Welcome to RADAR Productions' Fall Fundraising page!
RADAR is the queer-centric literary organization, programming events by and for writers, artists and readers throughout the San Francisco Bay Area and beyond! Such as . . .
The monthly RADAR Reading Series at the San Francisco Public Library. Now in its 9th year, this FREE program invites four underground and breakthrough writers + artists to share their work and engage in dynamic conversation with the audience - with cookies! RADAR has paid out over $40,000 to writers and artists through this program, and connected them with a passionate audience of over 50,000 people. And, in 2013 RADAR will expand our programming to the East Bay, with quarterly performances at La Pena Cultural Center in Berkeley.
The Sister Spit international performance tours. With a new lineup every year, Sister Spit brings radical queer and feminist performance across the US and Canada, strenghtening the creative visibility of the 70+ artists who have jumped in the van, and bringing the best of RADAR to places large and small - including many places where any queer programming is rare indeed. This spring will mark our 11th tour, and the debut of . . .
Sister Spit Books! An imprint of the venerable City Lights Publishers - the press who went to court fighting for Allen Ginsbergs's right to Howl - Sister Spit Books will publish new works by queer + feminist writers each year, bringing daring memoir, provocative fiction and tough poetry from from the stage to your bookshelf, beginning with our debut collection Sister Spit: Rants, Writing and Reminiscence From the Road. Upcoming authors include NYT bestseller Beth Lisick, emerging novelist Dia Felix, and a first collection from Northampton, Massachusetts' Poet Laureate Lenelle Moise. Wait, there's more!
The Radar LAB, an annual writer and artists' retreat in Akumal, Mexico, is the only one of it's kind - a FREE 11-day retreat which prioritizes the voices of marginalized writers, giving them a paradisical environment to work towards completion of a major work. Coming up on its 5th year, RADAR has housed and fed 65 individual artists, and helped usher into the world such literary works as Maggie Nelson's NYT acclaimed The Art of Cruelty; Justin Chin's 98 Wounds, and forthcoming publications from Nicole J. Georges (Calling Dr. Laura, Houghton Mifflin, January 2013), Lucy Corin (Over 100 Apocalypses, McSweeneys, 2013) Daniel Levesque (Hairdresser on Fire, Manic D Press, Spring 2013), Sarah Fran Wisby (The Heart's Progress, Plain Wrap Press, 2012), Michelle Tea (A Mermaid in Chelsea Creek, McSweeneys, January 2013), and Ali Liebegott (Cha-Ching!, Sister Spit Books/City Lights, Spring 2013).
The Eli Coppola Memorial Poetry Chapbook Prize. Each year, RADAR invites poets everywhere to submit a manuscript for consideration for this award in honor of the beloved San Francisco poet Eli Coppola, whose spoken word and chapbooks were a vital part of the city's performance poetry scene in the 1990s. The winner receives a beautifully designed chapbook, as well as a slot in the RADAR Reading Series and a book party. Past winners include Ryka Aoki de la Cruz and DeWayne Frazier Dickerson.
In addition to these ongoing events, RADAR continues to spearhead innovative literary-based projects, such as Valencia, in which 21 independent filmmakers were paid $1,000 to create a short film based on one chapter of Michelle Tea's cult-classic novel. Currently in post-production, expect to see Valencia - a wild celebration of DIY queer life, love, heartache, art and activism - at film festivals internationally in 2013, and check out our 90s party featuring The Need, an art show with orginial Valencia art by Ariel Dunitz-Johnson and screenings and panels with the film's many creators at the 2013 National Queer Arts Festival.
RADAR Productions is a two-writer operation - Executive Director Michelle Tea and Managing Director Ali Liebegott, plus the assistance of our interns Rebekkah Dilts, Lena Brooks and Brea Bianco. Over half of our budget goes to artist fees - in 2012 RADAR paid over $60,000 directly to artists. We do this with the help of foundations and institutions, and also with the help of our community, who wants to see underground literature and art thrive.
In the past nine years RADAR has grown from an organization who presented writers to one that nurtures artists at every stage of their career - touring them, paying them, publishing them and giving them the actual time and space to create new work. We could not have done this without the support of queer and progressive writers and readers throughout the country, and we ask of you to be generous as we move into our double-digits and continue to find new ways to serve independent writers and the independent readers who love them. Please give now and thank you for supporting queer art and literature.
Another way to support us this month is to buy a ticket to an evening of queer art, theory, cocktails and POLKA DOTS to benefit our work on behalf of queer + underground writers everywhere!
RADAR is proud to present Jonathan Katz, founder of Queer Studies and curator of the provocative Hide/Seek exhibit at the Smithsonian, the first major museum exhibition to explore gender and sexuality in modern American portraiture. Mr. Katz will treat revelers to a sneak peek of his current work in progress, a biography of eccentric Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama, whose polka-dotted vision currently grace Louis Vuitton purses and is the subject of a retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art. Mr. Katz worked on this project while in residence at the 2012 Radar LAB.
Imbibe polka-dotted drinks, nosh on polka-dotted snacks, and wear your finest polka dots to this Sunday afternoon soiree, all while benefiting RADAR's efforts to promote, tour, publish and nurture queer writers at all stages of their careers. RADAR's work is always spot on!
http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/282115