Volume 1 Contributors
Amy André is co-author of Bisexual Health, a book published by the
National Gay & Lesbian Task Force. She has essays in books such as
Nobody Passes: Rejecting the Rules of Gender and Conformity; Best Sex
Writing 2008; Waking Up American: Coming of Age Bi-culturally; and
Getting Bi: Voices of Bisexuals Around the World, and her articles
appear in American Sexuality, ColorLines, Curve, and Playgirl. She is
also the director of the internationally-screened transgender
documentary, On My Skin. Currently, Amy is pursuing an MBA in
nonprofit management. Visit her at AmyAndre.com.
Mette Bach wrote about femme identity in her syndicated humor column,
“Not That Kind of Girl,” for nearly four years. Her work has been
anthologized in First Person Queer, Second Person Queer and Fist of
the Spider Woman. She now writes a column called “From Queer to
Eternity” for her local LGBTQ publication, Xtra West, in Vancouver.
She contributes to The Advocate, Globe and Mail, Vancouver Review and
WestEnder. She has an MFA in creative writing from the University of
British Columbia. Her first book, Getting Over Delta, comes out in
2010 from New Star Books. More information about Mette Bach’s work is
available at MetteBach.com.
Brook Bolen is a saucy, redheaded femme minx with more Scorpio in her
chart than you can shake a stick at and mother to the two greatest pit
bulls in the history of the world. When she is not dreaming of the
Appalachian Mountains from whence she came, she is rescuing animals
and pursuing a graduate degree in women’s studies. Brook enjoys
spending her free time hiking, reading (equal parts social theory and
Patrick Califia), whipping up deliciously healthy eats, tending to her
manicure and garden, and pursuing counter hegemony.
Clairanne Browne is sassy-mouthed, modern, pin-up high femme,
scene-stealing soul chanteuse, feisty, ultra-high maintenance, known
around the traps as “trouble.” She feels awkward in flats, is
pathologically bossy and can talk herself out of any situation.
Dreamer, schemer, creator, cinnamon peeler, broken wing healer, rage
tamer, genderfucker, broad who drinks. Self-professed femme bottom,
one of the best in the business. Clairanne celebrates queer theory,
gender diversity and motions of the heart. Find more about her at
mynameislina.blogspot.com or contact mynameislinalina@yahoo.com.au.
Sand Chang, PhD, is a genderqueer, genderfluid femme of Chinese
American descent who lives in Oakland, California. Sand has performed
all over the country and internationally as drag king Charleston Chu
and faux queen Charlotte Starlette and is a member of the hip-hop
fusion dance company Freeplay Dance Crew. Sand is also an activist,
musician, and psychologist specializing in addictions, eating
disorders, and transgender issues. Sand has contributed to Monolid and
Nobody Passes: Rejecting the Rules of Gender and Conformity. Sand can
be reached at sandstar@gmail.com.
Joshua Bastian Cole is a twenty-something Yankee transplant to the
South and alumnus of James Madison University. He is a
femme-identified trannyfag performance artist and playwright who uses
performance as a medium for activism and trans awareness. Cole has
been published and seen and heard in newspapers, books, magazines,
ezines, photo series, films, radio, and podcasts. He is also the
bookwriter and lyricist of the new musical, Transitions. His website
is jbastiancole.tripod.com.
Traci Craig is a femme dyke academic spoken word artist. Currently a
professor in northern Idaho, her research revolves primarily around
gender diversity in the workplace, LGBT issues and butch/femme
relationships. In her spare time, she performs as DocTraYC as a
feminist activist spoken word poet and emcee.
Jennifer Cross is a Bay Area-based writer and writing group
facilitator. Her stories/writing appear in numerous anthologies (some
under Jen Collins), including Best Sex Writing 2008; Blood Sisters;
Nobody Passes: Rejecting the Rules of Gender and Conformity; Best
Women’s Erotica 2007; Best Fetish Erotica and many others. She spent
April 2008 rocking the country open with the nationwide Body Heat:
queer femme porn tour! A queer survivor of sexual abuse, she’s a firm
believer in the transformative potential of smut. For more information
about Jen and her work, including her writing workshops, visit
writingourselveswhole.org.
