Jonathan Duckworth performs "Why I Don't Trust Centos" for Reading Queer/O,Miami's "O, Hi There!" event.

Jonathan Louis Duckworth is a current MFA student at Florida International University in Miami, where he works as a teaching assistant. He also serves as a reader and copy-editor for the Gulf Stream Literary Magazine. His work appears in or is set to appear in Hermeneutic Chaos Literary Journal, Mount Island Magazine, the Kudzu Review, and Sliver of Stone Magazine.

Why I Don't Trust Centos by Jonathan Duckworth

Sarah Trudgeon reads "Whenever You Go to Rehab" and "Beach Day" for O,Miami/Reading Queer's event "O, Hi There!"

Whenever You Go to Rehab and  Beach Day by Sarah Trudgeon

Laura McDermott Matheric performs "Sunlight of Florida" for Reading Queer/O,Miami's "O, Hi There!" event.

Laura McDermott Matheric, a true native of South Florida, was born and raised in Broward County, Florida. She is the founder and executive director of the Orange Island Arts Foundation and also a tenured assistant professor of English at Broward College where she was the recipient of the 2014 Wells Fargo Endowed Teaching Chair. Laura studied creative writing at FSU and received her MFA degree in poetry from FIU. Because of her dedication to higher education and writing, Laura received recognition as a 2008 Conference on College Composition and Communication Professional Equity Project Grant Recipient and was awarded the 2012 Paragon Award by the Phi Theta Kappa International Honor Society. She is the 2014-2015 Writer-in-Residency of Girls'Club. As a member of the Miami Poetry Collective, her poetry is regularly featured in its Cent Journal Series. She also won honorable mention in the 2013 Poetry Society of Virginia’s annual poetry contest.

Sunlight of Florida by Laura McDermott Matheric

Parker Phillips and the Kate Bush cover band White Lady Modernisms perform "Here's A Little Story"  for Reading Queer/O,Miami's event "O, Hi There!" 

Here's A Little Story by White Lady Modernisms (Parker Phillips)

Parker Phillips and the Kate Bush coverband White Lady Modernisms performs "Ghosts" for Reading Queer/O,Miami's event "O, Hi There!" 

Ghosts by White Lady Modernisms (Parker Phillips)

Marci Calabretta performs "Your Mouth is Full of Birds" for Reading Queer/O,Miami's event "O, Hi There!" 



Your Mouth Is Full Of Birds - Marci Calabretta

E. Parker Phillips performs "Amalfi" for Reading Queer/O,Miami's event "O, Hi There!" 

Amalfi by E. Parker Phillips

Hector Duarte Jr. performs "Definitely" for Reading Queer/O,Miami's event "O, Hi There!" 

Definitely

maybe there was a time when I was
with it.

It’s definitely 
not now.

Now is when I show everyone
what It is.

What I’m with now is not
whatever would have mattered 
then.

Maybe despite my $39000 a year,
I’ve paid some societal dues,
recommended both a good seasonal
beer and tapas place.

If you’re lucky,
you’ll pass me outside the movie theater,
with nothing more than a look,
recognition.

In 10 years, maybe there was a time
when you were with it.


Definitely by Hector Duarte Jr.

Veronica Suarez performs "A Romance in Letters" for O,Miami/Reading Queer's "O, Hi There!" event. 

Veronica Suarez worked as editor-in-chief for online issue 11 of Gulf Stream, the literary magazine of Florida International University. She is currently writing a book for her M.F.A. creative thesis. She was a contributing writer for the Miami New Times, the editor-in-chief of U&me Magazine, a music editor for OutLoud Multimedia, a contributing writer for Miami-Dade Parks, a contributing writer for The Beacon newspaper, and a communications intern for Mun2 television

A Romance in Letters

I don’t write to you with postage stamps or papyrus skin. My letters aren’t driven by carriages or horsepower. They are not dipped in Indian ink or sealed with wax, scribbled with goose quills or scratches of pencil. They are not delivered by couriers, coaches, or Roman chariots. They are not fossilized in the mahogany hide of parchment. 

They are sent from the comfort of a bed and digitized by the Internet. Sent through the synapses of electricity, like telepathic thoughts posting through my head. Received at your fingertips: immediate, instantaneous. The dancing, flickering cursor on the screen like the electricity dancing in my being. Tongue-free and muting of my vocal chords, these postal wanderings synch with every inbox declaration. The tilling in my brain merging with the blue electricity of email. 

I don’t write to you with the ancient romance of letters. But every inch of the flickering cursor synchs with every inch of me, till the keyboard becomes my fingers, coursing through the muttering beeps of your smartphone. Even missing the tangible fibers of paper, I write these tethered words hoping, just hoping, that these black-and-white symbols can seduce every tangible fiber of your being, so that I can finally touch every winding follicle of your curly hair. 


A Romance In Letters by Veronica Suarez

JAN BECKER is from a small coal mining town in Pennsylvania. She didn’t stay there very long. She grew up in a Marine Corps family, on military bases all over the United States. She is currently an MFA candidate at Florida International University and has taught courses there in composition, technical writing, creative writing and poetry. Her work has appeared in Emerge, Brevity Poetry Review, Sliver of Stone Magazine, and the Florida Book Review. She was recently selected as a recipient of the 2015 AWP Intro Journals Project Award in Nonfiction, the winning essay is forthcoming in the Colorado Review.

Half-Life By Jan Becker

The Morning After The Fire by Jan Becker

Reading Queer promotes queer literary culture in South Florida through an annual week-long literary festival, creative writing workshops led by nationally and locally recognized queer writers, a literary salon series and a literary archive. We are partially funded with a Miami Foundation-National Gay & Lesbian Task Force GLBT Community Grant and a Knight Arts Challenge Grant. The Knight Arts Challenge Grant is a Miami-based initiative to draw the best and most innovative ideas out of local organizations and individuals seeking to transform the community through the arts.