Siren Nation Festival

I have officially moved into my lovely new home, aptly named 'the sassy shack'. my room is coming along, still deciding whether or not to paint it...

My new housemates are lovely and overall, I am really happy to be here. I experienced a short bout of insomnia, i.e. waking up at 4:30 in the morning 2 days in a row and not being able to fall back asleep, but fortunately that seems to have subsided. 

Last weekend, which feels like a million years ago, I had the pleasure of attending a workshop entitled "Start Your Own F*cking Writing Career", facilitated by Michelle Tea. It was part of the 2nd Annual Siren Nation Festival and it was completely free.

I wasn't really sure what to expect. I've seen Michelle read before, at the Anarchist Book Fair in San Francisco, and I've read "The Passionate Mistakes and Intricate Corruption of One Girl in America", her first book . To be honest, I appreciate all the amazing organizing she does, but I am not always wild about her writing, so I wasn't sure what to expect.

She started off the workshop by reading an article she had written on starting your own spoken word event. Michelle was one of the co-founders of Sister Spit, a lesbian-feminist spoken word collective that started in 1994 in the bay area. The ladies of Sister Spit eventually took their show on the road, going on a month long cross-country tour, bringing 13 writers and performance artists (and a roadie) with them in 2 vans. 

Although the original Sister Spit has now disbanded, Michelle has recently started Sister Spit: The Next Generation. The next crew of seven fabulous writers and artists is hitting the road in April 2009. You can check them out on myspace, www.myspace.com/sisterspitnextgen. 

The workshop ended up being really fun, informative and interesting. Michelle spent most of time answering audience questions. She is a witty and charasmatic person. It was exciting and inspiring to hear about her life and the process she has gone through to become a full time writer/organizer/artist and to be able to collectively pick her brain with fellow Portland writers and queerbos for an hour and a half. 

I mean, the woman co-organized a nationwide spoken word tour before internet and cell phones. She is teaching a beginning fiction class at Mills College right now even though she herself does not have a college degree. And she has recently started her own non-profit, RADAR Productions, so she can continue to organize literary events in the bay area and beyond with the financial support of grants and state funding.

She did have some words of wisdom to share, her main point being that if you want to be a successful writer, you have to put your writing first, always. before your shitty job, before your shitty relationships. She also emphasized the importance of building a literary community and putting your work out in the world as much as possible, which is one of the main reasons she and Sini Anderson created Sister Spit in the first place. 

The Siren Nation Festival itself was really well organized and had quite a variety of cool things to check out. There were musical showcases on Friday and Saturday evenings at the Wonder Ballroom, films being shown earlier on in the week, free workshops in the afternoons on Saturday and Sunday and a craft fair on Sunday afternoon. Some of the other workshop topics included; canning and perserving, building a rocket stove, electronic music, zine-making, and much more. This was the festival's second year and it appeared to be quite a success.

Word Stock, a weekend long writing festival, was also happening this weekend, but between moving and attending Siren Nation events, I wasn't able to make it. Oh well, there's always next year. I am so grateful to live in a city with so many amazing people putting on such fabulous events! Yeah Portland!