Gina de Vries still wears leopard print at every available
opportunity. She’s also still a radical bi-queer sex-positive femme,
but she’s mellowed out a lot since she was fourteen. She is the
co-editor with Diane Anderson-Minshall, of [Becoming]: young ideas on
gender, identity, and sexuality (Xlibris Press, 2004). Her work has
been published in many places, including Tough Girls 2: Down and Dirty
Dyke Erotica; Transforming Communities; Baby, Remember My Name: An
Anthology of New Queer Girl Writing; That’s Revolting!: Queer
Resistances to Assimilation; and On Our Backs and Curve magazines. You
can cruise her online at ginadevries.com.
Emjāen Fetherston-Power identifies as HighFemme, queer, feminist,
expat/Anglo/migrant/Asian, PowerFemme, kinky, and Buddhist, among
other labels. Born in Australia and raised in Asia, she lives in
Melbourne, where she writes and performs her spoken word, collects and
sells vintage, paints, draws and sews. She is currently retraining
from welfare work to a less stressful career as a librarian.
Katrina Fox is a freelance journalist originally from London and based in Sydney, Australia, since 2001. She has worked extensively for the
GLBTIQ media, including a year as editor of Cherrie, a monthly
national lesbian magazine in Australia. Her work has appeared in a
number of publications internationally, including Time Out London, the UK’s
national lesbian magazine DIVA, and the US national lesbian magazine,
Curve. Katrina is the editor of three nonfiction books on sex and
gender diversity: Sex, Gender & Sexuality: 21st Century
Transformations (1999), Finding the Real Me: True Tales of Sex &
Gender Diversity (2003), and Trans People in Love (2008). She is a
high-femme, lipstick-lesbian, sex-positive, vegan feminist who enjoys
combining high camp and glamour with ethical, cruelty-free living. She
lives with her long-time girlfriend and author, Tracie O’Keefe, and a
cat called Gabrielle. Visit katrinafox.com for more information.
San Francisco-based poet Daphne Gottlieb (MFA, Mills College; BA, Bard College) stitches together the ivory tower and the gutter just using
her tongue. She is the author of four books of poetry: Kissing Dead
Girls (Spring 2008), Final Girl (2003), Why Things Burn (2001) and
Pelt (1999). She is also the editor of the anthologies Fucking Daphne:
Mostly True Stories and Fictions (2008)#and#Homewrecker: An Adultery
Reader (2005). Additionally, she is the author of the graphic novel
Jokes and the Unconscious, illustrated by Diane DiMassa (2006). She
was the winner of the 2003 Audre Lorde Award for Poetry and a 2001
Firecracker Alternative Book Award. Her work frequently appears in
journals and anthologies including Word Warriors: 35 Women Leaders in
the Spoken Word Revolution, McSweeney’s Internet Tendencies, nerve.com
and Short Fuse: A Contemporary Anthology of Global Fusion Poetry.
Final Girl was adapted for the stage in 2006 at University of
California, Northridge.
Tara Hardy is the working-class, queer, femme poet who founded Bent, a writing institute for LGBTIQ people in Seattle, Washington. A daughter
of the United Auto Workers and activist in the Battered Women’s
Movement, she was elected Seattle’s Poet Populist and won Seattle
Grand Slam Champion in 2002. She’s competed on four Seattle Slam
Teams, coached two teams, and most recently brought home the
fourth-place trophy from the 2008 Women of the World Poetry Slam. To
contact Tara, or to arrange for a performance, email
ordyfemme@hotmail.com. Her webpage is tarahardy.net. You may find her
on MySpace at myspace.com/tarahardygetsbent.
Electrofemme performer and artist Hadassah Hill (aka Axon Damien Luxe) is a repatriated expat, double agent, DIY tech geek, and high-femme
liberationist who’s been entertaining crowds for over twelve years.
