Title search results
Showing 1 - 20 of 905 items
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Indigenous peoples biography, LGBTQ+ biography, General non-fiction
Synthetic audio, Human-transcribed braille
FINALIST FOR THE 2021 LAMBDA LITERARY AWARD FOR GAY MEMOIR/BIOGRAPHYFINALIST FOR THE BC AND YUKON BOOK PRIZE, FOR BOTH THE…
HUBERT EVANS NON-FICTION PRIZE AND JIM DEVA PRIZE FOR WRITING THAT PROVOKESNATIONAL BESTSELLERThe youngest ever winner of the Griffin Prize mines his own personal history to reconcile the world he was born into with the world that could be.Billy-Ray Belcourt's debut memoir opens with a tender letter to his kokum and memories of his early life in the hamlet of Joussard, Alberta, and on the Driftpile First Nation. From there, it expands to encompass the big and broken world around him, in all its complexity and contradictions: a legacy of colonial violence and the joy that flourishes in spite of it, first loves and first loves lost, sexual exploration and intimacy, and the act of writing as a survival instinct and a way to grieve. What emerges is not only a profound meditation on memory, gender, anger, shame, and ecstasy, but also the outline of a way forward. With startling honesty, and in a voice distinctly and assuredly his own, Belcourt situates his life experiences within a constellation of seminal queer texts, among which this book is sure to earn its place. Eye-opening, intensely emotional, and excessively quotable, A History of My Brief Body demonstrates over and over again the power of words to both devastate and console us.
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Religious biography, Biography, LGBTQ+ biography, Women biography
Human-narrated audio, Human-transcribed braille
Cheri DiNovo went from living on the streets as a teenager to performing the first legalized same-sex marriage in Canada…
in 2001. This story of one queer kid will hopefully inspire other young people (queer and not) to resist the system and change it.
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Anthologies, LGBTQ+ biography
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Beloved storyteller Ivan Coyote returns with their most intimate and moving book yet. Writer and performer Ivan Coyote has spent…
decades on the road, telling stories around the world. For years, Ivan has kept a file of the most special communications received from readers and audience members—letters, Facebook messages, emails, soggy handwritten notes tucked under the windshield wiper of their truck after a gig. Then came Spring, 2020, and, like artists everywhere, Coyote was grounded by the pandemic, all their planned events cancelled. The energy of a live audience, a performer’s lifeblood, was suddenly gone. But with this loss came an opportunity for a different kind of connection. Those letters that had long piled up could finally begin to be answered. Care Of combines the most powerful of these letters with Ivan’s responses, creating a body of correspondence of startling intimacy, breathtaking beauty, and heartbreaking honesty and openness. Taken together, they become an affirming and joyous reflection on many of the themes central to Coyote’s celebrated work—compassion and empathy, family fragility, non-binary and Trans identity, and the unending beauty of simply being alive, a giant love letter to the idea of human connection, and the power of truly listening to each other.
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Pregnancy and childbirth, LGBTQ+ biography, Family and relationships
Synthetic audio, Automated braille
An LGBTQ memoir with insights on raising a family—from a gay transgender man who shares his experience with both pregnancy and adoption
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LGBTQ+ biography
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Many gay men find ourselves trapped in a series of no-win situations. If we don't live honestly and openly, we…
won't have the skills, wisdom, or relationships necessary to manifest our dreams. But when we do come out, we must confront the full force of societal homophobia, and consider a variety of questions: Can we create family without mimicking the norms of straight society? How do we cultivate sustainable gay friendships amidst our internalized homophobia? In a world of hook-up apps and disposable relationships, how do we find lasting love? A Gay Man's Guide to Life answers these questions. Britt East presents an approachable, no-nonsense path for gay men, to set down the excuses and get to the business of improving their lives. No new-age mumbo jumbo or wishy washy self-help jargon. Just real work focused on real results to unleash our true selves and unlock our best lives.
