Come help Tara Hardy celebrate her book winning a Washington State Book Award! She’ll perform her one-woman show, “Why Should Just the Pretty Survive?” that arose from her book, My, My, My, My, My, (Write Bloody Press, 2016) which is largely inspired by her experiences with illness and of having come face-to-face with her mortality. This production explores what it means to have a body and for that body’s most important work to be executing the exquisite, temporary and glorious event of being alive.

Joining her on stage will be a luminous cast of poets and musicians performing original and collaborative works. Among them are:

Carolyn Agee
Ebo Barton
Michele Bombardier
Jourdan Imani Keith
Tobi Hill Meyer
billie rain

Admission: $10 or free with book purchase. $7 for Seniors and People With Disabilities (or free with book purchase). No one turned away for lack of funds.
Time: 7:00pm show (6:30 doors)
Location: Gay City, Calamus Auditorium (517 E. Pike Street, Seattle, WA 98122)

Accessibility Info: Gay City is wheelchair accessible and the event is fragrance-free. Because Gay City is a Fragrance Free venue, guests who are wearing scents will not be allowed admittance to the auditorium.

Fragrance Free Policy: Guests are asked to not wear fragrances to this event. Fragrances are a health issue for many people and can cause difficulty breathing, headaches and flu-like symptoms that can last for days. Please take the extra precautions necessary so performers and audience members are not faced with the decision of having to leave.

For more information: http://eastbaymeditation.org/accessibility/PDF/How-to-Be-Fragrance-Free-.pdf

Tara Hardy is the working class, Queer, Femme, chronically ill/disabled founder of Bent Writing Institute for LGBTIQ writers in Seattle. Her book My, My, My, My, My is a 2017 Washington State Book Award Winner. Tara grew up under the great big sky of Michigan, but now writes at the majestic hem of Mount Rainier in Seattle. Her first book of poems Bring Down the Chandeliers, published by Write Bloody Press in 2011, primarily addresses being a father-daughter incest survivor. Tara holds an MFA from Vermont College and is a former Richard Hugo House Writer in Residence, former Seattle Poet Populist and alumnae of Hedgebrook. She has been an instructor at Seattle Central College, Richard Hugo House and Path With Art. She is also the Arts Director at Gay City. Tara is a daughter of the United Auto Workers and has been engaged with anti-violence and liberation work since she was old enough to sing at union rallies. Tara has also been a maid (uniform included), park ranger (tractor included), convenience store clerk (threatening clientele included), activist (self righteousness included), and teacher (apple not included).