Hi everyone,

I’m so sorry this has taken me a while to write. I’m currently in mandatory quarantine after an extremely tumultuous time returning from the US (earlier than scheduled). I’ve tested negative for COVID19 thankfully, but I’m still dealing with a lot of emotional/mental/physical exhaustion as well as an existential crisis given the overnight collapse of Australia’s arts industry.

Here’s a video of the Queer Lady Magician set at Sister Spit. I apologise for the audio quality - there have been some technical challenges getting this video together, which is another reason this post has been long delayed. This was from the last Sister Spit 2020 show at New Moon Cafe in Olympia WA. It’s also possibly the last Queer Lady Magician show ever, and also possibly my last performance ever, given the state of the industry.

I don’t really know what to do next, for QLM or for myself. Everything’s changing so fast. It’s hard to tell.

Thank you for all your support over the last couple of years. I hope you enjoy the show.

<3 Tiara

Tonight's show at New Moon Cooperative Cafe in Olympia, WA will be our last Sister Spit show and the last run of Queer Lady Magician in the United States for the time being.

I apologise to everyone who was looking forward to seeing me perform. I hope there will be future opportunities. Thank you for your support.

<3 Tiara

I promised a bigger update about my first Sister Spit performance since today was our free day. I’ll do my best, though honestly I’ve spent most of the time back in the hotel from our outing in a bit of a panic after hearing about Trump’s new travel ban.

Let’s start off with the easy, good, nice news first. As I mentioned last time, the performance at the Portland Community College went really well. It was the first time I got to perform all my material at once - mainly based on existing QLM material, but reworked. The Immigration story is close to the version performed at the Iridescent QPOC Festival in November but with a new ambiguous ending, the stories about Blake and my ex have been put together into one piece that centers Blake and talks about the creation of QLM, and the Menstrual Cups and Balls act is shortened.

One of the big problems I had with this set was the passport prop for the Immigration story. The original passport prop (which had pages that were magically filled with a flip) was falling apart, so I had to make new pages - that part wasn’t too bad. Also, I wanted to incorporate a trick where the cover magically changes colour (in my case, between Bangladesh green, Malaysia red, and Australia blue). Making that magic trick work was a pain - there was no existing record of any similar trick despite exhaustive searching, so I tried to incorporate techniques from other colour changes meant for playing cards. However, those presented their own challenges - mainly that I needed specific material, which was hard to find in Australia, and that this material didn’t work well with non-white backgrounds. In the end, I gave up and went for something more like a flipbook: less magical, but gets the point across. If I had more time and more crafting skill, I probably could have figured something out, but ah well.

The effect did work with the PCC crowd thankfully - there were some “oohs” and “aaahs” when they saw the pages change from empty to stamped. The fact that the cover change wasn’t necessarily “magical” wasn’t too bad - it was during a serious part of the story just before I talk about my worst nightmare of being deported, and then I talk about how that worst nightmare nearly came true, so making it flashy would have been jarring tone-wise.

We had a talkback session with the PCC students and they asked really engaging questions about the creative process, defying societal expectations when making art, and why we do what we do. We also spent time with the Spectrum QTIPOC student club and had great conversations around language, linguistic imperialism, family, pets, art, and so many things. They took care of us really well and I have high hopes for their future, they are really engaged and smart and passionate.

***

Now we get to the difficult part, the thing that’s been giving me a panic attack all night. I’ve been trying to work out a contingency plan for what needs to happen if I need to cut my Sister Spit tour short due to COVID19. I did have initial plans before I left, but the rapidly changing news cycle has set my anxiety on edge, and the lack of available information for people in my situation (foreign travelers in the US who wouldn’t have a US doctor to go to) is making that anxiety worse.

The two main things tying me to this tour (besides logistics) are money and Blake. As I’ve probably mentioned before, this tour is reimbursing my travel costs (which I initially paid for out of pocket as I was not successful in getting any grants or funding) in lieu of a performer fee - which comes up to over $1100. My work options were already limited, and are even more so because of COVID19: my extras agency just stated that one of the big production companies I’d sometimes work for won’t hire anyone who’s just travelled overseas for 2 weeks after they return, and my other confirmed contract is to be part of the production team for a festival that may or may not happen. I don’t really have any other regular work, let alone any that will let me work from home, and I don’t really make enough off Patreon or other options to rely on it. My family still supports me, but it’s not infinite and comes with a lot of emotional baggage, so I try to be as independent as possible.

Blake, bless her, is super insistent on seeing me anyway, coronavirus be damned. She’s planning to come to both the Oakland and San Francisco shows, wants to take me out for dinner, and is open to the idea of me doing a private show for her. She is high risk (older with health conditions) and I keep telling her to put her health first but she still wants to see me anyway!! I really wished our California shows were first - that way I could make sure Blake saw me perform and then would feel less bad about having to cut loose halfway. The money would be an unfortunate sunk cost, but the person who is also the heart of Queer Lady Magician got to see the work in a way that was accessible to her, and that’s more important.

