Pride Reads

Honorarium

$19.95

In Honorarium, Nathaniel G. Moore compiles twenty years worth of reading other people?s books, while also faithfully attempting to convey a sense of what it?s like to work behind-the-scenes in CanLit. Always breaking from convention, Moore?s non-fiction is imbued a sense of urgency, passion and intimacy with the community of creators that surround him; creators that include Derek McCormack, Sheila Heti, Camilla Gibb, Jen Sookfong Lee, Catullus and Chuck Palahniuk. Add the author?s backstory of growing up anxious, escaping through literature and giving back to the community he sought out at the century?s onset, as well as previously unpublished pieces on book publicity and Amazon, and Honorarium is a both a time capsule and a survey course into the ever-changing, mysterious world of Canadian publishing.

Horrible Dance

By: Avery Lake

$21.95

A brilliant poetic debut about gender-based violence that dismantles received definitions of both gender and violence, Horrible Dance is an accomplished addition to transfeminist thought and theory.

By turns darkly comic, emotionally connected, playful, incisive, lyrical and irreverent, Lake’s poems navigate a harrowing personal and political terrain with understated, expansive wisdom. Lake persistently returns us to the search for love that lies at the core of relational trauma, even as she shows us how catastrophically such a search can be derailed.

This is a rare text able to hold the full velocity of a survivor’s hurt and rage alongside a clear-eyed understanding of the extent and complexity of harm. In their honest accounting of a wide array of bad encounters, these poems point us, again, toward compassion, tenderness, and solidarity.

can you forgive me
for how you hurt me so bad
–“On Shame”

Hovering World

By: Peter Dubé

$17.95

I am Everything In Between

By: Sydney Sunderland

$13.95

Sometimes it’s not as simple as being a boy or a girl. I Am Everything In Between highlights kids who may not fit into stereotypical gender ideals, and celebrates how they do identify by sending positive messages about gender identity. This book teaches children that regardless of biological gender, it’s OK to feel like a boy, or a girl, or even both! The illustrations include bright and bold examples of boys that like to play dress up and wear makeup, girls that like to play sports and get dirty, and kids that want to grow up to be astronauts! I Am Everything In Between uses diverse, relatable examples to help kids understand that sometimes it’s not as simple as being a boy or a girl. Teacher resources available on publisher website: rebelmountainpress.com/i-am-everything-in-between-teacher-resources

I Can Hear You, Can You Hear Me?

By: Nolan Natasha

$17.95

A funny and sweet—but not saccharine—jaunt through the back alleys of queer love.

Intimate, nostalgic, and surprising, the poems in I Can Hear You, Can You Hear Me? spark connections that alter trajectory and carry lasting resonance. Encounters across phone lines, over drinks, through walkie-talkies, and unspoken recognitions between queer bodies fill this collection with explorations of what it means to be seen.

The micro-narratives in I Can Hear You, Can You Hear Me? both celebrate and grieve the connections they illuminate. Nolan Natasha’s poetry is plainspoken but lyrical, sweet but frank, nostalgic but unromanticized, combining the atmosphere of Eileen Myles with the musical insight of Helen Humphreys. These poems bring an unflinching examination and a keen sense of humour to moments of human connection and self-exploration.

“Nolan Natasha’s writing is so clear-eyed, funny, tender, and absorbing. I love these poems and this sparkling debut.”—Zoe Whittall

I Hope We Choose Love

By: Kai Cheng Thom

$17.95

American Library Association Stonewall Book Awards Honor Book; Winner, Publishing Triangle Award for Trans and Gender-Variant Literature

What can we hope for at the end of the world? What can we trust in when community has broken our hearts? What would it mean to pursue justice without violence? How can we love in the absence of faith?

In a heartbreaking yet hopeful collection of personal essays and prose poems, blending the confessional, political, and literary, acclaimed poet and essayist Kai Cheng Thom dives deep into the questions that haunt social movements today. With the author’s characteristic eloquence and honesty, I Hope We Choose Love proposes heartfelt solutions on the topics of violence, complicity, family, vengeance, and forgiveness. Taking its cues from contemporary thought leaders in the transformative justice movement such as adrienne maree brown and Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, this provocative book is a call for nuance in a time of political polarization, for healing in a time of justice, and for love in an apocalypse.

I Want to Tell You Lies

By: John Lane

I Want to Tell You Lies

In Our Own Aboriginal Voice 2

$18.95

In Our Own Aboriginal Voice 2 is a powerful collection of short fiction, non-fiction, personal essay, poetry, and original Indigenous artwork by Indigenous authors and artists from across Canada. Featuring the work of established authors such as the late Connie Fife, and up-and-coming Aboriginal authors to watch out for (according to CBC Books) Joanne Arnott, Michelle Sylliboy, and Dennis Saddleman, as well as emerging writers from across Canada who shine a light on the lives of Indigenous Peoples living in Canada. The Indigenous selection committee was headed by author Richard Van Camp. Foreword by former Chief Edmund Metatawabin–appointed to the Order of Canada and author of Up Ghost River: A Chief’s Journey Through the Turbulent Waters of Native History, a finalist for the 2014 Governor General’s Award.