She’s performed live poetry at numerous events, including Femme 2008 &
2006, Queeruption 10, Writing Outside the Margins, The Seattle Science
Cabarets, Sista’hood, Ladyfest, Hysteria, Trade Queer Things,
Mayworks, High Femme Friday, and at colleges and universities.
Hadassah performed with the now-retired all-femme troupe, Trash &
Ready (trashready.com). She has been published in Without A Net and
Geeks, Misfits and Outlaws. She’s a graphic designer and currently
volunteers for spreadmagazine.org as Art Director, and she teaches DIY
media workshops. She’s also a textile artist who works in costumery,
reconstructing/recycling vintage clothing, and embroidery. Lastly,
she’s made her mark, along with Tex Bronco, as a starlet in the
ubiquitous dirtypillows.com and as a model at aslanleather.com. She
loves anything on two wheels and rhinestones. For more, see
hadassahsbizzare.com.
Kpoene’ Kofi-Bruce is the founder of the Ladies Independent Design League. A radical queer activist who is currently taking recruits for
her girly-girl army, Kpoene’ is a former DJ, Radical Cheerleader, drag
queen, dancer, and editor of Tooth and Nail and RiffRAG; she sat on
the editorial board for Clamour Magazine (RIP). Her designs and writing
have appeared in Bust, Bitch, NEET, and The Washington Post. She has
lectured on the role of the activist in a time of war at Sarah
Lawrence College, The New School, and the University of Maryland. She
recently co-organized the 2nd Annual Craft Congress. When she isn’t designing
custom wedding dresses for queer couples through her label Mignonette,
Kpoene’ lives in San Francisco with her partner and is compiling
interviews for a book on women of color in Third Wave Feminism. Visit
her online at msmignonette.blogspot.com.
Asha Leong has always been a southern belle at heart and lives in
Atlanta, Georgia. Asha is the product of many parents, is proud
queerspawn, and above all loves her international family. Asha
identifies as a queer, Femme, multiracial immigrant. At heart, Asha is
a community organizer with a passion for social justice who has spent
a decade organizing for queer-allied communities. When not
rabble-rousing with the queers, Asha indulges her artistic side
through writing, dancing, and performance art. Asha’s drag king alter
ego, Al Schlong, can be found gracing dark alleyways and stages
nationwide. Full details of Al’s deviant desires can be found at
myspace.com/alschlong.
Katie Livingston navigates the boundaries of being femme and doing femme. She is a graduate student in Critical Studies in Literacy and
Pedagogy at Michigan State University and spends her spare time
hunting for feminist books and zines and facilitating a queer writing
group at the local LGBT community center outside Detroit. Her little
brother is still her favorite femme.
Sassafras Lowrey is a genderqueer high femme, militant storyteller, author, artist, and activist. Ze believes that everyone has a story to
tell, and that the telling of those stories is essential to creating
social change. An accomplished storyteller, ze was an original member
of “The Language of Paradox” founded and directed by Kate Bornstein.
Ze is a contributor to numerous anthologies including, LGBTQ: America
Today, The Femme Coloring Book, and Gendered Hearts. Sassafras was
honored as one of Portland’s top emerging writers by In Other Words
Women’s Books and Resources in 2004. Ze is the editor of the highly
anticipated Kicked Out anthology (Fall 2009) from Homofactus Press.
Sassafras is also the author of GSA to Marriage: Stories of a Life
Lived Queerly (Homofactus Press, Summer 2010). Ze lives in New York
City with hir partner, two puddle-shaped cats, and a princess dog. For
more about Sassafras, visit pomofreakshow.com.
Carol Mirakove is the author of two books of poems, Occupied (Kelsey St. Press) and Mediated (Factory School), and she appears on the
Narrow House spoken-word CD, Women in the Avant-Garde. With the
subpress collective, she edited Fractured Humorous by Edwin Torres.
Her critical writing appears in the magazine Traffic and the newspaper
Boog City, where she and Jen Benka were politics coeditors from
2007-2008. A New York native, Mirakove lives in Brooklyn.
