Author: Michelle Tea in conversation with Brontez Purnell

Tuesday, 11/24/2026
6:00 - 7:30

Suitable for:

Adults

Celebrate the San Francisco book launch of Free Love: Adventures in Marriage and Polyamory with PEN/America Award winner, Guggenheim fellow and beloved literary and tarot icon Michelle Tea in conversation with author and artist, Brontez Purnell. The book features many interviews with SF Bay Area figures, including Brontez Purnell, Karl Soehnlein and Kevin Clarke. Get ready for a revelatory and wildly entertaining meeting of minds and experiences.

Michelle Tea is the author of over 20 books, including the cult classic Valencia, and the PEN/America Award winning Against Memoir. She is the recipient of honors and fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Rona Jaffe Foundation, the Lambda Literary Foundation, Yaddo and MacDowell residencies. She is the co-founder of the infamous Sister Spit performance tours and the instigator behind Drag Queen Story Hour. After coming of queer age in San Francisco, Tea now lives in Los Angeles, where she is Founding Editor of DOPAMINE Books, an innovative publishing partnership with Semiotext(e).

Michelle Tea - website | Dopamine Books - website

Brontez Purnell has been making music since the ’90s. He started in The Social Lies, a hardcore Afro-punk duo in Alabama in his teens, and later Gravy Train!!! He then went on to lead his long-running project The Younger Lovers and, most recently, the Brontez Purnell Trio. Based out of Oakland, CA, Purnell is also a writer, dancer, filmmaker, and choreographer (The Brontez Purnell Dance Company). He is the author of eight critically lauded books, including Ten Bridges I’ve Burnt: A Memoir in Verse, Since I Laid My Burden Down, 100 Boyfriends, and more, that have placed him among the most important writers of his generation.

Brontez Purnell - Instagram | Brontez Purnell Trio - bandcamp

LGBTQIA+ Interest

Gather, share knowledge and celebrate our unique identities at the queerest library ever.

For more resources, the James C. Hormel LGBTQIA Center is the gateway to the Library’s broader collections documenting lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning, intersex and asexual history and culture, with a special emphasis on the San Francisco Bay Area.

Spotlight

This program is sponsored by Friends of the San Francisco Public Library.

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