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Women biography, LGBTQ+ biography, Journals and memoirs
Synthetic audio, Human-transcribed braille
In Bloodroot, Betsy Warland traces how a mother and daughter's shared gender can shape the very anatomy of narrative itself.…
In her mother's final year,Warland quietly discovered how to disentangle a crucial, concealed story that had rendered their relationship disconnected and fraught. Warland weaves a common ground that moves beyond duty and despair, providing both questions and guideposts for readers, particularly those faced with ageing and ill parents and their loss.The 2000 edition of Bloodroot broke new ground in memoir form and uncharted storytelling. The 2021 edition, reprinted by Inanna for the launch of its InannaSignature Feminist Publications series, includes a new foreword by Susan Olding and a new essay by Warland that explores subsequent questions, insights and tenderness only the passage of time can enable.
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Journals and memoirs, Death and bereavement, LGBTQ+ biography
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"A hilarious memoir of effervescent misadventures." --Toronto Star"How am I laughing at someone's mother's cancer? How? We think we can't…
laugh about death, about cancer, about our mothers and their suffering . . . and we can't, but we can. And there's so much relief in that. I laughed, I cried, I laughed and laughed and laughed." --Carolyn Taylor, BARONESS VON SKETCH SHOWA traumedy about life and death (and every cosmic joke in between)When her mother is diagnosed with cancer, Rachel Matlow is concerned but hopeful. It's Stage 1, so her mom will get surgery and everything will go back to normal. But growing up in Rachel's family, there was no normal. Elaine, an alternative school teacher and self-help junkie, was never a capital M "Mommy"--she spent more time meditating than packing lunches--and Rachel, who played hockey with the boys and refused to ever wear a dress, was no ordinary daughter.When Elaine decides to forgo conventional treatment and heal herself naturally, Rachel is forced to ponder whether the very things that made her mom so special--her independent spirit, her belief in being the author of her own story--are what will ultimately kill her. As the cancer progresses, so does Elaine's conviction in doing things her way. She assembles a dream team of alternative healers, gulps down herbal tinctures with every meal, and talks (with respect) to her cancer cells. Anxious and confused, Rachel is torn between indulging her pie-in-the-sky pursuits (ayahuasca and all) and pleading with the person who's taking her mother away.With irreverence and honesty--and a little help from Elaine's journals and self-published dating guide, plus hours of conversations recorded in her dying days--Matlow brings her inimitable mother to life on the page. Dead Mom Walking is the hilarious and heartfelt story of what happens when two people who've always written their own script go head to head with each other, and with life's least forgiving plot device.
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LGBTQ+ biography, General non-fiction
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A revelatory book about gender, mental illness, parenting, mortality, bike mechanics, work, class, and the task of living in a…
body. Inquisitive and expansive, Like a Boy but Not a Boy explores author andrea bennett's experiences with gender expectations, being a non-binary parent, and the sometimes funny and sometimes difficult task of living in a body. The book's fourteen essays also delve incisively into the interconnected themes of mental illness, mortality, creative work, class, and bike mechanics (apparently you can learn a lot about yourself through trueing a wheel). In "Tomboy," andrea articulates what it means to live in a gender in-between space, and why one might be necessary; "37 Jobs 21 Houses" interrogates the notion that the key to a better life is working hard and moving house. And interspersed throughout the book is "Everyone Is Sober and No One Can Drive," sixteen stories about queer millennials who grew up and came of age in small Canadian communities. With the same poignant spirit as Ivan Coyote's Tomboy Survival Guide, Like a Boy addresses the struggle to find acceptance, and to accept oneself; and how one can find one's place while learning to make space for others. The book also wonders what it means to be an atheist and search for faith that everything will be okay; what it means to learn how to love life even as you obsess over its brevity; and how to give birth, to bring new life, at what feels like the end of the world. With thoughtfulness and acute observation, andrea bennett reveals intimate truths about the human experience, whether one is outside the gender binary or not.
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LGBTQ+ biography, General non-fiction
Human-narrated audio, Human-transcribed braille
Ivan Coyote is one of North America's preeminent storytellers and performers, and the author, co-author, or co-editor of eleven previous…
books, all but one of which have been published by Arsenal Pulp Press. Their most recent book, Tomboy Survival Guide, was shortlisted for the Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Nonfiction, named an American Library Association Stonewall Honor Book, and longlisted for Canada Reads. In their latest, Ivan takes on the patriarchy and the political, as well as the intimate and the personal in these beguiling and revealing stories of what it means to be trans and non-binary today, at a time in their life when they must carry the burden of heartbreaking history with them, while combatting those who would misgender them or deny their very existence. These stories span thirty years of tackling TERFs, legislators, and bathroom police, sure, but there is joy and pleasure and triumph to be found here too, as Ivan pays homage to personal heroes like the late Leslie Feinberg while gently guiding younger trans folk to prove to themselves that there is a way out of the darkness. Rebent Sinner is the work of an accomplished artist whose plain truths about their experience will astound readers with their utter, breathtaking humanity.
