Jade Sylvan

Jade Sylvan (born September 9, 1982, Chicago, Illinois) is an American poet, author, performer, producer, and performing artist living in Cambridge, Massachusetts. They[1] are the author of Kissing Oscar Wilde and The Spark Singer, a collection of poetry. They have been called a "risque queer icon" by the Boston Globe.[2]

Their most recent book, Kissing Oscar Wilde (Write Bloody Publishing), a novelized memoir about the author's experience as a touring poet in Paris, was a finalist for the New England Book Award[3] and the Bisexual Book Award.[4]

Sylvan has had pieces published in The Washington Post, BuzzFeed, The Toast, PANK Magazine, and elsewhere online about polyamory, queer identity, and LGBT issues. They have toured extensively, performing their work to audiences across the United States, Canada, and Europe. They are heavily rooted in the literary and performance community of Cambridge and Somerville, Massachusetts. Over the past decade, Sylvan has produced and performed in acclaimed stage-shows and workshops in collaboration with entities such as The Museum of Fine Arts Boston, Harvard University, and Mass Poetry.

Jade Sylvan published an open letter to Mark Zuckerberg in the Washington Post in 2014, which addressed concerns of gender equality. It focused on concerns regarding damages to the LGBT community brought about by Facebook policies regarding real-name assignments, as the policies limit authentic self-expression and endanger those who maintain multiple identities for safety reasons.[5]

In 2012, Sylvan co-wrote and starred in the feature-film TEN (awarded "Runner-Up" for Best Screenplay and Best Genre Film at the Imaginarium Film Festival[6]), and was also commissioned to write the official novelization of the film.[7]

In Spring of 2015, there was fundraising and a public read-through for Spider Cult: The Musical, an "apocalyptic lesbian fringe sci-fi horror musical" that Sylvan wrote with burlesque performer Fem Bones and musician Catherine Capozzi.[8]