Pride on the Page

Who Am I?
Memoir and Memories from LGBTQ+ Authors

Moderator: Meredith Maran

Panelists: Monique Jenkinson, Jesse Leon, Dwayne Ratleff and Michelle Tea

Meredith Maran is the author of a dozen nonfiction books, most recently The New Old Me, and an acclaimed novel. She writes features, op-eds, essays, and book reviews for venues including The New York Times, The Washington Post, O Magazine, and The LA Times. A member of the National Book Critics Circle and a passionate proponent of independent presses, bookstores, and thought, Meredith divides her time between her partner’s home in sultry Cathedral City and her historic bungalito in Silver Lake, Los Angeles.

Monique Jenkinson is an artist, choreographer, performer and writer. Her work dwells at the intersection of contemporary dance and cabaret and considers the performance of femininity as a powerful, vulnerable and subversive act. Her alter-ego Fauxnique made herstory as the first cis-woman ever, anywhere, crowned as a pageant-winning drag queen, and her performance works have toured nationally and internationally in wide-ranging contexts from nightclubs to theaters to museums.

She has created space for children to design gowns for drag queens and has created college curricula. Honors include residencies at Headlands Center for the Arts, Tanzhaus Zürich and Atlantic Center for the Arts, an Irvine Fellowship and residency at the de Young Museum, GOLDIE and BESTIE awards and generous foundation support. Her memoir, Faux Queen is out now on Amble Press.

Jesse Leon is a social impact consultant to foundations and investors on ways to address issues of substance abuse/addiction, affordable housing, and mental health. He is a native English and Spanish speaker and fluent in Portuguese. He is an alum of UC Berkeley and Harvard and based in San Diego. His memoir I'm Not Broken is available now by Penguin Random House / Vintage. The Spanish translation No Estoy Roto is available for pre-order with January 2023 release date.

Dwayne Ratleff was born in Ohio. As a product of the segregated Baltimore school system, he did not learn to read or write until the age of eleven and upon arriving in Connecticut he spent the first two years there as a Special Ed Student. That young boy would never have dreamed he could read a book let alone write one.

Thirty years ago when he was first diagnosed with HIV, Dwayne was told he would most likely be sick in three years and dead in five. This diagnosis inspired him to live life to the fullest. He says someday he will write about that experience but at the moment that pen is too heavy to lift.  

People often think it was hard growing up Black and Gay in America in the Sixties. Although at times hard, it was a blessing as well. It was obvious he couldn’t fit in so he didn’t even try.  He didn’t have peer pressure because he didn’t have peers. There is a special kind of freedom in that.

Michelle Tea is the author of over a dozen books, including the cult classic Valencia and the PEN/America winner Against Memoir. Her latest memoir, Knocking Myself Up: A Memoir of my In/Fertility, was lauded by The New York Times for its "frankness, humanity and verve." She is a 2021 Guggenheim Fellow and a founder of Drag Queen Story Hour.