26 Canadian books to read for Pride Month
June is Pride Month. Celebrate by checking out these Canadian books.
The Listenersby Jordan Tannahill
In the novelThe Listeners, Claire Devon is one of a disparate group of people who can hear a low hum. No one in her house can hear it, and this sound has no obvious source or medical cause, but it starts upsetting the balance of Claire's life. She strikes up a friendship with one of her students who can also hear the hum. Feeling more and more isolated from their families and colleagues, they join a neighbourhood self-help group of people who can also hear the hum, which gradually transforms into something much more extreme, with far-reaching anddevastating consequences.
The Listenerswas onthe 2021 Scotiabank Giller Prize shortlist.
Tannahill is a playwright, filmmaker, author and theatre director.He has twice won theGovernor General's Literary Award for drama: in 2014 forAge of Minorityand in 2018 forBotticelli in the Fire & Sunday in Sodom. He is also the author of the novelLiminal.
A Dream of a Womanby Casey Plett
A Dream of a Womanisa collection of short stories revolvingaround transgender women who are looking for stable, adult lives. Taking place in Prairie high-rises andNew York warehouses, during freezing Canadian winters and drizzly Oregon days, these stories explore partnership, sex, addiction, romance, groundedness and love.
A Dream of a Womanwas onthe 2021 Scotiabank Giller Prize longlist.
Casey Plettis a Windsor-based writer who was born in Manitoba and has lived in Oregon and New York. Her novelLittle Fishwon the Lambda Literary Award, Amazon First Novel Award and the Firecracker Award for Fiction. Her first collection of short stories,A Safe Girl to Love, was published in 2014.
The Spectacularby Zoe Whittall
InThe Spectacular, it's 1997 and Missy's band is touring across America. Every night, she plays the song about her absent mother that made the band famous. As the only girl in the band, she wants to party just as hard as everyone else, but a forgotten party favour strands her at the border. Carola is just surfacing from a sex scandal when she sees her daughter Missy for the first time in 10 years on the cover of a music magazine. Ruth plans on returning to the Turkish seaside but then her granddaughter Missy crashes at her house. Ruth decides it's time the women in her family try to understand each other again.
Zoe Whittall's three novels have won her a Lambda Literary Award, the Dayne Ogilvie Prize and was shortlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize. Her novelThe Best Kind of Peopleis currently being adapted for a limited series by Sarah Polley. Her other novels areHolding Still for as Long as PossibleandBottle Rocket Hearts. She has also written forSchitt's Creekand theBaroness Von Sketch Show.
Be a Triangleby Lilly Singh
Actor, author and creator Lilly Singh explores how to create inner peace in the face of adversity. From Singh's personal struggles with identity, success and self-doubt, she teaches readers to "unsubscribe" from cookie-cutter ideals.
Be a Triangleis an uplifting guide to befriending yourself.
Lilly Singh is a Toronto-born entertainer, author, YouTuber andformer late-night talk show host. She gained international popularity through her YouTube channel,Superwoman. Her debut book,How to Be a Bawse,won a 2017 Goodreads Choice Awards.
My Volcanoby John Elizabeth Stintzi
My Volcanois a pre-apocalyptic tale following a cast of characters from all over the world, each experiencing private and collective eruptions. From a jogger discovering a growing active stratovolcano in Central Park to a boy living through the fall of the Aztec Empire,My Volcanomoves through time and space to create a contemporary story about climate change.
John Elizabeth Stintzi is a writer from northwestern Ontario,currently based in Kansas City, Mo. Their workSelections From Junebatwon the 2019 RBC Bronwen Wallace Award for Emerging Writers and the Malahat Review's 2019 Long Poem Prize. Their poetry collection,Junebat,was published in spring 2020. They are also the author of the novelVanishing Monuments,which was a finalist forthe 2021 Amazon Canada First Novel Award.CBC Books named Stintzi a 2020 writer to watch.
