“Writers With Drinks” Queer Spoken Word Variety Show (Castro)

Submitted by the Event Organizer

San Francisco’s award-winning, totally unnecessary spoken word variety show is BACK — but this time it’s 37 percent more queer. Featuring a history of trans and non-binary elders of color, amazing poetry, raucous comedy, romance, robots making noodles, and MORE.

Note: We will be requiring masks in the audience, and we’re hoping to have the whole balcony open so some of the audience can sit outside if it’s not raining…

• When: Friday Sept. 19, from 7 PM to 9 PM
• Who: Caro de Robertis, Michal “MJ” Jones, Charlie Jane Anders, Annalee Newitz, Frida Sierra and Renée Swindle!
• How much: FREE, donations to Strut/Magnet requested
• Where: Strut, 470 Castro St., San Francisco CA
• Book sales by Fabulosa Books!

About the readers/performers:

Michal ‘MJ’ Jones (they/he) is a poet, parent, and editor living in Oakland, CA. Their poetry has appeared in the American Academy of Poets, Obsidian, Split This Rock, Muzzle Magazine, TriQuarterly Review, ANMLY, & elsewhere. Their debut collection of poetry, HOOD VACATIONS, won the 2024 Lambda Literary Award for Transgender Poetry. They are also the author of a chapbook, SOFT ARMOR (2023), from Black Lawrence Press.

Annalee Newitz is a science journalist who also writes science fiction. They are the author of several bestselling books, including The Terraformers, which was nominated for the Nebula Award, and Four Lost Cities: A Secret History of the Urban Age. They have a monthly column in New Scientist magazine, and are the co-host of the Hugo-winning podcast Our Opinions Are Correct. Their forthcoming novella is Automatic Noodle, which drops in August 2025.

A writer of Uruguayan origins, Caro De Robertis is the author of six novels, including The Palace of Eros and Cantoras, as well as So Many Stars: an Oral History of Trans, Nonbinary, Genderqueer, and Two-Spirit People of Color. Their books have been translated into seventeen languages and have received numerous awards, including the Golden Poppy Octavia E. Butler Award, two Stonewall Book Awards, Italy’s Rhegium Julii Prize, and the John Dos Passos Prize for Literature, which they were the first openly nonbinary person to receive. They are also an award-winning literary translator, and a professor at San Francisco State University.

Renee Swindle is the author of Shake Down the Stars, A Pinch of Ooh La La, and Please Please Please, an Essence Magazine bestseller. Her latest novel, Francine’s Spectacular Crash and Burn, was included in Net Galley’s We Are Bookish as a top 25 must-read by black authors for 2025, Publisher Weekly’s BuzzBooks best of Spring/Summer 25 and listed as “best of raucous reads featuring messy heroines” by Goodreads. She lives in Oakland, CA with her senior dogs Gracie and Pancake.

Frida Sierra has performed across the country for over a decade. Her dynamic pace, wondrous concepts and Latinidad have earned her ‘comedian’s comedian’ status from coast to coast . Locally, Frida has been featured in the San Francisco Chronicle and on Fox KTVU & KQED. Frida doesn’t know how to ride a bicycle. Yet.

Charlie Jane Anders is the author of Lessons in Magic and Disaster. Her other novels include All the Birds in the Sky, The City in the Middle of the Night and the young-adult Unstoppable trilogy. She’s also the author of the short story collection Even Greater Mistakes, and Never Say You Can’t Survive, a book about how to use creative writing to get through hard times. She’s won the Hugo, Nebula, Sturgeon, Lambda Literary, Crawford and Locus Awards. She co-created Escapade, a transgender superhero, for Marvel Comics and wrote her into the long-running New Mutants comic. And she’s currently the science fiction and fantasy book reviewer for the Washington Post. With Annalee Newitz, she co-hosts the podcast Our Opinions Are Correct.

Disclaimer: Please double check event information with the event organizer as events can be canceled, details can change after they are added to our calendar, and errors do occur.