the queers I know in New Orleans certainly live check to check. When you look at the fact that most of the people left in the city are poor and people of color, it is a safe assumption that many of those folks are queers as well. I want the money I give to go to all survivors, but based on reports I have heard about different charities, I am going to dig a little and make sure that the monies collected at this QOM go to an agency that is LGBT friendly as well, and won’t deny my community services.” says Emch.

Hopefully the first of many annual QOM bday / anniversary showcases to take place in September, September 9th will be hosted by Cindy Emch and Sherilyn Connelly and feature local wordsmiths: horehound stillpoint, Thea Hillman, Michelle Tea, Daphne Gottlieb, Lauren Wheeler, solidad decosta and Meliza Bañales. Special bday presents will be given to every person who makes a donation.

Partial Bios of performers are below. Photos are available upon request, or at www.geocities.com/indigo_cin Special Bday QOM promo photos are also available at http://pics.livejournal.com/cindymonkey/gallery/00004w47

When: September 9th, 8pm
Where: Three Dollar Bill Café, 1800 Market Street, SF CA
Cost: $1 – 10 donation. NOTAFLOF.

Who:

Daphne Gottlieb

San Francisco-based Performance Poet Daphne Gottlieb stitches together the ivory tower and the gutter just using her tongue. She is the author of Final Girl (Soft Skull Press, 2003), Why Things Burn (Soft Skull Press, 2001) and Pelt (Odd Girls Press, 1999). Final Girl was named one of the The Village Voice's Favorite Books of 2003, and received rave reviews from Publisher's Weekly, The San Francisco Chronicle and The Village Voice. Why Things Burn was the winner of a 2001 Firecracker Alternative Book Award (Special Recognition — Spoken Word) and was also a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award for 2001. Besides anchoring three national performance poetry tours, recently featuring with Maggie Estep, Hal Sirowitz and Lydia Lunch, Gottlieb has also appeared across the country with the Slam America bus tour and with notorious all-girl wordsters Sister Spit. She has performed at festivals coast-to-coast, including South by Southwest, Bumbershoot, and Ladyfest Bay Area. She is the poetry editor of the online queer literary magazine Lodestar Quarterly, as well as Other Magazine and was a co-organizer of ForWord Girls, the first spoken word festival for anyone who is, has been or will be a girl, which was held in September 2002. Gottlieb has also performed and taught creative writing workshops around the country, from high schools and colleges to community centers. She received her MFA from Mills College.

Michelle Tea

Michelle Tea is much beloved for her writing, her spoken word, and her innovative arts organizing that brought the world Sister Spit, the all-girl open mic event that earned a San Francisco Bay Guardian "Best of the Bay" Award. Tea's writings are included in many anthologies and publications including books on Manic D Press, Painted Leaf Press, Semiotext(e) Seal Press, Alyson Publications, and MacAdam/Cage. Tea's essays and opinions frequently turn up in the following print and web publications: the San Francisco Bay Times (winning her the Cable Car Award for Best Critic in 1997), the San Francisco Bay Guardian, The Believer, On Our Backs, Girlfriends Magazine, The Stranger, Nerve, Nerve.com, LesbianNation.com, Out Magazine, Other Magazine, Plazm and Lodestar Quarterly. She has also published the seminal novels, “Valencia” and “The Chelsea Whistle.” She is one-half of the astrology duo Double Team Psychic Dream, who pens horoscopes for the San Francisco Bay Guardian and Girlfriends Magazine. She recently completed the screenplay "Chelsea", a feature-length film loosely based on her memoir, "The Chelsea Whistle", and is communicating with interested filmmakers in Los Angeles and New York.

Meliza Bañales

Meliza Banales is the author of Say It With Your Whole Mouth (Monkey Press, Nominee: Poetry Center Book Award) and the first Latina to win a poetry slam championship on the west coast (2002 Oakland Grand Slam Champion). Her next book, 51 Poem About Nothing At All will be out in March of 2006 (Monkey Press) as well as the first book from her bi-lingual, children's book series The Amazing Adventures of Chonita Bonita: Chonita Says 'Get Up N' Dance!' (Monkey Press). She currently writes smutty book reviews for On Our Backs magazine and lives in San Francisco.

solidad decosta

poet/performer soledad decosta is an uppity portuguese dyke of black latina maternal ancestry. equal parts street journalist, storyteller and 40 something crone–ta–be with Leo moon credentials, her work has appeared in Shampoo, StreetNOTES, Fireweed, and SF Bay Guardian Online. she has performed her work in bookstores, bars, and bodegas all over the U.S. of A, and is working on her first novel.

horehound stillpoint

horehound stillpoint reads his filthy poetry in coffee shops and bars from San Francisco to Seattle, and from New Orleans to New York City. He's somehow managed to get material in anthologies from I Do, I Don't to Poetry Nation, and from Poetry Slam to Men, Amplified. Listen, they don't call him hore for nothing!

Thea Hillman

Thea Hillman is an activist and author from Oakland. She's performed her work at schools and performance venues across the U.S. Thea's first book, Depending on the Light was published in 2001. These days you can find her writing in an upcoming issue of On Our Backs magazine and the anthology 50 Ways to Support Lesbian and Gay Equality. Her next book about growing up and coming out intersex, entitled For Lack of a Better Word, will be released in 2006. For more info and performance schedule, visit theahillman.com.

Lauren Wheeler

Lauren Wheeler is a recovering slam poet who has competed twice at the National Poetry Slam. She has also featured at Cornell University, where she studied English Literature, in Los Angeles, Miami, and throughout the Bay Area. Her work has appeared in Lodestar Quarterly and Other Magazine, and she has self-published two chapbooks, anti-matter and mygration.

Comments

[cindymonkey.livejournal.com]

oh hell, if anyone knows how to make paragraph formatting work within a text cut, please help. otherwise, check out the very joyce-ian or kerouac-ian version of the performer bios... omg i am a tech DORK. just call me ludite. xo

[crayonbeam.livejournal.com]

I'm trying again:

less than sign then the letter P then a greater than sign should do it.

< p >

with no spaces by the P

I admire and than you for doing this!