Big Queer Book Party: Tea Leaves by Jacob Budenz – outside at Current Space!

Additional Readings:
Sylvia Jones
Tonee Moll

Special Guests:
DJ Amsies
Alex D'Agostino
Molesuit Choir

& Tarot by Soleil

Tea Leaves presents 17 speculative short stories that place queer characters in larger-than-life situations to emphasize the surreal experience of marginalization. A queer romance spans multiple incarnations, but only in doomed cities. A gay medieval scholar must testify for his life to the otherworldly octopus who traps him in a cafe bathroom. Ignoring their better judgment, a witch brings their mortal partner on a hunt for a dangerous sorcerer and must cope with the dire consequences.

About the book:
Each of the stories within Tea Leaves explores the urgency of modern queer life in encounters between the otherworldly and the queer other. In juxtaposing queer narratives with new, larger-than-life myths, Tea Leaves both exalts and lampoons the queer experience while examining the sometimes surreal obstacles of marginalization.

About the author:
Jacob Budenz (Jake Bee) is a queer writer, multi-disciplinary performer, educator, and witch with an MFA from the University of New Orleans and a BA from Johns Hopkins University whose work explores the intersections between otherness and the otherworldly. A 2020 winner of the Baker Innovative Projects Grant for Simaetha: a Dreambaby Cabaret, Jake has work in journals including Slipstream, Taco Bell Quarterly, Baffling, Wussy Magazine, and more, as well as anthologies by Mason Jar Press and Lycan Valley publications.

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Outdoors at Current Space – Enter through the back at 421 Tyson Street
Accessibility and Parking Info: https://www.currentspace.com/contact
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Events at Current Space are rain or shine. Tickets are non-refundable.

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This program is made possible in part with support from Maryland State Arts Council Creativity Grant; supporting members like you; the Baltimore Office of Promotion & The Arts, a 501(c)3 non-profit organization; the generous contributions of The Maryland State Arts Council; and the Robert W. Deutsch Foundation.