ABOUT SAY PLEASE

In Say Please, Sinclair Sexsmith presents a cornucopia of queer kink—tantalizing tales rich in variety and saucy details of girls put in their place—and held there firmly. Whether readers dream of surrendering to a lover or of taking control, Say Please offers plenty of erotic inspiration and gives readers exactly what they want! Come hear authors from the book read their stories and celebrate the release of this kinky queer collection.

ABOUT SINCLAIR SEXSMITH

Sinclair Sexsmith runs the award-winning personal online writing project Sugarbutch Chronicles: The Gender, and Relationship Adventures of a Kinky Queer Butch Top at sugarbutch.net. With work published in various anthologies and websites, including Take Me There: Trans and Genderqueer Erotica, she is the guest editor of Best Lesbian Erotica 2012, and her first full-length erotica anthology, Say Please: Lesbian BDSM Erotica, which was published by Cleis Press in April 2012. Mr. Sexsmith writes, teaches, and performs focusing on the subjects of sex, gender, and relationships. More information on her at mrsexsmith.com.

The event will be Friday, May 25, 2012, 7-9pm
at The Pleasure Chest
7733 Santa Monica Blvd, West Hollywood
http://www.thepleasurechest.com/losangeleshours.htm
Light refreshments will be provided

ABOUT THE READERS

Check out the hot sex scenes in rebel activist JEANNE CORDOVA’s latest memoir, When We Were Outlaws, on sale now at amazon.com. Other sex writing include essays in award-winning anthologies like: “Conversation With A Gentleman Butch” in Dagger: On Butch Women, “Cheap Gold, a Seduction” in Hot & Bothered 2, “The Mantra of Orgasm” in Viva Arts Quarterly’, “The New Politics of Butch” in Persistence: All Ways Butch and Femme, and “Butches, Lies & Feminism” in Persistent Desire: A Femme Butch Reader.

Equal parts candor and deadpan humor, IAN HARVIE’s distinctive matter-of-fact delivery and almost surreal anecdotes about the intricacies of his exceptional life are so full of humanity that they become universal. Ian’s observations about gender-specific societal codes, privilege, coming out twice, and learning new bathroom etiquette, will have you peeing your pants and wanting to check your neighbor’s pants to see what’s inside. He’s the world’s first FTM transgender comic, put in context; make his anecdotes about his own phobia of public restrooms all the more side-splitting. Ian’s performance makes you think and wonder, but most importantly, it makes you laugh. Ian just filmed his first one-hour standup comedy film for cable television and was Executive Produced by iconic queer Comic and friend, Margaret Cho. He’s also been seen on ABC’s Comics Unleashed with Byron Allen and LOGO’s One Night Standup. Follow his ramblings on Twitter @ianharvie or check out his tour schedule at www.ianharvie.com

[rife] is a genderqueer leatherboy from Texas. They work as the lead artist for the GENDER book project, which is a visual primer on all things gender. When he isn’t doing that, he can be found doodling, pulling prints, welding, walking in the woods, or getting flogged by some butch hottie. Mel has a BA in studio arts from Rice University and even though he’s a recent transplant to Oakland, he will always be a cowboi at heart. Follow his work at www.thegenderbook.com or see more of rife’s art at www.rowdyferret.com.

CLAUDIA RODRIGUEZ, writer, organizer, performance artists and AIDS activist is from Compton, CA. She received her MFA in creative writing from the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts). Claudia’s play “Cosa Rara” was a semi-finalist in both the Asuncion Playwrights Project national competition out of Teatro Pregones in Bronx New York and the Sherwood Award sponsored by the Center Theater Group in Los Angeles. Most recently Claudia’s work has appeared in Baby Remember My Name: An Anthology of New Queer Girl Writing edited by Michelle Tea. Claudia received the Emerging Lesbian Writer award from the Astraea Foundation in 2001. She is also a founding member of Butchlalis de Panochtitlan, a Los Angeles-based multimedia performance ensemble renders cartographies of desire, identity, and localized histories on the bodies they walk in as they perform themselves, each other, imagined characters and caricatures.

 Nominations are now being accepted for the Alexis Rivera Trailblazer and the Outstanding Ally Awards. Please e-mail your nominations in 300 words or less describing this person and his/her/their contributions to the trans and genderqueer community totranspridela@lagaycenter.org.  