We do have a significant amount of time in the Bay Area where we’re not moving hotels as often and also have some downtime (arrive in Oakland on the 14th, shows 15th & 18th, free in between). So that would be the best opportunity for any kind of emergency medical testing or escape plans. The next couple of days in the PNW will be more tricky to manage if things go wrong, but I guess I just have to stick it out.

I feel a little irresponsible trying to promote our shows given the situation - I’ve been seeing a lot of posts about how those of us who still insist on performing or producing shows despite COVID19 are culpable for any harm or even death, and they have a good point. But so far the Portland show on 3/12 at Psychic Sister is still on and the Olympia show on 3/13 is now at the New Moon Cafe, so if you’re around for those dates or any of the California dates, and you’re not going to be at risk or make others at risk, come on by. I totally understand if you’d rather not risk things though, I wouldn’t hold it against you!

Any which way, I’ll keep you all posted. Thank you for your support.

Support Queer Lady Magician: Patreon | Ko-Fi | PayPal | Beem It (@creatrixtiara) | Newsletter

<3 Tiara

This is just a very quick update - there will be more tomorrow.

The Tacoma Rainbow Center show for tomorrow (March 11) has been cancelled. The Psychic Sister show on the 12th is still on and we may have a new venue for Olympia on the 13th. All California shows are still on as planned until further notice.

I’ll keep this quick as we had a big travel day today - since tomorrow’s now a free day, I’ll write up more about my first (and Sister Spit’s second) show then! But to sum it up: our show at the Portland Community College went awesomely! It was hosted by the Multicultural Centre, who were really lovely to us. The audience members were mainly part of the LGBTQ and/or Multicultural clubs at school and they were super engaged and supportive! It was a great spot to debut Queer Lady Magician in the US - even though I messed up a couple of bits, it still was welcomed really well.

I will talk more tomorrow - and hopefully by then I’ll have some photos or video to share!

Support Queer Lady Magician: Patreon | Ko-Fi | PayPal | Beem It (@creatrixtiara) | Newsletter

<3 Tiara

Firstly, a couple of quick updates:

1. The Portland Community College show is at 1pm TOMORROW (March 10)! It was originally listed at 6pm and the details didn’t get updated until a couple of hours ago.

2. The Olympia show on March 13 is tentatively cancelled. RADAR Productions is currently looking for an alternative venue on that day, so if you have any ideas let them know.

Today was the writing workshop at Lacey Timberland Library - the second Sister Spit gig, but my first one as I had missed the first one due to flight mixups. As I wrote on Instagram:

Each of us had about 5-10 minutes to talk about our work, share some of it, and give a prompt for people to do quick writes. We had a small crowd with a mix of backgrounds (both in demographics and writing experience) and people were overall pretty open and friendly. This was the first time I got to hear the work of the other people on the tour and that was fun! Mostly poets, though one participant has a YA book out.

I talked about how Queer Lady Magician came out of jokifesting and performed the updated version of the Nana Immigration story, but with an ambiguous ending. The original closes off with the idea that Nana (my grandfather) and P. C. Sorcar conspire to protect me from further immigration harm - however, thanks to the detention, this is no longer true. I have an idea of how to segue it in the context of a longer show, but as a standalone piece, I’m not sure. It basically now ends with the feeling of betrayal, of not knowing what my ancestors would make of me - well, that feeling isn’t really new to be honest, it’s why I can’t get behind a lot of “follow your ancestors” sentiment.

One thing that did stick with me though was when one of the participants asked what “queer” meant and if it’s the same as “homosexual”. I picked up that this person probably didn’t have English as their first language and likely just wanted to make sure they were using the word correctly - I mainly talked about how in Australia the sting of it being a stigma isn’t as pervasive and it gets used in rather bureaucratic settings a fair bit. The other writers brought up more historical, philosophical, academic perspectives, and then wrapped it up with “do your research, use Google”. And while those were all valid and true, I felt like it may end up just being way more confusing for them than helpful.

I’ve been rather wary of “just Google it” as pat advice for some time. Effective Googling involves strong media literacy skills. Knowing what questions to ask, knowing how to evaluate sources, knowing how to find context. Not all of these skills come intuitively, especially if you’re tackling topics or language unfamiliar to you. If the participant who asked what “queer” meant just went to Google, she could very well find a lot of misinformation, especially from anti-queer sources. Anything the fellow Sister Spit writers said would not have enough context attached to it to assist with future searches. (Saying that you see a split between gender and sexuality when it comes to the concept of queer will just register in the other person’s mind as “great, now there are at least 3 words I need to find definitions for”.)

