Adventure Awaits You in Hell: Coming Out in the 90s & the New Queer Radical

Meliza Bañales

Stevenson 101
9:30 AM

Meliza Bañales aka Missy Fuego (she/they) will guide you through 90s San Francisco, sharing insights into what some have called an "extinct" identity: that of the Queer radical in the United States. Bañales is an author, advocate, and adventurer. She was a fixture in the Bay Area spoken-word and Queer artist communities from 1996-2011, winning Grand Slam Champion in 2002. As a filmmaker, she was the inaugural winner of the Jury Award at the Los Angeles Transgender Film Festival in 2011. Her novel, Life Is Wonderful, People Are Terrific, was a 2016 Lambda Literary Finalist for Best LGBTQ Debut Fiction. Their new book, roōt for the underdog: poems, was released in October 2022.