ABOUT
Red Light Lit is a small press and performance series.
Since its founding in 2013, we have published 10 literary journals, produced over 200 live shows (including in Austin, Chicago, Joshua Tree, Los Angeles, Portland, San Francisco, and Seattle), and published the poetry anthology, Love Is the Drug & Other Dark Poems, and the collections, Unearth (The Flowers) by Thea Matthews, and forthcoming, Lions Like Us by Hollie Hardy.
Our shows blend poetry, prose, art, dance, and music into a unique mashup of creative expression. We curate listening experiences that bring together artists from diverse genres, providing them a rare opportunity to collaborate in a one-time live experimental event. We pride ourselves on folks leaving our events inspired to create and grateful for human connections.
Red Light Lit Presents is a series of shows where music takes the spotlight. As a boutique presenter, we create magical listening experiences by carefully matching the right artists with the perfect venues. We’ve had shows in countless venues including Gold Diggers (LA), Shack 15 (SF), Soho House (Chicago), Ace Hotel & Swim Club (Palm Springs) and Here-After (Seattle).
We’ve featured musical guests: Heidi Alexander, Sam Burton, Shana Cleveland, Tim Cohen, Bart Davenport, Haley Heynderickx, Nick Jaina, Shannon Lay, Elizabeth Lubin, Jessica Lea Mayfield, Elizabeth Moen, Angelina Moysov, Sarah Bethe Nelson, Tomo Nakayama, Josiah Johnson, Mary Simich, Sonny Smith, This Lonesome Paradise, Sunny War, and Wildlife Freeway.
TEAM
RED LIGHT LIT EDITOR-IN-CHEIF
JENNIFER LEWIS is a writer, editor, curator, and the publisher of Red Light Lit. Her debut short story collection, The New Low, is available at Black Lawrence Press. She is the winner of the Nomadic Press Bindle Award and the Los Angeles Review Flash Fiction award. Her fiction has been published Cosmonauts Avenue, ENTROPY, Fourteen Hills Press, Midnight Breakfast, The Los Angeles Press, and CRAFT Literary Magazine. Her nonfiction has been published in The Rumpus, Alta Journal, and Joshua Tree Voice. She received her MFA in creative writing from San Francisco State University and was the recipient of the Leo Litwak Award for creative nonfiction in 2012 and for fiction in 2015. She teaches creative writing at The Writing Salon.
Red Light Lit Austin Curator and Host
LORIA MENDOZA (she/they) is a queer Chicanx writer, curator, musician, and performance artist in Austin, Texas. They attended Swarthmore College where they Honored in English Literature and eventually found themselves at San Francisco State University where they earned their MFA in the Creative Writing. Their work has been published or is forthcoming in Vassar Review, great weather for Media, Orca, The Acentos Review, Mobius, Subprimal, Fourteen Hills Magazine, and The Walrus Literary Journal. Their book, Life’s Too Short (Fourteen Hills Press, 2017) won the Michael Rubin Book Award. Their stories and poetry have been performed at Red Light Lit (San Francisco, Healdsburg, Guerneville, Seattle, Los Angeles, Joshua Tree, Austin), The Austin Poetry Brothel, Bay Area Generations, Voz Sin Tinta, Oakland’s Beast Crawl, and San Francisco’s Litquake.
authors
hollie hardY
HOLLIE HARDY is a poet, educator, and award-winning author of How to Take a Bullet, And Other Survival Poems (Punk Hostage Press, 2014) and Lions Like Us (forthcoming from Red Light Lit Press in 2024). She holds an MFA in Poetry from SFSU, teaches private poetry workshops online and in person, and hosts the long-running monthly reading series Saturday Night Special, a Virtual Open Mic. Publications include The Common, Fourteen Hills, Colossus, Eleven Eleven, MiGoZine, Poetry Super Highway, sPARKLE & bLink, Parthenon West Review, and other journals. She lives in Austin, TX.
thea matthews
THEA MATTHEWS is a poet and educator of African and Indigenous Mexican descent originally from San Francisco, California. She holds an MFA in poetry from New York University and a BA in sociology from UC Berkeley. Her poetry has appeared in or is forthcoming in The Massachusetts Review, Epiphany Magazine, Obsidian Lit & Arts in the African Diaspora, Alta Journal, On the Seawall, The Cortland Review, The New Republic, and others. She was nominated for Best New Poets in 2022 and Best of the Net in 2021. Her first book Unearth [The Flowers] was published by Red Light Lit Press and was listed under Kirkus Reviews’ Best Indie Poetry of 2020. She has taught creative writing at the university level and through organizations such as the Writing Salon. Currently, Thea Matthews is a poet in residence at the Museum of African Diaspora, works at the Academy of American Poets, and lives in Brooklyn.