While I get that people have to seek consent to ask for education and that nobody is obligated to educate anyone about anything outside their own terms, I also worry that we’re ending up in our own little rhetorical bubbles and missing the forest for the trees. This is especially apparent to me in situations that involve people whose first language isn’t English, like the question asker at this workshop. Their queries about what words mean are conflated with other queries that aren’t in good faith, yet they would find it extra difficult to try and do prior research to come up with a more “educated” question. As it is, I’ve encountered too many people who know how to use the “right” language to come up with absolute rubbish and excuse violence, and many others who are less elegant with words and come off as more 101-ish but actually do mean well and show more acceptance and understanding.

I’m not always going to be up for educating anyone on anything at the drop of a hat, especially when it’s around things I’ve already said a billion times before or it’s something that other people have better knowledge around. But I’m also not going to immediately tell someone to “just Google it”, because I don’t know that they’ll find the answer they need - if they knew what to Google they probably wouldn’t need to ask.

It’s getting late and we have an earlier start so I’ll talk more later. First actual performance tomorrow - eek! Wish me luck!

(Also, if you’d like to help pitch in to cover my costs, especially given the sudden rebooking of my Seattle flight (which came to about AU$250), sign up for my Patreon or drop a few dollars, PayPal, Ko-Fi, or Beem It (@creatrixtiara))

<3 Tiara

Unfortunately I'm going to miss the first Sister Spit show tonight at the Northwest Film Forum due to my own error (I got to the wrong airport and have to take a later flight). So sorry if you were hoping to see me there!

I'll see you at the next shows hopefully!

<3 Tiara

I’m writing in from San Francisco, the night before I head to Seattle to start off the Sister Spit tour (and Queer Lady Magician’s US debut).

Yesterday, on my way in, I was detained at Los Angeles airport (LAX) for two hours. The CBP officials first said it was to discuss rules around voluntary work. Instead, they made fun of me being obviously nervous, barked at me about my folder of paperwork, grilled me about Sister Spit and my MFA, and then made me perform some spoken word before they would allow me through the US.

I wish I was joking.

My Safety Team did step in to help inform others, especially since we were not allowed electronic devices in detention. They’ve also been pretty good at taking care of me through this. I set this up specifically for this possible scenario (my first Safety Team was actually for my 2017 trip to Indie Train Jam, but it ended up being redundant as nothing happened to me on that trip) and I’m glad I did because I would be in worse shape otherwise.

One of my QLM pieces, which I will be performing at Sister Spit, opens with a story about my grandfather, namesake and East Pakistan Customs Superintendent, grilling prominent magician P. C. Sorcar at the border and telling him to perform a magic trick to pass. (P. C. Sorcar used magic to bypass the command.) I usually end the piece by talking about how I’ve never had any issues with immigration before despite all the passports and visas I had to deal with in my lifetime, maybe because my grandfather and P. C. Sorcar teamed up in the afterlife to protect me.

But that’s no longer true. Worse still, it happened in a way that seemed like karmic poetic justice. My grandfather told a magician to perform for him at the border; his grandchild is told to perform some magic at the border.

I’ve never come close to being detained. Not even questioned heavily. Immigration systems around the world are traumatizing, but at least when I’ve travelled short-term I’ve been OK. I’ve been travelling internationally almost every year since I was a literal baby. I understand airports and airplanes more than anywhere else in the world.

After this detention, I never want to travel anywhere ever again.

(I knew things were extra bad when I found myself being homesick in San Francisco, my favourite city in the world. Normally I’m homesick in the other direction.)

The tour still marches on, despite detention and COVID-19. I’ve come so far already. Blake, one of the biggest reasons this show exists, is coming to see me - I don’t want to miss that for the world. I’ve been catching up with dear friends this way and I’m grateful for the opportunity. It’s pretty exciting to see this concept grow across the world, especially since I’ve pretty much rewritten the pieces being performed here.

But every so often, the trauma of detention hits me, and I get homesick again, longing for my apartment in Melbourne that isn’t necessarily anything special but at least there are no Border Patrol people forcing me to perform for entry.

I get into Seattle pretty close to our first show date at the Northwest Film Forum (to be fair, I didn’t choose this flight). I’m hoping I make it there on time, though it is still possible that I might miss the first show of the tour. But we’ll still be in the area for the next few days, so even if we miss NWFF there are still options. Here are our tour dates and locations - come on by and say hi, I’d love to see you there!

