last updated may 24 2026, work in progress
books
Kunju. Memoir. Work in progress.
The Way Disabled People Love Each Other. Poetry. Arsenal Pulp, spring 2026
The Future Is Disabled: Prophecies, Love Notes and Mourning Songs. (2nd edition 2023, with new afterword and “Against the Great Forgetting” essay.)
Beyond Survival: Stories and Strategies from the Transformative Justice Movement (co-edited with Ejeris Dixon.)
Care Work: Dreaming Disability Justice
Bridge of Flowers (hard to source, email me for copies)
Dirty River: A Queer Femme of Color Dreaming Their Way Home
The Revolution Starts At Home: Confronting Intimate Violence in Activist Communities (co-edited with Ching-In Chen and Jai Dulani)
writing projects
2016. hard femme poetics. webzine of the 2016 hard femme poetics cohort
2008 Femme Shark Communique #1 -All Our Holes Are Hungry, Hungry for Justice and Fucking
essays
“I’m too crazy for a job” Mad Scholars, edited by Shayda Kafai. Duke University Press, 2024
« Palestine is Disabled » Disability Visibility Project, January 2024
Postcards From the End of the World. Substack, monthly essays, December 2023-present.
“republics of desire : disabled lineages of longing”. in Disability Intimacy. Edited by Alice Wong. New York : Vintage. 2024.
« where do we go from here? a roundtable with some disabled BIPOC activists. Disability Visibility Project. May 2023.
“Crip Lineages, Crip Futures” with Stacey Park Milbern, Crip Genealogies. Edited by Alison Kafer, Eunjng Kim. Chapel Hill NC : Duke University Press. 2023
“there are disabled people in the future” Stories About the Future, edited Syrus Marcus Ware. Toronto: House of Anansi, forthcoming 2024.
“Making Space Accessible Is An Act of Love for Our Communities,”Portable Feminist Reader, edited by Roxane Gay. Penguin Classics. Forthcoming 2024.
« Abled Leftists Cannot Afford to « Forget About COVID 19 » Truthout, October 2023
“Harm Reduction is Disability Justice: It’s Not out there, It’s in Here.” Saving Our Own Lives:A Liberatory Practice of Harm Reduction, Shira Hassan. Chicago: Haymarket Books. 2022.
“Cripping Healing,” The Care We Dream Of, Zena Sharman. Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp 2021
“Still Dreaming Wild Disability Justice Dreams at the End of the World,” Disability Visibility: First Person Stories About the Disability Experience. Edited by Alice Wong. New York: Vintage. 2020
“Cripping the Resistance: No Revolution Without Us,” Disability Visibility Project, August 2020
“Nobody Left Behind and Wanting to Run Like Hell: Disability Justice Strategies for This Current Pandemic Moment,” Medium, September 2020
“20 Questions for Disabled Art Producers,” Disability Arts Online, December 2020
“I Wanna Be With You Everywhere,” Break the Story Volume 4, August 20202
“The Future Is Disabled,” Shameless Magazine,Futures issue, Spring 2020
“Cripping the Book Tour” GUTS: Movement, Issue 11. January 2020. Montreal QC.
“Cripping Resistance, Claiming Ourselves: Three Interviews with Sick/Disabled QTBIPOC Artists.” With Jody Chan. Hematepoesis/ Disability Justice Network of Ontario. November 2019.
“I love your resting autistic face” Truth Out, fall 2019
“To Survive the Trumpocalypse, We Need Wild Disability Justice Dreams.” TruthOut, May 2018
“Untranslatable Crip: the life and work of Laura Hershey.” Laura Hershey: On The Life And Work Of An American Master. Edited by Meg Day and Nikki Herd. Pleiades Press. 2019
“Disability Justice/Stonewall’s Legacy, or: Love Mad Trans Black Women When They Are Alive and Dead, Let their Revolutions Teach Your Resistance All the Time “ Stonewall Fiftieth Anniversary: Queering Legacy and Its Futures. QED: A Journal in GLBTQ Worldmaking. Michigan State University.
