BWS 08.07.15: It’s Tonight!

WEDNESDAY, JULY 8, 2015

QUEER NIGHT!

L-R: Syrus Marcus Ware, Amber Dawn, Vivek Shraya & Trish Salah.

AT

full of beans Coffee House & Roastery

1348 Dundas St. W., Toronto

Guest speaker at 6:30pm

Michael Erickson, Glad Day Bookshop

“The Role of the LGBTQ Bookstore in the Changing World of Community and Communication”

Readings begin at 7:00

The reading is PWYC (suggested $3-$5) and features a Q&A with the writers afterward. Books and treats are available for sale. Please note that while the venue is wheelchair accessible, washroom facilities are not.

Many thanks to the Ontario Arts Council for their support.

GUEST SPEAKER

Michael Erickson is a co-owner of Glad Day Bookshop, the world’s oldest LGBTQ bookstore and Toronto’s oldest bookstore of any kind. A dedicated community organizer and social justice activist, he is also a high school teacher in the TDSB.

READERS

Amber Dawn is the author of the poetry collection Where The Words End And My Body Begins, novel Sub Rosa and memoir How Poetry Saved My Life: A Hustler’s Memoir. Her writing traverses themes of sex work, queer identity and survivor pride. She lives on unceded Coast Salish territory (incorporated Vancouver).

Trish Salah is the author of two poetry collections–the Lambda Award-winning Wanting in Arabic, and Lyric Sexology, Vol. 1–and co-editor of a special issue of TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly, on Transgender Cultural Production. At the University of Winnipeg, she co-organized the conferences Writing Trans Genres: Emergent Literatures and Criticism, and Decolonizing and Decriminalizing Trans Genres. She has recently accepted a position as assistant professor of Gender Studies at Queen’s University.

Vivek Shraya’s body of work includes ten albums, four short films, and three books that have been used as textbooks at several post-secondary institutions. His debut novel, She of the Mountains, was named one of The Globe and Mail’s Best Books of 2014. A three-time Lambda Literary Award finalist, Vivek was the 2014 recipient of the Steinert & Ferreiro Award for leadership in Toronto’s LGBTQ community, the recipient of Anokhi Media’s inaugural Most Promising LGBTQ Community Crusader Award in 2015, and a 2015 Toronto Arts Foundation Emerging Artist Award finalist.

Syrus Marcus Ware is a visual artist, activist, and educator, as well as a PhD candidate in the Faculty of Environmental Studies at York University, and the author of Love is in the Hair, part of Flamingo Rampant’s 2015 book series, and chapters in Who’s Your Daddy?: And Other Writings on Queer Parenting (Sumach Press), Trans Bodies, Trans Selves (Oxford) and Disability Incarcerated (Palgrave MacMillan). He is also the Program Coordinator of Youth Programs, Art Gallery of Ontario, and for the past 15 years, has hosted the weekly art and activism segment, “Resistance on the Sound Dial”, on CIUT 89.5FM. In 2005, Syrus was voted “Best Queer Activist” by NOW Magazine, and in 2012, he was awarded the Steinert & Ferreiro Award.

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BWS 08.07.15: Syrus Marcus Ware

Syrus Marcus Ware is a visual artist, activist, and educator, as well as a PhD candidate in the Faculty of Environmental Studies at York University, and the author of chapters in Who’s Your Daddy?: And Other Writings on Queer Parenting (Sumach Press), Trans Bodies, Trans Selves (Oxford) and Disability Incarcerated (Palgrave MacMillan). He is also the Program Coordinator of Youth Programs, Art Gallery of Ontario, and for the past 15 years, has hosted the weekly art and activism segment, “Resistance on the Sound Dial”, on CIUT 89.5FM. In 2005, Syrus was voted “Best Queer Activist” by NOW Magazine, and in 2012, he was awarded the Steinert & Ferreiro Award.

In May, Syrus published Love is in the Hair, a children’s book from Flamingo Rampant, a micropress with a mission to publish feminist, racially diverse, LGBTQ-positive children’s books. Ahead of his appearance at BWS on July 8, he gave us a peek inside!

[Uncle Marcus (pictured):] “Carter! Awake again! Remember little one, we need to get lots of sleep tonight so that we are rested for the big day tomorrow! Your new sibling will be here soon, and we want to be awake to meet her!”

[Carter:] “I can’t sleep. I’m too excited! Could you tell me a story?”

Uncle Marcus settled onto the edge of the bed, carefully moving his hair out from under him as he sat down. Carter looked are her uncle’s hair carefully. It was full of memories and stories and magic.

“What is this bead from?” Carter smiled. She knew this story and liked it best of all.

[Uncle Marcus:] “This bead is from a very special day, four years ago when you were born!”

[cont’d:] “While we were waiting for you to be born, we went for a walk in Union Square and we found this beautiful artist’s booth selling tiny handmade beads. This one is full of all the colours of the rainbow, and it made us think of you, and all the hope of your new journey.”

[Carter:] “What about this one?”

[Uncle Marcus:] “This piece of metal was from a music festival that I went to in 1996. I met Uncle Jeff at that festival, when I stopped to buy this metal bead. He was selling metal bracelets and we started talking. Ive worn it in my hair ever since.”

[Uncle Jeff:] “I remember that! […] But I wasn’t selling metal jewellery, I was making woven bracelets to give away!”

Uncle Jeff laughed. They always remembered parts of the story differently.

Carter, excited, points to pink thread in one dreadlock.

[Carter:] “Yes! And that’s why you have this story in your hair! This pink is from the bracelet, right Uncle Jeff?!”

[Uncle Jeff:] “That thread is from the day we decided to be each others family! We wove some of the threads from my bracelet into uncle Marcus’ hair.”

Syrus Marcus Ware visits the Brockton Writers Series on our annual Queer Night, Wednesday, July 8, 2015—full of beans Coffee House & Roastery, 1348 Dundas St. W., Toronto (6:30pm, PWYC)—along with Amber Dawn, Trish Salah, Vivek Shraya, and special guest speaker Michael Erickson of Glad Day Bookshop.