Yael Mishali, a twenty-nine-year-old Mizrahi femme, lives in Tel Aviv, Israel, and is a doctoral student in the Cultural Studies Department at Tel Aviv University. She is writing her dissertation about butch-femme autobiographies. Yael has been published in anthologies and academic journals. Active in feminist queer and Mizrahi organizations in Israel, she currently runs a femme support group and performs FtF drag.
Moonyean is a life-long lover of books. A California native, she is happy to be living there again after a sixteen-year break in Arizona where she earned an English degree and owned a feminist bookstore. She lives in northern California with Lakke, her spouse, and Shadow, the most wonderful dog in the world. She was previously published in Hitched! Wedding Stories from San Francisco City Hall.
Sheila Hart Nelson is an Appalachian-raised femme dyke. She has been a featured reader at Gender Crash, a monthly open mic in Boston, Massachusetts. Off the page, she is an activist and sexuality educator.
Margaret Price teaches writing at Spelman College in Atlanta, Georgia. Her work has appeared in Creative Nonfiction; Bitch: Feminist Response to Pop Culture; Disability Studies Quarterly; Breath and Shadow; and Wordgathering. She is at work on a book about the intersection of madness with academic life.
Miel Rose is a chubby, low-income, queer femme of various european ancestry. She feels she is proof that you can be born with gender and spent her young femmehood running around the woods, climbing trees in glamorous rummage sale dresses. She wrote “Prayer” a couple years ago during an intense period of isolation living in northern Vermont, where she grew up. Mostly she writes porn, and you can find her stories in Best Lesbian Erotica 2008; Best Women’s Erotica 2008; Ultimate Lesbian Erotica 2009; and Best Lesbian Love Stories 2009. “Prayer” is dedicated to all her femme loves, especially Cory Skuldt, who brought her out.
Maura Ryan is a queer high femme, a radical sociologist, a teacher, a student, a feminist (despite its shit), a southerner (despite its shit), and an impeccable hostess (seriously write to her for a cookie recipe). She loves curly hair, high heels, Sephora, and talk of a revolution–especially all at the same time. Building femme solidarity and recognizing femme loveliness is her greatest pleasure. Contact femmehotness@yahoo.com.
Stacia Seaman is an editor who has worked with New York Times and USA Today best-selling authors. She has edited numerous award-winning titles and has herself won a Lambda Literary Award with coeditor Radclyffe for Erotic Interludes 2: Stolen Moments. She lives with her cat, Frieda, and enjoys being silly.
Allison Stelly is a fierce femme living and loving in Austin, Texas. She produces Kings N Things, Austin’s longest-running drag king/genderbending troupe, takes the stage herself as her high-femme alter ego, Miss Cherry Poppins, reads gender theory for fun, and can’t let a day go by without crafting.
Ann Tweedy is a poet and a lawyer. Her poetry has been published widely in literary magazines and anthologies such as Knock; Harrington Lesbian Literary Quarterly; Rattle; Getting Bi: Voices of Bisexuals Around the World; Clackamas Literary Review; Gertrude; and The Drag King Anthology. She has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and her poetry chapbook, Beleaguered Oases, is forthcoming from TcCreativePress in Los Angeles. Some of her poetry is also available on her website, anntweedypoetry.com. After several years of practicing law, Ann recently transitioned to teaching at a law school. She is also an Advisory Editor for Knock Journal.
Sharon Wachsler lives in rural Western Massachusetts with her partner and service dog. An award-winning poet, essayist, and cartoonist, her fiction appears in dozens of books, including Best American Erotica 2004 and 2005. Recent titles include Bed: New Lesbian Erotica; Periphery: Erotic Lesbian Futures; Lipstick on Her Collar; and Doorknobs & Body Paint. Sharon’s been a Pushcart nominee for poetry, an Astraea Foundation grantee for fiction, and a contributor to numerous Lambda Literary Award finalists and winners. Sharon recently gave up her editorship of Breath & Shadow (abilitymaine.org/breath), the first literary journal written and produced entirely by people with diverse disabilities. She thanks Betsy, Gadget, her PCAs–especially Gloria–and Jen Burke for making this essay possible. Visit Sharon at sickhumorpostcards.com.
