OUR STORY
QueerWise is a LGBTQIA+ multigenerational writing collective and performance group living in Los Angeles. The artistic troupe has gained a reputation for their literary merit while capturing the zeitgeist of their generation.
Michael Kearns
Responding to an urgent need in the LGBTQI+ world, artist-activist Michael Kearns initially created QueerWise for writers, 50+, who needed an outlet that encourages and nurtures open self-expression. As he had in the nascent days of the AIDS crisis—forming Artists Confronting AIDS with his partner, James Carroll Pickett—Kearns is intent on fulfilling a void that provides a safe space for uncensored storytelling.
Founded in 2011, under Kearns’ direction, the diverse group of writers who form QueerWise has taken their work from the page to the stage, honoring the Spoken Word tradition, melding literary and theatrical disciplines. During the past decade, the troupe has produced more than two dozen performance pieces in venues throughout Los Angeles —from Akbar to the Skylight Theatre—achieving a reputation for their lambent outpouring of work that is startlingly authentic and powerfully rendered.
"Everyone carries a valuable story that deserves to be witnessed," Kearns says. Beginning a few years ago, aware of (and applauding) the burgeoning number of groups catering to writing-for-seniors, QueerWise opened its doors to queer people, 18+, endeavoring to capture the zeitgeist that emerges from an intergenerational community of artists who share their stories.
The Early Years of Queerwise
We have succeeded, thanks in no small part to generous support from the City of West Hollywood, earmarked to produce two video productions (from the stage to the screen due to Covid), The Ache for Home (2021) and Queers Across Years (2022) in addition to the upcoming Queer Today Bring On Tomorrow.
QueerWise has also consistently been supported by Poets & Writers through a grant it has received from the James Irvine Foundation.
QueerWise has partnered with Fracture Atlas to serve as our fiscal sponsor. Donations and grants should be made to Fractured Atlas on behalf of QueerWise.
Members of QueerWise include published poets, fiction and non-fiction writers, and playwrights, singers, musicians, social activists, dancers, and actors, artists and teachers.
The QW writers meet on Monday evenings, rain or shine (on Zoom these days) and they are always open to new membership. The simple requirement is that you posit yourself as a writer and that you are comfortable with the “queer” label (no matter who you sleep with).
Shades of Disclosure, Skylight Theatre,2017