“Becoming A Map for Survival,” Guernica, April 2019
“Not Fixed, Not Over It” Whatever Gets You Through. Edited by Stacey May Fowles. Vancouver: Greywolf Press. Reprinted in Vice Canada and Herizons, summer 2019.
“browngirlworld” Colonize This! Second edition, edited by Daisy Hernandez and Bushra Rehman
“Care as Pleasure”, Pleasure Activism. Edited by Adrienne Maree Brown. Chico, CA: AK Press, 2019
“old-ass femmes who will outlives the apocalypse” in The Body Is Not An Apology‘s Silence Every Lie anthology, 2018
“A Modest Proposal for a Fair Trade Care Labor Economy (informed by working class, disabled femme genius) Bitch magazine, summer 2017
“Riches: Oakland, 2012” in Deaf Poets Society Volume 1, August 2016, deafpoetssociety.com
“Children who fly,” Octavia’s Brood, edited by Adrienne Marie Brown and Walidah Imarisha, AK Press, 2015
“Fuck “The Triumph of the Human Spirit: Survivor Memoirs and Racism in Publishing,” Third Woman Press, March 2015.
“All That You Touch You Change: An Interview”, Bitch Magazine, February 2015
“Learning to be brown,” Sinister Wisdom: Exile. Winter 2013/2014
“Promise,” Letters Lived: Radical reflections, revolutionary paths, edited by Sheila Sampath, Arsenal Pulp Press, fall 2014.
“The Door of No Return,” forthcoming in Undoing Border Imperialism, edited by Harsha Walia, AK Press, spring 2014.
“It’s not going to be pretty, it’s going to be fucking beautiful”, Stay Solid, edited by Matt Hern, AK Press, 2013
“excerpts, Dirty River,” Dear Sister, edited by Lisa Factora-Borchers, AK Press, 2013
“Suicidal ideation 2.0, queer community leadership, and staying alive anyway.” The Icarus Project. December 2013
“Interview” Everyday Abolition. April 2013, everydayabolition.org
“A Babe-ilicious Healing Justice Statement from the BadAss Visionary Healers (BAVH)” 1969: Journal of Critical Ethnic Studies, UC Berkeley. Spring 2013
“For Badass, Sustainable, Working-class, femme, disabled hustling for liberation.” Organizing Upgrade, October 2012
“Poetry is a muscle: Working class femme poetics,” Poetry is Dead. Fall 2012.
“Sweet dark places: Letters to Gloria Anzaldua on creativity, chronic illness and Coatlicue.” El Mundo Zurdo: Reflections on the life of Gloria Anzaldua. San Francisco: Aunt Lute. 2012.
“Never be hungry again,” and “Femme Shark Manifesto.” Persistence: Still Butch and Femme, edited Ivan Coyote and Zena Sharman, Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press, 2011.
“Some of did not die: Sri Lankan poetic trauma stewardship” 2011, Left Turn Magazine.
“The Azolla Story: The Telling of Our Transformation.” Co-written with Mia Mingus and Stacey Milbern, Make/Shift, Spring 2011.
“Mad Sick Skills: Queering and Disabling Motherhood,” Hip Mama. Fall 2011.
“Don’t forget where you are, holding history in your breath: Queer of color art and activism.” Aorta Magazine, Issue 3, Winter 2010.
“Love letter to a blueprint: June Jordan’s Poetry for the People.” Special Revolutionary Poetic section edited by Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Left Turn, Summer 2010.