Seattle WA

Sister Spit Tour 2020 x NWFF
Mar 8, 2020 | Northwest Film Forum

Lacey WA

Sister Spit Tour Writing Workshop
Mar 9, 2020 | Lacey Timberland Library

Portland OR

Sister Spit Tour 2020 x Portland Community College
Mar 10, 2020 | Portland Community College - Southeast Student Life and Leadership

Sister Spit Tour 2020 x Psychic Sister
Mar 12, 2020 | Psychic Sister (entrance on 19th)

Tacoma WA

Sister Spit Tour 2020 x Tacoma Rainbow Center
Mar 11, 2020 | Rainbow Center

Olympia WA

Sister Spit Tour 2020 x Olympia
Mar 13, 2020 | Olympia Timberland Library

Oakland CA

Sister Spit Tour 2020 x White Horse Bar
Mar 15, 2020 | White Horse Bar

San Francisco CA

Sister Spit Tour 2020 x The STUD
Mar 18, 2020 | The STUD

Santa Ana CA

Sister Spit Tour 2020 x Makara Center for the Arts
Mar 19, 2020 | Makara Center for the Arts

Los Angeles CA

Sister Spit Tour 2020 x A Love Bizarre
Mar 20, 2020 | A Love Bizarre

Long Beach CA

Sister Spit Tour 2020 x The LGBTQ Center of Long Beach
Mar 21, 2020 | MADE by Millworks

A few people have asked how they can help me deal with the detention. Here’s what would be useful:

• Come to any one of those shows - I understand that COVID-19 makes this difficult, but if you’re able to come we’d love to have you, and do find me to say hi!

• Sign up for my Patreon or drop a few dollars, PayPal, Ko-Fi, or Beem It (@creatrixtiara) - because of my visa, I can’t actually be paid to do this (though most of my travel costs are being reimbursed) so I’m paying my own way!

• Refer me to therapists or advocates I could contact while on the road in the US to process the emotions around detention (I do have a therapist but she’s in Australia so it might be a while before I get to talk to her)

• I’m open to talking about this with media/community groups/etc (especially given how absurd it is that I HAD TO PERFORM SPOKEN WORD to get through the border) but I’d have to be pretty selective about it

• Treat me to something fun either during the tour or during our downtime, like snacks or spa time (especially the dates I’m back in the Bay Area - 14-18 March and 22-24 March)

• This is a mega pipe dream so I don’t expect even one percent of this, but some combination of Business/First Class upgrade on my flight back to Melbourne + a welcome party at Melbourne Airport + surprise home makeover/pamper party/community care/etc would blow my mind

• Basically, community care would go a long way

I’ll send out regular updates on here during the tour - hopefully they’ll all be more optimistic and fun than this one. But I figured, just like I did with the original Queer Lady Magician show, that I’d be honest and open about the personal challenges that came with the art. Queer Lady Magician was a show about navigating societal and interpersonal trauma in the pursuit of art - it looks like that spirit still carries on no matter where this show goes.

<3 Tiara

Finally I can announce the tour dates for Sister Spit 2020 - bringing updated excerpts of Queer Lady Magician for the first time outside Australia! Follow the links for details, RSVPs, and tickets!

Seattle WA

Sister Spit Tour 2020 x NWFF
Mar 8, 2020 | Northwest Film Forum

Lacey WA

Sister Spit Tour Writing Workshop
Mar 9, 2020 | Lacey Timberland Library

Portland OR

Sister Spit Tour 2020 x Portland Community College
Mar 10, 2020 | Portland Community College - Southeast Student Life and Leadership

Sister Spit Tour 2020 x Psychic Sister
Mar 12, 2020 | Psychic Sister (entrance on 19th)

Tacoma WA

Sister Spit Tour 2020 x Tacoma Rainbow Center
Mar 11, 2020 | Rainbow Center

Olympia WA

Sister Spit Tour 2020 x Olympia
Mar 13, 2020 | Olympia Timberland Library

Oakland CA

Sister Spit Tour 2020 x White Horse Bar
Mar 15, 2020 | White Horse Bar

San Francisco CA

Sister Spit Tour 2020 x The STUD
Mar 18, 2020 | The STUD

Santa Ana CA

Sister Spit Tour 2020 x Makara Center for the Arts
Mar 19, 2020 | Makara Center for the Arts

Los Angeles CA

Sister Spit Tour 2020 x A Love Bizarre
Mar 20, 2020 | A Love Bizarre

Long Beach CA

Sister Spit Tour 2020 x The LGBTQ Center of Long Beach
Mar 21, 2020 | MADE by Millworks

I’ve been working on updating bits from Queer Lady Magician so a lot of this is going to be brand new! It’ll be a shorter set, but I hope you’ll enjoy it anyway. Looking forward to seeing all of you State-side soon!

I’m touring with QTIPOC spoken word & performance collective Sister Spit across the US West Coast next March and we’re currently fundraising to cover expenses and artist stipends!

Every dollar helps and you can contribute from anywhere in the world. They take PayPal and all major credit cards.

Donate Now

I’m the only international/non-US participant and there hasn’t been a lot of us historically anyway, so it’d be cool if we can show them some love from around the world!

So far dates have been confirmed in Seattle and Portland; they’re still taking bookings for the other cities! So if you or anyone else wants to book us, get in touch with Radar Productions directly.

