April Monthly Bulletin: 2025

It was a wonderful, whirlwind March at FCCW — thank you for continuing to help us build beautiful patio furniture with Sarah Watlington, filling the space for our first Mahjong Mistress event, and coming through to build tiles and co-work, it’s fun to see your faces and your fine handiwork!

This April, we’re thrilled to be hosting a special members’ tour of the Alice Coltrane exhibit at the Hammer on Thursday, April 17 — now is a great time to join! We’re bringing back another round of the incredibly popular Carpentry workshop on Sunday, April 20 (we get it, everyone is turned on by power tools) and we’re soooo excited for our Life-Size Mahjong Party that will be taking place in the FCCW garden on Saturday, April 26 — there will be music, drinks, food, lessons, a giant mahjong game, what more could you ask for?

Additionally, Transchool and Allies in Arts are hosting a fundraiser/panel event at Chevalier Books on Saturday, April 12 that you can attend and support! Feminist Synth Lab is hosting an Enableton Session and a Listening Session on Sunday, April 13 and Sunday, April 27, respectively, and we’re giving you very ADVANCE notice on the amazing theremin workshop they’re hosting on Sunday, May 11 — so don’t miss out!

We’re also exceptionally pleased to be co-presenting a special two-day symposium, Peer2Peer: A Critical Internet Studies Gathering in LA with the UCLA Center for Critical Internet Inquiry at FCCW on Saturday and Sunday, May 1 & 2. Join us for workshops, talks, and panels on AI, digital security, everything the Internet!

And in the vein of getting ahead of ourselves, please mark your calendars for our next fundraiser on Saturday, June 7 — it will be a playful and elegant evening affair in our garden, more details to come!

Our featured work for April is an excerpt from the debut novel, Woodworking by Emily St. James, who has written for the show Yellowjackets, among other writing credits!

Meeting in the kitchen,

Kamala, Sarah, & Raquel

Programs & Updates
 

FCCW Member Event:

Tour Alice Coltrane, Monument Eternal with
Erin Christovale

We’re extending a special invitation to active FCCW members to join us for a tour of the Alice Coltrane, Monument Eternal exhibit at the Hammer, with the show’s curator, Erin Christovale. The show is inspired by the life and legacy of jazz musician, devotional leader, and mother, Alice Coltrane, and features work in a range of mediums from contemporary American artists, alongside ephemera from Coltrane’s personal archive.

We’ll meet at the Hammer for the tour and we’re planning to get a drink together afterward. If you would like to join us, but you are not currently a member, you can sign up here for as little as $5
a month!

Carpentry with Sarah Watlington: Build Outdoor Furniture For FCCW

Join us for a one-day carpentry session where you'll learn the fundamentals of building with wood in a supportive, community-centered environment. This hands-on class will teach you how to safely use power tools, interpret drawings, and bring designs to life.

Woodworker and artist Sarah Watlington, will teach participants these skills and more, and you will help FCCW by applying them to construct furniture for our new outdoor patio space. So far we’ve made planters and benches, and this month we’re building a table! No experience is encouraged! Closed toed shoes and pants are required!

Mahjong Mistress:
Building Bonds with
Life-size Mahjong

You’re invited to the FCCW garden for the unique experience of playing mahjong in teams with the large-scale tiles (that you all helped us build, thank you!). Through interactive play with life-size tiles, this event highlights teamwork and connection on a grand scale, using strategy and play as a metaphor for community-building and solidarity. Join us for the culmination of our residency with Mahjong Mistress!

Additionally, we will have mahjong tables set-up with TAs, who can teach you how to play, and we’re inviting vendors, like 626 Hospitality Group and

Gu Grocery, to sell ice cream, snacks, and drinks. You will not want to miss this spectacle, come have a mahjong afternoon!

Allies in Arts + Transchool Fundraiser Event

Join Allies in Arts for a very special community fundraiser to celebrate and support the trans writers of Transchool! Featuring a panel of Transchool mentors, advocates and students, and

moderated by critic, journalist and author Emily St. James, author of Woodworking.

Allies in Arts founded Transchool to empower the voices of trans writers ages 18-24. Transchool: Volume 1 is an anthology featuring the multifaceted work — poetry, fiction, nonfiction, screenplays, genre-defying writing — by the first class of Transchool creative writers and their mentors. All proceeds from the sale of Transchool: Vol. 1 at this event will go directly to Allies in Arts!!