Indiana Pulcinella

By: Garry Ryan

$18.95

After saving the Calgary Stampede from a potential terror attack in Glycerine, Detectives Lane and Li find themselves on the hunt yet again, this time following a pair of gruesome killers whose perfectly composed crime scenes match those of an inmate put away by Calgary Police years earlier. As more people come into the line of fire, Lane must team up with some unlikely new allies in order to crack the case.

Meanwhile, with the birth of a new nephew, the happily chaotic Lane household must deal with the taciturn detective’s estranged, fundamentalist family and their efforts to interfere in raising the child.

it was never going to be okay

By: jaye simpson

$18.95

it was never going to be okay is a collection of poetry and prose exploring the intimacies of understanding intergenerational trauma, Indigeneity and queerness, while addressing urban Indigenous diaspora and breaking down the limitations of sexual understanding as a trans woman. As a way to move from the linear timeline of healing and coming to terms with how trauma does not exist in subsequent happenings, it was never going to be okay tries to break down years of silence in simpson’s debut collection of poetry:i am fivemy sisters are saying boyi do not know what the word means but—i am bruised into knowing it: the blunt b,the hollowness of the o, the blade of y

It’s All Tru

By: Sky Gilbert

$17.95

“There used to be people dying and they didn’t know why and there was nothing anyone could do, but most of all—no one cared whether we lived or whether we died.”

Love, sex, and pharmaceuticals are put to the test when a gay couple’s open relationship is threatened with dangerous consequences.

Kurt, a silver fox dance instructor, and his young fiancé, Travis, have an arrangement: when one’s away, they’re allowed to stray . . . as long as they’re safe. One night, over a dinner conversation about wedding invitations, Travis admits that he had a fling with a man named Gideon whom he believes removed the condom during sex. He also reveals that he didn’t start taking the HIV preventative medication PrEP (Truvada)—as promised—putting himself and Kurt in danger of contracting HIV. When Gideon appears on their doorstep in the middle of the night, the threat against Kurt and Travis’s relationship is an alarming force to be reckoned with.

JAZZ

By: Elizabeth Copeland

$18.00

“There is a shadow of a boy walking within me. His spirit is lightning fire. He will not be shackled. At birth, I was labeled a girl. My name is Jazz. Like the music, I am nature’s improvisation.”

When he is forced to leave his suburban home at age seventeen, Jazz – a transgender F2M – moves into the heart of Toronto’s LGBTQ community in hopes of finding the help he needs to begin his transition. A true hero’s journey, this narrative features a cast of colourful characters, including Martine, a dope-smoking drag queen; Kimmie, a hairdresser with a heart of gold; Sister Mary Francis, a sharp-talking ex-nun, and his counselor; Kendall, who must face his own demons in order to support Jazz in his journey. With comedy and pathos, Jazz wrestles with the realities of the courage it takes to be transgendered in today’s society.

Kiskajeyi- I AM READY

By: Michelle Sylliboy

$19.99

Kiskajeyi- I AM READY is a ground breaking Indigenous poetry book that also includes ancient Mi’kmaq (L’nuk) hieroglyphics. In 2020, Kiskajeyi- I AM READY won the Canadian Indigenous Voices Award (IVAs) for Published Poetry (English category). Indigenous artist and writer, Michelle Sylliboy blends her poetry, photography, and Mi’kmaq (L’nuk) hieroglyphic poetry in this unprecedented book.

Listen Before Transmit

By: Dani Couture

$18.00

Dani Couture’s latest poems are transmissions that travel across the cosmos, the spaces we live in, as well as within the more intimate distances we navigate between one another. Distances we hope to bridge with contact, often to profound or disastrous effects. With language rooted in science, sociology, memoir and aesthetics, she questions the limits of our bodies, both human and celestial. Like the subtle cues we lend one another and the hopeful messages we send into deep space, these poems broadcast our greatest aspirations and vulnerabilities.

Little Blue Encyclopedia (for Vivian)

By: Hazel Plante

$18.95

The playful and poignant novel Little Blue Encyclopedia (for Vivian) sifts through a queer trans woman’s unrequited love for her straight trans friend who died. A queer love letter steeped in desire, grief, and delight, the story is interspersed with encyclopedia entries about a fictional TV show set on an isolated island.

The experimental form functions at once as a manual for how pop culture can help soothe and mend us and as an exploration of oft-overlooked sources of pleasure, including karaoke, birding, and butt toys. Ultimately, Little Blue Encyclopedia (for Vivian) reveals with glorious detail and emotional nuance the woman the narrator loved, why she loved her, and the depths of what she has lost.

Lost Family

By: John Barton

$17.95

A bold experiment in autobiography, Lost Family: A Memoir is a book of sonnets that centres around the deaths of John Barton’s mother and sister, but tracks much of the poet’s early life in Alberta through to a conflicted, restless adulthood. Alongside tales of love, friends and mentors, intolerance, AIDS, and the struggle for equality, Barton’s collection–his first in eight years–explores how being gay rewrites and expands one’s sense of lineage, both inherited and chosen. A book of penetrating self-awareness and humility, marked by powerful image-making, Lost Family: A Memoir is a profound test of poetry’s ability to give coherence to life. It is also a celebration of the sonnet form, that finely made reliquary that permits memory to take shape.

All Books in this Collection