13 MarSpeaking of Femme is on Tuesday!!

speakingoffemme4

Tuesday, March 16, 2010 * NY, NY
Speaking of Femme!
The Femme Family’s spoken word event [www.femmefamily.com]
7-9 PM * $5 suggested donation
Bluestockings Bookstore: 172 Allen St., NY NY

New York’s Femme Family – a social and activist collaboration of local queer femmes – brings you Speaking of Femme, a literary event celebrating the queer femme voice. Come to read, to hear what femmes have to say, to ally, to challenge your ideas of femininity, to laugh and cry with us. FemmeFamily membership is open to self-identified femmes of all genders, and our events are for all. femmefamily.com

Featured Performers:
Emcee Hadassah D’Luxe, a multimedia artist and performer [axondluxe.com]
FemmeCee Bevin Branlandingham, host of FemmeCast: The Queer Fat Femme Podcast Guide to Life [www.queerfatfemme.com]
AfroTitty! Talking about Fat Camp and Fat Femme Competition
Sophie Spinelle, Proprietess of Shamless Photography [shamelessphoto.com]
Bridget Sweetz, Hot Femme Slam Poet [www.sweetin.net]
More TBA + Open Mic!

We’ll have our fresh reprint of the Femme Family Femme: Coming Out zine available for $8 through Bluestockings (or $6 for an online version through paypal@femmefamily.com). Open Mic available to all self-identified Femmes throughout the evening.

Bluestockings’ performance space is wheelchair accessible, the restroom is not even fat friendly.

08 MarFemme Family Update March 8th

Dear Femme Family!

Just a quick note to remind y’all about a couple of items:

Tonight! 3/8! Book Club! Open to all! Discussing Zoe Whittall’s Bottle Rocket Hearts. Such a great book about so many things: Polyamory, coming out as queer, coming out as Femme, AIDS, hate crimes, feminism, Montreal, Canadian politics… 7:15pm at the Silver Spurs Diner on Houston & Laguardia in Manhattan.

MADAM MEETING! Open to self-identified Femmes. 9pm right after book club.

SPEAKING OF FEMME:
Next week! March 16, 7-9pm at Bluestockings. Open Mic to all self-identified Femmes. If you want to be a featured reader let us know!

FEMME CONFERENCE:

August 20-22, Oakland, CA! The call for submissions for workshops, films, performances, etc… is up at www.femmecollective.com We have a mighty NYC contingency going, join us!

FEMME FAMILY WEBSITE

We’re updating our events and goings on there, so if you ever wonder what we’re up to, check it out! www.femmefamily.com

DO YOU HAVE ACCESS TO CHEAP COPIES?

We’re having a bear of a time trying to do a cheap reprint of the FF Zine #1. If you have access to cheap copies (or know a good online cheap copying service or something, even in the suburbs) please let us know!

Have a manic only in the good ways Monday, y’all!!

xoxoxox,

Bevin
Co-head Madam!

05 MarFemme2010: Call for Workshops, Papers, Panels, Films, Performance and Visual Art

Femme2010: No Restrictions

Oakland Marriott City Center
1001 Broadway
Oakland, California 94607
August 20th – 22nd, 2010
www.femmecollective.com

Femme2010: No Restrictions is a multi-threaded conference and forum for those who think about, talk about, and create Femme as a queer gender and identity.

Following our Femme2006 & 2008 conferences in San Francisco & Chicago, where hundreds of femmes and allies gathered for workshops, panels, films, visual art galleries and performances, we again invite community members, artists, academics, homemakers, geeks, techies, activists, femmes of all kinds, and their allies to continue the conversation by participating in Femme 2010 as presenters and participants.

We are invested in having Femme2010 continue to reflect the diversity and complexity of femme gender, identity and contributions. We hope for this conference to be a community building event, as well as an exploration and celebration of what it means to build and live queer femme identities.

