Stonewall and Gratitude

My thanks to the poetic powerhouse who is rob mclennan for featuring me in his Spotlight series on Medium. Available for free if you click past the ads, my post in the series reflects on some of the things I am most grateful for in having my first full-length poetry collection out at a later age. 

The post also introduces one of my favourite poems I have written in the past couple of years, "Stonewall / Autonomy." Dedicated to Stonewall rioter Martin Boyce, it was inspired by his insightful retellings of the Stonewall riots and stories about the gay liberation movement of the time. I am deeply grateful for Martin's stories and, of course, the legacy and courage of all involved in the fight for freedom and 2SLGBTQIA+ rights. Then, and now.

Finally, my apologies for the links in the menu above not all working. I'm trying to figure out a solution with Blogger. In the meantime, the good news is that the Upcoming Events page is working fine, so you can still find where I'll be reading in the near future, online and throughout Ontario. If you're nearby, come and join me and my fellow readers for some poetry, fiction and conversation.

Crazy / Mad: my first poetry book, out spring 2024!

The start of a new year feels like the perfect time to announce my forthcoming poetry book, Crazy / Mad, will be available in spring 2024 from Gordon Hill Press, and is already available to pre-order. 

I am in love with the cover design and very proud of the contents. I hope you can buy, order, share, recommend or otherwise support the collection. But, above all, I hope you read and get something out of it. 

Huge thanks to my editor Shane Nielson and brilliant publisher and graphic artist Jeremy Luke Hill. I'll post more about launch and reading dates once information becomes available.

Highlights from Scrolling Through the Darkness

I had run out of metaphorical spoons even before COVID-19 shooed us all inside, so the first few weeks were not what I'd envisioned for A vs an Apocalypse. Instead, I, like many, spent a lot of my time on the couch or in bed, occasionally managing to function enough to answer a phone call or make a meal.

One thing that has helped me restart, and that keeps many of us engaged, or at least a bit connected still to the world, is the arts, in all its forms. I haven't made much of it in this time, but friends and family have shared their favourites, and I've watched and read and and listened, to the fluff and to the serious, and everything in between. In case it helps you, I've made some lists of writing, sites, news outlets, and access to financial supports for Canadian artists, below. As Amanda Parris says in her CBC essay:

"Artists are constantly forced to prove their value and worth to governments and voters. This lockdown should be a wake-up call to all of us who are leaning on these creatives now: arts and culture needs to be an unwavering national priority."

Stay safe and be well. Even apart, we need to be in this together.

Arts & Entertainment

I recently prattled on in a column for Write Magazine, the quarterly publication for members of The Writers' Union of Canada, about mental health in the writing community and how many of the expectations, above and beyond good writing, are magnified and intersect with other barriers to create daunting obstacles for many writers. My essay from this past winter, in Hamilton Arts & Letters' disability poetics issue, Imaginary Safe House, on bisexuality, isolation and mental illness, also feels more relevant than ever, now that we are all isolated.

If you're the kind of person who follows this blog, you probably don't lack for reading materials at home right now, but if you don't have yourself a copy of Hustling Verse: An Anthology of Sex Workers' Poetry yet (ed. Amber Dawn, Justin Ducharme), please read my review for Arc Poetry Magazine explaining why you should.

If you feel like you could use an evening (or afternoon, or morning, or 2 a.m.) at a poetry reading, micropublishing powerhouse rob mclennan has launched an online virtual reading series as part of his new Periodicities journal of poetry and poetics, and the amazing Tara Skurtu, from her poetry outpost in Romania, has launched the International Poetry Circle, which you can also follow on Twitter.

I was ridiculously honoured this spring to be included in the International Day of Pink's first colouring book, Colouring with Pride: 12 trans and queer Canadians you should know (PDF). Print it; colour it; read about amazing community organizers, leaders and artists like Arielle Twist, Libby Davies and Danny Ramadan; and check out each entry's "Keep learning" section.

News & Information

It's been hard to find news coverage that could be considered remotely unbiased during the pandemic, much as it was beforehand, but so far I have been impressed by coverage from the independent British newspaper The Guardian and by the English arm of Al Jazeera. Please remember to support independent media.

If you aren't tuned into the magazine's awesomeness yet, I also recommend subscribing to if you can, or at least visiting the website for, This Magazine. The bimonthly, Canadian socialist news and arts magazine has a broad range of unique, inclusive and highly relevant news, features, art coverage and opinion pieces.

I am also, in fits and starts, watching this webinar, organized by the World Bank, on Universal Basic Income as an approach to the coronavirus crisis and beyond.

Money & Help

Canadian emergency funding does exist for some Canadians, if you can get to it behind the curtain of red tape, through the Employment Insurance program and the Canada Emergency Response Benefit.

Writers falling between the cracks in those systems can apply to the Canadian Writers' Emergency Relief Fund, organized by the Writers' Trust of Canada, while performing artists whose tours and shows have been canceled due to the pandemic can apply to the National Arts Centre's #CanadaPerforms. If you're a creator for stage or screen, you may be able to access the CBC Creative Relief Fund.

LGBTQ2IA+ and local communities have also been coordinating funding for those not served, either yet or likely at all, by more institutional systems, particularly freelance and contract workers, artists of all kinds, sex workers, and other precariously employed workers. If you can help, or if you need money, go to:

Glad Day Lit Emergency Survival Fund

Kindspace Ottawa's Community Care emergency fund to meet short-term needs for $100 or less was at capacity at the time of this posting, but please contact them if you are able to donate so they can continue helping LGBTQ2IA+ Ottawans in need.