Anna Watson is an old-school femme who reads and lives in a suburb of Boston, Massachusetts, with her two sons and her butch beau. Look for her celebrations of butch/femme in Best Lesbian Erotica 2007, 2008, and 2009; Fantasy: Untrue Stories of Lesbian Passion; Girl Crazy (forthcoming); Ultimate Lesbian Erotica 2009; and the drag king anthology from Suspect Thoughts Press.
Josephine Wilson is an academic, published writer, and performer. She is currently completing her PhD in gender studies. She lectures, writes and performs regularly about the subject of trans, sexuality and femme, among other topics. Most recently she produced and performed in The Genderqueer Playhouse, a show focusing on the multiplicities of gender as performed by a company of queer artists. This show is the basis for a new film, in which she also appears: The Lovers and Fighters Convention (2009), directed by Mike Wyeld. She has just finished a four-month run appearing in Suzanne Osten’s Glada änkan at Stockholm’sFolkoperan. She appears in several films, including Zemirah Moffat’s Mirror Mirror (2006) and Inge Blackman’s Fem (2007). Josephine appears on Truly Kaput’s album, Bed Songs (2006, Irrk records). She currently lives in Stockholm with her sometimes-femme partner, Sophia, with whom Josephine is completely besotted. More information about Josephine and her antics can be found at josephineallison.com.
J.C. Yu lives in New York City. She has worked professionally on issues of domestic violence, HIV/AIDS, and education, including an after-school program for LGBTQ youth. She has been involved in arts activism and health advocacy projects with many grassroots organizations in New York. J.C. was on the Programming Committee for the Femme 2008 Conference that took place in Chicago.
Volume 2 Contributors
Julie Jordan Avritt lives with her daughter in Raleigh, North
Carolina, which once, very long ago, lay under the ocean, and perhaps
still should. She spends her days wondering why the hell she works so
damn hard. Although she may be staunchly agnostic, she’s the damned
best palm reader east of the Mississippi. You can ask anyone.
Born and raised in the hot hot heat of the dirty South, Cherry Bomb has been performing since she was just a tiny pile of gunpowder.
Conceived in the throes of a passionate one–night stand between bell
hooks and RuPaul, art, activism, and a love of glitter are built into
her sordid DNA. These days you can catch her raising eyebrows on
burlesque stages across the country, posing for the I *Heart* Brooklyn
Girls (iheartbrooklyngirls.com) queer pin–up calendar, and blogging
burlesque and love at cherrybombnyc.com.
Caitlin Petrakis Childs is a young, white, queer, intersex, femme,
off–and–on sex worker, community organizer and high school drop–out
from Atlanta, Georgia. Since age fourteen, she has been active in the
queer, feminist, intersex, anti–racist, disability, anarchist, sex
worker rights and animal rights movements. Caitlin is also a burlesque
performer, a self–declared “book slut” and (sometimes) writer.
Feedback, fan mail and other inquires can be directed to:
CaitlinPetrakisChilds@gmail.com.
Sascha Elise Cohen is a twenty–three–year-old graduate of the
University of California, Los Angeles. In addition to personal essays,
she writes poetry and short fiction.
Sherilyn Connelly is a San Francisco–based writer. Her words can be found on paper in I Do / I Don’t by Suspect Thoughts Press, Good
Advice for Young Trendy People of All Ages by Manic D Press, It’s So
You by Seal Press, More Five Minute Erotica by Running Press,
Girlfriends, Morbid Curiosity, and Instant City.
Kimberly Dark continues to work tirelessly on her abilities as a
parent, poet, professor and raconteur who can unfold the world through
performance, smooth out the crinkles from folding, read the legend and
say, “You Are Here.” Someday she will even be able to refold the world
and fit it back into the glove–box. “Roadside in Perris California” is
also available on her 2008 audio CD, Location is Everything. Whether
in print or performance, her work renders the invisible contours of
gender palpable through everyday experience and humorous social
analysis. For more about Kimberly, visit kimberlydark.com.
