This Reads Queer

‘This Reads Queer is a literature event that isn't boring.’

 

An evening of readings and performance by Dodie Bellamy, Natasha Lall, Richard Porter, Verity Spott, Isabel Waidner, and music by Charlie Porter.

 

Presented by artist Richard Porter and writer Isabel Waidner, This Reads Queer follows on from Queers Read This, and features readings of texts working across formal distinctions between prose and poetry or critical and creative. Readings span themes of queer rage (Porter), sissy bois (Lall), prayers, manifestos and bravery (Spott), diamonds and empires (Waidner), and writers who love too much (Bellamy).

 

The event celebrates the launch of A queer anthology of rage (Pilot Press, 2018), and the ongoing work of innovative LGBTQI+, Black, POC and working-class writers.

 

The original title of the series, Queers Read This, is gratefully borrowed from an anonymously published leaflet distributed at a pride march in New York, June 1990.

Dodie Bellamy’s writing focuses on sexuality, politics and narrative experimentation, challenging the distinctions between fiction, essay, and poetry. She is the 2018–19 subject of the CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Art’s On Our Mind program, a yearlong series of public events, commissioned essays and reading group meetings inspired by an artist’s writing and lifework. Her most recent collection is When the Sick Rule the World (Semiotext(e), 2015). Her essay ‘The Beating of Our Hearts’ was included in the 2014 Whitney Biennial. With Kevin Killian, she edited the collection Writers Who Love Too Much: New Narrative 1977-1997 (Nightboat Books, 2017).

 

Natasha Lall is a Glasgow-based artist working predominantly with film, sound and text. Lall’s work explores shyness, dysphoria and childlike imagination. Using cheap materials, home-based backdrops and a camera phone, Lall performs to explore their deepest fantasies without having to leave their comfort zone. With a focus on self-care and preservation, Lall’s practice aims to provide a sense of humour, informality and therapy. Recent works include the film trilogy The 16mb, Future Sounds and A Mini City shown at venues including The Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, and Scores For Sissy Bois performed at venues including Lux Moving Image, London.

 

Charlie Porter is men’s fashion critic for the Financial Times. He also co-runs the queer rave Chapter 10.

 

Richard Porter is an artist currently studying on the MFA Fine Art course at Goldsmiths, University of London. He founded Pilot Press in 2017 and his publications Not here. A queer anthology of loneliness, Over there. A queer anthology of joy and A queer anthology of rage are available in Tenderbooks and Donlon Books in London, and Printed Matter Inc, Mast Books and McNally Jackson Books in New York City.

 

Verity Spott is a poet, performer and musician from Hove, England. Her books include The Mutiny Aboard the RV Felicity (Tipped Press), Click Away Close Door Say (Contraband Books), We Will Bury You (Veer Books), Gideon (Barque Press), and Prayers Manifestos Bravery (Pilot Press). She is regularly invited to read her work and is a member of experimental performance company Wolf Kid Theatre.

 

Isabel Waidner is a writer and critical theorist. Their books include Gaudy Bauble (2017) and Liberating the Canon: An Anthology of Innovative Literature (ed., 2018), both published by Dostoyevsky Wannabe. Waidner's articles, essays and short fictions have appeared in journals including 3:AM Magazine, Configurations, Gorse, The Happy Hypocrite, and The Quietus. They are a lecturer in Creative Writing at University of Roehampton, London.