FemmeCast: Cast

Bevin Branlandingham - Host and Producer

Bevin Branlandingham is the Host and Producer of FemmeCast: The Queer Fat Femme Podcast Guide to Life. She is a flamboyant femmecee, writer, drag king, burlesque and comedy performer. She is Co-Head Madam of the Femme Family, the New York Chapter of the Femme Mafia, on the steering committee for the Fat and Queer conference and the media committee for the Femme Conference. In 2008 Bevin received a Commendation from the Mayor of Jersey City for her work with the LGBT community. Her writing has been published in numerous periodicals and she has performed throughout North America. Her mission is to make the world a safe place for people to love themselves, regardless of their marginalizations.

Her website (including blog, calendar of events and workshops) is found at QueerFatFemme.Com.

She is best described as "Equal parts glitter, cupcakes, good genes and Sephora."

She also blogs at The Femme's Guide to Absolutely Everything and performs throughout North America.

To book Bevin for a workshop or performance, email femmecast at gmail dot com.

Photo by Sophie Spinelle of Shameless Photography

Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha - Femme Shark Correspondent

Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha is a fierce femme QTPOC queen, writer, performer and cultural worker. The author of Consensual Genocide, her writing has been published in Yes Means Yes, Homelands, Colonize This, We Don't Need Another Wave, Brazen Femme, With a Rough Tongue: Femmes Write Porn, Bitchfest, Without a Net, Dangerous Families, Femme and A Girl's Guide to Taking Over The Word. She writes for Bitch, Colorlines, Hyphen, and Make/Shift magazines, and performs and tours her work throughout North America. In 2006 she quit her day job to co-found of Mangos With Chili, North America's only annual touring cabaret of queer and trans of color performers. With her SBBFFF (Slutty Brown Best Femme Friend Forever) Zuleikha Mahmood, in 2008 she founded the Femme Sharks, a movement of tough, hot queer femmes of color (with some down white girls) who are the leaders and defenders of our communities. She believes in making her dreams real, loves her ability to rock a tiny miniskirt and five inch platforms all winter, and can frequently be found at the Gaza demo or outside the club with her best friend brown femme and jam fam. After a decade living in Toronto after running away from America at 21, she is a new devotee of the beautiful city of Oakland, CA, where butch tops teach yoga and you can pick up studs at the farmers' market.

http://www.brownstargirl.com

Zoe - Consigliere and Social Justice Correspondent

Zoe Femmetastica is a late 30s, smart, sexy, sassy fat femme Siciliana. Based in Brooklyn, she is PhD candidate in sociology and a MA student in disability studies and is exploring late 20th century discourse around the "obesity epidemic." A long time social justice activist, she also sits on the board of NOLOSE, a national fat queer organization. When she doesn't have her nose behind a book, Zoe Femmetastica can be found spending time with her wonderful boyfriend or taking New York City by storm with her fat femme/friend posse. Her other interests include: stalking pugs and French bulldogs on the street, wasting time on Facebook, attempting to learn more about quantum physics, determining which NYC bakery has the best cupcakes, and collecting more Fluevog shoes.

Naima - Cultural Correspondant

Naima Lowe is fabulous. This is evidenced by the fact that she is a writer, performer, media maker, and aspiring professor. And she does all of that while looking cute in cardigans and broaches. Her film "Birthmarks" recently won the award for Best Experimental Film at the Newark Black Film Festival, which is especially exciting because the film is about Newark and Naima really likes black people. Right now she's working on a media and performance extravaganza about a black cowgirl and a white nun in love in turn of the century Montana.

Rachael - Sexpert

Rachael is the Donna of the Femme Mafia and a professional dominatrix by the name of Mistress Medusa. She is a burlesque performer, writer, community organizer, fire artist and has the best rack in the State of Georgia. She was voted Local Hero in the Southern Voice magazine and lives in the Queer Femme Capital of the World, Atlanta, GA.

Questions for our Sexpert should be directed to Mistress at MistressMedusa dot com. Subject: FemmeCast

Jessie Dress - Crafty Correspondent

Jessie Dress is a queer fat femme hailing from Austin, Texas and co-founder of the Austin Chapter of the Femme Mafia. Mundane IT professional by day, community organizer/activist by night, she is a true glitter unicorn princess. A self identified craft top, her preferred media include glue gun (high heat only, no lo-temp for this girl), coloring book, glitter modge podge, ceramics, freezer paper stencil and bacon. She femmecees as her clever alter ego Suburbia Sprawl. Jessie Dress is available for online craft materials sourcing and consultation and will gladly lecture you about chivalry, sex, dating and/or career choices while you knit or crochet.

