Tara Jepsen is a writer, comic, and actor living in Los Angeles, California. Her novel, “Like a Dog,” was released by City Lights Publishers in September of 2017!!! She has also been published by The Believer, xojane.com, and by the SF Weekly, among others. She studied improv and sketch at UCB, and has studied with story guru Joan Scheckel. Tara toured and performed extensively with seminal queer cabaret Sister Spit from 1997 on. She co-hosted legendary San Francisco queer literary open mic K’vetsh with Kirk Read at a gay men’s bath house for over ten years. Pre-pandy, Tara co-hosted monthly comedy show JOSH with Michelle Tea.

Weirdly, the thing she put the least effort into has gotten the most attention: this video about skateboarding by a bunch of rad ladies at Buzzfeed. Over 4.5 million views. It’s a weird time to be alive.

Tara and longtime collaborator Beth Lisick created, wrote and acted in original web series Rods and Cones, released by Joey Soloway and Rebecca Odes’s Wifey.tv September 2014. Rods and Cones was named one of Indiewire’s 25 Best Series/Creators of 2014. Tara has written and performed original sketch comedy with Lisick throughout the U.S. since 1999. They have appeared at Dixon Place in NYC, at San Francisco’s Sketchfest, at the UCB in Los Angeles, and myriad additional venues as themselves and as characters. She has a featured extra role in season two of Amazon’s Golden Globe-winning series Transparent.

Tara appears in numerous short films.
Release the Bats by writer/director Michelle Tea (2018).
Bloated with Vanity written/acted w/ Beth Lisick, dir. Aubree Bernier-Clarke, also starring Becky Thyre (2017)
Boob Toob: Eye on the Fall written by Robin Reiser, dir. Devon Kirkpatrick (2015)
Stanya Kahn‘s 2014 piece “Don’t Go Back to Sleep”
Tick Tock for Ding Dongs (2013, dir. Jed Bell),
Sinking State (2011, dir. Frazer Bradshaw)
Diving for Pearls (dirs. Beth Lisick and Tara Jepsen).
She appears in an as-yet-unnamed video project by artist Harry Dodge, to be released sometime in this lifetime.
She has a small part in Jessie Kahnweiler’s web series, The Skinny. Which also stars the gorgeous Illeana Douglas, who said on-set, “One minute you’re working with Scorsese, the next minute you’re making a web series in Atwater Village.” What is she, amazing?

Tara and Miriam Klein-Stahl, illustrator of the Rad Women book series, co-founded queer skateboard brand Pave the Way Skateboards. In March of 2018, The Smithsonian American History Museum asked to include a Pave the Way deck in their collection.

Pave the Way at the Napa skatepark for a queer skate event. Article

Tara appears in a couple music videos:

Peaches “I Mean Something”
Two Gallants “My Love Won’t Wait”

Tara has performed stand-up comedy at various indie venues in Los Angeles and San Francisco.

Reviews for Like a Dog:
Publishers Weekly
The Riveter Magazine
Booklist
Elle Magazine
Excerpt on Lit Hub
Fiction Advocate
Lambda Literary

Articles about Pave the Way Skateboards:
Monster Children
Juxtapoz

photo by Tammy Rae Carland