Also in the world of money, though admittedly less and longer-term, Access Copyright's Payback is open for this year. If you are a Canadian writer or visual artist, register your print publications from 2018 or earlier before May 31, 2020. Payments are usually distributed in November.

Things I Like Part 1: Comic Arts

I've been wondering how to do some good with my blog instead of only using it to toot my own horn (although I'll keep doing that too, because self-promotion is hugely important for small-press writers, since we don't have a lot of others to lean on that horn for us).

But, I also want to tell you about some of the best things I've recently encountered across the arts and entertainment worlds. Let's start with some of the best comic books, series and collections I've come across over the last year or two. I'm definitely no expert in this field, and really only came to graphic novels a few years ago, but following are some amazing things I think others might enjoy reading, too.

Because being bi keeps me particularly aware that solid LGBTQ2+ representation is still a rarity in nearly all art forms, all content recommended below is either LGBTQ2-themed, -inclusive, or, at the very minimum, -friendly.

If you have your own recommendations, please share them in a comment!

The Less Than Epic Adventures of TJ and Amal (NSFW)
Available as an e-comic and graphic novel, primarily black and white with painted, full-colour splash pages
By E.K. Weaver

The staff at Argo Books in Montreal turned me onto this book, and I fell deeply in love, as, not surprisingly, do TJ and Amal.

A cross-US tale of travel, love, discovery, deceit and growth, it's like On The Road, but with a point (don't @ me; you know it's true).

The omnibus edition includes a number of extras, including some fantastic footnotes.

However you read this collection, the comic includes smart dialogue, great bi rep, class commentary, pop culture references up the wazoo, gorgeously rendered scenery, and sex scenes that manage to be sexy and beautiful while also reflecting both characters' deep insecurities.





Monstress 
Graphic novel series and collected editions, colour
By Marjorie Liu and Sana Tanaka

If you can stop ogling the individual artworks that make up this magnificently imagined series on ancient politics, feline poets, and interspecies wars, you will find yourself in a world where no one trusts anyone, and the story's hero certainly cannot trust herself. That's because Maika Halfwolf, a stunning, one-armed warrior, shares her body with the soul of an ancient, demonic monster with its own agenda and a hunger for human flesh.

Be patient through the first several issues' focus on building the series' elaborate world of Arcanics, Monstrums, cats and Cumaeans; it is very worth it to keep going.

This series is beyond brilliant in creating a world where everything is everything, and nothing is what it seems. Also contains excellent disability rep, and powerful women throughout.




Starfighter (NSFW)
Erotic M/M space epic e-comic, also available in print issues, black and white
By HamletMachine

Hot, exciting fun (CW: emotional abuse and domination at the start, however crucial for the plot and characterization). This engaging sci-fi story about space-based fighter pilots in the future battling intergalactic enemies and unknown beings, also delves into the deceptions among the many political layers above and around them.

The black and white art is stark yet nuanced, as, it turns out, are the characters, and improves significantly as the series evolves. An ongoing web series, Starfighter includes intriguing, if not entirely new, ideas about the possible connections between matter, energy, intellect and emotion, as our hero, Abel, learns he can use his more positive emotions in a new and powerful way, even as those in control sink lower and lower as they try to weaponize him.

Above all, this sci-fi adventure mystery is sexy and fun in a Matrix-but-with-plenty-of-gay-sex kind of way. Has some non-binary minor characters, and excellent building of backstories.


Novae: The Necromancer and the Astronomer's Apprentice
Historical M/M fantasy e-comic, colour
By KaiJu

I am a sucker for beauty, and this ongoing e-comic has it in spades, in its characters, its full-colour artwork, and its slow-burn romance.

The historical fantasy connects Raziol, a brilliant, young 17th-century Arab astronomer lauded by his kind mentor but struggling under classism and racism in Paris, with Sulvain, a brilliant necromancer of enormous, unknown age reticent, after loss, to open himself up to love again.

Updated Mondays and Thursdays, the series is just reaching its stride recently, as we learn there may be more to both Sulvain and the streets of Paris than to all the stars in the sky.

Main character bi representation and carefully conveyed emotional subtleties.



Step Aside, Pops
The third collection of Hark! A Vagrant comic strips
By Kate Beaton

Kate Beaton's Hark! A Vagrant witty, esoteric comic strips have been collected into three books so far. This third continues to combine her deceptively simple drawing style with scathing social, scientific and cultural commentary.

Not everything in the collection will appeal to all readers, as Beaton narrows in to deliver burns to some very specific recipients, including composers, thinkers, scientists, politicians, explorers, superheroes and more.

But, if you are a person and are interested in, well, anything, you'll find sets of strips here to make you laugh, chortle, roll your eyes and/or holler "Damn right!. You tell him where to go!"



Scooby-Doo
By various writers and illustrators

My kid continues to love Scooby-Doo comics, including Scooby-Doo, Where Are You? and Scooby-Doo Team-Up, and I have to admit, even for adults, these are just so much fun.

I'm not linking to these, though, because you should really head out and support your local comic book retailer if you can!

If you can't, don't forget that most libraries already carry, or will appreciate your recommendations to order, a variety of graphic novels and comic books.








More Novel, Graphic Recommendations
If you want to know about other great graphic novels and series more broadly across the genre, or be warned away from some of the lesser or evil, visit my partner James K. Moran's blog, where he reviews comics, films and fiction, and talks about the writing life. You'll find he's quite smart, despite having married a fellow writer.