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About Tijanna

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Upcoming

LitQuake Panel

Lick, Smack, Slurp: Writing the Desires We Only Confess to the Page

Saturday, October 10, 2026, 2 pm to 3 pm

447 Minna, SF

Tijanna O. Eaton (she/hers), moderator and founder of Bolt Cutters Author Cohort

Jennifer Barone (she/hers), poet and author of Sirenland

Sandra Jackson-Opoku (she/hers), author of Savvy Summers mystery series

Tomas Moniz (he/him), author of King of Aloe Vera

 

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​​Tijanna O. Eaton (Tə-zha-na) is a Pushcart Prize-nominated Black, queer butch writer whose work appears in:

slipsslips (2025, 2026)

Panorama Journal (2023)

Yellow Arrow Publishing (2023)

Honey Literary (2022)

​Noyo Review (2022)

In Bloom (TBD)

Bloody Transitions Anthology (TBD)

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She is:

a 2025 recipient of a residency at Mesa Refuge

a 2025 Money for Women nonfiction judge

the 2024 Best of the Net nonfiction judge

a 2024 Soros Justice Fellow

a 2023 Rooted & Written Fellow

the 2021 Unicorn Authors Club's Alumni Award recipient  ​

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Receive sanctuary coaching from Tijanna here.

For more information about the Bolt Cutters Author Cohort, go here.

 

Invite Tijanna to speak by contacting her at tijanna.eaton@gmail.com. 

Topics include:

  • recidivism, jail

  • heroin, crack epidemic, drug abuse

  • homelessness, tent cities, sex work

  • recovery, redemption

  • kink, BDSM, sex, sexuality, Black Joy, and Black Excellence

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Tijanna is also a former recidivist and homeless drug addict who has been clean and sober since 1994. 

 

Her nonfiction memoir, BOLT Cutters, is the story of her 12 arrests in three years in the early 90s.  From April 2022 until August 2023, she read her entire manuscript to a live audience in weekly increments. 

 

Her current book project is a novel in development about Tuesday Edwards and Cadillac Rhea--two 20-something college-educated Black dykes in 1990s San Francisco during the height of the crack epidemic who meet as homeless drug addicts.  Together, they navigate the literal streets of San Francisco, face arrests, brutalize their male counterparts, and survive Cadillac Rhea's imprisonment.  They both want to get clean and build their lives together, but one shocking revelation threatens to break them apart.

 

Tijanna was co-creator of a queer POC recovery conference in San Francisco in the late 90s, was the POC Liaison to the International Ms. Leather competition from 2015 to 2017, and was on the QWOCMAP Board of Directors from 2016 to 2018.  She has been a card-carrying member of the Exiles since 1998.​

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Having served on the Five Keys Schools and Programs Board of Directors since 2006, Tijanna became Board Chair in 2021.  Five Keys is a charter school started in the San Francisco County Jail system in 2003 to award high school diplomas to adult learners.  It has expanded and now provides housing opportunities for homeless populations.

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She was the program director for the Bolt Cutters Cohort at Unicorn Authors Club and worked at a Fortune 100 company for over 25 years.  ​The Bolt Cutters Author Cohort is now a fiscally sponsored project of Independent Arts & Media in San Francisco, CA and is accepting tax-deductible donations.​

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Tijanna is a community liaison of at Louis Place.​​​
 

Past Events

2026

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2025

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2024

 

2023

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2022

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2021

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2017 - 2020

  • TAWOWTS - October 2020 Black Healing October workshop presenter

  • Goodbye White Supremacy – May 2018 Queer Rebels’ 10th Anniversary

  • Little Miss Addict – April 2018 podcast interview with Frankie Norstad

  • Culture Fuck – February 2018

  • Punkassqueers – July 2017

  • Bolt Cutters – June 2017 QWOCMAP Film Festival

  • Contrast – May 2017 4th Annual Five Keys L.A. Art Show keynote: Initiation

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Honorable mention:  Rock Bottom – 1998 film about addiction and recovery by Tony Kaplan

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