Own Self Be True with Gwen Benaway, Vivek Shraya and Ivan Coyote

Hosted by Jeremy Dias

In Person Poetry Fiction Big Ideas Music

Admission

Free

Sunday

Oct , 2016

8:30pm

Eastern

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Christ Church Cathedral

414 Sparks Street • Ottawa

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Own Self Be True with Gwen Benaway, Vivek Shraya and Ivan Coyote

Distinctive and persuasive voice, a flawless sense of pacing, and an impeccable sense of story.

Quills Magazine on Ivan Coyote

Join us for an unforgettable evening about being true to yourself featuring performances by two acclaimed poets and one of the country’s most beloved storytellers.

In her second collection of poetry, Passage, two-spirited trans poet, Gwen Benaway examines what it means to experience violence and speaks to the burden of survival. Traveling to Northern Ontario and across the Great Lakes, Passage is a poetic voyage through divorce, family violence, legacy of colonization, and the affirmation of a new sexuality and gender.

A writer, musician, performance artist, and filmmaker, Vivek Shraya’s debut collection of poetry, even this page is white, is a bold, timely, and personal interrogation of skin–its origins, functions, and limitations. Poems that range in style from starkly concrete to limber break down the barriers that prevent understanding of what it means to be racialized. Shraya paints the face of everyday racism with words, rendering it visible, tangible, and undeniable.

Tomboy Survival Guide, the new book from Ivan Coyote, warmly recounts Ivan’s past as a diffident yet free-spirited tomboy, and maps their journey through treacherous gender landscapes and a maze of labels that don’t quite stick, to a place of self-acceptance and an authentic and personal strength. Ivan writes about their years as a young butch, dealing with new infatuations and old baggage, and life as a gender-box-defying adult, in which they offer advice to young people while seeking guidance from others.

Books available for purchase at every event: Proceeds support our free children’s literacy programs.

The Authors

Gwen Benaway

Gwen Benaway is of Anishinaabe and Métis descent. Her first collection of poetry, Ceremonies for the Dead, was published in 2013 and her second collection of poetry, Passage, is forthcoming from Kegedonce Press in fall 2016. As emerging Two-Spirited Trans poet, she has been described as the spiritual love child of Tomson Highway and Anne Sexton. In 2015, she was the recipient of the inaugural Speaker’s Award for a Young Author and in 2016 she received a Dayne Ogilvie Honour of Distinction for Emerging Queer Authors from the Writer's Trust of Canada. Her work has been published and anthologized internationally. She and her many vintage dresses can be found on Instagram @gwenbenaway

Ivan Coyote

Ivan Coyote is a writer and storyteller. Born and raised in Whitehorse, Yukon, they are the author of thirteen books, the creator of four films, six stage shows, and three albums that combine storytelling with music. Coyote’s stories grapple with the complex and intensely personal topics of gender identity, family, class, and queer liberation, but always with a generous heart, and a quick wit. Ivan's stories manage to handle both the hilarious and the historical with reverence and compassion, and remind us all of our own fallible and imperfect humanity, while at the same time inspiring us to change the world. Ivan's 13th book, Care Of, was released in June 2021 by McClelland and Stewart.

Vivek Shraya

Vivek Shraya is an artist whose body of work crosses the boundaries of music, literature, visual art, theatre, and film. Her best-selling new book, I’m Afraid of Men, was heralded by Vanity Fair as “cultural rocket fuel,” and her album with Queer Songbook Orchestra, Part?Time Woman, was nominated for the Polaris Music Prize. She is one half of the music duo Too Attached and the founder of the publishing imprint VS. Books. A five-time Lambda Literary Award finalist, Vivek was a 2016 Pride Toronto Grand Marshal, was featured on The Globe and Mail’s Best Dressed list, and has received honours from The Writers’ Trust of Canada and The Publishing Triangle. She is a director on the board of the Tegan and Sara Foundation and an Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Calgary. Shop locally if you can: Books by Vivek Shraya are available from Perfect Books.