Feminist Synth Lab: Enableton, An Ableton Coworking Session

Whether you're an Ableton pro or just starting out, join us at this month's edition of Enableton, an Ableton Coworking Session. We'll be settling in for a three hour session of new collaborations, serendipitous knowledge sharing or focused individual work — it's totally up to you! Attendees are not required to come for the entire session, but will be required to bring their own laptop with Ableton installed and a pair of headphones.

Feminist Synth Lab:
Listening Session

Whether you need some fresh ears on a finished track or are stuck on what to do with that vocal melody, this is the place to share your works-in-progress. Attendees will be asked to email Feminist Synth Lab a recorded file to femsynthlab@gmail.com the week before the workshop.

During the session, we will take turns listening as a group to each others' work, giving folks an opportunity to share positive comments. We aim to provide a supportive environment for the vulnerable act of sharing work, while acknowledging the impact of imposter syndrome on our creative practices.

Feminist Synth Lab: Introduction to Theremin w/ Citlalli Esmeralda Aguirre

What is a theremin? How does it work? Since its invention, the theremin has entranced the world with its ethereal sound and elusive play style. The first electronic musical instrument ever created, the theremin has a history that is as unusual as its sound. Join us as artist Citlalli Esmeralda Aguirre demystifies this incredible instrument, walking us through its history and the basics of how to play it. No experience necessary—beginners are very welcome!

Feminist Synth Lab prioritizes all marginalized genders, including but not limited to trans women, cis women, trans men, non-binary, intersex, gender nonconforming, two-spirit and questioning folx. We ask that our cis male allies and friends respectfully do not sign up, as we recognize that electronic music is overwhelmingly dominated by cis men.

UCLA Center for Critical Internet Inquiry 
and FCCW Present
 

Peer2Peer: A Critical Internet Studies Gathering in LA

Peer2Peer is a two-day gathering bringing together researchers, artists, archivists, and makers to think collectively and critically about the Internet. Come hear incredible new work from our research community, learn how to up your digital security, learn how to archive (or not!) the web, come laugh at jokes about the Internet! All events unless otherwise noted are open to the public. Come for an hour or stay for the whole two-days!

UCLA Center for Critical Internet Inquiry is a community of scholars whose work engages the past, present and future of the Internet. This event is made possible by the generous support of the Henry Luce Foundation.

To learn more and get more info on the symposium schedule, visit our website.

Save The Date:
FCCW Fundraiser

Please mark your calendars for the FCCW Benefit! We are very pleased to be celebrating our 10-year anniversary and our first year in our gorgeous new home — we’re inviting you to invest in our future, and a vibrant future for feminist art in Los Angeles. The fundraiser will take place in our lovely new garden space, where you’ll be treated to an array of food, beverages and entertainment to tickle your feminist, creative senses. More details and tickets available soon!

We’re very pleased to feature an excerpt this month from Emily St. James’ debut novel, Woodoworking, which came out last month from Zando, Crooked Media Reads. The book is a heartwarming story, following a trans high school teacher from a small town in South Dakota who befriends the only other trans woman she knows: one of her students.

Erica didn’t know any other trans women. So when she learned Abigail Hawkes had called everyone in her current events class “a bunch of fascist cunts,” Erica switched detention duty slots with Hank DeWaard to be able to talk to Abigail one-on-one.

“Whatever, ----,” Hank said. Since she had chosen the name Erica for herself in a frenzy on a baby-name website, Erica’s old name had come to sound like it was enveloped in fog. It was very far away from her now, somewhere out at sea. Hank dumped three packets of salt into his steaming Lean Cuisine. “Go ahead! Take all my slots as far as I’m concerned.”

“I wouldn’t go that far!” Erica laughed collegially, trying to seem like she was the kind of man Hank could clap on the back and call “a real good guy” while they were out having a drink after work. Hank would never see her hiding in plain sight. In a town like Mitchell, South Dakota, she had to disappear before she was spotted.

Erica realized she had been laughing a second too long, at something that wasn’t even funny at all, something she had said, no less. She had the uneasy feeling lately that she was watching herself on a thirty-second delay. Everything moved so much more slowly now that she was aware she was trying to escape herself.

She had lost so much time already.

About the AUTHOR

Photo credit: Eliza Clark

Emily St. James is a writer and cultural critic, and Woodworking is her first novel. Her journalism and criticism have appeared in The New York Times, Vox, and The A.V. Club, and her writing for television has been featured on the Emmy-nominated series Yellowjackets. She lives in Los Angeles with her family.