Synchronized Chaos Magazine

Synchronized chaos magazine presents - whose body

"WHOSE BODY?" This provocative question from Dorothy Sayers' 1923 mystery novel introduces a reading from various Northern California and East Bay poets and prose writers. Many of us grapple with themes related to our physical bodies: disability, health and illness, and bodily autonomy. Others have crafted "bodies" of work dealing with topics that seem more cerebral but are still ultimately grounded in physical experience: identity, history, and language. This reading invites us to consider who we are, at our core, and the different ways we inhabit our world.

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Leticia Escalera has worked with the Center for Independent Living and served two board terms on a California disability advocacy organization and the Oakland Mayor's Commission on Persons with Disabilities. She’s written a memoir about life with cognitive/neurological disabilities.

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Christopher Bernard has published novels (including A Spy in the Ruins and Voyage to a Phantom City), collections of poetry and short fiction, and much cultural journalism. He is also a playwright, photographer, and co-editor of the semiannual webzine Caveat Lector, and writes regularly for Synchronized Chaos Magazine. Recent books are the novel Meditations on Love and Catastrophe at The Liars' Cafe and The Socialist's Garden of Verses, which won a PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Award in 2021 and was named one of the “Top 100 Indie Books of 2021” by Kirkus Reviews. His children’s books Otherwise . . .: If You Ride a Crooked Trolley and Otherwise . . . : The Judgment of Biestia will be published later in 2023.

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Jan Steckel was a Harvard- and Yale-trained pediatrician who took care of Spanish-speaking children until chronic pain persuaded her to change professions to writer, poet and medical editor. She is an activist for bisexual and disability rights who lives in Oakland, California. Her poetry book The Horizontal Poet (Zeitgeist Press, 2011) won a 2012 Lambda Literary Award. Her fiction chapbook Mixing Tracks (Gertrude Press, 2009) and poetry chapbook The Underwater Hospital (Zeitgeist Press, 2006) also won awards. Her creative writing has appeared in Scholastic Magazine, Yale Medicine, Bellevue Literary Review, and elsewhere. Her work won the Goodreads Newsletter Poetry Contest, a Zeiser Grant for Women Artists, the Jewel by the Bay Poetry Competition, Triplopia’s Best of the Best competition, and three Pushcart nominations.

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Brad Buchanan​ is the author of four published books of poetry, the most recent being THE SCARS, ALIGNED: A CANCER NARRATIVE (2019), and CHIMERA (2022). Emeritus Professor of English at Sacramento State University, he has also published three scholarly books, and a medical memoir entitled LIVING WITH GRAFT-VERSUS-HOST DISEASE.

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​Fred Dodsworth has published works by Alan Ginsberg, June Jordon, Kim Addonizio, Amy Wallace, Garrison Keillor, Corby Kummer, Ginu Kamani, Karla Brundage, Allison Francis, Meliza Bañales, and many others. His work history includes lifestyle magazines, literary magazines, lesbian sports magazines, news-weeklies, and daily newspapers. Working with Dolan Eargle he researched, wrote, edited and produced three books on California’s Native Peoples: California Indian Country: The Land and the People; Native California Guide 2000, Weaving Past and Present; and Native California: An Introductory Guide to the Original Peoples from Earliest to Modern Times. Last year he launched Dodsworth Books with three books in print, Mulatta—Not So Tragic, A Life In Service, Root for the Underdog, and three more in process.

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Terry Tierney is the author of a poetry collection, The Poet’s Garage, and the novel Lucky Ride. His new novel, The Bridge on Beer River, will be published in July 2023 by Unsolicited Press. Amember of the SF Writers Grotto, he lives in Oakland with his wife, a Librarian from the University of California, their two Persian cats, and their enthusiastic Golden Retriever. Website: https://terrytierney.com

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Leg 2 (5:30pm - 6:30pm) Venue: ​Feelmore Social Club, 1542 Broadway

Downtown Oakland has a new hangout that's a little bit wild and sexy: Feelmore Social.

"Feelmore is a sex forward bar," Nenna Joiner, owner of the popular adult shop and gallery, Feelmore Adult Gallery said in an interview with the Bay Area Reporter. "We want to create a space where sexual weirdos can come."

The lounge isn't only for sexually forward and sex-positive people, Joiner, 48, a Black queer nonbinary person, clarified. The bar is also for the less sexually adventurous to be in a relaxed and open atmosphere sipping good cocktails. If they feel like talking about sex they can do so openly.

"They can feel open to ask any question and not feel shame," they said.

The sexy cocktail lounge is the newest evolution of the Feelmore brand. Joiner opened Feelmore Adult in 2010. Right before COVID-19 hit they opened the Berkeley location in February 2020. They also launched Feelmore Home in 2018. The adult shop is around the corner from the new Oakland bar. It's in the heart of downtown Oakland on Broadway close to the 12th Street BART Station.

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