Here’s some info about the artists I’d be touring with at Sister Spit 2020:

Ananya Garg is a young queer Indian poet and spoken word performance artist. She is slowly learning to heal and shine. She sees her QTPOC arts community as a central force in her healing process and hopes her words can be a part of your healing. She attended the University of Washington where she studied Gender, Women, Sexuality Studies & Comparative History of Ideas, with minors in Anthropology & Diversity. ​ You can find her working as an Educator with the Washington Building Leaders of Change Seattle Freedom Schools at Rainier Beach High School. She is also a poet/performance/teaching artist in the Seattle area.

Dena Rod is a writer, editor, and poet based in the Bay Area. A graduate of San Francisco State University, they have an M.A. in English Literature. They run the RADAR Productions weblog and are the Assistant Creative Nonfiction Editor at Homology Lit, and the former Managing Editor of Argot Literary Magazine, a queer non-profit with a mission to highlight and sponsor LGBQTIAA+ perspectives and art across the globe. They were selected for RADAR Productions’ Show Us Your Spines Residency, Kearny Street Workshop’s Interdisciplinary Writer’s Lab, and Winter Tangerine’s Summer Writer’s Workshop. Through creative nonfiction essays and poetry, Dena aims to illuminate their diasporic experiences of Iranian American heritage and queer identity, combating negative stereotypes of their intersections in the media.

Junauda Petrus is a writer, pleasure activist, filmmaker, runaway witch, cosmic bag lady and performance artist of Black-Caribbean descent, born on Dakota land. She creates performance and written work centering in wildness, queerness, Black-diasporic-futurism, ancestral healing, sweetness, shimmer and liberation. She is the co-founder with Erin Sharkey of Free Black Dirt, an experimental arts production company. She is currently writing and directing, "Sweetness of Wild" a poetic-episodic film series themed around Blackness, queerness, biking, resistance, love and coming of age in Minneapolis. Her first young adult novel, The Stars and The Blackness Between Them, debuts September 2019 on Dutton Children’s. It’s about queer, Black diasporic love, mass incarceration, astrology, ancestral magic, Whitney Houston, and trusting the sacredness of your existence despite oppression and heartbreak. She lives in Minneapolis with her wife and magically aquarian, bonus-daughter.

librecht baker is the author of vetiver (Finishing Line Press), an English Professor, and a Sundress Publications' Assistant Editor. She was part of The Vagrancy’s 2018-2019 Playwrights’ Group and Eastside Queer Stories Festival 2019 and 2017. baker has attended Ragdale, VONA/Voices, and Lambda Literary Writer’s Retreat. she has a MFA from Goddard College. Her poetry appears in Solace: Writing Refuge, & LGBTQ Women of Color, Bone Bouquet (Issue 8.1), Sinister Wisdom 107, and other publications. Baker's play, "Lineage Undone," was awarded Top Performance in the "Top Papers and Performances in Performance Studies" category at Western States Communication Association’s 89th Convention.

Mia S. Willis is a Black performance poet from Charlotte, North Carolina. Their work has been featured by or is forthcoming in FreezeRay, Curating Alexandria, WORDPEACE, Peculiar, Foothill, Button Poetry, and Slamfind. Mia's poem "hecatomb." was nominated for a 2018 Pushcart Prize and for inclusion in Best New Poets 2018. They ranked fourth out of 96 femme poets at the 2018 Women of the World Poetry Slam, placed fifth out of 150 poets at the 2018 Southern Fried Poetry Slam, and recently became the first two-time Capturing Fire Slam Champion (2018, 2019). Mia was also named a 2019 Lambda Literary Fellow in Poetry as well as the 2019 Young Artist Fellow at ChaShaMa’s ChaNorth residency in Pine Plains, NY. Their debut poetry collection, monster house., was the 2018 winner of the Cave Canem Foundation’s Toi Derricotte & Cornelius Eady Chapbook Prize and is available now with Jai-Alai Books.

Nitram Nadroj is a black queer/trans interdisciplinary musician, poet/rock-critic & artist that works under several aliases (Jordan Martin, Martin Jordan, Marta Helm, Broken Social Queen, Daphne, etc.) both irl & virtually. Their work is often textual, musical, & experimental involving small & large scale elements of dance, play, collaboration, & interaction. Their book, S.O. S. (Some Oscillations Suck!): Collected Poetic Rock Criticism With Translations in Morse Code was published by C.E.E. Press & Label (2018). They're forthcoming book/record, Psychosocialite will be published via the experimental label Crystal Visions in 2020. They're work has been performed at Performance Space NY, Sophiensaele (Berlin), Cooper Union, Wexner Center For The Arts, La MaMa Theatre, & More. Their work is here: https://cargocollective.com/jordanamadimartin & here is their band: http://martahelm.bandcamp.com/

Donate Now

As you can see, I’ve moved the Queer Lady Magician mailing list from TinyLetter to Substack. Substack allows me a little more flexibility and is a little easier to get the formatting right (which was often a pain with TinyLetter).

