Reid Gómez Benefit 4/20

Sunday, April 20, 2008
California Wasn't Good For Us,
A Benefit Reading for Reid Gómez
Co-hosted by Small Press Traffic and Many Goats

Timken Hall Lecture Hall 2:00 p.m.
Refreshments will be served

Please note the special *Sunday* date
for this co-sponsored SPT event.

California Wasn't Good For Us,
A Benefit Reading for Reid Gómez

All OUT and All SKIN
California Wasn't Good For Us, a benefit reading for
San Francisco Native and Navajo writer Reid Gómez.
Featuring a landmark line up of queer American Indian
artists: Jewelle Gomez, Kim Shuck, Reid Gómez and
Master of Ceremonies, L. Frank. In the spirit of
radical feminism Jewelle Gomez, Kim Shuck and the
legendary L. Frank have joined co-host Small Press
Traffic in the first and only benefit for Reid Gómez
since her ill-fated and misdiagnosed ruptured
appendix in 2002. Contrary to urban myth, Reid did
not die, but she remains permanently disabled after
nearly four years of hospitalizations and
reconstructive/reparative surgeries. With no health
insurance, no state or federal financial support, Reid
continues to struggle to manage her physical therapy
regime (5 hours daily), and the ironic inability to
sit for long periods of time. At this time her most
urgent need is the purchase of a new computer and data
recovery. In this age even a writer who still writes,
ala Capote, prone and with pen and paper, requires
access to a computer to print and circulate work. As
Reid is not able to hold a job, and does not qualify
for state or federal disability, her only means of
support is through her writing.

Reid Gómez will be giving her first major reading
since her health crises and will read from her newly
finished novel, California Wasn't Good For Us. When
she was about to die all she could think was, "I can't
believe I'm going to die and not finish Cebolla's
story, how pathetic." Well, she finished in September
2007, and it took her the next year to get the
manuscript typed. She is eager to get this novel,
rather Rabelaisian in length and content, out to the
public. In 1995 she won the Astraea Lesbian Writers
Fund Emerging Writers Award.

Writer and activist Jewelle Gomez (Cape Verdean,
Ioway, Wampanoag) is the author of the double Lambda
Award winning novel, The Gilda Stories. Her
adaptation of this work was taken to 13 cities by the
Urban Bush on a tour titled, "Bones and Ash: a Gilda
Story." She is an original Gap Toothed Girl, and
contributor to the groundbreaking anthologies Home
Girls and Reading Black Reading Feminist. She was
awarded a literature fellowship from the National
Endowment of the Arts, and her writing has appeared in
numerous periodicals: The San Francisco Chronicle, The
New York Times, The Village Voice; Ms Magazine,
ESSENCE Magazine, The Advocate, Callaloo and Black
Scholar. More information about Ms. Gomez can be
accessed at http://www.jewellegomez.com/bio.html.

L. Frank is a Tongva/Ajachmem elder and activist,
deeply loved and respected by the California Indian
community. World renown for her painting as well as
her photography, and unequaled in her unique brand of
coyote humor. Her comic, Acorn Soup, appears
regularly in News From Native California, and her most
recent book is First Families: A Photographic History
of California Indians. L. says, "My art is cultural
maintenance. I am the art janitor . . . koo koo ka
choo." She is a board member of the Advocates for
Indigenous California Language Survival.

Cherokee poet Kim Shuck is the recipient of the
Native Writers of the America's First Book Award for
her 2005 book Smuggling Cherokee. She has an MFA in
weaving from SFSU, and was a member of the board of
directors for Califorina Poets in the Schools.

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Unless otherwise noted, events are $5-10, sliding scale,
free to current SPT members and CCA faculty, staff, and students.
There's no better time to join SPT!
Check out: http://www.sptraffic.org/html/supporters.htm

Unless otherwise noted, our events are presented in Timken Lecture Hall
California College of the Arts 1111 Eighth Street, San Francisco
(just off the intersection of 16th & Wisconsin).
Directions & map: http://www.sptraffic.org/html/directions.htm

Please note the special dates for these events.
We'll see you at SPT!