Co-led by poets Julie Marie Wade & Maureen Seaton, “QUEER DEPOT 101: CREATIVITY & QUEERNESS” explores queerness as a potent source for creativity for writers and artists.
“Is all art-making inherently queer, particularly in a world that devalues art and consigns most artists to the margins of mainstream work? Maybe queerness is a kind of potential we all have to express ourselves creatively, apart from gender, race, orientation, etc.,” salon facilitators Julie Marie Wade & Maureen Seaton wrote. “What if it is? How can we tap into this potent energy source? The discussion begins: QUEER DEPOT 101.”
QUEER DEPOT 101 is the first in a series of literary salons produced by READING QUEER that will provide a safe environment for marginalized voices to come together and talk about issues that impact the community from a queer perspective.
Join us Wednesday, March 19th, 2014, from 5pm – 7pm at The Carlton Hotel located at 1433 Collins Ave. South Beach, FL 33139 (behind The Betsy Hotel). Cost: free & open to everyone. RSVP here:
READING QUEER seeks to reveal Miami as a center for queer literature through an annual week-long literary festival, creative writing workshops, a literary salon series, and a literary archive. READING QUEER is open to all writers who create hybrid, genre-bending works that address queer identity. Our mission is to transform the lives of the queer community through the act & the art of creative writing and demonstrate how creative writing can be used as a medium to improve, empower, and enrich the creative lives of the community. Read more about us at ReadingQueer.org.
ABOUT JULIE MARIE WADE: Born in Seattle in 1979, Julie Marie Wade completed a Master of Arts in English at Western Washington University in 2003, a Master of Fine Arts in Poetry at the University of Pittsburgh in 2006, and a PhD in Humanities at the University of Louisville in 2012. She has received the Chicago Literary Award in Poetry (2004), the Gulf Coast Nonfiction Prize (2004), the Oscar Wilde Poetry Prize (2005), the Literal Latte Nonfiction Award (2006), two Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Prizes (2006, 2010), the AWP Intro Journals Award for Nonfiction (2009), the American Literary Review Nonfiction Prize (2010), the Arts & Letters Nonfiction Prize (2010), an Al Smith Artist Grant from the Kentucky Arts Council (2010), the Thomas J. Hruska Nonfiction Prize (2011), the Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Memoir (2011), the Bloom Nonfiction Chapbook Prize (2012), and seven Pushcart Prize nominations. Julie is the author of two collections of lyric nonfiction, Wishbone: A Memoir in Fractures (Colgate University Press, 2010) and Small Fires (Sarabande Books, 2011), and two collections of poetry, Without (Finishing Line Press, 2010) and Postage Due (White Pine Press, 2013) as well as the forthcoming Tremolo: An Essay (Bloom Press, 2013). She lives with her partner Angie Griffin in the Sunshine State and teaches in the creative writing program at Florida International University in Miami. She can be reached at www.juliemariewade.com.
ABOUT MAUREEN SEATON: Maureen Seaton, Reading Queer Advisory Board Member, is the author of sixteen poetry collections, both solo and collaborative— most recently, Fibonacci Batman: New & Selected Poems (Carnegie Mellon University Press, 2013) and Two Thieves & a Liar (Jackleg Press, 2012), with Neil de la Flor and Kristine Snodgrass. Her awards include the Iowa Poetry Prize, an NEA Fellowship in Poetry, the Pushcart Prize, and the Lambda Literary Award for both Lesbian Poetry (Furious Cooking, University of Iowa Press) and Lesbian Memoir (Sex Talks to Girls, University of Wisconsin Press). She is Professor of English/Creative Writing at the University of Miami. Visit Seaton’s website @ www.maureenseaton.com.