Darrah de jour is a femme writer, actress and Lifestyle Editor for
Cool Hunt, Inc., an editorial press agency, based in Los Angeles. Her
work has been published in top–selling women’s glossies, including
Marie Claire, Elle, Cosmopolitan, Self, Singles Japan, and Ray Li. Her
essays, fiction, and poetry have appeared in indie zines like San
Francisco’s Doorknobs & BodyPaint (website and print anthology),
Lodestar Quarterly, and in books by Alyson Books, InSight Out Books
and others. Her monthly column, “Femme in the City,” ran for a year
and a half in LGBT Southern California’s dot Newsmagazine and found
her many adorable admirers. Darrah is also a film and television
actress, having performed alongside Holly Hunter and Beau Bridges,
also appearing in General Hospital and most recently as Anjelika in
the Cannes Film Festival short film, Miss Bertram’s Awakening,
currently being developed for television. For more, see
myspace.com/darrahdejour.
JD Dykes is a transgendered butch who has traveled the United States as a punk rock musician and BDSM educator. JD’s writing has appeared
in venues including the queer weekly, ETC, and seleatherfest.com, and
has been produced by the theatre company of Dad’s Garage in Atlanta.
JD lives in Atlanta with his partner, Margaret.
J. E. Franet is a University of California, Berkeley, graduate and
queer mother of two. Her memoir, “Someone You Should Know,” is
published in the anthology Hitched! Wedding Stories from San Francisco
City Hall (2005). She contributes to Humboldt’s lesbian newsletter,
The L Word, and is currently writing her first book. [Editor’s note: J. E.
Franet tragically passed away on December 25, 2008.]
Leslie Freeman is a dis/abled femme artist, activist, and creative writing facilitator. As founder of TouchStone Writers (touchstonewriters.com), workshops for writers with dis/abilities, Leslie has presented in a variety of forums. Recently, you may have caught her workshop on writing in community with survivors at the Mazzoni Center’s Philadelphia Trans Health Conference, or heard her read her work with the Body Heat Femme Porn Tour in Northampton, Massachusetts. Leslie’s writing about sex and dis/abled femme identity has been profiled in make/shift. She also curated a special “Cripping Femme” feature for Femmecast! The Queer Fat Femme Guide to Life Podcast. Leslie lives with her two beautiful children in Burlington, Vermont.
Alex Holding is a femme writer.
Tara Hardy is the working–class, queer, femme poet who founded Bent, a writing institute for LGBTIQ people in Seattle, Washington. A daughter
of the United Auto Workers and an activist in the Battered Women’s
Movement, she was elected Seattle’s Poet Populist and won Seattle
Grand Slam Champion in 2002. She’s competed on four Seattle Slam
Teams, coached two teams, and most recently brought home the
fourth–place trophy from the 2008 Women of the World Poetry Slam. To
contact Tara, or to arrange for a performance, email
wordyfemme@hotmail.com. Her webpage is tarahardy.net. You may find her
on MySpace at myspace.com/tarahardygetsbent.
Ryn Hodes is a fifty–something, menopausal, third–generation New York Jew. She is a social worker and domestic violence advocate, a
self–defense teacher, writer, organizer, mother, and a passionate,
cranky, skeptical, hopeful, old–school femme.
Rachel Hurst is a dedicated teacher of first–year university students in feminist studies and fine arts cultural studies. Endeavoring to
find outlets for creative expression outside of writing, she takes
vast pleasure in cooking and baking elaborate and time-intensive
recipes, makeup art, knitting, mosaics, intaglio and screen printing.
Rachel also enjoys reading creative nonfiction about science and
nature, which inspire her art. Rachel spends the rest of her time
writing a dissertation about cosmetic surgery, femininity and beauty
in pursuit of a doctorate in Women’s Studies at York University, and riding her gorgeous bike.
Alisa Lemberg went on her first international flight when she was two years old, and she hasn’t stayed put since. She has traveled
extensively, with her red patent leather Doc Martins in tow, of
course. Lemberg has lived in Russia, worked in the Middle East and
served as Peace Corps volunteer in Thailand, which has lead her to develop a habit of switching languages in mid–sentence that she hopes you’ll find
endearing. She received a bachelor’s degree in Sociology from Boston
University, and currently lives in San Francisco.
