Fierce Words: An Allgender Reading is a special event hosted by poet & writer Natasha Dennerstein. Several talented Bay Area writers of trans and gender non-conforming identities share their work for all. People of any gender welcome to attend and have your ears seared by our fabulousness.

Natasha Dennerstein was born in Melbourne, Australia. She has an MFA from San Francisco State University. Natasha has had poetry published in many journals internationally. Her collections Anatomize (2015), Triptych Caliform (2016) and her novella-in-verse About a Girl (2017) were published by Norfolk Press in San Francisco. Her trans chapbook Seahorse (2017) was published by Nomadic Press in Oakland. She lives in Oakland, California, where she is an editor at Nomadic Press and works at St James Infirmary, a clinic for sex-workers in San Francisco. She was a 2018 Fellow of the Lambda Literary Writer’s Retreat. www.natashadennerstein.com

Grey (he/they) is bad with names but still wants to know yours. He writes poetry, prose, short stories, and handwritten letters. He has featured for Red Light Lit, The Racket, Happy Endings, Quiet Lightning, and more. You can enjoy some of his published work in Argot, Cosmographia, sPARKLE & bLINK, Civil Liberties United, Colossus, “Spines” (a collaborative zine), and his zine, "Cut the Leash". He is currently looking for a Cash Pig to sate his lust for seasonal throw blankets, and he is the reigning champion of naming bands and coining drag names (ie: Lisa Corolla).

An award-winning performing songwriter, Mya Byrne’s “rootsy, soulful” music (Time Out) has been featured across media. A multi-instrumentalist, her mandolin and guitar are featured on Reba McIntire’s upcoming remix album. Mya’s directorial debut about trans activist Lou Sullivan is making the rounds at film festivals, and she’s currently mixing her next LP. IG: @myabyrne www.myabyrne.com

Cal Calamia (he/they) is a bilingual queer trans educator, activist, and poet from Chicago. His performative work has been featured at many spoken word series across The Bay, and his first book San Franshitshow was just published by Nomadic Press. Notable accomplishments include impressing a teacher in kindergarten when he correctly spelled vacation and often being told his class is a student’s favorite. Find out more about Cal at calcalamia.com

Mason J. [he/they] is a Black and Indigenous SF-born artist, historiographer, and community organizer with interests ranging from Kierkegaard to Keeping up with The Kardashians. They are the author of chapbook "Crossbones on My Life" (Nomadic Press, 2021), co-editor and poet in "Still Here SF: An Anthology of Queer and Trans People Raised in San Francisco" (Foglifter Press, 2019), and contributor to a first of its kind young reader's anthology about puberty (Candlewick Press, 2022).

Having spent 22 of his 33 years in the West Coast literary/mod revival/queercore/nightlife cultural scenes, receiving fellowships from VONA Voices and the James C. Hormel LGBTQ Center his writings can be found in zines, heard at open mics, and have appeared in SFPL's 11/8/20 Poem of the Day, Dodie Bellamy and Kevin Killian's “Mirage #4”, Urban Library Council, Archer, Bitch, Diva [UK], Vice, Huffington Post, Wear Your Voice, SF Weekly, SF Chronicle, LA Times to name a few.

Julián Delgado Lopera is the author of The New York Times acclaimed novel Fiebre Tropical (Feminist Press 2020), the Winner of the 2021 Ferro Grumley Award and a 2021 Lambda Literary award; a finalist of the 2020 Kirkus Prize in Fiction and the 2021 Aspen Literary Prize. Julián is also the author of Quiéreme (Nomadic Press 2017) and ¡Cuéntamelo! (Aunt Lute 2017) an illustrated bilingual collection of oral histories by LGBT Latinx immigrants which won a 2018 Lambda Literary Award and a 2018 Independent Publisher Book Award. Julián's received fellowships and residencies from Hedgebrook, Headlands Center for The Arts, Brush Creek Foundation of the Arts, Lambda Literary Foundation, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts and The SF Grotto. Their work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and has appeared in Granta, Teen Vogue, The Kenyon Review, McSweeney's, The Rumpus, The White Review, LALT, Four Way Review, Broadly, TimeOut Mag to name a few. He is the former executive director of RADAR Productions a queer literary non-profit in San Francisco. Watch his TEDxTalk. julianadlopera.com