Proud Voices
Curated by Susan G. Cole
Runs Saturday, June 27 and Sunday, June 28
In partnership with The Word On The Street, Proud Voices' third installment, curated by Susan G. Cole, offers a little bit of everything for the queer lit lover.
Saturday, June 27
Hear Lisa Foad, reading from her disturbing debut The Night Is A Mouth, Shani Mootoo, taking us to Trinidad and a deeply conflicted gay dad with Valmiki's daughter, and Karine Silverwomen reading from her now infamous Letter To Anne Frank. A special Lesbian Mothers series presents Diane Flacks, Elizabeth Ruth and Susan G. Cole, plus mystery writer Jeffrey Round, Kenji Tokawa and more. You¹ll also be able to purchase their books thanks to the Toronto Women¹s Bookstore, who'll be on hand. Hosted by Susan G. Cole and Mariko Tamaki.
SCHEDULE:
3:00 pm Lisa Foad
3:30 pm Shani Mootoo
4:00 pm Farzana Doctor
4:30 pm Suki Lee
5:00 pm Lesbian Mothers Series with: Elisabeth Ruth, Diane Flacks and Susan G. Cole
6:00 pm Karine Silverwoman
6:30 pm Emma McKenna
7:00 pm Jeffrey Round
7:30 pm Kenji Tokawa
8:00 pm Billeh Nickerson
Lisa Foad
Lisa Foad's debut story collection, The Night Is A Mouth (Exile Editions, 2009), has been praised by The Globe and Mail as "a brand-new thing" - says The Globe, Foad writes "with courage and surprising panache." And EYE Weekly, in its five-star review, declares, "her DeLillo-sized sentences create a linguistic tension that could cause the pages to flip autonomously." Her creative work has appeared in Matrix, Exile: The Literary Quarterly, and Red Light: Superheroes, Sluts and Saints, and she contributes cultural commentary to a variety of publications, including The Globe And Mail, NOW Magazine and Xtra. Lisa Foad lives in Toronto and is at work on her first novel.
SPOTLIGHT: Shani Mootoo
Shani Mootoo was born in Ireland and grew up in Trinidad. She has lived in Canada since the early 1980s. Her acclaimed first novel, Cereus Blooms at Night, was published in 14 countries, and was a finalist for the Scotiabank Giller Prize, the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize and the Chapters/Books in Canada First Novel Award. Her second novel, He Drown She in the Sea, was longlisted for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. Mootoo is also an accomplished visual and video artist.
Farzana Doctor
Farzana Doctor is a Toronto-based author and social worker. Her novel, Stealing Nasreen (Inanna, 2007) has received critical acclaim from the Globe and Mail, Quill and Quire, and NOW Magazine. She has had her poetry, reviews, short stories and creative non-fiction published in a variety of publications. She has also co-written a manual for therapists and was part of the video collective that produced the documentary, "Rewriting the Script". She is completing revisions on her second novel, New Skin (working title). Find out more about her at http://www.farzanadoctor.com .
Diane Flacks
Diane is a writer/performer. She has performed in theatres across Canada and the US. Her published plays include SIBS, BY A THREAD and RANDOM ACTS. She's created, written for, and acted in numerous Canadian televisions series, including The Kids In The Hall, Being Erica, Moose TV, Walter Ego, The Broad Side, and PR. She is the author of the book, "Bear With Me - What They Don't Tell You About Pregnancy and New Motherhood". Her stage version of the book just played in Toronto to rave reviews, and is heading to the CBC comedy festival. Other theatre writing/performing credits include Sibs and Care at the Tarragon co-written with Richard Greenblatt, the Vagina Monologues, and A Midsummer Nights Dream. She writes a bi-weekly column for The Toronto Star. She has a longer list of accomplishments that she either left in the car or put in recycling.
Susan G. Cole
Susan G. Cole is an author, playwright, activist and the entertainment and books editor at NOW Magazine in Toronto. She has written two books on violence against women (Pornography and The Sex Crisis and Power Surge, both from Second Story) and the groundbreaking play A Fertile Imagination, about two lesbians trying to have a baby, produced by Nightwood Theatre in 1991 and published last year in Lesbian Plays: Coming Of Age In Canada (Playwrights Canada Press). She can also be read in Herizons Magazine and heard on Radio 640's Media And The Message panel every Thursday morning at 9 am.