Sister Seen, Sister Heardby Kimia Eslah
Farah's ready to move out and become an independent university student, but herfirst-generation Iranian immigrant parents wish she wouldn't. When they begrudgingly agree to let her move, Farah begins to explore her new exciting life. But after Farahis assaulted on campus, her life changes dramatically.
Born in Iran, Kimia Eslah spent her early childhood in New Delhi before immigrating to Toronto with her family. She is a feminist, queer writer and the author of the 2019 novelThe Daughter Who Walked Away.
Beast at Every Thresholdby Natalie Wee
InBeast at Every Threshold, Natalie Wee unravels the constructs of otherness and reflects on the intersection of queerness, diaspora and loss. These poems explore thresholds of marginality, immigration, nationhood and reinvention of the self through myth.
Natalie Wee is a queer author who was born in Singapore to Malaysian parents and currently lives in Toronto. Her other work includes thechapbookOur Bodies & Other Fine Machines.Her work was named first runner-up for the 2020 Pacific Spirit Poetry Prize, winner of the 2019 Blue Mesa Review Summer Contest for poetry and a Best of the Net finalist.
Swolleningby Jason Purcell
InSwollening, Jason Purcell contemplates the intersection of queerness and illness. Part memoir, these poems explore what it's like to live in a homophobic world as a queer person. From heteronormativity to anxiety around desire and internalized homophobia, Purcell wonders how a sick, queer body living in a sick world moves towardhope.
Jason Purcell is a writer and musician currently living in Edmonton, where they are also the co-owner of Glass Bookshop.Swolleningis their first full-length collection.
You Still Look the Sameby Farzana Doctor
In her debut poetry collection, Farzana Doctor dives into the tumultuous decade of her forties. She explores mid-life breakups and dating, female genital cutting, racism, misogyny, sex, love and the ways in which human relationships are never how we expect them to be.
Doctor is an Ontario author and social worker. Her books include the novelsSeven,All Inclusive,Six Metres of PavementandStealing Nasreen. She won the 2011 Dayne Ogilvie Prize from the Writers' Trust of Canada for an emerging lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender writer.
Nothing Will Save Your Lifeby Nancy Jo Cullen
From kitten videos to confirmation bias and vintage Vivienne Westwood, these poems are an explosion of pop culture, femininity, sex, religion and motherhood.Nothing Will Save Your Lifetackles topics like body image, aging, climate change, capitalism and death, revealing what it's like to be alive in this moment.
Nancy Jo Cullen is a poet and writer. She is the author of three critically acclaimed books of poetry. Her short story collection,Canary, was winner of 2012 Metcalf-Rooke Award. In 2010, Cullen won the Dayne Ogilvie Prize, which recognizes emerging LGBTQ writers. She lives in Kingston, Ont.
Plenitudeby Daniel Sarah Karasik
Drawing on their personal experience in social and political advocacy, Daniel Sarah Karasik imagines a world that might be inPlenitude. Karasik contemplates how we might dream of and build a more humane future without cops, bosses, prisons and the oppressive regulation of gender and desire.
Daniel Sarah Karasik is a writer, playwright and poet from Toronto. They are the author of five books of drama, poetry and fiction. Karasikwon the 2012 CBC Short Story Prize.
Cut to Fortressby Tawahum Bige
InCut to Fortress, Tawahum Bige considers the possibility of decolonization through a personal lens. From familial conflicts to the death of his older brother, Bige examines his own origins and reconnects with the land and his Dene and Cree cultures.
Tawahum Bige is a utselke Dene, Plains Cree poet and spoken word artist from unceded Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-waututh territory. Their poems explore growth and resistance as a Two Spirit nonbinary artist. Bige's work can be found in publications like Red Rising Magazine, Prairie Fire, CV2 and Arc Poetry Magazine.
People Changeby Vivek Shraya
InPeople Change, multidisciplinary artist Vivek Shraya reflects on what motivates us to change and why we often fear it. From making resolutions to outgrowing relationships and dreams, the nonfiction book looks at why and how we are constantly contemplating who we want to be.
