Avery Grace (they/them) is a queer/trans/neurodiverse, sex worker poet and co-parent of three, living on occupied Lands of the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs. Their work is featured in: "Non-Binary: An Anthology of Gender and Identity”, and “All of Me: Stories of Love, Anger, and the Female Body”. Avery delights in ecstatic Sufi music known as Qawwali and dance as a form of decolonization and resistance. When not writing, Avery co-works with their partner in helping queer, trans, and intersex people cultivate their personal pleasure and sexual/sensual authenticity as forms of liberation.
Plays
Fanna fi Hayati: Love, Sex Work, and the Sacred, is a full-length play that follows the relationship between Dani and Farzin—a trans woman turned sex worker and an Iranian-Sufi academic. As the two of them attempt to architect an allowing and affirming relationship, their connection is tested as Dani transitions from an unsuccessful creative career into professional sex work. What follows is each of their individual challenges to be self-honoring, to honor the other, and the challenges each face therein in spite of their intentions. The play breaks through the 4th wall by requiring the audience to vote between two potential endings, one in which the two reconcile and the other where they do not. Poems by famous Sufi poets such as Rumi and Hafiz, as well as other original poetry, drive the plot forward in a celebration of the sacredness of sex work and the intersection of sexuality and spirituality.
Characters mimic how different aspects of the brain coordinate or do not coordinate as part of the body’sstress and trauma response. The brain structure’s functions determine each character’s name and personality, and how they interact with other characters under extreme fear and difficulty in order to comedically illustrate to the audience how brains function.