“What it looks like when it finally comes: Healing from incest in real life,” Yes Means Yes. Edited by Jaclyn Friedman and Jessica Valenti. Seattle: Seal, 2009. “Power to the Brown People: The Laibar Singh protest.”Colorlines Summer 2008
“We are the ones: Queer/trans of color publishing histories and futures.” Make/Shift #3, Summer 2008
“The Revolution Starts At Home: Confronting Abuse In Activist Communities.” Left/Turn, Fall 2008
“U People.” Make/Shift Issue 4, Winter 2008
“Rock the Nation: Good Asian Drivers queer APIA roadshow.” Hyphen, Fall 2008
“Never gone back.” Homelands: Women’s Journeys Across Race, Place and Time. Edited by Patricia Tumong and Jenesha de Rivera. Seattle: Seal/Avalon. 2007.
“A Time to Hole Up and a Time to Kick Ass: Re imagining Activism As a Million Ways to Fight.” We Don’t Need Another Wave. Edited by Melody Berger. Seattle: Seal/Avalon. 2007
“Sisters in Print: Women of Color Lead Independent Media.” Colorlines, Spring 2006
“A letter to my cousin, the genius.” RiffRag #2, Fall 2006.
“Busting the Beige Barrier.” Bitchfest. Edited by Andi Zeisler. New York: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux. 2006.
“New York Femme Memory #1.” With a Rough Tongue, edited by Trish Kelly and Amber Dawn Upfold. Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp, 2005.
“After the whirlwind: Sri Lankan post-tsunami activism,” Colorlines, Summer 2005
“Continuous Journey: The world of Ali Kazimi.” Colorlines, Fall 2004
“Even in Canada: The Project Threadbare raids.” Colorlines, Summer 2004
“Art/rebel/warriors: South Asian radical art post-Desh Pardesh.” FUSE, Summer 2004
“Scholarship baby.” Without a Net: The Female Experience of Growing Up Working Class, edited by Michelle Tea, Seattle/New York: Seal Press/Avalon, 2004.
“Gonna get my girl body back: II.” Dangerous Families: Queers Surviving Sexual Abuse, edited by Matt Bernstein Sycamore, Philadelphia: Haworth Press, 2004
- “Slut kiss girl.” Geeks, Misfits and Outlaws, edited by Zoe Whittall. Toronto:McGilligan, 2003
“Gonna get my girl body back: this is a work in progress.” Brazen Femme: Queering Femininity, ed. by Anna Camilleri and Chloe Brushwood-Rose. Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp, 2002.
“For Burgher women: I write this in fire.” Fireweed, Summer 2002.
“Browngirlworld: queergirlof color organizing, sistahood, heartbreak.” Colonize This! Young Women of Color on Today’s Feminism,edited by Daisy Hernandez and Bushra Rehman. Seattle: Seal Press, 2002.
“Mestiza rapechile luvstory.” Bent on Writing: Contemporary Queer Tales, edited by Elizabeth Ruth. Toronto: Women’s Press. 2002.
“Ammachi Stories.” Fireweed, Summer 2000.
“Bi-femme.” Femme: Feminists, Lesbians, Bad Girls, edited by Liz Crocker and Laura Harris. New York: Routledge, 1997.
“Stick and stones.” A Girl’s Guide to Taking Over the World. Edited by Tristan Taoromino. New York: St. Martin’s. 1997.
poetry
Selected work, Foglifter, San Francisco CA, spring 2024
Selected work, Massachusetts Review, Disability Justice issue fall 2022.
“end of the world park, or why disabled women of color die young”, Room Magazine, “ancestors” summer 2022 issue
featured poet, Split This Rock, summer 2020
Featured poet, Room Magazine Queer issue, fall 2018
“all the femmes come back” in Femmescapes Volume 3
“crip infinity” in Anomaly: Glitterbrain, a folio of writing by neurodivergent qtpoc writers.
“ crip fairy godmother” and “femme futures” in Hemeteopoesis. Issue 2/ Infection. July 2017
“thanks, dad” Hold, issue 2. December 2016
“adaptive device” Deaf Poets Society Volume 2, October 2016.
