International House of Pancakes.

In case you didn't know what IHOP stood for. April's selection is The IHOP Papers by Ali Leibegott.

We met last night to chat about Dionne Brand's novel What We All Long For. There was a lot to say. For one thing, we tried to answer the question - what did the main characters long for? Did they long for love? For release from the ties to their families' troubles? I myself loved the depiction of Toronto - having lived there myself for a couple of years. It felt really honest. Not everyone loved it, but all of us found it fascinating to read and discuss. The book made us examine the immigrant experience, race, familial relationships, art, music, and on and on and on!

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2022 Reading List!!!

2022 Edmonton Lesbian+ Book Club Reading Line Up January: Iron Goddess of Mercy by Larissa Lai (American-born Chinese Canadian lesbian writer); 2021 epic poem February: The Gospel of Breaking by Jillian Christmas (Black Canadian lesbian writer); 2020 poetry collection March: You Exist Too Much by Zaina Arafat (LGBTQ Palestinian American writer); 2020 novel April: Shadow Life by Hiromi Goto (queer Japanese Canadian writer), illustrated by Ann Xu (Asian American artist); 2021 graphic novel May: Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex by Angela Chen (asexual Asian American writer); 2020 non-fiction June: Crip Kinship: The Disability Justice & Art Activism of Sins Invalid by Shayda Kafai (American queer disabled WOC writer); 2021 non-fiction July: Little Blue Encyclopedia (for Vivian) by Hazel Jane Plante (White Canadian queer trans writer); 2019 novel August: 47,000 Beads by Koja Adeyoha (Indigenous-Oglala Lakota, two-spirit lesbian writer) and...

reading ideas...

Just tossing around some ideas for our reading list. We haven't read any classics lately - Radclyffe Hall's tragic novel of lesbian love called The Well of Loneliness was suggested. HD's HERmione might be another esoteric choice... In 2002, classicist and poet Anne Carson produced If Not, Winter, an exhaustive translation of Sappho's poetry fragments. Her line-by-line translations, complete with brackets where the ancient papyrus sources break off, are meant to capture both the original's lyricism and its present fragmentary nature. Biography/autobiography was also suggested - there are a few choices I've found. All You Get is Me, a bio of k.d. lang by Victoria Starr or k.d.lang Carrying The Torch by William Robertson. Eight Bullets: One Woman's Story of Surviving Anti-Gay Violence by Claudia Brenner. The End of Innocence by Chastity Bono. Love, Ellen by Betty Degeneres. Michelle Cliff might be a good choice with Claiming an Identity They Taught Me...

future thoughts?

Some items for future consideration... Torchlight to Valhalla, a 1938 novel by American author Gale Wilhelm - considered a classic of lesbian fiction, and published only 10 years later than The Well of Loneliness, but (quite rare for lesbian fiction in this time) the ending is actually satisfactory for the lesbian characters. It was also reissued in 1953 by Lion Publishers, but titled The Strange Path . It was re-issued once more in 1985 by Naiad Press under its original title. The Group is a classic from American author Mary McCarthy. Sounds like this 1962 novel is the reason for all those rumours about Vassar! This one is exciting - lesbian fiction from a young Muslim woman from Indonesia. Herlina Tien Suhesti's novel Garis Tepi Seorang Lesbian (The Margin of a Lesbian) was a massive (and unexpected) bestseller in Indonesia. Does anyone know if it's available in English? Y o-Yo Boing! by Giannina Braschi looks fascinating, although apparently it is written in Englis...

Edmonton Lesbian+ Book Club

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