Genderqueer poet/activist Ollie Schminkey will make their Southern California debut on Friday, February 27, 2015 at the opening of the Asterisk Trans* Conference at UC Riverside. Friday's events are free and open to the public. Ollie's performance at 8:30pm will follow a film screening of TransVisible, including an audience Q&A with Bamby Salcedo.
Ollie Schminkey is the director of the Macalester Poetry Slam and (as an official Word Sprout collaborator) the founder of Well-Placed Commas, a weekly poetry workshop to serve the needs of the Twin Cities area. They have competed on the nationally ranked MacSlams CUPSI team for two years, competed on 2 Twin Cities NPS teams, placed 2nd at the 2013 Great Plains Poetry Pile-Up, and competed twice with the Macalester team at Rustbelt. They have also performed and published work with 20% Theatre Company's The Naked I: Insides Out, and they tour locally with this show.
They are the author of one chapbook, The Taste of Iron, and they have work being published in September 2014 as a part of Write Bloody and Andrea Gibson's anthology, "We Will Be Shelter." They have featured at venues and events such as Rachel McKibben's Poetry and Pie Night, Slam Free or Die, Port Veritas, Mama's Crowbar, Zeke Russell's New Shit Show, OUTspoken!, Intermedia Arts, and Patrick's Cabaret.
"Spread love. Create stuff," says Ollie, inviting folks to join them at the Asterisk Trans* Conference.
