• readingqueer.org
Reading Queer

RQ Literary Festival 2014

READING QUEER FESTIVAL 2014 – SCHEDULE OF EVENTS


Sandra Simonds, Julie Marie Wade and Jan Becker: Inaugural Reading

Writers Sandra Simonds, Julie Marie Wade and Jan Becker inaugurate the Reading Queer Festival with a reading of their work and a cocktail party.

Date: Friday, August 22nd, 2014
Time: 6:30 – 8:30 pm
Location: B-Bar @ The Betsy Hotel South Beach
1440 Ocean Dr, Miami Beach, FL 33139
(305) 531-6100.

Cost: All events are free & open to the public with a suggested donation of $20. Donate here.

For more information and to RSVP click HERE


Sandra Simonds: Creative Writing Workshop

In collaboration with O, Miami, Reading Queer presents “The Personal is Political”, a writing workshop led by poet Sandra Simonds.

How is queer poetry a mode of political protest? How can it destroy the systems of oppression that we are all subjected to on a daily basis? Taking our own understandings of gender/ sexuality/ desire as a point of departure, in this workshop we will think about how our own personal narratives can be told in poetry as a mode of protest and solidarity, forming communities upon—but also beyond—our experiences of oppression. 

In the first hour, we will explore these issues by reading the poetry of Amy King, Stephen Mills, Eileen Myles, Valarie Wetlaufer and others. In the second hour, we will generate one poem through an experimental writing exercise that focuses on blending the personal and the political.

We will not write a “persona” poem in this workshop. I want you to be yourself in your poem. You don’t have to be anyone but yourself. Your story is completely worthy of a poem!

Date: Saturday, August 23rd, 2014
Time: 2:15 – 4:15 pm
Location: The offices of O, Miami. 2138 Biscayne Blvd, Miami, FL 33137.
Cost:  $15.

SIGN UP HERE.


Celeste Fraser Delgado: Cruising Miami Salon 

Modeled on a site of queer public sex, the Cruising Miami salon will encourage a shifting series of writing and performance partnerships centered around the theme of public sex as a form of utopian longing as presented in Muñoz’s work. These couplings will result in readings and performances presented at the close of the salon.

Date: August, 25th, 2014
Time: 7:30 – 8:30
Location: ArtCenter/ South Florida, 800 Lincoln Road, Miami Beach, Florida 33139.
Cost:
all events are free & open to the public with a suggested donation of $20. Donate here.

For more information and to RSVP click HERE.


Digital Hostage Collective: “Cruising Hialeah or Ghosts of Public Sex”

A performance and video installation in memory of queer scholar and activist José Esteban Muñoz created by Celeste Fraser Delgado, Damian Rojo and other members of the Digital Hostage Collective. 

The Miami Beach Botanical Garden will be transformed into a space of queer utopian longing. “Cruisers” like dance theater provocateur Octavio Campos and choreographer Pioneer Winter will interact with visitors, soliciting them to listen to oral histories of the queer Miami and Hialeah of the 1980s—the time of José Esteban Muñoz’s coming-of-age—while soprano Celeste Fraser Delgado and tenor José Villanova circulate the grounds, evoking the devastating impact of the AIDS pandemic with haunting arias.

The intrepid may choose to enter the Garden’s Butterfly Room, transformed by visual artist and videographer Damian Rojo into a symbolic “back room,” where an installation culled from archival film and new video evokes what Muñoz calls the “utopian longing” of the public sex scene in the 1980s.

Date: Wednesday, August 27th
Time: 7:00 – 9:00 pm.
Location: Miami Beach Botanical Gardens
2000 Convention Center Drive
Miami Beach, FL 33139

Cost: All events are free & open to the public with a suggested donation of $20. Donate here.

For more information and to RSVP HERE


L. Lamar Wilson: “Sacrilegion: The Gospel Truth”

Poet and scholar L. Lamar Wilson will read selections from his first book Sacrilegion accompanied by vocalist and musicians Carl DuPont, Lloyd Reshard Jr. & Leo Williams. The performance will be followed by a cocktail party.

Date: Saturday, August 30th, 2014
Location: Miami Beach Botanical Garden @ 2000 Convention Center Dr, Miami Beach, FL 33139
Time: 7:00 – 9:00 pm.

Cost: All events are free & open to the public with a suggested donation of $20. Donate here.

For more information and to RSVP click HERE