Rev. Jasmine Beach-Ferrara is an ordained minister and published author who uses her faith work and fiction writing to create new strategies for supporting LGBT communities in the South.
She came out as a teenager in North Carolina at a time when people didn’t talk openly about homosexuality, and when she went away to college, she never imagined that she would come back. But after working at an AIDS hospital, teaching in prison, and getting masters degrees in creative writing and divinity, she decided that living in the South and promoting equality and reconciliation was her true calling.
Beach-Ferrara founded and runs the Asheville-based nonprofit Campaign for Southern Equality and recently published her first collection of short stories, Damn Love (IG Publishing/2013).
Host Frank Stasio talks with Jasmine Beach-Ferrara about her life, career and activism.