Karine Silverwoman
Karine Silverwoman is an artist, counselor and community activist. Her art focuses on poetry, video making and dancing. She has worked with Nightwood Theatre and performed her poetry at different events in Toronto such as Mayworks festival and at 'Granny Boots' . Her short video, 'Hello, My Name is Herman' won "best-liked video audience award", and received an honorable mention for jury selected best short videos at the Toronto Gay and Lesbian Film Festival. "Hello, My Name Is Herman" was short listed for the Iris Prize in Wales (http://www.irisprize.org) and has screened in many festivals such as the New York and San Francisco Gay and Lesbian film festivals. She currently works as a youth counsellor for the Queer Youth Digital Arts Project through the Inside Out Gay and Lesbian Film festival and for Supporting Our Youth as the Pink Ink facilitator, a creative writing group for queer youth. She is also currently taking her degree in social work at Ryerson University.
Emma McKenna
Emma McKenna is an Alberta raised, Toronto-based writer and musician. She recently graduated from the University of Toronto in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. Emma has written for Toronto's NOW Magazine and her short story "Over and Under" received 3rd place in the Canadian Lesbian and Gay Archives 2008 national essay writing competition. Emma is currently working on a collection of short stories, a play, and her first solo album.
Jeffrey Round
Jeffrey Round's most recent novel is Death In Key West, the second in the Bradford Fairfax Mystery Series. His earlier books include The P-Town Murders and the best-selling A Cage of Bones. The Honey Locust will be published by Cormorant Books in fall 2009. He was artistic director of Best Boys Productions, an independent queer theatre company, stage director of the long-running theatrical production, The Mousetrap, and founding editor of The Church-Wellesley Review, Canada's first annual journal for LGBT creative writing. His short film, My Heart Belongs To Daddy, won awards for Best Director and Best Use of Music. He is host of Proust and Company, a writers salon. Visit his website: http://www.jeffreyround.com.
SPOTLIGHT: Kenji Tokawa 
Kenji Tokawa is a proud member of the Toronto Asian Arts Freedom School. Kenji has had the honour of performing, growing and creating with this fierce troupe of Asian youth since August 2007. Publications include Boyoboy Alt Zine of Arts and Culture for young queer guys and CultureSHOCK!, the only anti-racist literary review at Queens University. He just published his first chapbook earlier this year, entitled Missing the Moon.
Billeh Nickerson
Billeh Nickerson is a founding member of the performance troupe Haiku Night in Canada and the author of The Asthmatic Glassblower, Let Me Kiss it Better and the forthcoming collection McPoems. He also co-edited Seminal: the Anthology of Canada's Gay Male Poets. His column "Full On" appears monthly in Xtra.ca.
Sunday's Proud Voice stages welcomes Canada Reads runner-up Brian Francis and promises a powerful poetry showcase, with Krystle Mullin, Truth IsŠ, Duncan Armstrong and Molle Dorst (aka Billie Rector). New this year is a playwrights series, featuring Damien Atkins and Catherine Hernandez and back again are the people behind The Dayne Ogilvie Prize, who will announce this year¹s winner. You'll also be able to purchase their books thanks to the Toronto Women's Bookstore, who'll be on hand. Hosted by Susan G. Cole and Billeh Nickerson.
