Deborah Santana and Jiz Lee at Writers With Drinks

This month's Writers With Drinks includes the creator of NaNoWriMo, an award-winning poet... and Deborah Santana.

When: Saturday, March 19, 2011, 7:30 to 9:30 PM, doors open at 6:30 PM
Who: Jiz Lee, Chris Baty, Deborah Santana, Melissa Stein and Charles Kruger
Where: The Make Out Room, 3225 22nd. St. between Mission and Valencia, San Francisco How much: $5 to $10 sliding scale, all proceeds benefit the CSC.

About the readers/performers:

Jiz Lee is a genderqueer porn star who is known for a gender-bending androgynous look, female ejaculation, vaginal fisting, strap-on performance, and fun sex-positive attitude about sex. The genderqueer performer, who prefers the pronouns “they/them” instead of “she/her” is an advocate for ethical empowerment of realistic bodies and equal gender agency in pornography. In their short years in the adult industry, Jiz has performed for celebrated directors and renown female pornographers, and has contributed as a writer to numerous print and online publications. With a background in arts management, Jiz is also a philanthropist and created the Karma Pervs membership paysite as a creative outlet benefiting sex-positive, queer and kink-friendly non-profit organizations. Ever fascinated by the radical potential of sex, love, and art, Jiz runs a personal blog about sex work as a medium for social activism at JizLee.com.

Chris Baty is a writer best known for creating NaNoWriMo (or "National Novel Writing Month"), in 1999, wherein participants aim to write an entire novel during the thirty days of November. Participants who complete 50,000 words during this time are deemed to be "winners" in this non-competitive group endeavor, where quality of writing takes a distant second place to quantity. Baty has written at least 50,000 words during NaNoWriMo each year since 1999, when 21 people participated. It has since grown to include over forty thousand participants in 2004, and getting bigger each year. In 2005 fifty-nine thousand people participated and more than ten thousand succeeded. Apart from a series of "deeply mediocre" manuscripts, he has written a NaNoWriMo handbook, entitled No Plot? No Problem!, a guide aimed at high-speed novelists. In addition to founding NaNoWriMo, Baty has written music reviews and journalism for SF Weekly and the East Bay Express.

Deborah Santana is an author, philanthropist, activist for peace and social justice, and founder of Do A Little, a non-profit that serves women and girls in the areas of health, education and happiness. Her memoir, Space Between The Stars: My Journey to an Open Heart, was published in 2005. Ms. Santana has produced two documentary films with Emmy-award winning director Barbara Rick: Road to Ingwavuma. and Girls of Daraja., each film depicting the collaborative work of non-profit partners in South Africa and Kenya. Ms. Santana serves as a Board member for ANSA (Artists for a New South Africa), mentors girls and young women, and is a supporter of Marian Wright Edelman’s Freedom Schools in New Orleans.

Melissa Stein's poetry collection Rough Honey won the 2010 APR/Honickman First Book Prize, selected by Mark Doty, and was published by American Poetry Review in association with Copper Canyon Press. Her poems have appeared in The Southern Review, New England Review, Best New Poets 2009, Harvard Review, North American Review, and many other journals and anthologies. She has received residency fellowships from Yaddo, the MacDowell Colony, and the Djerassi Foundation, and her work has won awards from Spoon River Poetry Review, Literal Latte, and the Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Foundation, among others.

Charles Kruger is a painter, spoken word artist, poet and freelance writer working in Northern California by the San Francisco Bay. His paintings can be seen at charleskrugerart.com. He blogs at stormingbohemia.com, is a regular contributor to Litseen and reviews plays as the Bay Area Theatre Examiner.

About Writers With Drinks:

Writers With Drinks has won "Best Literary Night" from the SF Bay Guardian readers' poll six years in a row and was named "Best Literary Drinking" by the SF Weekly. The spoken word "variety show" mixes genres to raise money for local worthy causes. The award-winning show includes poetry, stand-up comedy, science fiction, fantasy, romance, mystery, literary fiction, erotica, memoir, zines and blogs in a freewheeling format.