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Date: Sunday, June 27, 2010 Time: 20.00 - 22.00
Place: The Piston, 937 Bloor Street, just west of Ossington, Toronto
Verdant: Queer Writers on the Verge
8pm | Sunday June 27, 2010
$5-10 sliding scale
Featuring readings and performances by: Robin Akimbo, Anna Camilleri, T.L. Cowan, Farzana Doctor, Kristyn Dunnion, Nalo Hopkinson, Tamai Kobayashi, Nik Redman, Trish Salah, Vivek Shraya, Karine Silverwoman.
Plus an opening performance by internationally acclaimed taiko drummer Tiffany Tamaribuchi.
Come for verdancy, stay for the after-party featuring Sunday Night Mixtape with Kaleb "Daddy K" Robertson. Wheelchair accessible!
VERDANT PLAYERS:
ROBIN AKIMBO is a multi-disciplinary artist currently residing in Toronto. She has written and produced original work for performance in Montreal, Toronto, New York and San Francisco. She graduated from the Experimental Performance Institute at New College of California for Social Change in 2006, and is continuing her studies at the Randolph Academy for the Performing Arts in Toronto. In 2007 she toured the United States extensively on the Sister Spit: Next Generation Tour, in promotion of the anthology Baby Remember My Name edited by Michelle Tea, pub. Carroll & Graf. She revels in the cultural and historical role of storytelling as an artistic vehicle and the use of experiential knowledge towards social justice.
ANNA CAMILLERI has performed across Canada and the US in theatres, festivals, universities, and houses of ill-repute over the past 15 years, and mostly recently at the Queer Literary Kinships Symposium at Gent University, in Belgium. Described as a tough, visceral, and funny storytelling siren, she is a founding member of SweLL, the (re) iteration of Taste This, a collaborative performance troupe that co-authored of Boys Like Her: Transfictions. Camilleri is writer/performer of two one-woman shows, author of I Am a Red Dress, editor of Red Light: Superheroes, Saints and Sluts, co-editor of Brazen Femme, and writer/director of two CBC radio works. Her online domain is www.annacamilleri.com.
T.L. COWAN is a writer and performer currently based in Hamilton, Montreal and Saskatoon. Her work, which has been described as cerebral, hilarious and shrill, has appeared on pages and stages internationally, most recently in Matrix Magazine and Notebook Magazine and at the Visualeyez Festival in Edmonton, the Edgy Women Festival in Montreal, and at Buddies in Bad Times in Toronto. In September 2009 she launched The Twisted She Project, a collaborative performance collage and CD. T.L.’s current projects include several alter-ego-based performances for the stage and screen (with KingCrip Productions) as well as a new series of queer, tent-based performances.
FARZANA DOCTOR’s first novel, Stealing Nasreen, received critical acclaim and earned a devoted readership upon its release in 2007. Her second novel, Six Metres of Pavement, will be published by The Dundurn Group in 2011. Besides novels, Doctor has written on social work and diversity-related topics, and provides private practice consulting and psychotherapy services. She lives in Toronto, where she is co-curator of the Brockton Writers Series. http://www.facebook.com/l/cccaf;www.farzanadoctor.com
KRISTYN DUNNION is author of novels Missing Matthew, Mosh Pit and Big Big Sky. Her short stories are anthologized for children, sci-fi horror fiends, and also for those who read porn. Kristyn is better known in some circles as Miss Kitty Galore, outrageous femme host and performance artist. She plays bass for the dyke metal band HEAVY FILTH. Visit her at www.kristyndunnion.com and check out the Filth at www.myspace.com/heavyfilth
NALO HOPKINSON, born in Jamaica, has lived in Toronto since 1977. She's the author of four and nine-tenths novels and one short story collection. She teaches creative writing in Humber College's correspondence course in creative writing. She is the winner of the Spectrum award for science fiction and fantasy featuring queer characters, and a founding member of the Carl Brandon Society, which exists to further discussion on race and ethnicity in the literatures of science fiction and fantasy.
TAMAI KOBAYASHI is the author of Exile and the Heart (Women's Press) and Quixotic Erotic (Arsenal Pulp Press). She is currently working on a novel.
NIK REDMAN is an artist, activist, and community worker who was born in Montreal, Canada of Bajan parentage. He is influenced by the work of ancient griots, gender blenders, beat mixers and cultural producers. Currently, living in Toronto expressing his art through djayig, writing, and organizing. He is part of the programming committee and the Board of the LGBT Inside Out Film and Video Festival. He also serves on the Board of Black Coalition for AIDS Prevention (Black CAP). Nik is also an award-winning DJ and radio programmer. He can be heard every Thursday 5-7 p.m. on CKLN 88.1 FM in Toronto.
VIVEK SHRAYA is a transplanted prairie boy living in Toronto. Active in the local queer community, he’s also a musician who has toured North America, showcased at NXNE and CMW, and appeared with Tegan and Sara, Dragonette, and Melissa Ferrick. Shraya has released five records, including 2009’s Keys & Machines, and was recently featured on ABC’s Private Practice. God Loves Hair is his first book.