SCHEDULE:
3:00 pm John Miller
3:30 pm Andrew Binks
4:00 pm S. Bear Bergman
4:30 pm Brian Francis
5:00 pm Zoe Whittall
5:30 pm Dayne Ogilvie Memorial Grant, administered by the Writer's Trust in conversation with this year's recipient
6:30 pm Playwrights series with Damien Atkins and Catherine Hernandez
7:30 pm Derek McCormack
8:00 pm Poetry showcase with Duncan Armstrong, Krystle Mullin - Truth Is... And Molle Dorst (AKA Billie Rector)
John Miller
John Miller's first novel, The Featherbed, received stellar reviews and earned a devoted readership upon its release in 2002. Set in the early 1900s in Manhattan's Lower-east Side and in Toronto, The Featherbed is the story of a woman whose unlikely friendship with a pregnant prostitute begets several tightly held family secrets. His second novel, A Sharp Intake of Breath is the story of Toshy Wolfman, born in 1916 with a split lip and cleft palate. Toshy is imprisoned after being caught stealing a valuable and famous diamond, the Orange Sunset. But Toshy's story is not his alone - it is shared with his two sisters: Lil, a radical and devotee of anarchist Emma Goldman; and Bessie, who goes to work for one of Goldman's enemies, the owners of the Orange Sunset. Both novels are published in Canada by Simon & Pierre Fiction, a member of The Dundurn Group (http://www.dundurn.com).
John Miller grew up in Toronto and holds a B.A. from McGill University and an M.A. in International Development from the Institute of Social Studies in The Hague. He began his career in social services, rising quickly to become an Executive Director of a palliative care hospice at the age of twenty-six. In his late twenties, he began to focus on his true passion, fiction writing. Besides novels, John has written on culture and politics and is currently a consultant in policy and organizational development with local and international not-for-profits and governments working with children affected by HIV/AIDS. His consulting work has taken him to Europe, Asia, Central America and Africa, but responsibilities to a chocolate Labrador retriever ensure that he maintains a home base in Toronto. He is working on his third novel.
John's novel A Sharp Intake of Breath recently won the Martin and Beatrice Fischer Award for Fiction for 2008, part of the Canadian Jewish Book Awards, and John was a finalist for the 2008 Dayne Ogilvie Grant for Emerging Gay Writers.
Andrew Binks
Andrew Binks has worked, written, acted and taught across the globe, from Fringe Festival solo shows, to the Stratford Festival, to Da Vinci's Inquest, to modeling in Paris, to teaching business English in Japan. Andrew holds a BA in Drama from Queen's University, a diploma from LAMDA and an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of British Columbia. A finalist in the Writers' Union of Canada's Short Prose Contest and This Magazine's Great Canadian Literary Hunt, Andrew's fiction, non-fiction, and poetry has appeared most recently in Joyland, Galleon, Prism International, Harrington Gay Men's Literary Quarterly, Bent Magazine, the Globe and Mail, Xtra, Queen's Alumni Review, Quill's lust issue, and Velvet Avalanche poetry anthology. After fifteen years in Vancouver, he has returned to Ontario. The Summer Between is Andrew's first novel.
S. Bear Bergman (http://www.sbearbergman.com) is an author, theater artist, instigator, gender-jammer. He is the author of Butch Is a Noun (Suspect Thoughts, 2006) and the forthcoming The Nearest Exit May Be Behind You (Arsenal Pulp, 2009), three award-winning solo performances and is a frequent contributor to anthologies. A longtime activist on behalf of anyone who wants to learn and be different at the same time (particularly queer/trans youth and students), Bear works at the points of intersection between and among gender, sexuality, and culture, and spends a lot of time keeping people from installing traffic signals there.
Brian Francis' 2004 novel, Fruit, published in Canada by ECW Press became a cross-country sensation when it was named a finalist for CBC's Canada Reads 2009 radio event. The U.S. paperback edition was published by Harper Perennial under the title The Secret Fruit of Peter Paddington and his most recent fiction appeared in 07: Best Canadian Stories (Oberon Press). He lives in Toronto.
Zoe Whittall
Zoe Whittall's first novel, Bottle Rocket Hearts, made the Globe & Mail's Top 100 Books of 2007 list. She has published three books of poetry, most recently Precordial Thump. In 2008, she won the Writers' Trust of Canada's Dayne Ogilvie award for Best Emerging Gay Author. Her second novel will be out this fall with House of Anansi press.
