queer at heart collection

impact statement by Jody Chan

This is a ghost chorus singing to how the “wrong” kinds of desire, be it across class, race, or gender lines, or towards other worlds, are often punished or disappeared. And yet, these poems also make space for what can take root, despite the impacts—care teams, collective grief rituals, dinners around a table with too many friends to fit. impact statement imagines, and re-imagines, and re-imagines again, a queer, disabled, abolitionist revolution towards our communal flourishing.

Gay Girl Prayers by Emily Austin

Packed with zingy one liners, sexual innuendo, self-respect, U-Hauling, and painfully earnest declarations of love, this is gayness at its best, harnessed to a higher purpose and ready to fight the powers that be.

The extreme level of sass in Gay Girl Prayers does not mean that this collection is irreverent. On the contrary, in rewriting Bible verses to affirm and uplift queer, feminist, and trans realities, Austin invites readers into a giddy celebration of difference and a tender appreciation for the lives and perspectives of “strange women.”

Moldovan Hotel by Leah Horlick

Moldovan Hotel delves into the intricate links between history, identity, and the ongoing battles against oppressive forces. Horlick’s journey to Romania provides a profound exploration of the interplay between personal ancestry and broader geopolitical struggles, from fascism’s echoes to present-day challenges like land disputes and queer rights.

This book stands out as a testament to the importance of understanding our past to navigate the complex battles of the present, appealing to readers interested in the interconnectedness of personal journeys and global histories.

Why I Was Late by Charlie Petch

By turns funny and poignant, Why I Was Late comes from a poet so good at drag they had everyone convinced that they were a woman for the first forty years of their life.

Wise, fierce, and tender, Charlie Petch speaks honestly and directly about their life as a film union lighting technician, a hospital bed allocator, a Toronto hot dog vendor, and a performer/player of the musical saw–and what it’s like to survive.

Horrible Dance by Avery Lake

Darkly comic, emotionally connected, lyrical and irreverent, this book brings together the harrowing personal and political terrains of gender-based violence that Avery Lake has navigated as a transwoman.

The book stands out for dismantling definitions of gender and violence.

awâsis – kinky and dishevelled by Louise B. Halfe – Sky Dancer

After the Truth and Reconciliation process, a dispirited Louise B. Halfe–author of Burning in This Midnight Dream and Bear Bones and Feathers–wondered if inspiration had left her.

Then awâsis showed up — a trickster, teacher, healer, wheeler-dealer, shapeshifter, woman, man, nuisance, inspiration. A Holy Fool with their fly open, speaking Cree, awâsis came to Louise out of the ancient stories of her people, from the quiet words of the Elders, from community input through tears and laughter, from her own aching heart and her three-dimensional dreams.

The Girls with Stone Faces by Arleen Paré

Arleen Paré brings Florence Wyle and Frances Loring, two of Canada’s greatest artists, into focus as sculptors and lovers in the early- to mid-20th century.

Readers travel in time to Chicago (where they met at art school and fell in love in the 1910s), New York, and Toronto (where they lived and worked for the next six decades).

Bones by Tyler Pennock

Written in the voice of a young two-spirit Indigenous man, this book is about the ways we process traumas. Weaving together dreams and memories, the book is a hero’s journey that stands up to demons of the past.

This is a book for survivors, for fighters, for dreamers, and for believers.

Blood by Tyler Pennock

Conceived in the same world as their acclaimed debut, Bones, Tyler Pennock’s Blood centres around a young two-spirit Indigenous man who has difficulty knowing the difference between connection and pain. Pennock weaves longing, intimacy, and Anishinaabe relationalities to recentre and rethink their speaker’s relationship to the living — never forgetting non-human kin.

This book is a look at how deep history is represented in the everyday; it also tries to answer how one person can challenge the impacts of that history. It is a reminder that Indigenous people carry the impacts of colonial history and wrestle with them constantly.