7pm Leg 3 - Bookmark Books     933 Broadway, Oakland CA 94607

Paper Press Books - M.A.D.E.

Paper Press Books & Associates Publishing Company works hand-in-hand with the author to build and distribute beautiful one-of-a-kind designer books; a comfort to the eye, easy to read, professionally typeset.


MARHABA means “welcome.”
As a North African owned and operated press, Paper Press Books is proud to welcome you to a presentation of voices from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). This marks the first such reading at Beast Crawl Literary Festival. Colonial legacies continue to cast long shadows, shaping narratives that neglect the richness and complexity of our culture and literary heritage. We are excited to showcase the talent and diversity of MENA writers. Join us for an evening of discovery and celebrate the power of these voices.


Antony Fangary is a writer and visual artist living in San Francisco. He was awarded the 2023 National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship and is the author of HARAM (Etched Press 2019). His poetry has recently appeared in Gulf Coast, The Sycamore Review, West Branch, and elsewhere. His work has received support from the San Francisco Arts Commission, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, and the Center for Cultural Innovation.

Jess Semaan is a queer Lebanese poet, psychotherapist, group facilitator and speaker. She researches, writes and speaks on subjects of healing from complex trauma, immigration, war and belonging.  Her first poetry book Child of the Moon was published by Andrews McMeel and sold over 14,000 copies. Her second book Your Therapist is Depressed Too came out in December 2023. The book chronicles the life of a new psychotherapist during the pandemic, who is witnessing the collapse of her home country from afar. Jess currently facilitates student groups at both UC Berkeley, UC Santa Cruz and her own. She has extensive experience and training in interpersonal group facilitation, healing circles as well as learning and support groups. She is also a trauma informed trained psychotherapist, and recently completed her trainings in psychedelic assisted therapy.

Mahnaz Badihian is an Iranian/American Poet, painter, and translator whose work has been published in several languages and in literary magazines worldwide. Mahnaz runs the Literary magazine MahMag.org to bring the poetry of the world together. She is a member of the San Francisco RPB (Revolutionary Poet Brigade). In 2018, Mahnaz had a three day art exhibition in San Francisco. Currently She is working on her novel A Girl from Pomegranate Garden. Ask The Wind is collection of charming, heartwarming, and sometimes even heartbreaking poems. In them, she paints pictures of war, death, poverty, identity, immigration, belonging, and love. Mahnaz is a nominee for San Francisco Poet Laureate 2024.

Sabina Khan-Ibarra is a writer, poet, and teacher currently focused on completing her chapbook, "New Vocabulary," and her novel, "The Poppy Flower." Her work has been featured in various journals and anthologies, including "Non-White" and "Women, Taboos and Transgressions." She’s is a member of the Writers Grotto and is currently the Director for Rooted and Written, the only tuition free writers conference for writers of color. She served as Communications Director at MuslimARC (Muslim Anti-Racism Collaborative) for ten years and continues to be involved as a member. Sabina has taught Creative Writing at SFSU and is now teaching at the Grotto. She resides in Half Moon Bay, California, with her husband, two children, and two cats, Twyla and Aslan.

Justin Ebrahemi (he/they) is a Persian American arts writer, dance marketer, and poet based in San Francisco. His personal writing explores the queer Iranian American diaspora, political uprising, gender expression and mental health. He recently published his second collection of poetry entitled "Birdsong From Nowruz," while his journalistic work has been published in KQED, Content Magazine, and SFMOMA’s Open Space platform. Justin was previously the Director of Communications & Advancement at CounterPulse and the Digital Engagement Arts Manager at KQED Arts, where he engaged creative communities in digital and in-person arts experiences and authored dance reviews. Recently, Justin has committed his work to advocate for Palestinian liberation among the Bay Area arts community.

7pm Leg 3 - Museum of Digital Art and Entertainment

The Naked Bulb  -  The Good Hop


Naked Bulb was a backyard open mic in Fruitvale, Oakland for 10 years. NBPress was born from the events with Andrew J. Thomas, & Missy Church who support Bay Area poets. Naked Bulb Press has released 8 works, including the most recent, Neversent by G. Macias Gusman.