“ femme houses” “ bad road” Deaf Poets Society Volume 1, August 2016
“tonguebreaker: Taueret” Perigree, Septmeber 2016
“every time I see you I think what the hell was I thinking? : AS/US, Volume 4, 2015
various poems, Adrienne, fall 2014
“I love hard girls” Prism International, fall 2014
“What it’s like to be Sri Lankan in 2012” Jaggery, fall 2013
“For Randa” “Inshallah” and “Airport Ode #1”, SAMAR, fall 2013
“I begin by listening.” Asian American Literary Review. Ten Years: Special Issue Commemorating the Tenth Anniversary of Sept. 11. September 2011.
“dirty river girl” “Sri Lankan Miracle Resiliency Poems 1-9.” Generations. Issue 2. Fall 2011.
“Sri Lankan War Diary 2009” and “After 31 Years of Loving in the War Years,” Ya Basta! Women of Color on War and Imperialism. Edited by the Ya Basta Collective. Boston: South End Press, 2010.
“SBBFF 4 Eva” and “Femmes are film stars.” Visible: A Femmethology. HomoFactus Press, 2009.
“After 31 years of loving in the war years.” Make/Shift #2, Fall 2007
“Dropping bombs.” Trikone, Summer 2006, 25th anniversary edition
“Dreaming of the garden of Eden.” Prism International. Vancouver BC. Spring 2006.
“I didn’t want the end times to be like this: 9/11 in seven slams.” Mizna, Fall 2004.
“Noise” and “Sweet Water.”Lodestar Quarterly. no 10: spring 2004; special queer APIA issue.
“Pretty light skin dream.” Thirdspace, Winter 2003.
“Crazy girl on red bike.” big boots, volume 3, issue 2. Summer 2003.
performance projects
2023, disabled grief transformation portal altar installation and “never lost” poetic suite, I wanna be with you everywhere, Summer Solstice. PS New York, NY NY
2022 poetic audio description suite, Wired, Kinetic Light. Lincoln Center, NY. Composed suite of poetic audio description of this full-length dance performance, a meditation on barbed wire, Black women’s hair, carcerality, colonization and BDSM.
2024, 2023, 2019 I wanna be with you everywhere. PS New York, Whitney Museum, NY NY.
2009, 2010, 2012, 2016 Lead Artist, Sins Invalid, ODC Theater, Brava Theater, San Francisco, CA.
2015 “cripstory” Patient No More: Section 504 Protests Remembehttps://longmoreinstitute.sfsu.edu/archive/patient-no-more-mural.htmlred. Longmore Institute on Disability, San Francisco State University, San Francisco CA. Youtube ASL interpretation.
