Tasting Menu: A Queer Erotica Reading

This event takes place on Crowdcast, Charis' virtual event platform. This event is free, but registration is required for virtual attendance. Register here.

Charis welcomes Laura Antoniou, Kiki DeLovely, Tobi Hill-Meyer, Rose Knottyrotica, laura q, and Sinclair Sexsmith for Tasting Menu: A Queer Erotica Reading.

About the Readers

Laura Antoniou has been writing queer, kinky, intellectually unruly fiction since the 1980s, back when she edited the gaming/media magazine Gateways and wrote safer-sex smut during the AIDS crisis. She is best known for the Marketplace series of BDSM novels, a long-running, genre-defining body of work celebrated for its sexual, cultural, and gender diversity, including one of the earliest trans male lead characters in erotic fiction. Her other work includes the Rainbow Award–winning comedy murder mystery The Killer Wore Leather, the erotic fantasy Silk Threads (with Cecilia Tan and Midori), and dozens of short stories, essays, and anthologies across genres. Her writing has been translated into multiple languages and is frequently cited in discussions of erotica, gender politics, and queer literary history. A veteran public speaker, Laura has taught and lectured on kink, power dynamics, relationships, fandom, and Jewish sexuality at over 150 conferences and universities worldwide, including Harvard, NYU, Columbia, and the University of Washington. She is the recipient of multiple awards, including Lifetime Achievement honors from the National Leather Association and the Pantheon of Leather. She lives in New York, writes what she wants, teaches what she knows, and still refuses to behave. More at lantoniou.com.

Kiki DeLovely is a witchy, kinky, polyamorous, mixed, nonbinary femme who moonlights as an erotica writer when she’s not weaving magic through energetic healing and spiritual coaching. Their work has appeared in dozens of publications and they have toured both nationally and internationally, living and traveling all over the world before setting down roots on unceded Occaneechi-Saponi land. Kiki strives toward erotica that reads as fine literature and connects us with our highest selves. More about their work at Open Heart Active Healing.

Tobi Hill-Meyer is an Indigenous Chicana trans woman. She believes creating stories is a critical part of making change, they can give us strength, model paths to success, provide encouragement, and create greater empathy. She is dedicated to community support and fighting for positive change at a local level. Tobi’s work has been in Best Lesbian Erotica, Ask: Building Consent Culture, Trans Bodies Trans Selves, Take Me There, Beyond Binary, Coming Out Like a Porn Star, and Girl Sex 101. She is editor of the Lambda Literary Finalist anthology Nerve Endings: The New Trans Erotic, author of children’s books A Princess of Great Daring and Super Power Baby Shower, and director of the award winning erotic documentary series Doing it Online. tobihillmeyer.com

Rose Knottyrotica is a Black, lesbian, kinky erotica writer who is an academic by day and a kinky gardener, cat mom, and crafter by night. Her goal in life is to awaken the erotic in your mind and she does this even while the world is burning because she believes that pleasure is the ultimate manifestation of Black, brown, femme, and queer liberation. And when Black, brown, femme, and queer folks are free - we all get free!

laura q writes to honour the queer sex magick of hot as fuck t4t sexual connections, resulting in stories that have been described as “gorgeous & tender”, “absurdly sexy” and “kinda fucked up”. She’s currently working on a follow-up to her Lambda Literary Award-winning debut collection, A Tight Squeeze; consider yourselves warned.

SINCLAIR SEXSMITH (they/them) is a queer trans butch, a leather dominant, and a writer. Their short story collection, Sweet & Rough: Queer Kink Erotica, was a 2016 finalist for a Lambda Literary Award, and they have edited 5 editions of the Best Lesbian Erotica series, as well as the lesbian BDSM erotica anthology Say Please, and Erotix: The Literary Journal of Somatics. Since 2000, they have run the online erotica writing group Writing Spicy at writingspicy.com. Find Sinclair in all the places online at http://sugarbutch.net/find-sinclair.

The event is free and open to all people, but we encourage and appreciate a donation of $5-20 in support of the work of Charis Circle, our programming non-profit. Donate on Crowdcast or via our website: www.chariscircle.org/donate.

Please contact us at info@chariscircle.org or 404-524-0304 if you would like ASL interpretation at this event. If you would like to watch the event with live AI captions, you may do so by watching it in Google Chrome and enabling captions: Instructions here. If you have other accessibility needs or if you are someone who has skills in making digital events more accessible please don't hesitate to reach out to info@chariscircle.org.

By attending our virtual event, you agree to our Code of Conduct: Our event seeks to provide a harassment-free experience for everyone, regardless of gender, gender identity and expression, age, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, body size, race, ethnicity, religion (or lack thereof), class, or technology choices. We do not tolerate harassment in any form. Unsolicited sexual language and imagery are not appropriate. Anyone violating these rules will be expelled from this event and all future events at the discretion of the organizers. Please report all harassment to Charis staff immediately or email info@chariscircle.org.