Gary Turchin uses humor, wisdom and sarcasm in equal measures to express his ideas in poetry and fiction. Recent publication credits include Pre-Medicated--Pills, Poems & Ponderings (2021 Naked Bulb.) 

Rhea Melina is a multi-ethnic poet and jack-of-many-trades who lives in Seattle.   She is a regular performer at Speak Out Seattle,Unpoetry (https://www.unpoetry.net), and A Space Inside.  Her chapbooks include "Fireant" (SSO Press, 2005), "These are not secrets" (XYZ Animal Stars, 2009), “a place to put things" (Bottlecap Press, 2023), and "Not My Wasteland" (Bone Machine, 2024). Recently she was a finalist for the 49th Parallel Award for poetry.  A full-length collection of her poetry will soon be available from Carbonation Press.
  
G. Macias Gusman is a Midwest / West Coast Poet.  His pedigree is the broken heart and the indifference of people.  His poetry reflects his favorite things in life: PBR, weed, cats, and staring out the window writing love poems at 4 in the morning drinking sweet coffee. His first full length collection of poetry, Neversent, out on naked bulb press. 
​
Andrew J. Thomas is the author of Strangeland, a Naked Bulb publisher, Beast Crawl alumni, doomsday poet and all around sad sack.

7pm Leg 3 - ​Feelmore Social Club

7pm Leg 3 - First Edition

7pm Leg3 - Block Community Hub

7pm Leg 3 - Bocanova

CELEBRATION OF QUEER POETICS
Celebration of Queer Poetics        -    Summer Lounge

A Celebration of Queer Poetics @ Beast Crawl 2024

A space that embraces love & radical tenderness--Celebration of Queer Poetics recognizes the
miraculous of the queer BIPOCX tongue. From the margins of hxstory we have continuously
broken open lung redefining poem & her purpose over & over again making your larynx in our
image. We are thousands/ upon thousands years old, we are the queer at the tip of your tongue
sculpting the language of each other's bodies. This summer the Pocho Chicanx Poetxs Lourdes Figueroa & soledad con carne team up to chew lung within the Beast. We seek to tremble your vagus nerve.

When the body alchemizes into word/when revolución alchemizes into poem revolting back
again to breath & we peer into the vastness of our animalito self we are a kaleidoscope.

The POETS

Hilary Cruz Mejia is a queer Guatemalan poet residing in the SF Bay Area. You can find their
latest published poem & as if revolution is made of puddles in sPARKLE & bLINK 115, an
anthology of Quiet Lightning/Better Ancestors.

Jessica Ke’mani (pronounced Keh-Mani) is a queer Oakland-born poet. Ke’mani self identifies as
a reunified adoptee, meaning they are back in connection with their birth family. Ke’mani is the
author of the new poetry chapbook, Power of Our Wombs, released by Nomadic Press
Publishing, edited by Tureeda Mikell- spring of 2023. It is a collection of reflections on early
childhood separation and traumas, mother wounds, and intimacy difficulties. 

Syd Staiti is the author of Seldom Approaches (The Elephants, 2023) and The Undying
Present (Krupskaya Books 2015). Staiti is a member of Light Field, a collective that presents an
annual film festival of recent and historical moving image art on celluloid.
Maria Guerrero is a queer, Chicanx femme who is proud of her Mexican raíces while being
born in San Francisco and raised in Bayview Hunters Point. She is an educator by day and a
poeta at 3am when the musas won't let her sleep.

Evelyn Donají is an artist and folk musician based in the San Francisco Mission District. She
leads the all femme son jarocho group, Corazón de Cedro, and forms part of the son jarocho
collective, Colectivo CalleSon. As a migrant, her participation in Mexican folk musical traditions
is one of healing empowerment, joyful resistance and reconnection to her Zapotec, Oaxacan
(Papaloapan, Sotavento) and southern Jaliscan roots. Evelyn has performed at Galeria de la
Raza’s Lunada, Accion Latina's Paseo Artistico, Medicine for Nightmares Bookstore and
Gallery, SOMArts, 924 Gilman, Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts, and the SF
International Flor Y Canto Literary Festival. 

