I'm so excited about this event that I made my own flyer for it. This is it! Some friends and I put these up around Oakland last weekend.
If you don't know Cory Doctorow, consider that he found success as a writer despite completely rejecting the corporate copyright system. Imagine having the courage of conviction to give your books away for free. I'm a big believer in open source and digital rights, but like most writers I cling to the rights to my own work, as if poems could be collectors items if we just make them scarce enough. So I'm eager to hear what Doctorow has to say on writing to make change.
If you don't know Carol Queen, I can tell you her collection Pomosexuality was life-changing for me when I was in college. I still reference it to this day. She's author of many books, including the classic Exhibitionism for the Shy. Like Cory Doctorow, her writing and her activism are intertwined. She was one of the founders of the one of the first gay youth groups in the US, and during the AIDs Her writing on safe sex during the AIDs crisis left the page and led to the development of improvements to the SAR training vital to sexologists. She's cofounder of the Center of Sex and Culture.
David Holper is the poet laureate of city of Eureka. This rising star revived the Dharma Bum spiritual pilgrimage on Mt. Tamalpais. His first novel grapples with climate change, capitalism, fast food and patriarchy...and did I mention it's funny?
If you are a writer and you want to make change in the world, this is the event for you.
Well it's the event for me, anyway. 💅
Oh and you can get tickets here.