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Today, Vanessa told me,
“Yell it, scream it, shout it from the
rooftops. Beat your chest. Tear your hair. Bite. Scratch. Be theatrical.
Go wild. The more you mourn, the less you carry.”
I started to cry when she said that.
That’s really what this thing is about.
–December, 2011
BGD Press is the brainchild of award-winning writer Mia McKenzie. What started out as a scream of anguish has evolved into a multi-faceted forum for expression. BGD seeks to, in as many ways as possible, amplify the voices, experiences and expressions of queer and trans people of color.
Since its inception in December 2011, BGD Blog has featured over 300 diverse writers from 3 countries and reached over 10 million readers from every populated continent on earth. With its focus on social justice from a QTPoC perspective, BGD is the only forum of its kind on the web.
BGD is a place where we can make our voices heard on the issues that interest us and affect us, where we can showcase our literary and artistic talents, where we can cry it out, and where we can explore and express our “dangerous” sides: our biggest, boldest, craziest, weirdest, wildest selves.
BGD Books, BGD’s offline publishing project, publishes books by queer and trans writers of color, including novels and essay collections.
Board Members
Vanessa R. Lewis
Anna Pia Rensi
Staff
Executive Director/Creator/Editor-In-Chief
Mia McKenzie is an award-winning writer and a smart, scrappy Philadelphian with a deep love of fake fur collars and Black people. She studied writing at the University of Pittsburgh. She is a black feminist and a freaking queer, facts that are often reflected in her stories, which are literary and lyrical and hella quirky, and which have won her some awards and grants, such as the Astraea Foundation’s Writers Fund Award (‘09) and the Leeway Foundation’s Transformation Award (‘11). Her debut novel, The Summer We Got Free, won the 2013 Lambda Literary Award. It has been described by author and critic Jewelle Gomez as “a brilliant tapestry filled with exuberance and anxiety”. Her second book, Black Girl Dangerous on Race, Queerness, Class and Gender is being taught at colleges and universities across the country. You can read her essays in BGD, The Guardian, Jezebel and Ebony, and her short stories in The Kenyon Review, McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern and make/shift. She travels and speaks about race, queerness, gender, class, and the intersections of all of these. Read more about Mia and catch up on her latest at mia-mckenzie.com
Director of Programs
CarmenLeah Ascencio, LCSW, MPH, RYT is a public health social worker, community theatre facilitator, trauma-sensitive yoga instructor, educator and proud Boricua 2nd generation queer femme. Over the past 12 years her work has centered on partner abuse, sexual violence, the commercial sexual exploitation of children, LGBQT asylum seekers, refugee resettlement and positive youth development. She is currently the director of Get Free, a Black Girl Dangerous program, and is the creator of Freedom Labor Love, a consultancy business that helps organizations and schools be trauma informed, emotionally healthy and inspired social change environments. CarmenLeah also speaks and facilitates BGD Get Free workshops at organizations and schools.Assistant Editor/Columnist
Princess is an unapologetic trans latina survivor, creator, and anti-violence activist. Her latest projects include a Title IX teach-in, a book by and for trans women in recovery, and a zine about heroin addiction. There’s no hope on dope and our disease dies in the light of exposure.
BGD 990, governing documents and financial statements are available to the public upon request. Email (bgd at bgdpress dot org).
