Tonight: Memoir Writing Workshop in Brooklyn

I’m excited to facilitate a FREE writing workshop tonight for people in the sex trades in NYC!

Red Umbrella Project offers free, peer-facilitated Memoir Writing Workshops in New York City for individuals with experience in the sex trades. In our workshops, participants generate new writing in class and at home, build their writing skills and confidence, share their stories and get feedback from peers, and ultimately publish a piece in our biannual literary journal Prose & Lore. We also offer a Page to Stage workshop for people who complete the workshop and want to read their work at one of our storytelling events.

RSVP to:  workshops@redumbrellaproject.org for the workshop address!

A Celebration of Prose & Lore 4!

It was a deep pleasure to be writing mentor to two writers from out of state as they worked toward their submission for the excellent anthology, Prose & Lore 4, a collection of stories about sex work. There are not enough books like this celebrating the magnificent language and stories of sex workers and today we get to celebrate this new edition. I will be reading the submissions from the two writers I worked with, Cris Sardina and Julia L.

Join us on Saturday, July 12 at 1pm to celebrate the fourth anthology from Red Umbrella Project at The Tank, 151 W. 46th St. btwn 6th and 7th 8th floor  $12 ticket includes a copy of the brand new issue of Prose & Lore: Memoir Stories About Sex Worker.

Issue 4 includes 20 original, true, first-person stories about experiences in sex work, featuring writers from our NYC memoir writing workshops as well as distance writers who worked with mentor editors.

Contributors include: Annabelle Lee, April Hope, Ava Talley, Barbara R. Lee, Caty Simon, Cris Sardina, Dragonfly, Elle Stanger, Gerry Visco, Janet, Julia L., L. Synn Stern, Leigh Alanna, Lori Adorable, Paris S., Shelby May, Violet Mclean, Rachael Therein, Rei, Rita Rachaels.

Then…..stick around for the New York City premier of ” In My Skin,” an 18 minute documentary film in which nine transgender women in New York City come together in a theater ensemble, where they write and perform a play about the issues of employment, family, and intimate partner violence. Tickets will be $5 suggested donation.

Tonight: Memoir Writing Workshop

I’m excited to be facilitating a FREE memoir writing workshop tonight in Brooklyn for sex workers through the Red Umbrella Project.

Red Umbrella Project offers free, peer-facilitated Memoir Writing Workshops in New York City for individuals with experience in the sex trades. In our workshops, participants generate new writing in class and at home, build their writing skills and confidence, share their stories and get feedback from peers, and ultimately publish a piece in our biannual literary journal Prose & Lore. We also offer a Page to Stage workshop for people who complete the workshop and want to read their work at one of our storytelling events.

The workshops are free and no commitment: you show up, write and share with peers for two hours, go home with a draft and ideas for more. Full details here: Red Umbrella Project.

what it means to be a pro

I sat. Every week for two months in a room which was home to a university I wish I had gone to. I stared at other humans who shared the rhythm of my story. At one time, we had all been in similar rooms, moving our bones in similar ways. And for these weeks, I wrote.

I wrote about parking garages; I wrote about love; I wrote about sex; I wrote about gender. I wrote about writing these snapshots out of me. My words became the strongest bar of soap, cleaning me out.

People want to know what it means to be a writer. What it means to call myself other sometimes. What it means to say non-pro. What it means to be a poet. What it means to be queer. What it means to be human what does it mean to be human.

For all of these, I am still figuring it out.

At the end of our time together in this intimate workshop, we gathered up our pages and they magically (with the help of many talented folks) grew a spine, table of contents, ISBN and a title. Our words birthed itself into a book.

pros(e) was published through the Red Umbrella Project. These are (some) of our stories.

So I’m in a book, does that make me a pro? I meet people everyday, some I actually talk to. Some I just breathe in through observation and eavesdropping. I digest their stories and the sounds of their bones cracking into sentences and songs. Their bodies are books without the blatant table of contents and index. We are all pros just from moving each day.

You crack a part of your body open and blood arrives and a wound and scar and all that is a chapter. You fall in love with someone you weren’t supposed to but it happens and each day you kiss, you slam paintings and orchestral music into each other’s mouths. This becomes a prologue or interlude or footnotes.

We are all books. We are all writers. The words have stained us and some choose to leave smudges alone, while other’s choose translation. Regardless, the words exist.

So…..write it. Or blow it into an instrument. Or smear it onto a stretched canvas. Or cook it into a meal. Or impregnate it into your lover’s body. Or fold it into a paper airplane and send it on over this way.