NOMINATIONS ARE DUE BY 5PM ON WED. MAY 23RD

Alexis Rivera Trailblazer Award

Trans Pride L.A. is thrilled to announce that the Trailblazer Award has been re-named in honor of Alexis Rivera.  As one of the first honorees, Alexis was a powerful force in advocating for transgender rights and she touched the lives of many people with her unique ability to bring together our diverse community.  Alexis passed away on March 28, 2012.  She was a driving force behind Trans Pride LA, and her passion and enthusiasm are greatly missed. To preserve her spirit and legacy in our community, we are proud to be accepting nominations for the Alexis Rivera Trailblazer Award, which recognizes a person in the trans and genderqueer community who demonstrates outstanding leadership as a community advocate and role model.   

The Outstanding Ally Award

The Outstanding Ally Award recognizes an ally who has gone to great lengths to serve, support and ultimately empower the trans and genderqueer community.

Don’t hesitate! Submit your nominations today!

• Queer intersects Punk and DIY in this spatial and temporal exploration of radical queer narratives and DIY performance art in the Inland Empire. ————————————— WITHRAQUEL GUTIERREZ MICHA CARDENAS Raquel Gutiérrez Raquel Gutiérrez (b. 1976, Los Angeles, California) cut her teeth on Los Angeles performance art when she interned and house managed at Highways Performance Space in the year 2000. Raquel is a performance writer, playwright, and cultural organizer, studied in university settings and performed in a variety of locations, like the Salvadoran countryside, cabarets, galleries, San Antonio, more universities, Pico-Union, etc. In 2001, Gutiérrez was one of the co-founding members of the performance ensemble, Butchlalis de Panochtitlan (BdP), a community-based and activist-minded group aimed at creating a visual vernacular around queer Latinidad in Los Angeles. Raquel also co-founded other queer women of color projects and Latino projects, Tongues, A Project of VIVA and Epicentro Poetry project. Raquel has published work in Ambientes: New Queer Latino Writing (edited by Lázaro Lima and Felice Picano), Los Angeles Weekly, Make/shift magazine, Journal of Chicana/Latina Studies, and Izote Vos: Salvadoran American Literary and Visual Art (published by SF’s Pacific News Service).   Currently, Raquel is in the Community Scholars program through the UCLA School of Urban Planning and is also the Manager of Community Partnerships for Cornerstone Theater Company, a leader in community-based theater-making in the United States. – micha cardenas Micha Cárdenas is an artist/theorist who works in performance, wearable electronics, hacktivism and critical gender studies. She is a PhD student in Media Arts and Practice (iMAP) at University of Southern California and a member of Electronic Disturbance Theater 2.0. Her book The Transreal: Political Aesthetics of Crossing Realities, published by Atropos Press in 2012, discusses artists’ strategies for using multiple realities, such as augmented, mixed and alternate reality, and the intersection of those strategies with the politics of gender, in a transnational context. She blogs at transreal.org and tweets at @michacardenas. http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/163496660/local-autonomy-networks-find-each-other/widget/card.html ————————————— A QUEER YOUTH VISIBILITY PROJECT (QYVP) FUNDRAISER The Inland Empire QYVP seeks to help local queer and trans* youth gain visibility,community, resources and empowerment through Do It Y(our)self efforts and media. Suggested at door donation of $5 http://www.facebook.com/IEQYVP ————————————— TIKAL BAKERY Please support Tikal Bakery by ordering from their selection of Guatemalan bread and cuisine, before and after the event. The bakery offers a wide selection of vegan and vegetarian items. Friday, June 8, 2012 7:30pm Tikal Bakery 3975 Mission Inn Ave Riverside CA, 92501

The Interdivisional Media Arts and Practice (iMAP) PhD program in the School of Cinematic Arts at the University of Southern California will be holding their annual showcase event, iMappening 2012, on May 9th and 10th, 2012 from 10am-5pm. The event will take place at Fox Stage 3, SCX-105,  in the School of Cinematic Arts, and will include exhibits and talks from the artists, designers, and scholars of the iMAP program. This year, iMappening will include a gallery exhibition with an opening reception and a series of lectures with invited critics. “iMappening is open to the public in order to bring awareness about the iMAP program and showcase the important ongoing work being done in iMAP, a hybrid PhD program supported by all of the branches of the School of Cinematic Arts,” said Andreas Kratky, Acting Program Director for iMAP.

Rosetta Stones by VJ Um Amel

“USC’s iMAP program is on the cutting edge of new media art and design research and digital scholarship, one of only a handful of PhD programs that combine digital theory and practice,” said Jeanne Jo, an iMAP Student who will be finishing in 2014. Bringing together all the strengths of a world class school of cinema with innovations in art, science and technology, iMAP students work in emerging fields including critical design, networked performance, serious games, social media analytics, data visualization, wearable electronics, non-linear narrative cinema, immersive cinema, digital media and learning and database documentary.

