Tammy Stoner
Tammy Lynne Stoner (born October 26, 1968 in Midland, Texas) is an American writer and artist. She created the first children's program for kids in gay families, "Dottie's Magic Pockets" and is the author of Spots in Sugar Land and Grenadine Kisses at Midnight. She lives between Portland, OR and San Francisco, CA with her wife and three kids.
Personal Life
Stoner lived in Midland and El Paso, Texas and Gulfport, Mississippi before her family settled in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania. She attended twelve years of Catholic school then attended West Chester University, where she met the woman she would marry 20 years later.
A month into college, Stoner was expelled for drug possession. The following year she moved to Philadelphia and was accepted into Temple University. Stoner put herself through college by working as an artists’ model, a paid medical experimentee, a waitress at a Greek diner, a house cleaner, a biscuit maker, and a book store manager. While in Philadelphia, she started Shrink-Wrap literary and art journal with her boyfriend, was published several times, and began playing in a band who practiced secretly at the Mummers Museum. After graduation, she moved from Philadelphia to Austin, Texas where she worked as a gas station attendant and a graphic designer.
Her drug use took a stronger turn in Texas. When one of her best friends died of an overdose, Stoner broke away and moved to South Korea, where she taught English for a year before moving to the Tenderloin in San Francisco, California. The following year she moved to Southern California where she lived for ten years, playing in the band Churchy Bottom and working as a print production manager at Liberation Publications, parent company of the Advocate, Out magazine, HIV+, and Alyson Books until she left to have a baby with her girlfriend. In 2007, Stoner earned her MFA from Antioch University.
Her pregnancy led to the final break with her religious parents. Two years later, Stoner split amicably from her girlfriend. They moved to Portland, OR together to be sure they raised him together.
In 2008, Stoner reunited with her college girlfriend, who was living in Paris. She moved to Portland to be with Stoner and they had twin girls in 2014.
Creative Work
Not having media that reflected their family inspired Stoner to create "Dottie's Magic Pockets". Dottie was directed by her friend Andrea Maxwell and starring Jennifer Plante.[1] was released in 2007 and has played at numerous gay and lesbian film festivals including London, Melbourne image+nation, Toronto, Outfest, and Frameline. Dottie is in 100+ libraries in the United States and Canada.
From 2011-2014, Stoner was the Fiction Editor for Gertrude Journal, based in Portland, OR, a queer literary and arts journal. Stoner also wrote several produced short films and in 2013, she was on the writing staff for "Second Shot", starring Jill Bennett.
Stoner's writing has appeared in StarF*cker, the Portland Review, Society, Literary Orphans, Unshod Quills, 10,000 Pounds of Black Ink, Folio, and PIf Magazine, among others. In 2011, she was nominated for a Million Writers Award. In 2012 she was nominated for a Million Writers Award and offered a fellowship to the Summer Literary Seminar in Kenya. Her work has been included in anthologies by Forest Avenue Press (2013) and New Rivers Press (2015).
Stoner is part of the Guttery writing group, alongside Mo Daviau, Tracy Manaster, Jamie Duclos-Yourdon, Susan DeFreitas, and A Molotkov.
References
- ^ National Public Radio "Marketplace", September 26, 2007