Camellia Boutros is a Palestinian-Lebanese American composer and multi-instrumentalist based in San Francisco. Having performed as a trumpet player with a diverse array of Bay Area world music projects, such as Mission Delirium, Alaturca Connection, Inspector Gadje, and Banda Sin Nombre, Camellia approaches the music she writes with a custom modified fretless 12-string
electric guitar, enabling her to write and perform music using the quarter-tone Maqam system.
Her music and lyrics defy genre definition, forming an experimental blend of rock, folk, Arab,
jazz, and brass music, all of which can be found on her first solo album Refuge. 

The hosts-- these pocho chicanx poets:

soledad con carne is a casually queer, intergalactic Oakland, Ohlone-based chicanx punk poet,
working, poor multiple high school drop-out bookstore lackey, poet laureate of the San Fernando Valley, and blatant smoker sharing-trauma-with-their-mother.

Lourdes Figueroa is a chicanx oral poet & an award winning poetry filmmaker whose work is a dialogue of her lived experience when her family worked in el azadón—tilling of the soil under
the blistering sun. She is the author of the chapbooks yolotl, Ruidos =Learn Speak and Vuelta.
Forthcoming later this year in Mexico is her long verse poem I will kiss your mouth b/w the
overgrown Milpa. You can find their latest poetry film Las Marimacha Fragments made in
collaboration with Filmmaker Peggy Peralta within 3rd Thing's Press A Good Symptom: A Serial
Anthology of Time Based Disturbances. Lourdes celebrates your pocha marimachita tongue. A
native of limbo nation, she continues to believe in your lung & your throat. Lourdes celebrates
your pocha marimachita tongue & continues to believe in your lung & your throat.

7pm Leg 3 - Summer Lounge

Apocrypha Press - Theory Oakland


Daphne Gottlieb is the award-winning author of ten books including the collection of short stories, Pretty Much Dead. Daphne is the winner of the Acker Award for Excellence in the Avant-Garde, the Audre Lorde Award for Poetry, and is a five-time finalist for the Lambda Literary Award. 


Kevin Dublin is an educator, economic justice advocate, and the author of Eulogy (Raven & Wren Press, 2023) and How to Fall in Love in San Diego (Finishing Line Press, 2017). His work has appeared in numerous places and is the director of The Living Room SF. 


giorgia sage is a love poet, designer, and community weaver born, raised, and living in the 94110 zip code of san francisco, also known as yelamu by the ramaytush ohlone. their work explores scales of intimacy, queer utopian world-building, and ecologies of care. 


Andrew Paul Nelson is a poet living in North Beach San Francisco where he co-owns Golden Sardine Wine & Poetry Bar with his wife Caitlyn. His book of poems How to Draw A Guillotine from Apocrypha Press was released in June of 2024. 


Scott Bird is a poet, painter, musician and activist in San Francisco, California. He is the youngest member of the Revolutionary Poets Brigade  of San Francisco and co-editor of their annual international poetry anthology. 

7:00pm Leg 3 - Theory Oakland

#we: Queer Perspectives - Chapter 510


From 2018-2020, #we was a bi-monthly talk and reading series focusing on writers from across the queer spectrum who had experienced marginalization both without and within the queer community. At Beast Crawl, #we celebrates this with four fantastic wordsmiths speaking their truth. These are our lives we’re talking about.


READER BIOS


EDWARD GUNAWAN (addword.com) is a Bay Area-based writer, translator & curator who authored Start a Riot! Prize-winning The Way Back (Foglifter Press, 2022) and Press Play (Sweet Lit, 2020).


JULIA SERRANO writes about gender, sexuality, science, and social justice, and has authored five books, including Whipping Girl, Excluded, Sexed Up, and her award-winning debut novel 99 Erics.


SHILPA KAMAT is a Poet, educator, and healing arts practitioner Shilpa Kamat’s writing ranges from ecopoetics to speculative/experimental. Her chapbook, Saraswati Takes Back the Alphabet, was a finalist for the Gloria Anzaldúa Poetry Prize.


RICHARD LORANGER is a queer writer and performer who has authored six books and ten chapbooks. They curated #we in 2018-20, and will read and host this event as well.

7pm Leg 3 - Chapter 510 and the Dept of Make/ Believe