MARRA by Jeanne Jo

Projects to be featured at this year’s iMappening span a broad range of practices. VJ Um Amel’s R-Shief project visualizes a massive database of tweets of the arab intifadas. Lauren Fenton’s dissertation project PolyAngylene is an interactive themed environment that employs expressive physical computing devices and projection mapping as platforms for a narrative about the future of urban space. Joshua McVeigh-Schultz’s project experiments with audience-driven tele-spectacle. Micha Cárdenas’ Local Autonomy Networks aims to create mesh networked wearable electronic garments to prevent violence against women, LGBTQI people, people of color and other groups who continue to survive violence on a daily basis. Diego Costa’s Matricídio appropriates the theory-practice methodological ethos of psychoanalysis (the après-coup, the slip of the tongue, the dreamwork) into a queer cinematic language. Clea T. Waite’s ν descending is an homage to Marcel Duchamp’s seminal work realized as a virtual, interactive, cinema-painting in stereoscopic 3D. Rosemary Comella’s video, Garin Park, explores how the use of image stabilization and image warping affects “the trace of the real” often associated with documentary filmmaking.  Kristy Kang’s project is an online cultural history exploring identity formation and place making in the multi-ethnic community of Los Angeles’ Koreatown. Gabriel Peters-Lazaro will share video from the Junior AV Club, an ongoing project exploring the use of digital media technologies as tools for early childhood learning. Adam Liszkiewicz’s Selected Games offers an alternate take on the common video game tropes of realism, violence, and control. Jeff Watson’s Reality Ends Here is an underground alternate reality game played by students at the School of Cinematic Arts involving collaboration, strategy, and artistic experimentation.

PolyAngylene by Lauren Fenton

Talks at iMappening will cover a broad range of interventions into the intersections of critical theory and digital practices. The topics to be covered include “Forget Theory: The Psychoanalytic As Queer Practice and Creative Research” by Diego Costa, “Multimodal Survivals: Vernacular Preservations and Media Design” by Veronica Paredes, “Experience Design and the Practice of Themed Space” by Lauren Fenton, “Redesigning Civic Rituals: social games and new models of participation” by Joshua McVeigh Shultz, “Reality Ends Here: Transforming Community Through Pervasive Play” by Jeff Watson, “The Seoul of Los Angeles: Contested Identities and Transnationalism in Immigrant Space” by Kristy Kang and more.

Bullet Hell by Adam Liszkiewicz and Anton Hand

The exhibition opens on Wednesday, May 9th from 6-9pm. The public exhibition will be open also on Thursday from 10am-7pm. Panels will take place from 10am to 3:30pm, in the form of fifteen minute talks with a question and answer session at the end.

For media inquiries and questions, contact M. Cárdenas at 619-847-4885,mmcarden@usc.edu or L. Fenton 323-317-2355, lfenton1@gmail.com. More information about the program is available at http://imap.usc.edu.

Local Autonomy Networks by Micha Cárdenas

Opening May 9th from 6-9pm, panels and exhibition May 10th, 2012, from 10am-7pm

Where: USC School of Cinematic Arts
Fox Stage 3, SCX-105
930 W. 34th St., SCA 110, Los Angeles, CA 90089-2211

Contact: M. Cárdenas, 619-847-4885, mmcarden@usc.edu

  L. Fenton, 323-317-2355, lfenton1@gmail.com

Heidi Barton Stink, Guante, See More Perspective, A Charming Gut

Heidi Barton Stink, See More Perspective, A Charming Gut

I’ve admired Heidi Barton Stink’s work for a while (see my March 2011 interview with her here) and I’m super excited about her new album “A Charming Gut”. The album (which is a collaboration with rapper/producer See More Perspective) features Heidi’s skillful and poignant lyrics layered over See More’s decadent vinyl-based tracks.

Fans of classical hip hop are sure to be delighted by this beautiful album.

The album drops May 7th and you can pre-order it and sample a track here) and if you happen to be in the Mineapolis area you can party with Heidi & See More at Hell’s Kitchen on May 17th. 

