The RADAR Reading Series

The RADAR Reading Series is a showcase of underground and emerging writers and artists.
Four writers and artists present their work, followed by a Question and Answer conversation with the audience.
Ask a writer a question, get a homemade cookie baked by host Michelle Tea!

Tuesday December 13th
San Francisco Public Library / Main Branch
Latino Reading Room / Basement Level
6:00pm / Free

Amra Brooks was born and raised in California. Her novella California was published by Teenage Teardrops (primarily a record label that does limited edition vinyl releases) in December 2008. Currently she is working on a book of fiction titled The Scariest Movie Ever Made, a collection of poems called The Pinking Sky, and a collaborative book project with painter Maureen Gallace who shows at 303 Gallery in New York and was in last years Whitney Biennial. In addition, Amra writes critical essays and reviews about contemporary art, music, film, and literature. Her writing has appeared in Artforum, Spin Magazine, index, the LA Weekly, The Encyclopedia Project Volume F-K, and many other publications. She has taught at the University of California in Santa Cruz and San Diego, and Naropa University. Currently she lives in Pennsylvania where she teaches writing at Muhlenberg College.

Greg Youmans recently earned his Ph.D. from the History of Consciousness program at UC Santa Cruz. His doctoral research focused on gay and lesbian activist and experimental filmmaking of the late 1970s, in the context of the mobilization of the religious right, the nascent moral panic around child sexuality, and the channeling of gay and lesbian politics into a liberal, rights-based agenda. His book on the paradigm-shifting gay and lesbian documentary Word is Out: Stories of Some of Our Lives (Mariposa Film Group, 1977) was just published as part of Arsenal Pulp Press's series of volumes on Queer Film Classics. He is currently at work on a larger book project entitled Moral Panic Media: Gay and Lesbian Filmmaking in the Time of Anita Bryant. Youmans is also a programmer and maker of films and videos. In collaboration with Chris Vargas, he makes the ongoing video series Falling in Love... with Chris and Greg.

Monique Jenkinson (AKA Fauxnique) is a multifaceted performing artist whose work hurls itself into the gaps between dance, theater, drag and performance art. She has been called ‘hilarious’ with an ‘intellectual spark’ and ‘enough to make a girl want to revisit her Susan Sontag.’ She has created and performed locally and internationally at ODC Theater, CounterPULSE, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, the de Young Museum, and Trannyshack in San Francisco; Danspace Project, the New Museum, Howl Festival, Vandam and the Stonewall in New York; the Met Theatre in Los Angeles; the Coachella music festival; and in Reykjavik, Amsterdam and London.
Monique’s drag queen alter ego, Fauxnique, is a prolific fixture on the experimental performance scene, getting her start at the legendary weekly San Francisco nightclub Trannyshack, and making history as the first woman to win the infamous Miss Trannyshack Pageant. She appears in the documentary Filthy Gorgeous: the Trannyshack Story and the April/May ’08 issue of Bust magazine. Recent accolades include: ‘Best Drag Act’ in the San Francisco Bay Guardian’s 2009 Best of the Bay Readers’ Poll, 7X7 Magazine’s ‘Hot 20 Under 40,’ and a Guardian Outstanding Local Discovery Award (GOLDIE) for Performance.

Priscilla Lee recived her B.A. in English from University of California at Berkeley. A recipient of both the Emily Chamberlain Cook Poetry Prize and the James D. Phelan Literary Award, her poems have appeared in Ploughshares, The Kenyon Review, ZYZZYVA, Storming Heaven's Gate: An Anthology of Women's Spiritual Writing (Plume), Making More Waves: New Writing by Asian American Women (Beacon Press), and other journals and anthologies. She is the author of the poetry collection Wishbone, described by Carolyn Forche as 'Poignant and absorbing . . . street-pure . . . wise.'