CONTACT: [email protected]
BIO:
One sentence: Artist in Residence at San Francisco Public Library, Celeste Chan co-founded Queer Rebels, toured the country with Sister Spit, and facilitated youth LGBTQ history workshops. (25 words)
Short: Queer Rebels co-founder, Sister Spit performer, MIX NYC guest curator, Celeste Chan is an Artist in Residence at San Francisco Public Library. She served on Foglifter Journal's board. A Periplus mentee, Celeste facilitated Queer Ancestors Project youth writing workshops, received Bread Loaf's Rona Jaffe scholarship, and served as Catapult's inaugural Queer/Trans Teaching Fellow. She's published in AWAY, Alta, cream city review, and The Rumpus. She's writing a queer book and a family memoir. (75 words)
Long:
Celeste Chan is a writer, filmmaker, and teaching artist, schooled by Do-It-Yourself culture and immigrant parents from Malaysia and the Bronx, NY. She creates, collaborates, and curates to amplify voices within marginalized communities. For ten years, she co-directed Queer Rebels, a queer and trans people of color arts project. She's presented at colleges across the country and shared work at national and international festivals (Austin, New York City, SF/Bay Area, Montreal, Tijuana, Paris, Berlin, and beyond). Celeste has received residencies and fellowships from Hedgebrook, Hugo House, Lambda Literary, Mesa Refuge, Ragdale, SAFEHouse, Soaring Gardens, and VONA. She's grateful for funding from CA Arts Council, San Francisco Arts Commission, and WritersCorps. Her writing can be found in several journals, including Ada, Alta, AWAY, Citron Review, cream city review’s genrequeer folio, Feminist Wire, Hyphen, Mixed Race/Queer and Feminist, The Seventh Wave, and The Rumpus.
Celeste was a contributing editor for Foglifter Journal, served for four years as a Teaching Artist for the Queer Ancestors Project, and coordinated Writing Rainbow: QTPOC FREE School. In addition to working as a teaching artist and caregiving for a 95-year-old lesbian rights activist, Celeste has raised funds for the arts and affordable housing. She holds a BA from The Evergreen State College, MFA and MSW from SF State University.
Celeste believes in cultivating creative community. A participant in Writing Against Genocide, she's organized and served on several literary panels: Crafting Counternarratives in an Age of Anti-AAPI Hate, From Hopepunk to Afro-futurism, Black and AAPI Solidarity for the Future, Life Laboratory: Creative Play as Activism, and Queer Chimera: Genre Transgression. She also moderated National Book Foundation’s Revolutionary Joy panel. Celeste is currently researching and writing two books: one about queer lineages, and another about how her father survived the WWII Japanese occupation of Malaya. (300 words)
Photo: EpLi
Press and past events:
AWP Intro Journals Project Judges
San Francisco Arts Commission Announces Four Artists in Residence at San Francisco Public Library
Past Lives - Shelley Wong and Celeste Chan in conversation
Literary Hub - Announcing the 2023 class of Periplus fellows.
KALW - Caring For Lesbian Icon Phyllis Lyon, With Love and Deceit
Wall + Response - Affordable Housing/Vivienda Asequible
SF Chronicle - Queer, trans writers connect with 'ancestors' in new anthology
Oxy Arts - "Queer Historical Mixtape" screening + Q+A
Writing like an Asian - Five Qs with Celeste Chan
Apogee Journal - This Art Gives Life: An Interview with Queer Rebels. KB Boyce and Celeste Chan.
Curve Magazine - Meet Celeste Chan: The out feminist artist on co-founding Queer Rebels Productions and representing queers of color in the arts.
SF Weekly - Femmepire Records: Celeste Chan on Unapologetic, Riotous Femmedom
