Join us for a very special Open Mic Night Friday August 5th at the DC Center that is also our kick-off event for the OutWrite LGBT Book Fair.
Our Open Mic Night, hosted by Miguel Brazell, normally takes place the first Friday of every month. There will be no open mic night in July due to the July 4th weekend
The August Open Mic Night will feature Perry Brass, Jeff Mann, and Philip Clark. Join us as we hear from these talented poets and come prepared to share your own work of art.
Wondering what to expect at Open Mic Night? You'll find a bit of everything. Check out some videos of past open mics on the Center Arts You Tube Page. You'll find some great performances by local artists like: Natalie Illum, Jeremy Pace, and Regie Cabico.
Meet our Featured Performers
Perry Brass: Poet, novelist, and gay activist, Perry Brass has published 15 books including erotic classics like Mirage, Angel Lust, The Substance of God, and Carnal Sacraments, as well as How to Survive Your Own Gay Life. He's been a finalist 6 times for Lambda Literary Awards, and won two IPPY Awards from Independent Publisher. As an activist, he joined the Gay Liberation Front in 1969, right after Stonewall, and became an editor of Come Out!, the world's first gay liberation newspaper. His newest book is The Manly Art of Seduction, How to Meet, Talk To, and Become Intimate with Anyone.
Jeff Mann: Jeff Mann grew up in Covington, Virginia, and Hinton, West Virginia, receiving degrees in English and forestry from West Virginia University. His poetry, fiction, and essays have appeared in many publications, including Arts and Letters, Prairie Schooner, Shenandoah, Willow Springs, The Gay and Lesbian Review Worldwide, Crab Orchard Review, Bloom, and Appalachian Heritage. He has published three award-winning poetry chapbooks, Bliss, Mountain Fireflies, and Flint Shards from Sussex; three full-length books of poetry, Bones Washed with Wine, On the Tongue, and Ash: Poems from Norse Mythology; two collections of personal essays, Edge: Travels of an Appalachian Leather Bear and Binding the God: Ursine Essays from the Mountain South; a novella, Devoured, included in Masters of Midnight: Erotic Tales of the Vampire; a book of poetry and memoir, Loving Mountains, Loving Men; and a volume of short fiction, A History of Barbed Wire, which won a Lambda Literary Award. He teaches creative writing at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia.
Philip Clark is the co-editor of Persistent Voices: Poetry by Writers Lost to AIDS. A writer and researcher living near Washington D.C., he serves as chair of the board of directors for the Rainbow History Project. His essays and other writings have appeared in such anthologies as The Golden Age of Gay Fiction; The Lost Library: Gay Fiction Rediscovered; Fifty Gay and Lesbian Books Everybody Must Read; and The Oxford Companion to the Photograph. He is currently completing the late Reginald Shepherd's work editing the selected poems of Donald Britton and researching a book about H. Lynn Womack, Washington D.C.'s Guild Press, and gay life from the 1950s-1970s.