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LGBTQ+ biography, Women biography, Canadian biography, Canadian authors (Non-fiction)
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Growing up in Pakistan, Samra Habib lacks a blueprint for the life she wants. She has a mother who gave…
up everything to be a pious, dutiful wife and an overprotective father who seems to conspire against a life of any adventure. Plus, she has to hide the fact that she's Ahmadi to avoid persecution from religious extremists. As the threats against her family increase, they seek refuge in Canada, where new financial and cultural obstacles await them. When Samra discovers that her mother has arranged her marriage, she must again hide a part of herself--the fun-loving, feminist teenager that has begun to bloom--until she simply can't any longer. So begins a journey of self-discovery that takes her to Tokyo, where she comes to terms with her sexuality, and to a queer-friendly mosque in Toronto, where she returns to her faith in the same neighbourhood where she attended her first drag show. Along the way, she learns that the facets of her identity aren't as incompatible as she was led to believe, and that her people had always been there--the world just wasn't ready for them yet. 2019.
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LGBTQ+ biography, Biography, Social issues
Human-narrated audio, Human-transcribed braille
The activists between these pages have stood up for the queer community, whether on their own behalf or in support…
of people they love. Some made a difference by confronting injustice; others dared to be fully themselves.
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Disabilities, General non-fiction, LGBTQ+ biography
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In The Future Is Disabled, Leah Laksmi Piepzna-Samarasinha asks some provocative questions: What if, in the near future, the majority…
of people will be disabled - and what if that's not a bad thing? And what if disability justice and disabled wisdom are crucial to creating a future in which it's possible to survive fascism, climate change, and pandemics and to bring about liberation? Building on the work of their game-changing book Care Work: Dreaming Disability Justice, Piepzna-Samarasinha writes about disability justice at the end of the world, documenting the many ways disabled people kept and are keeping each other - and the rest of the world - alive during Trump, fascism and the COVID-19 pandemic. Other subjects include crip interdependence, care and mutual aid in real life, disabled community building, and disabled art practice as survival and joy. Written over the course of two years of disabled isolation during the pandemic, this is a book of love letters to other disabled QTBIPOC (and those concerned about disability justice, the care crisis, and surviving the apocalypse); honour songs for kin who are gone; recipes for survival; questions and real talk about care, organizing, disabled families, and kin networks and communities; and wild brown disabled femme joy in the face of death. With passion and power, The Future Is Disabled remembers our dead and insists on our future.
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Social issues, General non-fiction, LGBTQ+ biography
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"This book for middle grade readers explores the history of queer activism in North America and the fight for equality…
for LGBTQ+ folks. The content is structured in an A-Z format, with such entries as "A Is for Activism" and "C Is for Coming Out." Readers will learn about the Stonewall Riots, Marsha P. Johnson, Indigenous queer activism, the Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookshop, Pride flags and so much more. Young readers will be especially interested in learning about youth activists such as Gavin Grimm, the first Gay-Straight Alliance and the history of banned children's books in America. Award-winning author Robin Stevenson brings this history to life in a way that is equally informative, inspiring and accessible for young readers. Her books have received a Stonewall Book Honour and won the Silver Birch Award. Extensive end matter includes short biographies of historical figures, glossary, timeline, resources for kids, author's sources and index."
