We’re Bringing Sexy Back

With a rough tongue : femmes write porn edited by Amber Dawn and Trish Kelly.

There is a certain ick factor to borrowing erotica from a public library I know, but I’ve seen the stats on copies of 50 Shades so I gather it isn’t a complete deal-breaker for everyone. And if it is a deal-breaker for you, you may just want to buy this one; it’s that good. First, I’d like to confess my undying love for Amber Dawn. She is an amazing queer, feminist, Canadian author. Her book, How poetry saved my life : a hustler's memoir, rocked my world when it was published a few years ago. Dawn didn’t just co-compile this great collection but lent her stellar writing skills to the project as well. Yes, “femmes write porn,” but they don’t leave out a butch perspective. And as someone who doesn’t identify as either butch or femme, I found the challenging of traditional gender roles throughout the collection, to be quite inclusive overall.

Containing outstanding authors, Nalo Hopkinson, Anna Camilleri, and Zoe Whittall, to name just a few, this book of erotica comes with serious literary merit. I was shocked at how many stories were sexy, smart, engaging, and subversive. I’m a non-linear person in general so when I get a book of short stories I love to skip around. After the first three stories I read were fantastic I thought I must have just serendipitously selected the best/only good stories in the book as I’ve come to be skeptical that there isn’t much queer erotica out there worth reading. I continued my pessimistic search and with each new story assumed this was the one that would let me down, but instead, each story stood up to my scrutiny. Cover to cover this book is worth the read, regardless of your gender identity or sexual preference.

There is another queer erotica collection in our catalogue, Fist of the spider woman : tales of fear &; queer desire which is less good in my opinion, and yes my girl is also the editor. However, if you enjoy being creeped out and/or confronting, reappropriating, and reclaiming past sexual trauma this one might work for ya. In some ways it reminded me of watching old Hammer Films, with an unsettling mix of confusion, amusement, and sexuality, you’re left not quite knowing how to feel.

Trash by Dorothy Allison (another great feminist author) has some erotic gems in it as well, and like Rough Tongue it comes with proven literary excellence. “Her thighs,” and “Demon lover” are some of my personal faves from this collection. And for the love of old school lesbianism, portrayed as forbidden love, please check out the classic lesbian pulp novel , if you haven’t yet.
Odd Girl Out by Ann Bannon

Pride and Prejudice

A few short weeks ago, the world marked May 17th as the International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia & Biphobia. Well, some of us did. As the horrific events of Sunday vividly illustrate, violence against LGBTQ2S people remains a serious issue in Canada, the US, and around the world. The roots of homophobia, transphobia, and biphobia run deep in many cultures (including the major world religions) and are a part of the colonial attitudes which western nations imported to the Americas and parts of Africa. As an openly transgender person living in Halifax - where discrimination against trans people was outlawed in 2012 - I sometimes forget how far we still have to come in eliminating ignorant and hateful beliefs about LGBTQ2S people.

Each June, the LGBTQ2S community and our allies celebrate Pride Month in commemoration of the June 1969 riots at the Stonewall Inn which sparked the beginning of the LGBTQ2S civil rights movement. Even as we mourn those cut down in the Orlando terrorist attack, we must not give into fear. In the words of Harvey Fierstein, "never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one's definition of your life; define yourself." Educate yourself, celebrate your life, show your pride!

It's Not Over: Getting beyond tolerance, defeating homophobia, and winning true equality by Michelangelo Signorile.

Redefining Realness: My path to womanhood, identity, love & so much more by Janet Mock.

A Letter to My Congregation: An evangelical pastor's path to embracing people who are gay, lesbian and transgender in the company of Jesus by Ken Wilson.

"You Can Tell Just by Looking": and 20 other myths about LGBT life and people by Micheal Bronski, Ann Pellegrini, and Michael Amico.

Transphobia: Deal with it and be a gender transcender by j wallace skelton.

Bi: Notes for a bisexual revolution by Shiri Eisner.

Out Proud: Stories of pride, courage, and social justice, edited by Douglas Gosse.

