Saints and Sinners Literary Festival » 2010 Speakers

Fiona Zedde

cherry — Fri, 14 May 2010 00:35:44 +0000

Fiona Zedde is a Jamaican transplant currently living and working in Atlanta, Georgia. Her work has been published in various anthologies including Best Lesbian Erotica 2004 and 2007, Wicked: Sexy Tales of Legendary Lovers, and Iridescence: Sensuous Shades of Lesbian Erotica. She is also the author of four novels, the Lambda Literary Award finalists Bliss and Every Dark Desire, as well as A Taste of Sin and Hungry for It. Her novellas, “Pure Pleasure,” “Going Wild” and the “Sexual Attraction” appear in the collections, Satisfy Me, Satisfy Me Again, and Satisfy Me Tonight, respectively. www.fionazedde.com.

Emanuel Xavier

cherry — Fri, 14 May 2010 00:35:36 +0000

Emanuel Xavier is the author of the poetry collection Americano, the novel Christ Like, and editor of Bullets & Butterflies: queer spoken word poetry and Mariposas: A Modern Anthology of Queer Latino Poetry. He has been featured on Russell Simmons presents Def Poetry on HBO and has selected finalists for Best Gay Erotica 2008. The CD, Legendary-The Spoken Word Poetry of Emanuel Xavier, is his first spoken word/music collaboration compilation album. He is recipient of the Marsha A. Gomez Cultural Heritage Award and a NYC Council Citation for his contributions to gay, Latino and New York City arts.

Chavisa Woods

cherry — Fri, 14 May 2010 00:35:23 +0000

Chavisa Woods is the author of Love Does Not Make Me Gentle or Kind published by Fly by Night Press in 2008. This book was a finalist for the 2009 Lambda Literary Award for Debut Fiction. Woods is the recipient of the Jerome Foundation 2009 Literary Award for emerging writers. She has served as a literary editor for Tribes Journal from 2003 to 2006. Woods is a regular member of Butch Morris’ world renowned Chorus of Poets. Her poetry and fiction have appeared in Prima Materia, The Gay and Lesbian Review Worldwide, Matador, and many others. She is not afraid to use words like dyke, feminist and socialist to describe herself, although, those are not the only words she would use.

Paul Willis

cherry — Fri, 14 May 2010 00:35:17 +0000

Paul Willis has over 15 years of experience in non-profit management. He has a B.S. degree in Psychology and an M.S. degree in Communication. He started his administrative work in 1992 as the co-director for the Holos Foundation in Minneapolis. The Foundation operated an alternative high school program for at-risk youth. Willis has been the executive director for the Tennessee Williams/New Orleans Literary Festival since 2004. He is the founder of the Saints and Sinners Literary Festival (established in 2003), and has edited various anthologies including the award-winning Love Bourbon Street.

Jerry Wheeler

cherry — Fri, 14 May 2010 00:35:14 +0000

Jerry Wheeler is an editor of the forthcoming book of circus erotica, Tented: Gay Erotic Tales from Under the Big Top (Lethe Press). Wheeler has appeared in many anthologies, including Law of Desire, Best Gay Romance 2010, Bears in the Wild, I Do! and I Like It Like That: True Tales of Gay Desire, as well as online in Velvet Mafia and Greg Wharton’s terrifically queer, Inverte blog. His book reviews appear on Out in Print (www.outinprint.net).

Jess Wells

cherry — Fri, 14 May 2010 00:35:09 +0000

Jess Wells is the author of 13 volumes including three novels, five books of short stories, and anthologies of fiction and social commentary. Her latest work, The Mandrake Broom, dramatizes the fight to save medical knowledge during the witch-burning times in Europe 1465-1540. Her writings are included in over three dozen literary anthologies and journals, university curricula and European publications. She is a recipient of a San Francisco Arts Commission Grant for Literature and a four-time finalist for the Lambda Literary Awards. Jess teaches workshops in “Writing Historical Fiction” and “How to Write with a Full-time Job” as well as lectures on historical topics of the middle ages.

Robert Walker

cherry — Fri, 14 May 2010 00:34:53 +0000

Robert Walker began writing poetry while playing bass in the cover-band ManHole (an all-male group that played songs originally recorded by Courtney Love’s mid-90s band Hole). After ManHole split, Walker enjoyed a brief solo career opening for Ru Paul. After a scandal involving George Michael and a public restroom forced him out of the music business, he became a high school teacher in rural Florida. Robert is currently a Knobler fellow in the MFA program at Virginia Tech, and his poetry has appeared in or is forthcoming from Ash?©: The Journal of Experimental Spirituality, Knockout, Gay & Lesbian Review Worldwide, Mipoesias, and Pearl.

Charlie Vázquez

cherry — Fri, 14 May 2010 00:34:45 +0000

Charlie Vázquez’s debut novel Contraband: A Revolution of the Soul will be published by Rebel Satori in 2010. He is a radical Bronx-bred, Brooklyn-based writer of Cuban and Puerto Rican descent. His fiction and essays have been published in various anthologies, such as Queer and Catholic (Taylor & Francis, 2007) and Best Gay Love Stories: NYC (Alyson, 2006). His writing has also appeared in print and online publications such as Advocate.com, Chelsea Clinton News, NYpress.com and Mensbook Journal. Charlie hosts an East Village monthly reading series called PANIC! which focuses on unusual and original writing—from erotica to poetry to horror.

Cecilia Tan

cherry — Fri, 14 May 2010 00:34:36 +0000

Cecilia Tan is the woman Susie Bright called “simply one of the most important writers, editors, and innovators in contemporary American erotic literature.” She is the author of numerous books of short stories and erotic novels, eBooks, and web serials, and the editor and founder of Circlet Press, Inc., the world’s only publisher dedicated to erotic science fiction and fantasy.

Carsen Taite

cherry — Fri, 14 May 2010 00:34:31 +0000

Carsen Taite works by day (and sometimes night) as a criminal defense attorney in Dallas, Texas. Though her day job is often stranger than fiction, she can’t seem to get enough and spends much of her free time plotting stories. She is the author of truelesbianlove.com (for which she received a Lavender Certificate award from the Alice B. Readers), It Should be a Crime, and Do Not Disturb (June 2010), all published by Bold Strokes Books. She is currently working on her fourth novel, Nothing but the Truth, which, like It Should be a Crime, is a romance with a heavy dose of legal drama. www.carsentaite.com.