About the Author
Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha
Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha is a queer disabled femme writer and performer of Burgher/Tamil Sri Lankan and Irish/Roma ascent. Her most recent titles are the nonfiction book Care Work: Dreaming Disability Justice (2018) and the poetry book Tonguebreaker (2019). Her memoir Dirty River was a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award and a Publishing Triangle Award (Judy Grahn Award for Lesbian Nonfiction). She is also author of the poetry books Bodymap and Love Cake (Lambda Literary Award winner) and Consensual Genocide, and co-editor of The Revolution Starts At Home: Confronting Intimate Violence in Activist Communities. She is the co-founder of Mangos With Chili, North America's touring queer and trans people of colour cabaret, and is a lead artist with the disability justice incubator Sins Invalid.
Rebel Mountain Press, publisher of The Disabled Voices Anthology —an unapologetic collection of short fiction, memoir, and poetry by disabled writers and artists across Canada, the US, and the UK—recently asked the contributors of the anthology for their perspectives ... Read more
This week we found moments of reprieve with our last few poetry cures and got our maps out for Canadian Independent Bookstore Day.
Last year we raised our poetic fists for National Poetry Month with Poets Resist, a month-long celebration of poetry as a form of resistance. This year, we're taking a deep breath and preserving our collective strength with Poetry Cure, a series dedicated to poetry as a ... Read more
Kim Clark inspires humour and sex appeal in her latest A One-Handed Novel (Caitlin Press), fiction channelled by her own experiences with disability. The novel follows protagonist Melanie Farrell, a fortyish woman living with Multiple Sclerosis, as she comes to learn of ... Read more
It’s Pride weekend this weekend in Toronto: and naturally, we’re preparing by reading some fantastic LGBTQ+ books. We’ve come across some great words and phrases on the way: here are ten for you to include in your own Pride lexicon.
In advance of World Day of Social Justice on February 20, we’re fully embracing the SJW* moniker and recognizing books that further conversations around social justice. Check out our top 10* picks!
*as if this is a pejorative term
*the order of this list is not a reflection ... Read more
Poetry is a community, without a doubt, but it hasn't always been an inclusive community. We're all the more thrilled, then, to feature eleven poets of colour and poems of their choosing...many times also by poets of colour. No more excuses: reading excellent, diverse poetry ... Read more
In case you didn’t hear, noted Hermione Emma Watson started a feminist book club called “Our Shared Shelf” in the beginning of January. Her Goodreads group already boasts over 100,000 members. Here, we recommend the five feminist books they should read next.
Welcome to this month’s edition of Jules’ Tools for Social Change, a column that features a book, author or publisher whose work deals with issues of race, gender, sexuality, ability, colonialism, economic justice, or other social justice topics.
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