SMUT
Let's talk about sex - in queer writing and culture
Saturday 5 November 2022
7:00 pm - 8:00 pm - Wallace Theatre, University of Sydney
From erotica and sexual awakenings to representations of unapologetic queer sexuality, peel back the covers and explore how queer writing about sexual experiences has evolved over time, and whether writing about queer sexual experiences is even considered transgressive anymore.
Tim Spencer is a writer/actor/producer for film, television and theatre. His verbatim script, Show Me Yours, I’ll Show You Mine, won the 2012 Green Room Award for Best Independent Writing. In 2017 Tim formed Wintergarden Pictures with Joshua Longhurst and Rosie Braye. Tim wrote the company’s first short film Cherry Season which received the Generator: Emerging Filmmaker’s Fund and was broadcast on SBS Viceland and won the Best Screenplay award at the 2019 Melbourne Queer Film Festival.
In 2018 he was a writer for the Australian Equity Foundation’s inaugural Diversity Showcase and is a participant in the Australian Writer’s Guild Pathways program. In 2019 he developed and co-wrote the digital comedy series Ding Dong I’m Gay which was supported by Screen Australia and Screen NSW. The series has over 15 million views on YouTube and was nominated for Best Online Comedy in the 2020 AACTA awards.
Tim won Best Performance in a Digital Series in the 2021 Queerty awards. His half-hour adult animation Friend Mode is supported by ScriptedInk and has been optioned by an Australian production company.
Barbarella Karpinski is a wordsmith chanteuse creating work that is polarising, edgy and felt. Continually creating performances in platforms ranging from written word to spoken word to memoir to screenwriting, their live performances have been screened on SBS in Sexing the Label (1997) and ABC, Bohemian Rhapsody (1998). In 2017, they completed Nu Queer Work, run by PACT Theatre and the Performance Space. In 2018 they completed a First Draft Gallery residency as part of Feminist Specificities: Around the Outside, wrote Tainted Life.
Renée Dahlia writes contemporary and historical queer romance. Renée is a bisexual cis woman who is fascinated by people and loves to explore human relationships, with a side of humour, through her writing. Renée has a degree in physics and mathematics, using this to write data-based magazine articles for the horse racing industry. Her love of horses often shines through in her fiction, and she loves a good intrigue and to escape the real world in the pages of a book. When she isn’t reading or writing, Renée spends her time with her four children, usually watching them play cricket.
Faye (Forever) Jarrett (she/her) is a writer, visual and performance artist touching on absurdity, intimacy, the ridiculous and the tender. Concerned with the lesbian experience and the vulnerability surfaced in loving through living, Faye makes poetry collections, zines and personal essays. Interested in the absurdity of our lived performance, sex as language and the theatrics of the feminine, her visual and performance practice borders the blurry line between silly and sexy. Faye is deeply passionate about self-publishing, underground projects and community driven spaces. She believes in wildness, tenderness and anarchy.
Seth Haddon is a queer Australian writer of fantasy. He is a video game designer and producer, has a degree in Ancient History, and previously worked with cats. He lives in Sydney with his partner and their two furry children. Some of his previous adventures include exploring Pompeii with a famous archaeologist and being chased through a train station by a nun.