Lambda Literary Award Finalists

The short lists for the 28th Annual Lambda Literary Awards were announced.The Lambda Literary Awards identify and celebrate the best lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender books of the year and affirm that LGBTQ stories are part of the literature of the world. The Lammys, which receive national and international media attention, bring together 600 attendees—including nominees, celebrities, sponsors, and publishing executives—to celebrate excellence in LGBTQ publishing. It is the most prestigious and glamorous LGBTQ literary event in the world. Winning a Lammy can literally launch a writer’s career.

Here are just a few of nominees from several categories:

The First Bad Man by Miranda July
Jam on the Vine by LaShonda Katrice Barnett
Under the Udala Trees by Chinelo Okparanta


Breathing Lessons by Andy Sinclair
God in Pink by Hasan Namir
Immaculate Blue by Paul Russell


A Poet of the Invisible World by Michael Golding
The Rise and Fall of the Yellow House by John Whittier Treat
The Life and Death of Sophie Stark by Anna North


The Gap of Time by Jeanette Winterson
Eat My Heart Out by Zoe Pilger
Galileo's Middle Finger: heretics, activists and the search for justice in science by Alice Dreger

Staff Pick: The Argonauts by Maggie Nelson

Like a good librarian, I waited a long time for The Argonauts to arrive on the hold shelf with my name on it. I took it home after work, and since it was such a slim volume, I pushed it to the top of my to-read list and cracked it open right away. Thirty pages in, I went straight to Amazon and bought my own copy.

Maggie Nelson’s work in “autotheory”–part memoir, part love letter, part queer theory—begs to be re-read, marked up, dog-eared and generally engaged with over and over again. Her lyrical prose is so densely packed that each sentence must be intensely parsed for meaning. Nelson’s early work in poetry is evident; she layers her symbols and declines to waste words. Coming in at 150 pages, The Argonauts is a quick read but not an easy one.

If anything, I love this book more knowing many would despise it. It asks much of its reader, both in terms of engagement and reading comprehension. It wears its politics on its sleeve; they are personal, and they are liberal. Nelson structures the book as a kind of love letter to her partner Harry Dodge, a trans man. Her exploration of queer families ultimately starts with herself, admitting early on that even weeks into their relationship, she had not yet screwed up the courage to ask Harry’s preferred pronouns. Identity politics can be a messy subject from any vantage point, and Nelson doesn’t edit around chaos or ugliness. She exposes the best and worst of herself in a fumbling but successful attempt to find something beautiful, to know herself, to know Harry. If life is beautiful, then art emerges from the viscera.

If you are unfamiliar with Maggie Nelson’s oeuvre but would like to see more of it, give her personal history of the color blue, Bluets, a try. If you’d like to read more books that showcase personal exploration of political issues, I heartily recommend Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Between the World and Me, which dissects the racial underpinnings of the American Dream in a heartrending letter from a black father to his teenage son. Between The World and Me was a Staff Pick on The Reader back in October; you can read Zo's review of it here.

Your Queer Suggestions

                                                                                                                              by Maddie

During Pride week this year, Central Library had an old fashioned suggestion box with paper and pencil laid out encouraging patrons to suggest a LGBTQ book. We thank everyone who took the time to drop a suggestion (or many) into the box. If you missed the box but have suggestions, don’t worry, you can suggest items for purchase through our website at any time. Since this was an old school set up, we actually already have some suggestions in circulation! Check ‘em out today!

Already found in our catalogue, the graphic novel Blue is the Warmest Color by Julie Maroh, is one of my favourite reads of 2013. The novel begins with Emma reading a letter from her recently deceased lover, Clementine, who instructs Emma to read the blue diary she left behind. This intimate blue book contains her adolescent years, including the beginning of the whirlwind love affair between the two women. The bulk of the novel being Clementine’s diary, we are treated to a beautiful coming of age story; and then some. Love stories aren’t usually my thing, but this one feels powerful and genuine, even though the sudden illness and death of a lover teeters on melodramatic, it’s worth it. The illustrations are incredible and the use of color is especially exceptional at moving the plot along. Truly, this is a great work of art.