Damien Atkins has acted on most major stages across the country. Toronto credits include Frost/Nixon, The Glass Menagerie, Amadeus, Sweeney Todd, Into the Woods (Canadian Stage), The Caretaker, The Importance of Being Earnest (Soulpepper), and Unidentified Human Remains... andShopping and Fucking (Crow's Theatre). Other recent acting credits include The Way of the World (NAC/Soulpepper), The Retreat from Moscow(Neptune Theatre) and Mozart in Amadeus (Segal Theatre, Montreal). He spent four seasons at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival, both as actor and playwright. Their 2001 production of Good Mother, starring Seana McKenna, made Atkins the youngest playwright to have his work produced by the Festival. His other works as a playwright include Lucy (at Canadian Stage in Toronto and the Ensemble Studio Theatre in New York City) which received Dora nominations for Outstanding New Play and Outstanding Performance by a Female in a Principle Role, Miss Chatelaine (Theatre Passe Muraille/Grand Theatre) and Real Live Girl (Buddies in Bad Times/Manitoba Theatre Centre/Grand Theatre), for which he received two Dora Mavor Moore Awards (Best New Musical and Best Actor in a Musical). Film and TV credits include MVP (CBC), Slings and Arrows (TWN), Our Fathers (Showtime),The Matthew Sheppard Story (NBC), The Eleventh Hour (CTV), and This is Wonderland (CBC). Damien is a Guest Instructor at the National Theatre School, and Playwright in Residence at the Canadian Stage Company.
Catherine Hernandez
Catherine Hernandez is a writer and theatre practitioner. As a past columnist for the National Post and the former head of Factory Theatre's Education/Outreach/Publicity program, she now works as a marketer/publicist/educator for Native Earth Performing Arts, Theatre Passe Muraille, bcurrent, Carlos Bulosan Theatre, and others. Singkil, which premiered as part of Factory Theatre's 2006/07 season, has garnered seven Dora Mavor Moore award nominations, including Best New Play, Independent Division. She is currently working on a short story, Saint Candice, and her newest play, Kilt Pins, which is in development at Theatre Passe Muraille, where she is the 2008/2009 playwright-in-residence.Derek McCormack
Derek McCormack's latest novel is The Show That Smells (ECW Press, 2008). His previous novel, The Haunted Hillbilly (ECW Press, 2003), was named a best book of the year by both the Globe & Mail and the Village Voice, and was nominated for a Lambda Literary Award for Gay Fiction. He lives in Toronto.
Duncan Armstrong
Over the years Duncan has workshopped with Susan Musgrave, Alden Nowland, Rosemary Aubert, David Donnell - been published by Fiddlehead Books, CV2, Labour of Love, been reviewed by the Essex Supplement, Broken Pencil - featured at Word on the Street, Word Jam, Cryptic Chatter, CUIT's Howl, - frequents open stages in Toronto and has hit open stages from San Francisco to Sydney (Cape Breton) - hosts Oral Stage at Wildside Studios 159 Gerrard St. E.
Krystle Mullin
Krystle Mullin's distinct raspy voice may well be taller than she is (she stands only 5'3) but a lack of height hasn't stopped this spoken word artist from reaching unimaginable heights in a short period of time. She has been performing for 3 years and has already toured across Canada and the U.S., been a 3 time member of the Toronto Slam Team and performed at esteemed festivals such as Hillside and The Eden Mills Writers' Festival.
Molle Dorst
Molle Dorst (aka Billie Rector) is the host and creator of the Kingston Poetry Slam, author of 4 chapbooks and publisher of Printed Press. She is a drag performer and queer activist. She is the June 2008 winner of the Toronto Poetry Slam, is featured on the 2008 WordJam CD and was featured at the Proud Voices tent at the 2008 Word on the Street Festival. Molle writes about queerness and identity, loss and trauma, race and racism, and solidarity.
CURATOR: Susan G. Cole is an author, editor and playwright. As Books and Entertainment editor at NOW Magazine, Toronto¹s only independent news and entertainment weekly, she has put the spotlight on queer and independent books, tipping readers to both veteran and new writers. She is a popular interviewer at Harbourfront¹s International Festival of Authors and has done on-stage encounters with Sarah Waters, Margaret Atwood and many others. Her groundbreaking play, A Fertile Imagination, produced by Nightwood Theatre in 1989, tracks a lesbian couple as they try to have a baby. It received seven productions across Canada and has been published in Coming Of Age In Canada: Lesbian Plays (Playwrights Canada Press, 2006).
