Sex Worker Literati Reading Series Debuts 8/6

Sex Worker Literati, the new free monthly reading series that Audacia Ray is co-hosting with David Henry Sterry (who is rumored to be baking brownies for the occasion) kicks off tomorrow night at Happy Ending, 302 Broome Street between Eldridge and Forsyth, at 8 pm. If you’re in NYC, you should be there, because it is going to be awesome.

The inaugural reading features five performers from all corners of the sex business. Blues diva and pinup girl Candye Kane, Times Square wild girl Jodi Sh. Doff, and Scandinavian/African rent boy Damien Decker are all contributors to the anthology Hos, Hookers, Call Girls, and Rent Boys. They will be joined by renowned artist and former nude model Molly Crabapple, who is the illustrator and co-author of the graphic novel Scarlett Takes Manhatta,, and former go-go dancer and porn producer Sam Benjamin, author of Confessions of an Ivy League Pornographer.

Every month, we will donate a percentage of the funds raised from the bar tab, plus Soft Skull is donating $1 from the sale of each copy of the anthology at the reading. This month, we’ve chosen to make sex worker love bicoastal – funds raised at the reading will be donated to the St. James Infirmary in San Francisco. St. James offers free, confidential, nonjudgmental medical and social services for female, transgender, and male sex workers. They are the first occupational safety and health clinic for sex workers run by and for sex workers. The clinic has been hurting in this economy and as a result they have had to cut clinic hours.

You’ll also have the opportunity to take home a slice of sex worker culture with you: $pread magazine will be in the house with their latest issue, Bluestockings will be there selling copies of Hos, Hookers, Call Girls, and Rent Boys, and Molly Crabapple will surely have copies of Scarlett Takes Manhattan on hand. I’m sure that you’ll be able to get your favorite ho to sign copies of said merch should you want it.

If you have to miss it or are geographically challenged, the event will be captured in pictures by official event photographer Baby Sinead, plus there will be video of all the performers.

The next reading will take place on Thursday, September 3rd.

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