WRITING THE QUEER IN LITERATURE

Join authors Lydia Kwa, Carrie Mac and Candie Tanaka as they discuss their own unique processes for "Writing the Queer" in Literature. The event will be followed by a few short fun creativity exercises to get your imagination gaily motivated.

Optional: Bring a pen and a notebook (or your) phone to generate a few short sentences or phrases to use as writing prompts.

Post-event baked goods from Chinatown + conversation graciously donated by the Queer Patron Saints of Storytelling!

Candie Tanaka is a multiracial trans writer, artist and librarian challenging the binaries continually reconstructed between self and other while exploring archive and memory in a socio-political context. They are a creative writing graduate of The Writer’s Studio program at Simon Fraser University and have a BFA in Intermedia from Emily Carr Institute of Art + Design. Their first YA book, Baby Drag Queen was published with Orca Books in April 2023 and was a finalist for the City of Vancouver Book Award. They’ve also published work in Resonance: Essays on the Craft of Life and Writing with Anvil Press and This Will Only Take A Minute: Canadian Flash Fiction with Guernica Editions. Forthcoming publications include an essay in the Queer Country Crossroads Anthology with Caitlin Press in October 2025.

Lydia Kwa has published three books of poetry (The Colours of Heroines, 1992; sinuous, 2013; from time to new, 2024) and five novels (This Place Called Absence, 2000; The Walking Boy, 2005 and 2019; Pulse, 2010 and 2014; Oracle Bone, 2017; A Dream Wants Waking, 2023). She is currently writing a neo-noir speculative fiction novella. She also enjoys writing the occasional story laced with oddball, satirical humour.

Carrie Mac writes stories that she wants to read. Her literary novel, “Last Winter” was a Canadian #1 bestseller. She also writes contemporary and speculative YA titles that are both popular for (and often banned because of) featuring queer protagonists. Her short stories and creative non-fiction have been published in numerous publications, such as Prism, Room, Event, New Quarterly, Geist, subTerrain, and Hippocampus. Her accolades include a BC Book Prize, Arthur Ellis Award, and CBC NonFiction Prize. Currently mentoring writers at the Humber School For Writers, she has also mentored at SFU’s Writer’s Studio, taught at Douglas College, and at UBC’s School of Creative Writing, from which she holds an MFA.  She lives with her two kids in East Vancouver, on the stolen lands of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh Nations.

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