Growing up working-class and broke in Chelsea, Mass., Michelle Tea said she knew attending college or university wasn't an option any time soon.

What's a young lesbian with literary ambitions to do? Move to San Francisco.

In the early 1990s, about the time of Tea's move, the city was abuzz with slam-poetry cafes ripe with free-form wordsmiths and story-tellers. To the north, in Washington state, the Riot Grrrl scene of feminist bands was redrawing the indie-rock map.

Time, place and mood all conspired to make the founding of a new literary movement ripe for making. Tea, along with co-founder Sini Anderson, seized the moment with Sister Spit, an all-female literary arts organization melding Beatnik traditions and a do-it-yourself punk ethic with a "queer" aesthetic.

"I realized that all you have to do to be a writer is just write," Tea said during a phone interview from a motorcycle accessories store in San Francisco. "When there's no space for what you want to express, you make that space." That's what Sister Spit did, collecting female poets and storytellers and touring the nation between 1997 and 2000.

Realizing that a whole new generation of young lesbian writers and other renegades had emerged since, Tea re-formed the group in 2007, vowing to take herself and her sisters where they'd never toured before: including Omaha, Neb., Laramie, Wyo. and, on Oct. 13, Salt Lake City.

"It's the kind of show people don't want to go to at first because they've heard it's just a poetry reading, but they leave having a blast," Tea said.

Along with Tea, this tour's line-up includes an all-star list of literary talent: Beth Lisick, "trans-licious performance artist" Ben McCoy, graphic novelist Ariel Schrag, poet Kirya Traber, photographer Sara Seinberg and novelist Rhiannon Argo.

Self-described "trans-personality" and Salt Lake City hairstylist Princess Kennedy will also make a showing, delivering a monologue about his experience on "The Jerry Springer Show." Kennedy knew Tea while living in San Francisco, before he moved to Salt Lake City.

"What happens is the Salt Lake community tends to leave the ladies out," Kennedy said. "This puts them on the front burner. There is no shading what they recite or talk about during the show."

While many monologues and presentations orbit around "queer" consciousness, Tea said the program ranges beyond labels and never approaches politics directly.

"Rants risk being cheesy too often, and people want a nuance more than a regurgitation of headlines," Tea said. "Part of our agenda was to make writing every bit as cool as being in a rock band. Not everyone likes punk music, but pretty much everyone likes a good story -- they like being engrossed in someone's weird life."