Submissions of all kinds are welcome, particularly submissions by femmes. We encourage proposals by and for people of color, working-class people, fat folks, elders, youth and people with disabilities. We encourage submissions that work outside and alongside identity and gender, as well as those reflecting directly upon identity and gender. Femme2010 will continue the community dialogue from Femme2006 & 08. In particular, we hope that the intersections of femme with race, region, class, access, ability, privilege, and marginalization will be talked about, given space, meditated upon, constructed, and deconstructed. Finally, we also encourage submissions based on this year’s theme: No Restrictions.

We began this conference in 2006 out of a desire to see femme explored and discussed from a variety of perspectives. We wanted a conference that held the complexities of Queer Femme as its central focus, while building community. We feel we accomplished that in 2006 & 2008 and in 2010, we want to continue to build femme community and bridges, supporting each other across borders and differences.

We hope to draw participants from across disciplinary, medium, and social boundaries. We encourage submissions from anyone interested, regardless of gender or sexual identity. We do ask that you read our mission statement before submitting.

We are soliciting contributions from anyone interested, including (but not limited to):

> workshops
> panel presentations
> performances
> research presentations
> skill shares
> activist & organizational topics
> visual art
> video or film

Submission deadline is April 15, 2010.

Please submit your proposal through the following links, located at www.femmecollective.com:

Program Submission click here

Performance Submission click here

Film Submission click here

**Please note that the more information we have on your submission, the more likely we will be able to accept your submission and include it in the conference schedule.

To learn more about us, our mission and to contact us with any questions, comments or concerns, please find us at our website: http://www.femmecollective.com

04 FebFemme Family Update from Bevin

Dear Femme Family!

We have some amazing events and joy to bring unto you this mid-winter!

Thurs Feb 4th, 7pm-2am Emotional Relay, local queer femme photographer/Femme Family Zine editor Allison Picard’s art show & dance party! DJ Designer Imposter & performance by Novice Theory. 70 N 6th St Loft @Public Assembly, Brooklyn http://www.facebook.com/bevin?ref=name#!/event.php?eid=263349636105&ref=ts

Sun Feb 7th 8pm–Cupcake Cabaret: Celebrating the Radical Act of Self Love, 45 Berry St, BK with Vagina Jenkins: Queer Fat Femme Southern Burlesque, from Atlanta, GA;
Glenn Marla, Lorelei Lee, Sequinette, Bevin Branlandingham. http://www.facebook.com/bevin?ref=name#!/event.php?eid=243696383554&ref=mf

Tues March 2, 7:15pm, Femme Book Club. Discussing Zoe Whittall’s Bottlerocket Hearts. Silver Spurs Diner, corner of Houston and Laguardia.

Tues March 16, 7-9pm, Speaking of Femme! Our quarterly(ish) femme reading series. Get in touch if you want to be a featured reader!

AND DON’T FORGET! Zine contributions for the second Femme Family Zine are due March 1 Our next zine is on the theme of Art – Femmes who make art, critique art, and/or live art.Send questions or submissions to info@femmefamily.com!

To order a copy of our first zine online, email paypal@femmefamily.com, or just go to PayPal.com and donate $8 or more for hardcopy, or $6 or more for a digital copy, to paypal@femmefamily.com. Be sure to include your address if you want your copy mailed.

xoxox,

Bevin
Co-Head Madam

20 JanDATE CHANGE! Next Femme Book Club: Bottle Rocket Hearts on March 8

BOOK CLUB DATE CHANGE:

NOW ON MONDAY MARCH 8 – 7:15

followed by an organizer’s meeting @ Silver Spurs

After last night’s amazing discussion at Femme Book Club, we picked next month’s book.

Zoe Whittall’s Bottle Rocket Hearts.

She is a Femme from Toronto, who we adore.  And it is a Femme coming of age story! (We haven’t had a lot of that in Book Club.)

Again, totally try to get the book from an indie book seller.

Our meeting will be Tuesday, March 2 at 7:15 at the Silver Spurs diner on the corner of Houston & LaGuardia Pl in Manhattan.