If you would like to opt out of the Substack newsletter, no hard feelings. There should be a link at the end of the newsletter to do so. Sorry to see you go though!

Substack offers a paid subscription option. This main newsletter will always be free! However, if you have any ideas on what you’d be willing to pay for, let me know and I could consider it. There’s also my Patreon if you’d like to support my general shenanigans.

Sister Spit

I’ve booked my airfare for the Sister Spit tour of West Coast USA in March 2020! In the coming weeks there will be a social media promotion of us touring artists - follow along on Radar Productions’ Instagram to find out more!

The exact tour locations are currently being finalised; once they’re ready, I’ll send them over. Unfortunately I couldn’t make a nationwide tour work financially - maybe next time!

Extended: Nana (Grandfather)

A couple of weeks ago I got to be part of the first IRIDESCENT Queer People of Colour Festival at Hares and Hyenas in Melbourne. There were a stack of meetups, community events, and performances - including the Gala night, where I debuted an extended version of the Nana story from the first show! There is now more history: about P. C. Sorcar, Subcontinental liberation, and my family’s migration history.

Check it out here - captions to come:

(Main reason I moved to Substack: TinyLetter won’t let me embed media!)

There’s still some room for improvement with this act - I especially want to make the passport more magical, and my Bengali needs work. But it was very well-received and I look forward to performing this and other pieces with Sister Spit!

Substack has a discussion thread feature too - come on over and share your thoughts! Or you can always email me if you wanna chat directly.

More soon - thank you for your support.

<3 Creatrix Tiara, Queer Lady Magician

This took ages, but I finally updated the Queer Lady Magician website with videos of my magic acts! Come on over and see some of my work.

I've also set up a page for the upcoming USA tour - if you have any leads or suggestions, let me know.

Queer Lady Magician is coming to the USA in 2020!

I'm part of the lineup for Radar Production's Sister Spit, a QTIPOC spoken word and performance roadshow touring the US West Coast in March 2020! I'll be performing excerpts from the main show - including, of course, the Menstrual Cups and Balls. Further details of the tour will be announced soon and I'll be sure to keep you updated.

I'm also looking for suggestions for other places in the US to perform circa February-April 2020! Conferences, variety shows, queer/feminist/POC events, Prides, anywhere that will be happy to slot in 10-15 mins of Queer Lady Magician. Might as well make a nationwide tour of it while I'm up there!

I'm still working out the logistics of getting to the US (I have a visa, I mainly need airfare) so if you have any ideas along those lines do reach out.

See you soon Americans!

Remember a little show called Queer Lady Magician?
Stage magic, social justice, storytelling?

(if you're getting this newsletter, the answer should be some version of yes)

Well, if you are in the United States, we've got some big news coming for you in a few days, so stay tuned...

✨🎩

queer lady magician 12b: WE START TODAY!

As mentioned in my last newsletter, there's a common Malaysian superstition about not using the number 4 (as it rhymes with the Chinese word for "death") and 13 is also unlucky, so we go with 12A and 12B instead. The last newsletter got us our best ticket sales day to date, so maybe there's something to it.

But yes - the show opens TONIGHT!

Doors open at The Melba Spiegeltent Studio from 7:45pm for an 8pm start, but come by earlier for a drink and some merch! I'd also recommend coming earlier if you're using a wheelchair or scooter, so we can make sure you can be the first through the door.

Tickets are still available online, or you can get them at the door. If you're buying online use the code MAGICROOM for 20% off a full-price ticket.

We also need VOLUNTEERS! We're looking for ushers and merch people for:

Wednesday 30/1 (tonight yes): 1 usher
Friday 1/2: 1 usher
Saturday 2/2: 2 ushers
Sunday 3/2: 2 ushers and 1 merch person

You get to see the show for free, so this is a good opportunity for those of you who couldn't afford tickets. Get in touch if you can help!

Hope to see you there!

queer lady magician 12a: just a week to go...

12a?

In Malaysia you'll see a lot of lifts not have floors 4, 13, and 14 because they're unlucky. 13 is obvious, but 4 in Chinese (Mandarin?) sounds like the word for "death". So lifts would have 3A, 12A, and 12B instead.

I don't know how much I buy into superstitions overall but better safe than sorry...

a week?

Technically a bit over, but not by much - 8-9 days away till opening night for Midsumma!

I apologise for the lack of newsletter updates. There was that whole shenanigans with some dude named The Incredible Chadbury taking over my website and social media - oyy, took me a week to fix. And there's been a lot of logistics & emotional overwhelm to deal with as well.

We have one rehearsal left, meep! There's still so much to do, which is freaking me out a bit. Hopefully it'll all come together, fingers crossed.

There's some changes to some scenes, so even if you've seen it before, come by again! Closing night - 3 Feb - is Auslan interpreted!

