Photos from AQLF 2009

Many thanks to AQLF organizer, graphics guru and photographer Cleo Creech for these photos.

Alice Teeter read at the opening night event at Charis Books, which was also celebrating its 35th anniversary.

Regie Cabico performed at the My Diva anthology reading at Outwrite Books.

My Diva anthology editor Michael Montlack hosts the reading at Outwrite.

AQLF co-directors Collin Kelley and Megan Volpert.

AQLF founder Franklin Abbott speaks at Charis Books.

Keynote speaker Manil Suri performed at the Auburn Avenue Research Library.

Keynote speaker Staceyann Chin read from her memoir The Other Side of Paradise at the Auburn Avenue Research Library.

Kit Yan performed during the All-Star Slam at Java Monkey Speaks in Decatur.

Joanna Hoffman performed at the All-Star Slam.

Poets Dustin Brookshire and Charles Jensen performed at the Decatur Library.

Post-Festival Event This Morning

A post-festival service on Queer Creativity will be held this morning at 11 a.m. at The First Existentialist Congregation, 470 Candler Park Dr. Featuring Franklin Abbott, Robin Kemp, John Mifsud, Deb/ra Hiers, Bob Strain and Janet Metzger.

Please note that the award-winning play The Book of Revolutions continues at First Existentialist Congregation on Nov. 12-14. The Nov. 12 show will be a "pay-what-you-can" evening.

May thanks to all the participants and those who attended our events this year. We'll be posting photos soon.

A Day of Readings, Workshops & Slamming

AQLF presents a day of events at the Decatur Library, 215 Sycamore St. Readings and workshops run from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., featuring workshops by Regie Cabico, Joanna Hoffman, Kit Yan and more. Readings of both prose, poetry and non-fiction will feature a special appearance by Terry Galloway reading from her memoir Mean Little Deaf Queer, Collin Kelley reading from his novel Conquering Venus, Charles Jensen reading from his new poetry collection The First Risk and many more.

Tonight, the All-Star Slam at Java Monkey Coffee House featuring Marty McConnell, Ami Mattison, Kit Yan, Regie Cabico, James Caroline, JT Bullock, Theresa Davis and Joanna Hoffman is sure to be the best friendly competition to ever light up an Atlant stage. The evening is hosted by Karen G.

For full details on all of today's events, scroll down to the full schedule.

Update on Emory workshops

Please be advised that this afternoon's workshop with Staceyann Chin on the Emory University camps has been cancelled because of a travel delay. The workshop with Manil Suri at 3 p.m. will go on as scheduled in the Harlan Cinema on the third floor of the Dobbs University Center. Free and open to the public. Please come out to tonight's keynote address to see both Chin and Suri. Details below.

AQLF Keynote Speakers Tonight!

Our keynote speakers, Staceyann Chin and Manil Suri, will read tonight at 7:00 p.m. at the Auburn Avenue Research Libary, 101 Auburn Ave. There will be an after party at Danneman's Coffee House at 466 Edgewood Ave. following the keynote addresses featuring music by GBmojo and Lucas Mire. It's all free and open to the public!

Staceyann Chin is a fulltime artist. A resident of New York City and a Jamaican National, she has been an “out poet and political activist” since 1998. From the rousing cheers of the Nuyorican Poets' Cafe to one-woman shows Off- Broadway to poetry workshops in Denmark and London to co-writer and performer in the Tony nominated, Russell Simmons Def Poetry Jam on Broadway, Chin credits the long list of "things she has done" to her grandmother's hard-working history and the pain of her mother's absence. Her memoir, The Other Side of Paradise, was published earlier this year to great acclaim. NYU, Pace, Willamette, Holy Cross, Harvard, Cornell, University of Illinois, University of New Hampshire, University of Miami, University of California at San Diego, Boston University, Grinnell College, these are only few of the "institutes of higher education" at which she has shared the stories surrounding her coming. Hands Afire, Staceyann's first one-woman show ran for ten weeks at the Bleecker Theater in the Summer of 2000. The same Off-Broadway Theater welcomed the second show, Unspeakable Things, in the summer of 2001 before she took it to Copenhagen for a week long run. London, Helsinki, Sweden and Norway are in the line-up to see the new generation of the show.

Manil Suri was born and raised in Bombay (now Mumbai), India. He came to the United States as a student when he was twenty. He lives in Silver Spring, Maryland (when not visiting Mumbai) and is a citizen of both the United States and India. Suri’s first published fiction in English was The Seven Circles, a short story that appeared in The New Yorker on Valentine’s Day, 2000. The Death of Vishnu, his first novel, debuted worldwide in India on January 6, 2001. In addition to being published by W. W. Norton in the United States and Bloomsbury in the UK, the novel has been translated into twenty-two foreign languages. Suri was named by Time magazine as a “Person to Watch” in 2000, and he received a Guggenheim Fellowship for fiction in 2004. In addition to being a writer, Suri is also a mathematician. He obtained his PhD in applied mathematics from Carnegie-Mellon University and is a tenured full professor in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at the University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC).

My Diva Reading Tonight at Outwrite

We had a fantastic turnout for last night's opening event at Charis Books and the fun continues this evening with a reading by contributors to the anthology, My Diva: 65 Gay Men on the Women Who Inspire Them. The reading is at Outwrite Books, 991 Piedmont Ave., at 7:30 p.m. Editor Michael Montlack will be on hand to introduce the anthology and read from his essay, along with Collin Kelley, Regie Cabico, Jim Elledge and Cleo Creech.

If a night at the theater is more your thing, The Book of Revolutions by Anthony Garcia-Copian continues tonight at 7 p.m. at First Existentialist Congregation, 470 Candler Park Dr. Pre-show poetry from Robin Kemp & Timothy Wright. Admission is $15.

The Festival Begins Tonight!

AQLF begins tonight with a kick-off event at Charis Books, which is also celebrating it's 30th anniversary. Charis is located at 1189 Euclid Ave. in Little Five Points. Limited parking available in the Charis lot. There is also street parking and a public lot across Euclid (might be a small charge).

Performers tonight include Lisa Allender (emcee), Malika, Krystal Tift, Alice Teeter, Louisa Merchant, Maudelle Driskell, Sincere, Charlene Ball and Libby Ware.

Come out and join us tonight to get the party started! See the full schedule of events below.