LGBT Center to host genderqueer writer Jade Sylvan.
Jade Sylvan is not a stranger to creativity.
Sylvan, called a “risqué queer icon” by The Boston Globe, is travelling to Athens to be a perform and read from Sylvan newest novel Kissing Oscar Wilde, in addition to attending a Dine-n-Discuss with the LGBT Center.
Sylvan has explored many creative outlets, including writing, producing, acting and performing.
“I really honestly look forward to meeting the students and talking to them and having them ask questions about my work and seeing sort of how the world has changed over the past ten years since I’ve been in school,” Sylvan said. “It’s pretty cool.”
Delfin Bautista, director of the LGBT Center, had been in contact with Sylvan about bringing them into Athens as an early kick off for LGBT History Month, which begins in October.
The Dine-n-Discuss, pushed to dinner instead of lunch, will be a way for students to really get to know Sylvan on a more intimate level, Bautista said. Dinner will be provided.
“We hope the dinnertime discussion (will be a time) for folks to be able to engage with her, ask her questions about her work and just about her in general, and get to know an up-and-coming voice in the movement,” Bautista said.
Sarah Jenkins, program coordinator for the LGBT and Women’s centers, said it’s important to bring in a variety of speakers in various career paths to expose to the campus. Bautista said presentations like Sylvan’s are a way to broaden the concept of “academic.”
“(These events are) a way of pushing what we mean by academic, which has been my mission––sort of ‘queering’ what that means, that art as form of academic discipline, and also as a form of activism and how the three A’s: art, activism and academics, can go together,” Bautista said. “It doesn’t have to be boring––it can be entertainment. It can be art. It can be lively. It can be loud.”
According to Sylvan, Kissing Oscar Wilde was inspired by a trip to Paris on a poetry tour Sylvan took in Sylvan’s late twenties.
Sylvan wants people to understand from the work that people are not alone in the journey of identity, sexuality and creativity and to continue to work toward goals in the creative fields.
“Keep doing it, don’t stop,” Sylvan said. “Find people who inspire and challenge you and find people who you want to be more like and spend as much time around them as you can.”
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