As a friend of Queer Lady Magician, use the code MAGICROOM for 20% off your ticket!

BUY TICKETS NOW

other things we're involved in

I'm presenting a story as part of Queerstories: Midsumma! on the 23rd of January at Brunswick Mechanics Institute! It's sold out but you may luck out with a ticket somewhere.

Bradley (Chad) is part of the staged reading for a new Australian musical Post at the MC Showroom from 23-26 Jan! Do come by and check out Bradley's amazing singing talents, which get wholly underused in Queer Lady Magician but need to be showcased.

Sonia (the MC, who is now Cameron) is part of Rachel Edmonds' piece When You Had Braces for Playtime Staged Readings at Gasworks on 30th Jan!

see you there!

queer lady magician 12: getting back into it

getting ready for midsumma!

Hello! It has been a little while since proper updates, yes. Hello to those of you who signed up at the show - I'm sorry it's taken a while to add you in!

We have started work on our Midsumma run! The script has gone through quite an overhaul, mainly thanks to our Midsumma Pathways mentor, acclaimed theatre and cabaret artist Maude Davey!. You may know her from her work with Vitalstatistix, Finucane & Smith, Retrofuturismus, or many others.

Maude is...amboi. Let me put it this way: if she had complete control over the script, she'd get rid of everyone except me and have it just be me telling my story. Indeed, our first meeting had left me feeling like "please be gentle i am a sensitive potato".

Her feedback was actually really useful, even if it was hard for me to hear at the time - basically, she wanted me to center myself more and thought the overarching plot (which involves assistanty shenanigans) was obscuring my own journey, ironic given that the show is about my journey. And that actually helped me figure out something that was bothering me about the original script that I couldn't quite put a finger on until that first meeting. There is a question I ask over and over in the story: "why try something if you're just going to fail?". It's even a refrain in the climax. But I never actually explicitly answer it.

The existence of the show is the answer: because trying is its own success. But in the original version, that point is too subtle. So in the new version, it's made much more explicit. Certain scenes have been rewritten to center that question more, and while the overarching plot is still there (sorry Maude) the story is more directly about fear of failure, not just "oh hey we're putting on a show but also there's something happening behind the scenes the Magician doesn't know about".

The script overhaul does mean some changes in the tricks - mostly subtle ones, but tighter. And we're going to have an actual sound designer on board this time! And perhaps some surprises, if things come together. So even if you've seen the show before, come again!

We will be at The Melba Spiegeltent - Studio (inside the Circus Oz building) 8pm 30 Jan to 3 Feb. We're very close to confirming Auslan for closing night, and the venue is wheelchair-accessible. Hope to see you!

big funding updates!

Queer Lady Magician got its first ever grant from the City of Yarra!

Those of you who've followed the project from the beginning would know that we've had a devil of a time finding funding - a lot of applications, not a lot of progress. Getting this City of Yarra grant, which will cover our venue hire and part of our Auslan, is extremely exciting and encouraging. It's also personally my first ever successful government grant (most of my artist life was spent under a bridging visa, which made me ineligible by default) and I've found that it's way easier to get grants once you actually, well, get one, so hopefully this is good news.

While a lot of the upfront costs have been sorted (like props or costumes), we still need support for this Midsumma run. I would love to be able to pay our cast more than just a profit share, for instance! I've reached out to a ton of potential sponsors and have applied for more grants, though the holiday season and tight turnaround does make it hard. If you know of any companies or orgs that would like to help us, drop me a line!

I'm going to restart dedicating half my Patreon income to QLM and we also have a dedicated Pozible Subscriptions page! We're one of the very first users of Pozible's new subscription service and you can join in for as little as AU$1/month, so come on in!

love and luck!

Queer Lady Magician wasn't the only thing I worked on this year, though it was my biggest project for sure. Among other things, I joined the cast of Australian audio drama Love and Luck, a super cute queer drama set in a dry bar and told entirely via voicemail.

My debut episode is out now! I play Storm, a suave butch nurse who's super energetic and loud. (Asides from energetic & loud I am pretty much the opposite of Storm, though when I told Bradley/Chad/The Assistant this he cracked Daddy jokes at me, so.) While I do play a queer lady, I am not a magician in this story - but there is actual magic in it. Have a listen, and binge through the season - they're all in 10ish min chunks so very easy listening. You can follow Love & Luck on YouTube or any podcast app of your choice.

catch you later!

If you have any comments, ideas, requests, anything, just hit Reply & send me a message! And do feel free to pass this on to anyone you think will enjoy this.

If you were forwarded this newsletter from a friend, learn more about Queer Lady Magician and sign up for this newsletter right here!

Queer Lady Magician RETURNS for Midsumma!

We are coming back for Melbourne's premier LGBTQ festival Midsumma!
Updated script, new tricks, more SHENANIGANS.
(But don't worry, we'll still have the same characters you love - or love to hate.)