20 JanUpdate on the Femme Conference from the Femme Collective

Got this update from the Femme Collective about this August’s Femme Conference. I have to say I am more than a little bummed it won’t be in Atlanta where my heart lives and the Femme Mafia began (our parent chapter), but it is amazing that this event happens and the board works really hard (for free).

xoxox,

Bevin

Dear Community Members,

Finances are tight for all of us these days, particularly for community-supported events requiring travel and lodging, like the Femme Conference. After a great deal of effort and research, we have determined that it is not financially possible for us to hold the 2010 Femme Conference in Atlanta as we had hoped to do. We are incredibly hopeful for our future as an organization, but we believe that Atlanta would be cost prohibitive to both the members of the Steering Committee and to the larger Femme Conference constituency. We realize this is a disappointment for many of us.

However, we have decided that rather than skip a year, we have the resources to hold the Femme Conference in Oakland in 2010. We are tremendously excited at the prospects of holding a conference in the city we had originally chosen for the very first Femme Conference (we ended up in San Francisco as a result of financial considerations, so this feels like a full-circle in some ways)!

We appreciate your understanding and your continued support. All details about hotel, dates and calls for submission will be announced at the beginning of February. We are excited and we hope you are too!

Femme Collective

Stay tuned at www.femmecollective.com for more information!

18 JanLuck be a Lady…


Queens Of Hearts,  a Ladies’ Poker Night returns on Sunday January 31 at 8pm!

All genders and styles of self-identified femmes are fully welcome. Admirers are asked to stay at home and warm up the beds for the lady’s victorious return.

Bring spare change and your exlier of choice, and feel free to bring femme friends and pass this invite along.

For more info and directions, see the femme poker page!

14 JanFemme Visibility and Femmephobia

I had a conversation earlier that led me to think about femme visibility in relation to femmephobia, so here’s a quick question: how and when do people out there feel that they experience femmephobia? My theory is that more femmes = more people “noticing” and talking about femmephobia, but maybe I’m wrong…

12 JanFemme Book Club

Leather Daddy and the Femme cover


Our next book club meeting is on Tuesday, January 19, 2010 at the Silver Spurs diner on the corner of Houston and Laguardia in Manhattan. 7:15 PM. It is going to be lead by one of our Femme allies, Constantia. The title is Leather Daddy and the Femme by Carol Queen.

You should totally buy the book from Bluestockings (support local indie bookstores), but if you want it from Amazon that link works, and pennies of the sale benefit queerfatfemme.com!

We have lively and fun discussions, and speaking for me personally I have always walked away with an enhanced understanding of myself after we discuss a work.

xoxo,

Bevin

11 JanMy Femme Revolutions for 2010

My good friend Amanda, the Femme Family Madam of Southern/Country Glam (and my sisterfriend in ferocity), came up with an amazing idea for our New Year’s eve party. Instead of encouraging folk to create resolutions for themselves, she suggested that we all created revolutions and share them at the party. Revolutions that are about living and loving as whole, beautiful people.

I thought that I would like to create them when I am feeling hopeful about the world and am ready to challenge myself a bit. Posting them here feels like a great idea.

My 2010 Revolutions

  • -I would like to move away from gossip, both malicious and casual kinds. True bonding and community building, in my opinion, does not occur while talking smack.
  • -I want to write a poem a week. I am a reluctant poet, but I miss the electric feeling of a poem moving through my head.
  • -I want to take a dance class.
  • -I want to mobilize femmes to show up for protests and actions that they care about. New York is full of fucked up shit, I want to talk about those rage-inducing things and scream about them!
  • -I want to be nude in public more. Because my brown, queer, fat, girl body is a protest all in itself.
  • -I want to be honest, even when it hurts.
  • -I want to trust in best intentions, especially with folk that I like and want to be friends with.
  • -I want to look at my cervix.
  • -I want to drink more pink champagne.
  • -I want to eat more dark, leafy greens cooked in champagne vinegar with roasted tomatoes and whole cloves of roasted garlic and heirloom bacon.
  • -I want to organize a panel about racism and anti-racism in the femme community.
  • -I want to wear more gold and pink lamé.
  • -I want to write and perform about the following subjects: Fat Camp, Sexwork, Hair, The Feminine Divine.

What are your revolutions for 2010?

In Ferocity,

Taueret