San Diego Pride’s official cultural event, Expressions of Pride, will kick off the 40th anniversary Pride weekend with a free exhibition and literary festival organized by the LGBT Literary Foundation and Lambda Archives the Friday afternoon of Pride weekend (July 18) before the Stonewall Rally and Awards.
The exhibition will be open 1-5 p.m. at the Diversionary Theatre Building, 4545 Park Blvd. in San Diego.
At Expressions of Pride, attendees will be introduced to the works of LGBT poets, writers, and visual artists and is the first literary event dedicated to queer people of color.
The exhibition will feature a literary festival, curated by the Multicultural LGBT Literary Foundation, with hundreds of titles by LGBT writers. They will have queer classics by authors like James Baldwin, Gloria Anzaldúa, Audre Lorde and Michael Nava, alongside new favorites like Craig Womack, Malinda Lo, Charles Rice-González, and Ghalib Dhalla.
The literary festival will be an opportunity to stock up from a selection of titles and authors not found anywhere else. Add titles to your own library from their selection of more than 200 titles in general fiction, poetry and memoir by LGBT writers of color or enliven your teen’s ‘Summer Reading List’ with books from their huge selection of young adult fiction.
Authors will also be on hand for book signings/readings and will include Ryka Aoki, Tom Cho and Myriam Gurba. Artist Manuel A. Acevedo, whose work explores gay Latino masculinity, will be showing his original artwork and prints.
Lambda Archives of San Diego will display a special historical exhibit from its Fiction Book Collection and this exhibit offers visitors the chance to learn more about the works that inspired today’s authors.
Following the exhibition, a short walk away will be the Spirit of Stonewall Rally and Flag Raising (corner of University and Normal streets) at 6 pm, where transgender activist and actress Laverne Cox (star of Orange is the New Black) will deliver the keynote address.
For more information and updates on Expressions of Pride visit sdliteraryfoundation.org
