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INCITE: Queer Writers Read – July
Incite: Queer Writers Read is a curated, bimonthly reading series for Queer writers. Incite’s hope is to create conversation, connection, and greater understanding both within the Queer community and with other communities. Hosted by Vinnie Kinsella and Jennifer Perrine.
The featured readers for July are David Ciminello, Shelley Gaske, and Charlie J. Stephens. The theme is “Found Family.”
Vinnie Kinsella
Vinnie’s love for books began in the second grade, when he worked with his fellow students to write and illustrate a story about the adventures of an ice-cream-loving giraffe. Since then he has worked as a writer, editor, book designer, publisher, workshop presenter, and college instructor. He is the editor of Fashionably Late: Gay, Bi, and Trans Men Who Came Out Later in Life and the author of A Little Bit of Advice for Self-Publishers.
Jennifer Perrine
Pronouns: any/all
Jennifer (JP) Perrine is the author of five award-winning books of poetry: Beautiful Outlaw, Again, The Body Is No Machine, In the Human Zoo, and No Confession, No Mass. Their other recent work appears in Best Small Fictions, A Mouth Holds Many Things: A De-Canon Hybrid Lit Collection, and Cascadia Field Guide: Art, Ecology, and Poetry. A two-time winner of Arts and Culture Diversity and Inclusion Awards from the Asian American Journalists Association, Perrine lives in Portland, Oregon, where they cohost the Incite: Queer Writers Read series, perform stand-up comedy, and work as the equity and racial justice program manager for Metro Parks and Nature.
David Ciminello
David Ciminello is a proud Lambda Literary Fellow and the recipient of a Table 4 Writers Foundation Grant. His fiction has appeared in the Lambda Award-winning anthology Portland Queer: Tales of the Rose City, Nailed Magazine, Best Gay Romance, The Untold Gaze, and elsewhere. His original screenplay Bruno was an Academy Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting finalist. He is the author of the novel The Queen of Steeplechase Park.
Shelley Gaske
Shelley Gaske lives and writes in Oregon, often alongside a big white poodle. A 2024 Best American Essays nominee, she attended the Summer Iowa Writers' Workshop for fiction and Disquiet International for nonfiction. Her work appears in 68 to 05, HerStry, The Broadkill Review, and elsewhere.
Charlie J. Stephens
Charlie J. Stephens was born and raised in Salem, Oregon. Their debut novel, A Wounded Deer Leaps Highest, (2024) was a finalist for the Oregon Book Award and was awarded the Leslie Feinberg Award in Trans and Gender-Variant Literature and the Foreword Indies Bronze Award in LGBTQ+ Adult Fiction. Their new collection of short stories, Annihilation for Beginners, will be published by Buckman in early 2026. More at www.charliejstephenswriting.com
