INCITE: Queer Writers Read – July

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 (JP) Perrine is the author of four books of poetry: Again, The Body Is No Machine, In the Human Zoo, and No Confession, No Mass. JP’s current writing projects include Beautiful Outlaw, a book of poetry composed through elaborate constraints; In the Interest of Time, a collection of short science fiction; Missing/Wanted, a speculative memoir-in-essays; and Nature Is All of Us, a play based on stories of Black, Indigenous, Asian American, and Latinx Oregonians’ experiences with nature and wilderness. Their recent work has been recognized through the Arts and Culture Diversity and Inclusion Award from the Asian American Journalists Association, an Oregon Humanities Community Storytelling Fellowship, a Make | Learn | Build grant from the Regional Arts and Culture Council, the Missouri Review Jeffrey E. Smith Editors’ Prize, and residencies at Caldera Arts Center and the Independent Publishing Resource Center. Perrine co-hosts Portland’s Incite: Queer Writers Read series, teaches writing to youth and adults, and guides nature-based mindfulness experiences.

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 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 is a queer, non-binary, mixed-race writer from the Pacific Northwest. Born and raised in Salem, Oregon, Charlie has lived all over the U.S. as a bike messenger, wilderness guide, high school English teacher, and seasonal shark diver (for educational purposes only). Resident of Port Orford on the southern Oregon coast, they are the owner of Sea Wolf Books & Community Writing Center. Charlie’s short fiction has appeared in Electric Literature, Best Small Fictions Anthology, New World Writing, Original Plumbing/Feminist Press, and elsewhere. Their debut novel, A Wounded Deer Leaps Highest, will be published by Torrey House Press in April 2024. More at www.charliejstephenswriting.com.