Wednesday, November 12, 2025 | 6:30–8 p.m. (PT)
How do writers harness their imaginations to create new worlds, reshape realities, and advocate for justice? How can their stories help us envision more inclusive futures?
WeHo Reads: Wild and Powerful Imaginations
Online Via Zoom and YouTube
Free, RSVP Requested
This event brings together three groundbreaking trans authors whose work expands the horizons of speculative fiction, journalism, and cultural commentary. Through their novels, anthologies, and advocacy, these writers transform personal and collective experiences into bold acts of creativity and resistance.
The event will feature:
- Charlie Jane Anders, award-winning author of Lessons in Magic and Disaster, a new novel about a trans witch who teaches her mother magic;
- M. M. Olivas, a trans, Xicanxfuturist, author of Sundown in San Ojuela, and alumna of the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers’ Workshop and the Lambda Literary Workshop; and
- Tuck Woodstock, host of the celebrated Gender Reveal podcast and the editor of both the Lambda Literary Award-winning 2 Trans 2 Furious: An Extremely Serious Journal of Transgender Street Racing Studies and the upcoming anthology Sex Change and the City.
The event is free. WeHo Reads is a literary series presented by the City of West Hollywood. For more information and events, visit www.weho.org/wehoreads. The 2025 season is produced by BookSwell, a literary media company amplifying historically excluded voices. Additional support is provided by media partnerships with Book Soup and Los Angeles Review of Books.
RSVP: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/weho-reads-wild-and-powerful-imaginations-tickets-1731232977439?aff=web
Authors
Charlie Jane Anders
Charlie Jane Anders is the author of Lessons in Magic and Disaster, coming August 2025 from Tor Books. Her other novels include All the Birds in the Sky, The City in the Middle of the Night, and the young-adult Unstoppable trilogy. She’s also the author of the short story collection Even Greater Mistakes and Never Say You Can’t Survive, a book about how to use creative writing to get through hard times. She’s won the Hugo, Nebula, Sturgeon, Lambda Literary, Crawford, and Locus Awards. She co-created Escapade, a transgender superhero, for Marvel Comics and wrote her into the long-running New Mutants comic. And she’s currently the science fiction and fantasy book reviewer for the Washington Post. With Annalee Newitz, she co-hosts the podcast Our Opinions Are Correct.
Find out more at: https://www.charliejaneanders.com/
M. M. Olivas
M. M. Olivas is an alumna of the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers’ Workshop, the Lambda Literary Workshop, and has an MFA in creative writing and English literature from San Jose State University. An Ignyte finalist, and featured on the Stoker’s longlist, Olivas’ fiction has appeared to critical acclaim in Uncanny, Apex, Weird Horror, and Bourbon Penn Magazine. As a trans, first-generation Chicana, she explores the intersection of queer and diasporic experiences in her fiction. Her debut novel, Sundown in San Ojuela, portrays how Mexico’s indigenous and colonial pasts haunt the present. Olivas currently resides in the San Francisco Bay Area and in her free time, collects transforming robots.
More information at olivasthewriter.wtf.
Tuck Woodstock
Tuck Woodstock is a journalist, editor, and performer based in Brooklyn. He hosts the award-winning podcast Gender Reveal, which has released 14 seasons and distributed nearly $400,000 in grants and mutual aid. Tuck is also a co-founder of both Girl Dad Press and the Trans Journalist Association. He is the editor of the Lambda Literary Award-winning 2 Trans 2 Furious as well as the upcoming anthology Sex Change and the City.
Find out more at: https://tuckwoodstock.com/home.
Special Guest: West Hollywood Poet Laureate
Jen Cheng
Jen Cheng is a multi-disciplinary storyteller, weaving her skills as a poet, writer, musician, improvisor, and artist. She helps create your story and amplify under-represented stories. Jen is a community curator and cross-pollinator.
Find out more about Jen at: jencvoice.com.