Sassafras Lowrey is a genderqueer high femme, militant storyteller, author, artist, and activist. Ze believes that everyone has a story to
tell, and that the telling of those stories is essential to creating
social change. An accomplished storyteller, ze was an original member
of “The Language of Paradox” founded and directed by Kate Bornstein.
Ze is a contributor to numerous anthologies including LGBTQ: America
Today, The Femme Coloring Book, and Gendered Hearts. Sassafras was
honored as one of Portland’s top emerging writers by In Other Words
Women’s Books and Resources in 2004. Ze is the editor of the highly
anticipated Kicked Out anthology (2009) from Homofactus Press.
Sassafras is also the author of GSA to Marriage: Stories of a Life
Lived Queerly (Homofactus Press, 2010). Ze lives in New York City with
hir partner, two puddle–shaped cats, and a princess dog. For more
about Sassafras, visit pomofreakshow.com.
Lucy Marrero is a queer, light–skinned, Puerto Rican, mixed–race, high femme, single mama, psychology grad student, and glitter connoisseur.
Her writing has been published in Hipmama Magazine, Sinister Wisdom,
and Young Scholars in Writing. Lucy can usually be found somewhere in
her home bent over a laptop, juggling the incessant needs of a young
child with the relentless schoolwork of grad school. She attends
Antioch University, Los Angeles, and draws hearts in her notebooks
that say, “Community Psych+Lucy=Love 4Ever.” She also participates in
the LA chapter of INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence and spends a
lot of time thinking about how to resist oppressive and violent ways
of being and contribute to liberating, transformative, loving ways of
being.
Ariel McGowan is a white, middle–class, college–educated, anarchist transwoman living in Denver. This is her first published work.
Serena Mawulisa, a.k.a. whoretic, is a high–femme, queer dyke whore, sex–worker activist, performer and genderphile in nosebleed heels —
like Barbie, she can’t walk in flats. She thinks that femme has the
capacity to challenge sexism and homophobia with beauty, humour and
camp.
Bay Windows dubbed Peggy Munson “a poet at heart, and a master of the written word,” while another reviewer simply called her work a “wet
dream.” She is the author of the Lambda finalist, Project Queerlit–winning novel Origami Striptease, which Eileen Myles called “a good, dirty
book.” Pulitzer prize-winning poet Yusef Komunyakaa praised her latest
book, Pathogenesis, as “forthright and magical in its scope.” She is
also the editor of Stricken: Voices from the Hidden Epidemic of
Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, a seminal work in the history of ME/CFIDS.
Her work was published in A Decade of Best Lesbian Erotica, as well as
in Best American Erotica 2006, Best American Erotica 2007, and Susie
Bright’s latest collection, X: An Erotic Treasury. Peggy has performed
by DVD across the country in venues such as The Femme Show, Sins
Invalid, New Words, Virginia’s Festival of the Book, Cornell
University, and elsewhere. She has been a fellow at the MacDowell
Colony, Cottages at Hedgebrook, and the Ragdale Foundation, a winner
of the San Francisco Bay Guardian Fiction Contest, and a finalist for
many prestigious poetry prizes. She blogs about chronic illness and
disability issues, with a focus on environmental illness, at
peggymunson.com and myspace.com/peggymunson and hopes to create a more
disability–inclusive notion of queer and femme. Peggy would love to
hear from like–minded revolutionaries!
August Nightingale is a performance artist, writer, and community organizer in a big Midwestern town. As a femme fatale, August spends much of her time conspiring with the Femme Mafia, dreaming up post–capitalist worlds, and plotting various revolutions. Supporting her clandestine activities as a barista by day, August spends her nights canoodling with a bunch of shady queer–mos and stripping her way into the hearts of men at her neighborhood strip club. August believes in queer theater for politicized community–building, D.I.Y. homemaking, and fostering radically cooperative, autonomous spaces. She sends you her
love.
