Name: Body Failure - a trans writing workshop
Start: 2026-03-15T14:00:00+00:00
End: 2026-03-15T17:00:00+00:00
Location: The Queery

queer xtreme sports writing workshop by Elliot Lind through Kathy Acker's and Bob Flanagan's texts on body, sex, gyms, sickness and dying.
About this Event

We begin with the original academic trans masc gym rat text, Kathy Acker’s “Against Ordinary Language: The Language of the Body” about body building, anxiety of dying, and rejection of language.

According to cliche, athletes are stupid. Meaning: they are inarticulate. [...]

The verbal language in the gym is minimal and almost senseless, reduced to numbers and a few nouns. “Sets”, “squats”, “reps”,.

We will explore the pleasure of failure through Bob Flanagan’s sexy, funny, sad writing about pleasure, sickness and the mundanity of the two in the poem “Why?”.

We will look at the failure of the body - to pass, to outlive, to produce and perform masculinity.

We will do writing exercises, and there will be a chance to get feedback for any ongoing work you have. Please bring whatever you've been working on with you. All levels of experience welcome.

Read texts here

Kathy Acker (Read here)

Bob Flanagan (Read here)

Who is this for?

This workshop will centre trans+ experiences, however, nobody here polices gender or wishes to uphold a rigid trans vs cis binary. If you can get down with this, come join.

Tickets

If you are a trans person and cannot afford the low income ticket fee, please get in touch [email protected]

Artist Bio

Elliot is a writer based in London. He co-directs Camp Trans UK and a trans writing course, , which returns in May 26 and is currently accepting applicants. He is working on a trans writers touring project atm, wanting to connect trans literary communities across the UK.

Organiser Bio

Queer Xxxtreme Sports Book Club is an adrenaline-fuelled reading group in Brighton, UK, biting their way through queer decolonial and trans-forward theory books to make liberatory knowledge more accessible.

Access

If you, or somebody you are in close contact with, have symptoms of viral airborne illness, please do not come to the event in solidarity with Disabled and chronically ill folk.