People Changeis a guide to celebrating the many versions of ourselves and inspires us to discover who we'll become next.
Shraya is a Canadian artist and author whose work in music, writing and visual art often transcends and overlaps with one another. Her books include the novelThe Subtweet, the longform essayI'm Afraid of Menand graphic novelDeath Threat.
Roomsby Sina Queyras
Thirty years ago, a professor threw a chair at Sina Queyras after they submitted an essay on Virginia Woolf. In their book, Queyras returns to that first encounter with Virignia Woolf and blends memoir, tweets, poetry and criticism to reflect on how they found their way as a young queer writer from a life of chaos to a public life as a writer.
Queyras is a poet and novelist from Montreal. Their other books includeMy Ariel,the poetry collectionLemon Hound, which received the Pat Lowther Award and a Lambda Literary Award, and her debut novelAutobiography of a Childhood, which was shortlisted for the Amazon.ca First Novel Award in 2011.
The Language We Were Never Taught To Speakby Grace Lau
The poems inThe Language We Were Never Taught To Speakare a form of therapy that, according to Lau, few Chinese Canadians ever get to experience. It delves into the shapes that love and apologies take:the eternal debt one takes on knowing they'll never be able to repay their parents, the coming out journey in a traditional household and the never ending task of trying to better understand the perspectives of your elders.
Grace Lau was raised in Vancouver and currently lives in Toronto.The Language We Were Never Taught to Speakis her first poetry collection.
Sulphurtongueby Rebecca Salazar
Sulphurtongueis the debut poetry collection by Rebecca Salazar. The wide array of poems explores how we create our identities and how they collide with and complicate each other. They take on the relationships to family, desire, religion, the land, politics, trauma and the natural world and how these things shape who we are.
Sulphurtonguewasonthe shortlist for the 2021 Governor General's Literary Award for poetry.
- Writers' Trust of Canada launches program to support books by BIPOC writers launched during pandemic
Salazaris a writer, editor and community organizer from New Brunswick. They edit the publications The FiddleheadandPlenitude.
The Untranslatable Iby Roxanna Bennett
Roxanna Bennett is a queer poet living with a disability, and explores both these identities in their work.The Untranslatable Icontinues this tradition as Bennett reflects on how their lived experiences have shaped them.
The Untranslatable Iwasonthe shortlist for the 2021 Governor General's Literary Award for poetry.
Bennett is a poet from Whitby, Ont. Theirother poetry collections includeUnmeaningableandThe Uncertainty Principle.Unmeaningablewon the 2020 Raymond Souster Award from the League of Canadian Poets and the2020 Trillium Book Award for poetry.
Umbilical Cordby Hasan Namir
Umbilical Cordis a collection of joyous free-verse poems that chronicle Hasan Namir's journey to fatherhood. The book isbrimmingwith hope and love, as Namir writes love letters to his new son,recounts how he and his husband fell in love and documents the complicated process of IVF and surrogacy.
Namir is an Iraqi Canadian author who currently lives in Vancouver. His other books includeGod in Pink, which won the Lambda Literary Award for best gay fiction, andWar/Torn, which was a 2020 Stonewall Book Awards winner.
Duct-Taped Rosesby Billeh Nickerson
While on a flight to Cairo,Nickerson listenedto The Bee Gees'70s pop hitHow Deep is Your Love20 times in a row. It inspired him to write about the depth of his own love, a poem that became part of his poetry collectionDuct-Taped Roses. The book's title, which refers to how Nickerson's father would use duct-tape to keep his airplanes together, is a nod to the gentle humour and heartbreak of the poetry as it examines the resiliency of love and family.
Nickersonis a writer from Halifax who nowlives in Vancouver. His other poetry collections includeThe Asthmatic Glassblower,McPoems,Impact: The Titanic PoemsandArtificial Cherry.He teaches creative writing atKwantlen Polytechnic University.