A Charming Gut Album Release Party 
Thurs May 17th at Hell’s Kitchen
Heidi Barton Stink 
See More Perspective
Desdamona
Guante
WITH DJ Ganzo Bean
10pm 18+ $5

Highways Performance Space@ 18th St. Arts Center 1651 18th Street|Santa Monica, CA 904041/2 block north of Olympic Blvd.
friday + saturday APRIL 20+21, 2012 at 8:30pm
——————————————
highways performance space + lambda literary present

WANDERLUST
curated by raquel gutiérrez
writers of latino/a and queer extractions
make the specter of place known through
word, as they shepherd us in and guide us
through radical spatial narratives that weave
in tales of sexualized citizenry, gendered
candor and transnational desires.
—————————————
WITH

CHARLES RICE-GONZALEZ (April 21 only)
SUSANA COOK
MARCELA FUENTES
RAFA ESPARZA + LUIS FLORES
FRANK GALARTE
MICHA CARDENAS
RAQUEL GUTIERREZ

Charles Rice-González, born in Puerto Rico and reared in the Bronx, is a writer, long-time community and LGBT activist and Executive Director of BAAD! The Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance. He received a B.A. in Communications from Adelphi University and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Goddard College. His debut novel, Chulito, was released in October 2011, and he co-edited, with Charlie Vázquez, From Macho to Mariposa: New Gay Latino Fiction released in August 2011. He is also an award-winning playwright and serves on the boards of the Bronx Council on the Arts and the National Association of Latino Art and Cultures.
—

Born in Argentina, Susana Cook is a New York based playwright, director and performer who has been presenting innovative works internationally for over 20 years.

She has performed in Spain, France, India, Argentina, Colombia, Ecuador, Canada and at several colleges and universities around the country.

Some of her latest shows are : The Homophobes, a clown show, The Fury of The Gods, Homeland Insecurities, The idiot King, The Values Horror Show, 100 Years of Attitude, Dykenstein, Hamletango, Prince of Butches, Gross National Product, Hot Tamale, Conga Guerrilla Forest, The Fraud, Butch Fashion Show in the Femme Auto Body Shop, Rats and Tango Lesbiango.

She is the recipient of several fellowships and awards from the New York Foundation for the Arts, Arts International, Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice, The Franklin Furnace Archives, The Puffin Foundation and INTAR.
–
Rafael Esparza is a multidisciplinary artist living and working out of Los Angeles.
An investigation of (non)personal histories that have constructed existing ideas surrounding the body weave in and out his body of work. He is invested in creating
and experiencing moments in time inaccessible to him using ritual and installation; and credits this interest as the primary inspiration for his performances. Rafa earned his B.A. in art from UCLA, has exhibited, performed and also collaborated with other artists in various venues throughout Los Angeles.
–
Luis Flores

My work seeks to shed light on topics that are often ignored with blindly accepted norms, topics
that trigger unconscious and automatic responses to preconceived expectations or beliefs about
particular situations. I seek to break stereotypes with which I am often labeled and to which I am
confined or restricted. It is my hope to challenge viewers’ reactions and elicit self-reflection on how the environment has contributed to their conditioned self and how they continue to perpetuate a situation consistent with their preconceptions.
–
Marcela Fuentes (marshagall) is a performance scholartist from Argentina. She currently lives in Los Angeles where she teaches, writes, and performs on topics such as transnationalism, new forms of political engagement, and artistic responses to crises.
–
J. Frank Galarte was born and raised in Brawley, California. He recently received his PhD from the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign and is currently a visiting professor in the Department of Gender and Women’s Studies at the University of Arizona. He is currently working on a book manuscript based on this dissertation entitled, “El Sabor del Amor y del Dolor: Affect, Violence and the (Trans)Body in the Chican@ Historical Imaginary”. His research interests are in Chicana@ Studies, Queer Studies, Affect Studies and Transgender Studies. His obsessions are mozz, chavela vargas, oldies and finding the right pomade for his pompadour.
–
Micha Cárdenas is an artist/theorist who works in performance, wearable electronics, hacktivism and critical gender studies. She is a PhD student in Media Arts and Practice (iMAP) at University of Southern California and a member of Electronic Disturbance Theater 2.0. Her book The Transreal: Political Aesthetics of Crossing Realities, published by Atropos Press in 2012, discusses artists’ strategies for using multiple realities, such as augmented, mixed and alternate reality, and the intersection of those strategies with the politics of gender, in a transnational context. She blogs at transreal.org and tweets at @michacardenas.
–
Raquel Gutiérrez (b. 1976, Los Angeles, California) cut her teeth on Los Angeles performance art when she interned and house managed at Highways Performance Space in the year 2000. Raquel is a performance writer, playwright, and cultural organizer, studied in university settings and performed in a variety of locations, like the Salvadoran countryside, cabarets, galleries, San Antonio, more universities, Pico-Union, etc. In 2001, Gutiérrez was one of the co-founding members of the performance ensemble, Butchlalis de Panochtitlan (BdP), a community-based and activist-minded group aimed at creating a visual vernacular around queer Latinidad in Los Angeles. Raquel also co-founded other queer women of color projects and Latino projects, Tongues, A Project of VIVA and Epicentro Poetry project. Raquel has published work in Ambientes: New Queer Latino Writing (edited by Lázaro Lima and Felice Picano), Los Angeles Weekly, Make/shift magazine, Journal of Chicana/Latina Studies, and Izote Vos: Salvadoran American Literary and Visual Art (published by SF’s Pacific News Service). Currently, Raquel is in the Community Scholars program through the UCLA School of Urban Planning and is also the Manager of Community Partnerships for Cornerstone Theater Company, a leader in community-based theater-making in the United States.