KARINE SILVERWOMAN is an artist, counselor and community activist. Her art focuses on poetry, video making and dancing. She has worked with Nightwood Theatre, performed her poetry at different events in Toronto such as Mayworks festival for Working People and the Arts and at 'Granny Boots' at the Gladstone hotel. Her short video, 'Hello, My Name is Herman' won "best-liked video audience award", and received an honorable mention for jury selected best short videos at the Toronto Gay and Lesbian Film Festival. 'Hello, My Name Is Herman' was short-listed for the Iris Prize in Wales (www.irisprize.org) and has screened internationally at over 30 film festivals. Her writing has been published in No More Potlucks. She currently works at Supporting Our Youth as the Pink Ink facilitator, a creative writing group for queer and trans youth.
TRISH SALAH writes, teaches, and organizes out of Montreal these days. Her work addresses social and economic precarity, affective economy, desire and difficulty in belonging. Her first book of poetry is Wanting in Arabic; her new, nearly there, book is Lyric Sexology. Her writing has appeared in journals and anthologies such as Brazen Femme, Descant, Fireweed, Nomorepotlucks, Sexing the Maple, Tessera.
TIFFANY TAMARIBUCHI is one of very few women outside of Japan to have achieved international acclaim as a professional taiko drummer. Founder of the all-women JODAIKO, and the community-based Sacramento Taiko Dan, she is also the winner of the 2002 Otaiko Hibike All-Japan Odaiko Competition. Tamaribuchi, recognized as one of the foremost instructors of the art in North America, has toured with a number of professional groups throughout North America, Europe, and Japan. She has graced stages from Carnegie Hall to the Moscow International House of Music, performing and collaborating with some of the most highly respected artists in the world of contemporary Wadaiko. www.tttaiko.com
Date: Sunday, June 27, 2010 
1) Jumping the Fence by Stephanie Vaughan—This was my first purely m/m book, read back in 2005. I actually had to work up the courage to buy it, because I was still fairly new to ebooks and I wasn’t sure how much I would like m/m. I loved the blurb and the cover, though, so I went for it. I purchased Emily Veinglory’s Eclipse of the Heart at the same time, and I adored both books. To this day, I blame Stephanie Vaughan for my m/m addiction. 
2) Bareback by Chris Owen—Bareback was a tough read for me. I liked Jake and Tor. Their relationship and conflicts felt real to me. I’m reading along, everything’s fine, and then BAM! The second half of the book was so wrenching I bawled my eyes out pretty much the whole time. Chris Owen chose to have one of the characters do something that’s usually a deal-breaker for me as a reader, and yet I still sympathized with him. For that reason alone it stands out in my memory, even though I read it years ago. 
Quinn's Hart by Cassandra Gold 
1) Jumping the Fence by Stephanie Vaughan—This was my first purely m/m book, read back in 2005. I actually had to work up the courage to buy it, because I was still fairly new to ebooks and I wasn’t sure how much I would like m/m. I loved the blurb and the cover, though, so I went for it. I purchased Emily Veinglory’s Eclipse of the Heart at the same time, and I adored both books. To this day, I blame Stephanie Vaughan for my m/m addiction. 
2) Bareback by Chris Owen—Bareback was a tough read for me. I liked Jake and Tor. Their relationship and conflicts felt real to me. I’m reading along, everything’s fine, and then BAM! The second half of the book was so wrenching I bawled my eyes out pretty much the whole time. Chris Owen chose to have one of the characters do something that’s usually a deal-breaker for me as a reader, and yet I still sympathized with him. For that reason alone it stands out in my memory, even though I read it years ago. 
Quinn's Hart by Cassandra Gold 
An illicit affair accompanied by sweet things, this is probably a classic of love. Told in first point of view by the author himself, it’s the story of Shaun who is having a clandestine relationship with Martin; the underground shade is all from Martin’s side, he is the one with a girlfriend at home waiting for him, while instead all Shaun’s friends seem to know about Martin. And so at the beginning I felt like Shaun was the one to sympathize to, the one who is left alone after love and sex, while Martin go back home to his fiancé. Shaun who consoles himself baking cake for his lover, and then ends to eat them alone. It’s strange since, playing the role of the clandestine lover, Shaun is not at the same time the submissive, but more the caretaker; usually the one with a parallel life is also the one dictating the rules, and instead sometime it seems to me that Martin was searching reassurance in Shaun, and Shaun was giving it with sex, love and food, but then he was also the one who was not able to close all of it with love words. 
An illicit affair accompanied by sweet things, this is probably a classic of love. Told in first point of view by the author himself, it’s the story of Shaun who is having a clandestine relationship with Martin; the underground shade is all from Martin’s side, he is the one with a girlfriend at home waiting for him, while instead all Shaun’s friends seem to know about Martin. And so at the beginning I felt like Shaun was the one to sympathize to, the one who is left alone after love and sex, while Martin go back home to his fiancé. Shaun who consoles himself baking cake for his lover, and then ends to eat them alone. It’s strange since, playing the role of the clandestine lover, Shaun is not at the same time the submissive, but more the caretaker; usually the one with a parallel life is also the one dictating the rules, and instead sometime it seems to me that Martin was searching reassurance in Shaun, and Shaun was giving it with sex, love and food, but then he was also the one who was not able to close all of it with love words.