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LGBTQ+ biography, Social issues, Biography, Politics and government, Award winning non-fiction
Human-narrated audio, Human-transcribed braille
Meet Jim Egan, the activist who fought for equality and human rights for gay Canadians at a time where it…
was often dangerous for LGBTQ2S+ people to speak up. Born in 1921, Jim had an ordinary childhood. But as he grew up, he knew he was a little different from his friends. He didn't like girls the same way they did. As a young man, Jim joined the war effort and travelled the world. He discovered there were other people like himself -- he was gay. Jim hadn't even known there was a word for it when he was growing up. That's because at the time, being identified as a member of the LGBTQ2S+ community wasn't safe. People lost their jobs and their families, got put in jail -- or worse -- so they hid who they were. But not Jim. He picked up his pen and started to fight for his rights. At first, he wrote letter after letter, in an attempt to get the media to stop portraying gay people in a negative way. Soon he was given a column to write about his community. Jim used his platform to talk about the need for tolerance and for the decriminalization of homosexuality. It was a fight that culminated in the 1995 Supreme Court ruling Egan v. Canada, a case that began in 1987 when Jim wanted his partner Jack to receive the same Old Age Security payment that a married person could get. Jim didn't win, but the case led to sexual orientation becoming a protected ground against discrimination under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which opened the door to other equal rights including same-sex marriage.
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LGBTQ+ biography, Buddhism, Self help
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Kodo Nishimura rose to fame following his appearance in Queer Eye: We're in Japan. Now this celebrity make-up artist and…
ordained Buddhist monk shares his unique and practical guide to positivity and self-acceptance. Readers will learn from the author's path to self-love and resilience and modern take on Buddhist teachings.IT&’S TIME TO BE TRUE TO YOU This book is for anyone who&’s ever felt like they don&’t fit in. And for all those who dare to be different. Do you show who you truly are? Do you say what you really think? Or do you hide your heart&’s desire and camouflage yourself to look like others? It is too easy to limit ourselves for fear of what other people will think. The message of this book is that we can choose to love our uniqueness—and that our diversity offers hope for the world. This Monk Wears Heels is a guide to self-love, self-acceptance, and taking a Buddhist approach to life. Kodo Nishimura reveals how inclusive the Buddhist teachings really are—and that, yes, it is possible to be a Buddhist monk and do makeup and wear sparkly earrings. This book is about being who you really are, totally unapologetically and with full conviction. It will show you how to shine in your own colors and be celebrated for yourself.
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LGBTQ+ biography, Humour
Synthetic audio, Automated braille
Named one of the Best Books of 2021 by Oprah Daily, Glamour, Shondaland, BuzzFeed, and more! A hilarious and whip-smart…
collection of essays, offering an intimate look at bisexuality, gender, and, of course, sex. Perfect for fans of Lindy West, Samantha Irby, and Rebecca Solnit—and anyone who wants, and deserves, to be seen. If Jen Winston knows one thing for sure, it&’s that she&’s bisexual. Or wait—maybe she isn&’t? Actually, she definitely is. Unless…she&’s not? Jen&’s provocative, laugh-out-loud debut takes us inside her journey of self-discovery, leading us through stories of a childhood &“girl crush,&” an onerous quest to have a threesome, and an enduring fear of being bad at sex. Greedy follows Jen&’s attempts to make sense of herself as she explores the role of the male gaze, what it means to be &“queer enough,&” and how to overcome bi stereotypes when you&’re the posterchild for all of them: greedy, slutty, and constantly confused. With her clever voice and clear-eyed insight, Jen draws on personal experiences with sexism and biphobia to understand how we all can and must do better. She sheds light on the reasons women, queer people, and other marginalized groups tend to make ourselves smaller, provoking the question: What would happen if we suddenly stopped? Greedy shows us that being bisexual is about so much more than who you&’re sleeping with—it&’s about finding stability in a state of flux and defining yourself on your own terms. This book inspires us to rethink the world as we know it, reminding us that Greedy was a superpower all along.