Find us at:
The Melba Spiegeltent - Studio
35 Johnston St, Collingwood VIC 3066
30 Jan - 3 Feb 8pm
$30 / $20 concession / $20 groups (up to 4)

We're working on Auslan interpretation at the moment - I'll keep you posted if we get that sorted! The Studio is wheelchair-accessible.

TICKETS AVAILABLE NOW!

If you'd like to support the show, sign up as a subscriber on Pozible Subscriptions for AU$1 or AU$5 a month! Every dollar from there goes straight to the show.

See you there!

Pozible (Australia's answer to Kickstarter) just announced their new Subscriptions service, much like Patreon, where people can pledge a monthly amount to their favourite creators. As one of their super early adopters I have now made a profile specifically for Queer Lady Magician!

As some of you may know, I was Pozible's first ever successful project (in 2010 I fundraised for flights to get to events in Melbourne and Sydney from Brisbane) so Pozible and I go way back. I was specially invited to their launch for the Subscriptions service yesterday and was already pretty keen to join in from the moment I heard about it.

It's still very early days, which means there are still some features to roll out. For instance, there are only two monthly tiers available right now and no option for Set Your Own Price. I've set mine at AU$1 (US$0.72 / GBP0.56 / EUR0.63) and AU$5 (US$3.60 / GBP2.80 / EUR3.15), which is pretty low, but I figured it would make a good starting point and we can add more tiers if this takes off. Also, beyond Stripe fees, I'm not actually charged any fees until I earn AU$100/month - and after that it's just 5%, so it's a decent deal. (If you do want to throw more money at me, you can join my Patreon or send me some money via PayPal!)

THIS TINYLETTER IS STAYING. There will always be free avenues to be kept up to date on what's going on with Queer Lady Magician, so please don't worry if you're low-income! But if you have $1 or $5 to spare a month, do consider joining in, because every little bit helps.

2018 was a HUGE year for Queer Lady Magician and we've got big things brewing for 2019, including a second season early in the year - details to be announced very soon! So join in on the subscription service and help us make the magic happen.

Queer Lady Magician: We're Not Done Yet!

two shows this week!

I thought my gig with Crack X Festival was going to be it for 2018...but no! Two more chances to check out Queer Lady Magician have popped up this week!

Firstly, catch me at SlutWalk Melbourne's Slut O' Ween fundraiser TOMORROW 27 OCTOBER! I've been involved with SlutWalk in various cities from the very beginning, including running the 2012 Brisbane walk and helping with other walks around town. I've been working with SlutWalk Melbourne for a couple of years now and of course I was going to contribute a performance to a movement that means the world to me! Slut O' Ween is at Loop Project Space & Bar in Melbourne CBD and goes from 6pm to 9pm. Tickets are $10 online and $15 at the door, but we're not turning away anyone for lack of funds, so get in touch if you'd like some help!

Then on Halloween itself, 31 October 7pm-10pm I will be part of The Cocoa Butter Club, an all-QTIPOC cabaret held in both Melbourne and London. Tickets are $22 regular, $16 concession and we'll be at The Melba Spiegeltent in Collingwood. If you're White, you're very welcome to come buy, but also consider buying a ticket for a POC in need!

early 2019!

Queer Lady Magician will return for a second season in Melbourne! I'm technically not supposed to tell you yet, but perhaps I did already (think about the word "Queer").

We've started some work on it, mainly with my mentor Associated With The Thing I Can't Announce Yet, a veteran theatre and cabaret artist who is a pretty big deal. We've had our first meeting and it's A LOT. Epic changes suggested, ooh boy. We don't have a ton of time to overhaul it but I definitely see what she's getting at and am very intrigued and seeing what happens when I take at least some of her advice!

I don't have any followup seasons planned for this iteration of the show (so not an interstate tour or something), mainly because we're already low on funds as it is so unless a mystery benefactor comes our way I can't see how we'd be able to transport everyone and everything. There's definitely scope to bring excerpts here and there, like I have been, so if/when those opportunities prop up I'll check them out!

Mainly though I've already been plotting a sequel (of sorts) to this show. This first show touched on my fear of manipulation because of trauma from manipulative people. However, it didn't really cover my biggest fear with manipulation: knowing that I have the capacity to be heartless and manipulative if I leaned hard into it. I'm so afraid of doing so that I often actively choose the opposite response even if it costs me.

But what if I did lean hard into it? What would happen if I did indulge in my manipulative tendencies hardcore? What choices would I make and what would happen?

I don't know what format this would take yet. I do want to make it an ARG of some fashion - interactive, puzzley, very meta. It'd probably be much more of a solo show - Creatrix Tiara, grimdark!Queer Lady Magician. But it could be pretty fun.

We'll see!

ttfn

Normally here I'ddo a signoff about subscribing or replying, but you know that jazz and I have a different show to be at in a few minutes so CATCH YOU LATER BYEEEE