GLOBAL QUEER READ-IN: A Virtual Pride Event Announced June 25

Over 30 LGBTQI writers, playwrights, activists, and artists will read passages on camera from their favorite influential works of queer literature and poetry for the first marathon Virtual Global Queer READ-IN. Join 2020 Pulitzer Prize winner Jericho Brown, Maryland Poet Laureate Grace Cavalieri, actor Alfre Woodard, playwright Charles Busch, writer/poet Alexis De Veaux, singer/songwriter Sophie B. Hawkins and more of this famous roster Thursday, June 25th starting at noon (Pacific Time) on Zoom and Twitch.

This Way Out: International LGBTQI radio (OP/TWO) will host the FREE to the public virtual event honoring and celebrating the power of the written word. This Way Out's CEO and producer Brian DeShazor explains that there is a special connection between words, their creators, the readers, and PRIDE.

"I wanted to bring queer literature and poetry to the present and hear it read by a wide range of LGBTQI people. The Thursday before the weekend marking the 50th anniversary of PRIDE I want to sit down, pull a book off the shelf and read words of wisdom, love, joy, pain, and rage- but as a global family."

DeShazor says that the artists and their readings show people how messages resonate beyond the arts.

"What the participants have selected to read stresses how literature impacts LGBTQI lives and how a single book or poem changed our lives or informed our journey to our authentic selves. In response to the worldwide protests, I have enlisted extraordinary people to read the words of James Baldwin and Audre Lorde"

Guests Include:

Kathleen Battles reading Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence by Adrienne Rich
Peggy Berryhill reading Rubyfruit Jungle by Rita Mae Brown
Patrick Bristow reading Borrowed Time by Paul Monette
Jericho Brown reading his 2020 Pulitzer Prize-winning poem The Tradition
MJ Brown/Miss Barbie-Q reading Defining Realness by Janet Mock
Charles Busch reading This Never Leaves the Dressing Room by Charles Busch
Mary Ann Cherry reading Morris Kight: Humanist, Liberationist, Fantabulist by Mary Ann Cherry
Alexis De Veaux reading Poet Warrior by Alexis De Veaux and works by Audre Lorde
James Gavin reading One Christmas by Truman Capote
Sophie B. Hawkins reading Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
Jason Jenn performing historic LGBTQ love poetry from Let Love Flourish!
Don Kilhefner reading The Radical Faeries at 40: Rainbow Capitalism or Queer Liberation by Don Kilhefner
L Morgan Lee reading The Letters of Vita Sackville-West to Virginia Woolf by Vita Sackville-West, Louise De Salvo, and Mitchell Leaska
Sheri Lunn reading The Price of Salt by Patricia Highsmith
Renee MacKenzie reading Kai's Heart by Renee MacKenzie
Roger Q. Mason performing Age Sex Location by Roger Q. Mason
Neish McLean, reading Crossfire by Staceyann Chin
Dr. Bonnie Morris, Sappho's Overhead Projector by Dr. Bonnie Morris
Paul Outlaw reading The American Dream and the American Negro by James Baldwin
Robert Patrick reading from, Temple Slave, by Robert Patrick
Steven Reigns reading Ceremonies by Essex Hemphill
Hugh Ryan reading When Brooklyn Was Queer by Hugh Ryan
Justin Sayre reading The Ballad of Miriam Blotch by Justin Sayre
Jessica Stern reading Our Right to Love: A Lesbian Resource Book by Rita Mae Brown
Robin Tyler reading When We Were Outlaws by Jeanne Cordova
Phillip Ward, Quentin Crisp: The Last Word an Autobiography by Quentin Crisp, edited by Phillip Ward and Lawrence Watts and Quentin Crisp:
Anthony Wayne, reading B-Boy Blues by James Earl Harding
Alfre Woodard reading The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin

Additionally, the virtual event serves as an optional fundraiser for OP/TWO (Overnight Productions, Inc., a 501(c)3 non-profit corporation).

The event's online broadcast is set to be a 12-hour marathon with more than 30 readers. Each one will read 10-15 minutes interspersed with music and This Way Out's LGBTQI Newswrap headlines. The Newswrap segment is a weekly summary of news from around the world affecting LGBTQI lives. It's what Maryland Poet Laureate Grace Cavalieri may consider a modern complement to the artistry of the event.

"Society depends on literature, art, and human expression- lights that show where we've been and where we need to go; art is the reality of spirit made manifest in action. Without this, we'd never know the truth of who we are, our past creations, or the history of the moment. There would be life, yes, but without civilization- the mud, without the lotus."

The broadcast will close with a presentation of the L.A. Theatre Works production of "8" by Dustin Lance Black. LATW will present the full-length radio drama about the historic fight for marriage equality uninterrupted and with an all-star cast. Everyone is ready to join the virtual PRIDE event.

"L.A. Theatre Works is honored to have our production of 8 by Dustin Lance Black highlighted in the Global Queer Read-In"-LATW

This Way Out is the only internationally distributed weekly LGBTQ radio program. It was founded in 1988 when most of the mainstream media believed that all of LGBTQ life, news, and culture could be summed up in one word: AIDS. Even some progressive journalists and community radio stations worried that coverage of our issues should be "balanced" with homophobic voices.

Tax-deductible donations support the operations of www.ThisWayOut.org founded in 1988. It is an award-winning half-hour magazine-style program and the only internationally distributed weekly LGBTQ radio program, currently airing on over 150 local community radio stations around the world and online everywhere. This Way Out is produced and distributed by Overnight Productions, Inc., a 501(c)3 non-profit corporation whose mission is: To educate, inform and entertain audiences around the world by making freely available the presentation of news, features and cultural works by and about the international lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community via audio broadcast and cyber media.

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