Red Xby David Demchuk
InRed X,men are disappearing from the gay village in Toronto. Their disappearances are ignored by the police and media, but they rock the community the same community dealingwith the HIV/AIDS crisis, police brutality and homophobia. This story unfolds alongside author David Demchuk's own story, as he explores the relationship between queerness and horror and how the scariest monsters that move through his community aren't imaginary, they are all too real.
Demchuk is a writer and a CBC communicationsofficer. His first book,The Bone Mother,was longlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize.
Care Ofby Ivan Coyote
Care Ofis a collection of moving correspondence Ivan Coyote wrote in the early daysof the COVID-19 lockdown, in response to lettersand communicationsthey had received, some of which dated back to 2009.The correspondenceranges from personal letters to Facebook messages to notes received after performing onstage,Coyote told CBC Radio host Dave White onAirplay.
Ivan Coyote is a writer, storyteller and performer from Yukon. They havewritten more than a dozen books, created four short films and released three albums combining storytelling with music, and are known for exploring gender identity and queer liberation in their writing. Their other books includeTomboy Survival Guide,Rebent Sinner,Gender Failure,One in Every Crowdand the novelBow Grip.Coyote won the 2020 Freedom to Read Award, in recognition of their body of work that examines class, gender identity and social justice.
The Pumpby Sydney Hegele (formerly Sydney Warner Brooman)
InThe Pump, the small southern Ontario town known as The Pump has a tainted water supply, an apathetic municipal government and the decay of rural domesticity. In this book of interconnected stories, the characters must figure out their own morality while living on land that's slowly killing them. No one can escape The Pump's sacrificial games.
Sydney Hegeleis a writer living in Toronto.Their storyThe Bottomwas shortlisted for The Malahat Review's 2020 Open Season Awards. They have been published in American Chordata, Thorn Literary Magazine and other literary journals.The Pump, their first book, wonthe 2022 ReLit Award for short fiction.
All the Rageby Brad Fraser
All the Rageis a memoir by Brad Fraserthat doesn't hold back in reflecting on hisimpoverished and abusive childhood. The frank and witty memoir looks at his life's trajectoryfrom living with his teenage parents in motel rooms and shacks inAlberta and Northern British Columbia, experiencing prejudice around his gender identity, and how he got to beknown, both at home and abroad, asacontroversial and acclaimed playwright.
Fraser is an author, TV writer,cultural commentatorandone of Canada's best known playwrights. The Edmonton-born Fraserhas written for magazines and newspapers, including the Globe and Mailand theNational Post, and for three seasons was a TV writer and producer onQueer As Folk.
On Propertyby Rinaldo Walcott
InOn Property,author and academic Rinaldo Walcott examinesthe legacy ofindenturedservitudeandracial slavery and castsan analytical eye on the complex concept of property.The pamphletbook calls for systemic changes and sets forththeargumentthatowning property should beabolished.
Walcott is a professor at the University of Toronto, where he is the director of women and gender studiesandteaches at theOntario Institute for Studies in Education.
Why I Was Lateby Charlie Petch
Petch's debut collection of poems,Why I Was Late, explores decades-long trans/personal coming of age. The collection combines text with performance, sharing wisdom, humour and personal experience.
Charlie Petch is a musician, spoken word artist and playwright based in Toronto. Hewas the 2017 poet of honour for Spoken Word Canada and the founder of Hot Damn It's a Queer Slam. Petch's poemHey You Lucy Liuwas longlisted for the 2021 CBC Poetry Prize.Why I Was Late won a 2022 ReLit Award in the poetry category.
Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Deadby Emily Austin
Everyone in This Room Will Someday BeDeadfollows the misadventures of Gilda, a 20-something atheist hired at a local Catholic church to replace theirrecently deceased receptionist, Grace. When Gilda receives email messages from the old receptionist'sfriend, she takes on Grace's identity to avoid breaking the sad news. Things unravel when the police show up at the church's door, investigating Grace's suspicious death.
Emily Austin is a writer based in Ottawa.She studied English literature and library science at Western University.Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Deadis her debut novel; it was a finalist for the2022 Amazon Canada First Novel Award.
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