Lisa Papez was born and raised in the Pacific Northwest and currently shares her life with her butch wife, Peggy, and her two step–sons in
beautiful Vancouver, British Columbia. Lisa came out of the closet in
1996, has identified as a queer femme since 2002, and married Peggy,
legally, in August, 2006. Extremely passionate about queer femme and
queer butch identity, Lisa strives to challenge the stereotypes both
within and outside the queer community and to encourage society to
embrace butch and femme as more than just “labels,” but rather as
expressions of gender and identity.
Leah Lakshmi Piepzna–Samarasinha is a queer Sri Lankan writer and performer, based for ten years in Toronto, recently relocated to Oakland, California. The author of Consensual Genocide (TSAR, 2006), her work has been widely anthologized in the queer, feminist and of color press, including in Yes Means Yes; Homelands; Colonize This; We Don’t Need Another Wave; Bitchfest; Without a Net; Dangerous Families; Geeks, Misfits and Outlaws; Bent on Writing; Femme; and A Girl’s Guide to Taking Over the World. She writes for Bitch, Colorlines, Herizons,
Hyphen, Left Turn, Make/Shift and Xtra magazines, and regularly performs and tours her work throughout North America. She is the co-director of Mangos With Chili, North America’s only annual touring cabaret of queer and trans of color performers, and is currently completing her first memoir, Dirty River, and her second book of poetry, Love Cake. Visit her at brownstargirl.com.
Maura Ryan is a queer high femme, a radical sociologist, a teacher, a student, a feminist (despite its shit), a southerner (despite its
shit), and an impeccable hostess (seriously write to her for a cookie
recipe). She loves curly hair, high heels, Sephora, and talk of a
revolution—especially all at the same time. Building femme solidarity
and recognizing femme loveliness is her greatest pleasure. Contact:
femmehotness@yahoo.com.
Maria See is a Brooklyn native who has lived in the Albany Metro Area, the San Francisco Bay Area and Chicago. Until 2007, she ran an
award–winning queer news and culture blog. Follow Maria on Twitter: @mariaseesall.
Sinclair Sexsmith loves femmes and is the kinky queer butch top behind
Sugarbutch Chronicles at sugarbutch.net.
Ann Tweedy is a poet and a lawyer. Her poetry has been published widely in literary magazines and anthologies such as Knock; Harrington
Lesbian Literary Quarterly; Rattle; Getting Bi: Voices of Bisexuals
Around the World; Clackamas Literary Review; Gertrude; and The Drag
King Anthology. She has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and her
poetry chapbook, Beleaguered Oases, is forthcoming from
TcCreativePress in Los Angeles. Some of her poetry is also available
on her website, anntweedypoetry.com. After several years of practicing
law, Ann recently transitioned to teaching at a law school. She is
also an Advisory Editor for Knock Journal.
C. T. Whitley is a transgender guy from Colorado. He currently resides in Brooklyn, New York, with his fiancée and Yorkshire Terrier, Pal.
Although he came of age in the West, currently his days are spent
working as a financial officer and freelance writer in New York City.
He considers himself to be an activist with a passion for social
research. Eventually, Cameron would like to find himself in graduate
school working towards a PhD in sociology. Born in a female body,
Cameron has struggled to cultivate his male identity while validating
his internal feminine nature.
Allison Wonderland has a BA in Women’s Studies, a weakness for
lollipops, and a fondness for rubber ducks. Her favorite sound is Fran
Drescher’s voice, and her cocktail of choice is a Shirley Temple. A
femmeinine lesbian, Allison pens plays, essays, and short stories. Her
writing appears in Wetter; Island Girls; femeninete; Hurts So Good;
Best Lesbian Love Stories 2009; Coming Together: At Last; and Best
Lesbian Romance 2009. See what she’s up to at
aisforallison.blogspot.com.
J.C. Yu lives in New York City. She has worked professionally on
issues of domestic violence, HIV/AIDS, and education, including an
after–school program for LGBTQ youth. She has been involved in arts
activism and health advocacy projects with many grassroots
organizations in New York. J.C. was on the Programming Committee for
the Femme 2008 Conference that took place in Chicago.