2008 Diaspora Dialogues, Commission to Re-imagine Toronto, Toronto ON.
Awards and honors
2021 Finalist, Creative Capital Award
2021 Yerba Buena Center for the Arts YBCA100
2021 Nautilus Award, Nonfiction (Beyond Survival)
2021 Finalist, Lambda Literary Award, LGBT Nonfiction (Beyond Survival)
2020 Finalist, Publishing Triangle Audre Lorde Poetry Award (Tonguebreaker)
2020-2021 Ford Foundation/ US Artists Disability Futures Fellowship
2020 Lambda Literary Foundation Jean Cordova Award for Lesbian/ Queer Nonfiction
2019 Finalist, Judy Grahn Lesbian Nonfiction Award, Publishing Triangle (Care Work)
2016 Finalist, Lambda Literary Award (Dirty River)
2016 American Library Association Over The Rainbow List (Dirty River)
2016 Finalist, Publishing Triangle Audre Lorde Poetry Award, (Bodymap)
2016 Finalist, Publishing Triangle Judy Grahn Nonfiction Award, (Dirty River)
2012 Lambda Literary Award (Love Cake)
2012 San Francisco Book Award Honorable Mention (Love Cake)
2012 Autostraddle Alternative Hot 105
2011 Pushcart Pride nomination
2010 Feminist Press 40 Feminists Under 40 Shaping the Future
2009 Bent Mentor, Bent LGBT Writing Institute
2005 City of Toronto Community Service to Youth Award
2004 Artreach Community Artist Award
Residencies
2017, 2019, 2023, Sou’wester, Long Beach, WA
2012, 2013, 2018, Fancyland, Blue Lake, CA
2008, SafeHouse for the Arts, San Francisco, CA
2006, Asian Arts Initiative, Philadelphia, PA
2005, 2006, Voices of Our Nations, San Francisco, CA
2004, Norcroft Writing Retreat for Women, Lutsen, MN
Service on peer reviewed grant committees
Northwest Health Foundation, Disability Justice Arts 2019, 2020
Lambda Awards, Poetry, Fiction. 2016, 2017, 2018 Ontario Arts Council, Arts Education 2013, 2014
Employment history
Queer Arts Mentorship, New York NY 2024-2025
Director, Living Altars 2021-present
Founder and director of this organization supporting and amplifying disabled queer and trans BIPOC writers. Created and directs The Stacey Park Milbern Liberation Arts Residency, North America’s only accessible residency for disabled QTBIPOC writers, curate and present online events and host monthly salons by and for disabled QTBIPOC writers.
Mentor, K’tay Davisdson Memorial Fellowship, Adobe Foundation/ Crip Camp 2020-2021
Mentor in for emerging U.S.-based BIPOC disabled artists.
Brownstargirl writing coaching 2018-present
Writing coaching, editing and mentorship practice, focused on working with disabled BIPOC writers.
Lead artist, Sins Invalid 2009-present
Lead artist at foundational disability justice performance and political collective. Performed in all keynote shows as lead artist from 2009-present and toured shows to Harvard, NYU, the Art Gallery of Ontario and other venues. Crafted political and cultural education materials.
Co-founder/ Artistic Director, curator, Performance/Disability/Art 2014-present
With Syrus Marcus Ware, co-founded and co-direct this incubator for disabled performance. Curated and envisioned Crip Your World (2015) as part of the Mayworks Festival, The Great Disability Justice Arts Retreat (2014-2015) the first mentorship and retreat space by and for disabled writers in Canada, and Disabled Revolutionary Love, an installation and performance art marc at the Artists’ Newstand, Chester Station, Toronto, ON, 2015.
Track coordinator, Allied Media Conference, Detroit MI 2009-2020
Curated and co-coordinated annual tracks of 10-20 workshops on the themes of disability justice, ransformative justice and QTBIPOC art and performance at annual North American media conference
Director, D Center, University of Washington 2015-2016 Directed this disabled cultural centre at the University of Washington. Curated small and large scale events including disabled erotica film festival and visits by Eli Clare, Leroy Moore and Riva Leher.
Co-founder/Artistic Director, curator Mangos With Chili 2006-2015
Co-founded and co-artistic directed this queer and trans people of color performance art tour. Curated/produced 5 North American tours and triannual performances in San Francisco Bay Area at the National Queer Arts Festival, Black and Lavender Conference, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, La Pena, The Lab, BRAVA! Theatre for Women, African American Arts and Cultural Complex.
Writer in Residence, Lecturer, June Jordan’s Poetry for the People, UC Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 2008-2010
Taught and presented as the writer in residence at this foundational program created by June Jordan in poetics, cultural work, community based and accountable arts education.
Co-founder, Co Artistic Director, Asian Arts Freedom School, Toronto ON 2005-2009
Co founded and co-directed this writing and radical Asian/Pacific history and activism school for Asian/Pacific Islander emerging artists in the Greater Toronto Area.
Coordinator, Pink Ink, Supporting Our Youth Toronto, ON 2002-2007
Coordinated and directed this literary and spoken word writing program for LGBT youth in Toronto.