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Biography, Actors biography, LGBTQ+ biography
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"A powerful and essential memoir of self-discovery . . . Brimming with beautiful remembrances of his grandfather and terrifying stories…
of abuse and homophobia, this is an essential book that shines a much-needed light on the intersection of Arab and queer identity." —Abdi Nazemian, Lambda Literary Award–winning author of Like a Love Story, a Stonewall Honor BookThe grandson of Hollywood royalty on his father&’s side and Holocaust survivors on his mother&’s, Omar Sharif Jr. learned early on how to move between worlds, from the Montreal suburbs to the glamorous orbit of his grandparents&’ Cairo. His famous name always protected him wherever he went. When, in the wake of the Arab Spring, he made the difficult decision to come out in the pages of The Advocate, he knew his life would forever change. What he didn&’t expect was the backlash that followed. From bullying, to illness, attempted suicide, becoming a victim of sex trafficking, death threats by the thousands, revolution and never being able to return to a country he once called home, Omar Sharif Jr. has overcome more challenges than one might imagine. Drawing on the lessons he learned from both sides of his family, A Tale of Two Omars charts the course of an iconoclastic life, revealing in the process the struggles and successes that attend a public journey of self-acceptance and a life dedicated in service to others.
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LGBTQ+ biography, Journals and memoirs, Poetry
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The New York Times bestselling author of A Work in Progress and Note to Self moves fully into adulthood with…
his illuminating, soulful, bleeding collection of narrative, poetry, and original film photography.Humanitarian, entrepreneur, and content creator Connor Franta first captivated readers with A Work In Progress, ruminating on his Midwestern roots to his early start as a visionary and online thought-leader. He continued his soul-searching-through-a-broken-heart with Note to Self, challenging readers—and himself—to ponder the spectrum of humanity and their place within it. Now as Franta approaches thirty, life is no less confusing, but he finds this journey endlessly fascinating. Writing about confusion and clarity, loneliness and whirlwind romances, despair and elation—and everything in between—Franta invites readers back into the intimacy of his mind. House Fires magnifies a young man&’s emotional warfare with his past, the daze of wandering through modern times in search of purpose, and the electricity flying from tomorrow&’s potential.
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LGBTQ+ biography, Politics and government biography, United States history
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The Cold War, The Lavender Scare, and the Untold Story of Eisenhower's First National Security Advisor. President Eisenhower's National Security…
Advisor Robert "Bobby" Cutler -- working alongside Ike and also the Dulles brothers at the CIA and State Department -- shaped US Cold War strategy in far more consequential ways than previously understood. A lifelong Republican, Cutler also served three Democratic presidents. A charming raconteur, he was a tight-lipped loyalist who worked behind the scenes to get things done.Cutler was in love with a man half his age, naval intelligence officer and NSC staffer Skip Koons. Cutler poured his emotions into a six-volume diary and dozens of letters that have been hidden from history. Steve Benedict, who was White House security officer, Cutlers' friend and Koons' friend and former lover, preserved Cutler's papers. All three men served Eisenhower at a time when anyone suspected of "sexual perversion", i.e. homosexuality, was banned from federal employment and vulnerable to security sweeps by the FBI. This gripping account reveals in fascinating detail Cutler's intimate thoughts and feelings about US efforts to confront Soviet expansion and aggression while having to contend with the reality that tens of millions of people would die in a first nuclear strike, and that a full nuclear exchange would likely lead to human extinction. And Shinkle recounts with sensitivity the daily challenges and personal dramas of a small but representative group or patriotic gay men who were forced to hide essential aspects of who they were in order to serve a president they admired and a country they loved.
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LGBTQ+ biography, Sports biography, Women biography, Sports and games
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Alex Blackwell lived and breathed our national sport of cricket for thirty years. Starting as a kid, she spent her…
childhood and teen years playing and competing with her identical twin, Kate, who was equally devoted to the bat and ball. But it was Alex who went on to consolidate a spot in the national side, eventually rising to the captaincy, notching up an eye-watering list of sporting achievements and earning her a name as one of the greats of the game.But life off field brought challenges of its own. From her professional debut, Alex was unafraid to call out hypocrisy and go in to battle against the traditional hierarchies of the game. Speaking out and becoming a passionate advocate for women and LGBTIQ+ people in sport won her many fans and much respect, but it didn't come without a price. Fair Game is an unflinching account of life in Australia's most loved sporting team, told by one of its most lauded members. It reveals not only the extreme dedication and skill it takes to be the best, but also how it feels to be on the outer - even as one of the game's most decorated players. Representing Australia 251 times across Tests, one day internationals and T20 matches, no woman in history has played more matches for the Australian Women's cricket team than Alex Blackwell. And no one knows better both the extreme highs and devastating lows that come with playing this majestic but at times brutal game at the highest level.