Tickets $20/$15 buy them here:

http://highwaysperformance.org/highways/performance/latinao-queer-literary-series-1-wanderlust/

Flyers here: http://www.facebook.com/events/392497744111378/

Los Angeles Transgender Film Festival

The Los Angeles Transgender Film Festival is seeking films for our fourth annual film festival. We will be screening many diverse works made by trans, genderqueer, and intersex artists, including comedy, dramedy, drama, experimental, animation, and more! We also welcome work by allies who are showcasing “transgenderqueer” themes in their work.

========

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

1. Accepting Feature Length and Short Films in all genres.
2. Complete the Festival Entry Form  Click To Download 2012 LATFF Submission Form Here
3. Submit a DVD (Region 1) preview copy of your film/video. These items will be archived and will not be returned.
4. Include a CD of Stills (300 dpi, high resolution) if possible

https://www.tgfilmfest.com

https://www.twitter.com/TGFilmFestival
Contact Us
LA Transgender Film Festival c/o Gender Justice LA
6815 Willoughby Ave.
Los Angeles, California 90038
323-690-2484
Submissions Due May 31st!

The Los Angeles Transgender Film Festival is seeking films for our fourth annual film festival. We will be screening many diverse works made by trans, genderqueer, and intersex artists, including comedy, dramedy, drama, experimental, animation, and more! We also welcome work by allies who are showcasing “transgenderqueer” themes in their work.

========

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

1. Accepting Feature Length and Short Films in all genres.
2. Complete the Festival Entry Form attached
3. Submit a DVD (Region 1) preview copy of your film/video. These items will be archived and will not be returned.
4. Include a CD of Stills (300 dpi, high resolution) if possible

www.tgfilmfest.com
About Us
The LA Transgender Film Festival screens films by trans, genderqueer, and intersex filmmakers to audiences throughout Southern California and beyond.

We wrapped up 2011 with a whirlwind of screenings at UC Riverside, Pasadena City College, UC Irvine, UC Davis, CSU Northridge, USC, and CSU San Bernardino.

Contact us to bring us to your school or community!

Upcoming Tour Dates:
March 29 University of Redlands – Festival founder Kalil Cohen will give Keynote Address for the Women & Gender Studies Conference
facebook.com/TGFilmFest

For Submission Form Please go to: http://catharsisproject.wufoo.com/forms/catharsis-submission-form/

What We’re Looking For: Stories of personal experience from self-identified trans women who are survivors of rape, sexual assault, or other sexual violence. Submissions should be roughly 2-5 pages in length and focus primarily on individual experiences and feelings. Because every individual processes these experiences in different ways, the “tone” of the collection will be left to the contributors. Anger, humor, grief, healing, indifference, etc. are all welcome themes. Those wishing to remain anonymous will have that wish respected and not be named in the final publication. Anonymity will be granted to the degree at which it’s requested, so please make your needs clear with your submissions.

Why Trans Women Only? The perception that trans women are less often targets of sexual violence is incredibly pervasive, even among allies to the trans community. This erroneous assumption is deeply rooted in cissexism, transphobia, and transmisogyny. While sexual violence affects many communities and is often taboo or “invisible” in those communities, trans women’s experiences are uniquely derided and ignored. This results in the isolation of trans women survivors, a culture of silence within broader trans communities, and a false pretense for the exclusion of trans women from feminist conversations about rape and assault. The purpose of this collection is to give voice to and encourage dialog around the specific reality of sexual violence against trans women. We are interested in work by trans women of all backgrounds, regardless of transition status, race, class, education, ability, age, orientation, or occupation. Any survivor of sexual violence that self-identifies as a trans woman is encouraged to contribute.

 To send submit your story, go to: http://catharsisproject.wufoo.com/forms/catharsis-submission-form/

DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSIONS IS JULY 31ST, 2012!

If you want to help further or have any questions please contact reddurkin@gmail.com