The film adaptation is also in our collection, though it varies a lot from the book. Maroh herself criticized the film for its unconvincing and pornographic sex scenes. In the English translation of her official response to the film, found on her blog, she wrote "it appears to me that this was what was missing on the set: lesbians.” She’s adamant about criticizing these scenes from her position as a feminist lesbian spectator, not a writer. As for the overall adaptation of her work, Maroh is very gracious of Kechiche’s (the director) interpretation. As a queer feminist spectator it was hard for me to look past the lack of authentic lesbians, and I was greatly disappointed in the film. If you’re looking for explicit sex scenes, this could be your film; just don’t expect to see a faithful version of Maroh’s work brought to screen, or authentic lesbian sex. If you’ve watched or heard about this movie, and that’s dissuaded you from picking up the graphic novel, don’t let it, the book is a real treat.


Also in our catalogue is Bill Konigsberg’s Openly Straight. Wait, what? At first glance this may sound like an anti-gay novel but I think it’s supposed to be clever marketing. Title aside this YA novel has a wide appeal. Rafe has been openly gay since 8th grade, is accepted by his parents and peers and has even travelled to other schools and talked about being gay, tolerance, and related issues. Shockingly Rafe wants to be more than just the gay guy and by transferring schools gave himself the opportunity to become “openly straight.” However, falling in love with a classmate complicates things a bit. This fresh spin on the coming out story is a quick, funny, and endearing read, especially if you’re like me and love stories set in private boarding schools.


Other suggested titles already in our collection include:

Out Proud: Stories of Pride, Courage, and Social Justice by Douglas Gosse,
Fan Art by Sarah Tregay,
Dhalgren by Samuel R. Delany,
  Dancer from the Dance by Andrew Holleran,
Tales of the City by Armistead Maupin,
Call Me by Your Name by André Aciman,
Le coeur découvert: roman d'amours by Michel Tremblay,City of night by John Rechy.


And look for these suggested titles hitting our shelves shortly: Birds on a Wire by Ellen Mulhollandand, Backwards Day by S. Bear Bergman, The Confusions of Young Torless by Robert Musil, The Berlin Stories by Christopher Isherwood, Le Coeur éclaté by Michel Tremblay, The Charioteer by Mary Renault, A Home at the End of the World by Michael Cunningham, Bi: Notes for a Bisexual Revolution by Shiri Eisner, With a Rough Tongue: Femmes Write Porn edited by Amber Dawn and Trish Kelly, Cease by Lynette Loeppky, UnCatholic Conduct by Stevie Mikayne, Janey’s Arcadia by Rachel Zolf, Miss Timmins’ School for Girls by Nayana Currimbhoy, Quicksilver by RJ Anderson, and more by Samuel R. Delany.

Staff Pick: The Paying Guests by Sarah Waters

I came across Sarah Waters' novel The Paying Guests a few months ago when browsing the Kirkus Reviews list of the best literary fiction published in 2014; I was a little disappointed in myself that I hadn't read any of the books on the list so I immediately put three or four of them on hold. The Paying Guests was the first one to arrive (and the only one from the list that I've read so far). It was a bit slow paced to begin with, but I immediately loved it for its rich characterizations and well drawn historical details.

The setting is London, in 1922. Frances Wray and her mother are upper class women struggling to maintain a large household after having been left with no men to support them. Frances's two brothers have died in the First World War and her father has also recently died of disease, leaving behind an unexpected number of debts. They have already let go all their servants and Frances has taken over all the day-to-day chores; in order to keep their home they resort to renting out part of the house. The book begins as their new "paying guests" are moving into the upper rooms of the house. The tenants are Leonard and Lillian Barber, a respectable but lower class young couple who Frances finds at once repellent and fascinating.

Lillian is very kind but definitely not the sort of person Frances would normally associate with, yet in spite of their differences they form first a friendship, then a clandestine romantic relationship. Near the mid point of the book a crime takes place, and the remainder of the book is filled with a great deal of dread and suspense as the two women attempt to keep their new relationship alive under difficult circumstances.