She has a great sense of humor about herself, and wants to be a lesbian goat farmer when she grows up. Or America's Next Top Queer Yenta. She can't decide which. Maybe both?

Photo by Sophie Spinelle of Shameless Photography

Taueret Manu - Ferocity Correspondent

Taueret Manu is a fatshion shopgrrl, activist, and artist. Her femme roots are in the elevated subway tracks, man-made jungle zoos, queer topless beaches, and gentrified piers of New York City. Her hands and heart are always full of sequins, trouble, and ferocity (tools, all of them). She loves the divine, pitbulls, friction, hibiscus juice, sexual currency, poetry, rioting, and her femmesisterfriends. She dislikes White Santa/White Jesus/White Male God, the prison industrial complex, and the NYPD. She is also the co-editor of the radical fat style zine Glutton for Fatshion, an organizer with the Femme Family NYC, and a proud Femme Shark.

Brian - Big Gay Agenda Correspondent

Brian is a sardonic librarian sweetened by his Southern upbringing. Doughy and affable, Brian is a favorite target of panhandlers. He is an avid foodie, knitter and well-versed in current technological advances and the gay agenda. Brian doesn't like or trust Texans, crocheters or social networking websites.

If you have questions for Brian related to Food, Knitting or the Gay Agenda, please direct them to femmecast at gmail dot com subject: I need big gay advice.

Genne - Self-Help Correspondant

Genne is a queer fat femme, playwright, and non-profit arts education person. She's passionate about changing the world – through the classroom, mind-blowing theatre, or the collective power of community building. She lives, works, and plays in her native Philadelphia (and often visits her NYC fat femme posse). When not acting as Bevin's personal Self-Help Novel, she's hanging with other storytellers, dreamers, and schemers.

Have a crisis worthy of Dr. Phil? Email Genne, femmecast at gmail.com, Subject: Give me an essay prompt so that I can better understand how to run my life or whatever.

Kelli Dunham - Butch Dyke Comedian in Residence

Kelli Dunham is everyone's favorite ex nun dorky dyke comic and an aspiring glitter butch. She is recording her second comedy CD, "Almost Pretty," in New York on May 31st. Check out her website for more details and check out her blog for more details about Kelli's latest junk food obsessions, what prepubescent celebrity she has just been mistaken for, and scary recipes for even scarier dinner parties.

Megan - Hippie Woo Woo Correspondent

Megan is a ukulele playing drag artist, bartender and urban natural foods store professional. She has entertained people throughout the US with various troupes including the New York Drag Squad and the Chatanooga Kings. She performs as Betty Pages (a pregnant evangelical Christian), Frat Man Dan, Pretty Houghten-Temptin' and as her lovely self. She is a recent San Francisco transplant embodying the old adage "Live in New York City once but leave before it makes you hard."

If you have natural foods or hippie woo woo related questions, direct them to femmecast at gmail dot com. Subject: Only a Free-Wheeling Hippie Can Answer This Question.

Macy - Pet Correspondent

Macy is a purebred Shih Tzu but at least half muppet. She is charming and friendly, loves other dogs, cats and a good game of squeaky toy.

If you have a question for Macy, you can direct it to femmecast at gmail dot com Subject: I can't believe I am writing an email to a dog, but...

Former Contributors

Anna - Technical Editor

Anna is a traveler, lives for music, technological savant and "fat on the inside". She has a love for her Saab that ain't right. She makes FemmeCast happen technologically and you'll occasionally catch her saying "Ready, Steady, Go" because Bevin told her she had to do something more clever than "Okay start."

If you have a technical question for Anna she charges $50 an hour. Email her at arwolk at gmail dot com.

Tara Shuai - Fatshion and Beauty Correspondent

Tara is a twenty-something biracial high femme New Yorker by way of DC and Richmond, VA. She is a lover of fatshion, makeup, and figuring out ways to live fabulously on a dime. She's been blogging about fat, fatshion, race, and glamorosity for the past 7 years, she's a co-moderator of the fatshionista livejournal community, a contributor to fatshionista.com . Her other interests include: Scrabble, foodie dilettantism, abstract collaging, books, crusading for social justice, and eating pizza in her underwear.

If you have questions for Tara, email them to Fatshion at Femme-Cast dot com.