Frances is initially presented as a somewhat prim character, living the life of a dutiful caretaker and looking disapprovingly at others. She is slowly revealed to be someone who is intrinsically unconventional but who has allowed herself to be boxed in by family obligations and societal expectations. Her friendship with Lillian becomes for her a last chance to escape the prison of her expected role.

The shadow of the first world war looms large in this book, and Waters manages to capture both the lingering pain of wartime loss and the beginnings of change in women's roles that the war brings about. The Paying Guests is beautiful, challenging, and sensual, a great read for those who enjoy literary fiction and historical settings.

I haven't read any of Sarah Waters other books yet but she is know for her high quality writing and challenging of genre and structural boundaries.

Fingersmith, a twisting suspense story set in Victorian London, is her most well known work, and was adapted into an acclaimed BBC film in 2005.

For more thought provoking historical fiction about female friendship try

Emma Donoghue's Life Mask.

Pride Lit 4 Kids

The website Bustle published an article featuring a nice selection of children's literature which explores Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual/Queer/Transgender/Two-Spirited/Intersex themes. As a parent who is always on the lookout for #diversebooks, this was a helpful resource for new and new-to-me books about LGBQTTI issues.

We know that social attitudes are formed very early in life and that parents play a pivotal role in influencing how children respond to the diverse world in which we live. We also understand that sexual orientation and gender identity tend to manifest naturally when kids are very young. So, it's not just a matter of encouraging our kids to be kind and accepting of difference in others, we're also helping LGBQTTI kids to understand and accept themselves within a welcoming family environment.

Halifax Public Libraries is programming a number of events for children and families (adults, too!) as part of July's Pride Month activities. Here are a few more titles to look for this month and year-round!

My Mommy is a Boy by Jason Martinez and Karen Winchester

Be Who You Are by Jennifer Carr and Ben Rumback

Heather has Two Mommies by Lesléa Newman and Diana Souza

My Princess Boy by Cheryl Kilodavis and Suzanne DeSimone

Ang Ikaklit sa aming Hardin = Ikaklit in our Garden by Bernadette Villanueva Neri and CJ de Silva

King & King by Linda de Haan and Stern Nijland
King& King was the subject of a censorship campaign in Efland, North Carolina after Efland-Cheeks Elementary School teacher Omar Currie read the book to his third-grade class as a way to address homophobic and sexist behaviour in his classroom. You can read the most recent development in this story (as of this writing) here.

Staff Pick - Arctic Summer by Damon Galgut

I count E.M. Forster to be one of my favourite writers and he is one of the few whose work I will re-read over time. So, for this reason I was excited to pick up Arctic Summer by Damon Galgut. Arctic Summer is a fictionalized biography of Forster during that period of time when he finished his highly successful Howards End and the 10 year gap before his greatest work, A Passage to India, was published.

Forster presented to the world an image of a prim gentleman, an intellectual who spent his life in the company of his mother and his aunts. His early novels - A Room with a View, Where Angels Fear to Tread - rebelled against societal conventions and the limits put on relationships. As a gay man, at that point in history, he was unable to, not only explore openly, but also to write openly about the kind of relationship he wished to pursue. During this time Forster began a novel, Arctic Summer, which he was to abandon. By an arctic summer, he was referring to a long cold day in which there was time to do things. This describes well this decade in which he struggled creatively and personally.

Sadly, love for him was not possible for him at home, so he, like many others, went abroad, with his travels taking him to Egypt and India. Forster had an unrequited love affair with Syed Ross Masood, who encouraged him to travel to India and write about his country. During the war Forster had a non-combat role in Alexandria where he had a relationship Mohammad el Adl, a tram conducter, a relationship that continued over time to be affectionate despite their differences in race, income and class. Forster grew more reckless and during a second trip to India as a private secretary to the Maharaja of Dewas, he began an unsettling and unequal relationship with the Maharaja's barber that eventually came to a violent conclusion, which left Forster deeply disturbed.

Forster's journeys were the paths to discovery both personal and creative, as he attempted in that decade to forge affectionate and sexual relationships and to break free himself from the forces that were stifling him creatively allowing him to complete his greatest masterpiece.