Edmonton Lesbian+ Book Club

Thanks everybody for the discussion of Shamim Sarif's I Can't Think Straight - book and movie - the other night! It was great. Shamim kindly offered to answer some questions about the book based on our discussion - we are so appreciative! And we'll of course post the Q&A! This month we're reading Nairne Holtz's latest, This One's Going to Last Forever . Montreal-based Holtz is wonderful writer, we know cuz we read her first novel, The Skin Beneath . Hoping we'll get in touch with Nairne again, as last time we read her work, she was generous enough to visit us in person. This'll be December's title. In January we're reading Sappho! And just an early heads up - we'll meet the second Tuesday of the month in January - just this once to allow everyone to recover from the holidays.

Excited! We're reading Shamim Sarif's I Can't Think Straight . And we're hoping to watch the movie too, however we might arrange for that. I watched the movie awhile ago and I loved it. It's kind of a weird thing to be reading the book AFTER watching the movie, usually one does that in the reverse order, don't you think? But then again, it seems that (correct me if I'm wrong) Sarif wrote the screenplay first, then the book so maybe it is the correct order!? Lu Vicker's Breathing Underwater was a good read, I'm not sure everyone agreed because attendance was ... LOW... last night! I liked it. Very good teenage angst. Good. This month desperately seeking a lesbian novel featuring roller derby? Too great a wish? Come on, help me find it? And one more thing - we want to read Jackie Dumas' novel Madeleine and the Angel . Anyone know if it's still in print?

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...

Ch-ch-ch-changes! We've made some adjustments to our reading list because of the availability of the books. So! Please take note - this months book is now Trumpet , by Jackie Kay. We pushed back Breathing Underwater and I Can't Think Straight. By the way, we may be watching the movie version of I Can't Think Straight if we can't get books! Yay - it's great. Discussion of The Slow Fix was good. Short stories are harder to discuss, but we managed. Everyone loves Ivan's conversational style and many of the stories. Our big question, though? The title. What is the slow fix? What's being fixed? Did it get fixed? Or is it like a drug fix, soothing? Lots of wonderings about how autobiographical these stories are, and some dissatisfaction with the relationship mentioned in many of the stories disappearing very suddenly. Although, relationships do that sometimes, don't they. Working on some further additions to the reading list asap! Love to have...

Book club romance, real or imaginary? Both! This weekend 2 book club members, who met at book club, got married! This is the second wedding borne of the book club. I love it. I also love that we're reading Ivan E. Coyote's The Slow Fix this month, because, well, I love Ivan E. Coyote, and well, when I speak of imaginary romance, it's because of my not-so-secret crush on her. Ever since the one time I saw her perform in person about um 10 years ago, I have been totally captivated. By her words, her stories, the way she tells them. (I also flirted my ass off, to no avail. Cut me some slack, my mom was with me at the reading, she cramped my style. :) ANYWAY, we are reading The Slow Fix this month! We were originally scheduled to read Breathing Underwater by Lu Vickers but had to switch them because the bookstore didn't have enough Vickers in stock, but had lots of Ivan, good indie Canadian bookstore that it is. Okay, so, got it? August=Ivan. September=Vickers. And we...

This month we're reading Magdalena Zurawski's The Bruise . It reminded me of H.D. and Elizabeth Smart. Some sort of melding of their styles. Moments not stripped down to their bare bones, but described in impossible detail, pages on one single moment, breath, look, thought. I got some suggestions for future reading too. Jackie Kay's Trumpet sounds pretty interesting. Lucy Jane Bledsoe has a new book, The Big Bang Symphony , that looks really good. Also, it's a book that comes with a trailer . Very amusing. And lastly, Shamim Sarif's latest book I Can't Think Straight looks really good. I follow her on facebook . She's a busy woman. Shamim is equally accomplished as an author and film director and this book is being made into a movie starring Lisa Ray. Uh, I'm in! Adding to reading list immediately. And we have to arrange to see the movie too. Yes, I said "have to." What.

Local poet Laurie MacFayden read for us last night from her newly published collection of poetry, titled "White Shirt." Lucky us, she also read from some new material she's working on, and read from all the juiciest sapphic selections in her gravelly melodic voice. Some of my favourite lines "she tugs my belt/i'm in a trance she's a sexy honeyboy and i don't stand a chance" "does she know how much i want the voice on the phone to be you/to be, always, always you ... i want it to be you/ for me you/ wanting me" If you want to know which poem and what, you'll have to buy her book! Thank you Laurie! It was wonderful. Book clubbers? Next month, Magdalena Zurawski. Be sending those suggestions to add to the reading list, pls!

1. Launch of White Shirt / Dektet 2010 ( details are on facebook here ) - Tuesday April 27, 2010 Our good friend Laurie McFayden is one of 10 authors whose books are being launched at this event. Since Laurie will be joining our book club to read from and chat about her first book, Whit e Shirt , at our June meeting, it might be nice to support her launch too. 2. WE ARE FAMILY ( details on facebook here ) - Thursday April 29, 2010 Celebrate the struggles and triumphs of queer parents in Canada as well as the publication of TWO groundbreaking Canadian books: Who's Your Daddy?? And Other Writings on Queer Parenting And Baby Makes More: Known Donors, Queer Parents and Our Unexpected Families Be there or be square!

There is much to say. Thanks so much to Chandra Mayor for her unexpected visit with the book club last week. It was truly delightful. Chandra has this delightful habit of ending even the most sombre or tragic of stories with an exuberant laugh. It's awesome. And the more irreverent poem "green eggs and cunt" was pretty great. The room was busting with laughter. I was tickled that she read from my favourites of the short stories in "All the Pretty Girls." We're reading Shani Mootoo's Valmiki's Daughter this month. Anybody have discussion questions to offer?? Here's an interview with her about the book. And third of all, local wonder poet Laurie McFayden is launching her first book of poetry! As part of Frontenac House's launch event ( see details on facebook ) Laurie's "White Shirt" promises to be fantastic. I plan to attend the launch - hope some other book club members will join us - it's on Tuesday, April 27, 7 pm at th...

Hey everyone, Please, please, please make a special effort to come out to book club next Tuesday for a special get-together with Winnipeg author Chandra Mayor , whose "All the Pretty Girls" was one of our selections last fall. Chandra's going to read, and chat with us and commiserate about life, I think. Can't wait. Please come to the event at Audrey's bookstore, at 7:00 pm on Tuesday, April 6, 2010. This is a public event, so please invite your friends - doesn't have to be book clubbers only! 7:00!!! (not 7:30 as previously advertised..) (side note : yes we're postponing Shani Mootoo's Valmiki's Daughter until next month to accommodate Chandra's sudden availability)

poetry and music with some feisty ladies... including Laurie McFayden, poet, artist, friend and visitor of book club! Saturday, April 3, 2010 8:00pm - 11:00pm Axis Cafe 10349 Jasper Avenue

Lambda Literary Foundation from Word Is Up on Vimeo . The Lambda Lit Award Finalists are up: Lesbian Fiction Dismantled , by Jennifer McMahon (HarperCollins) A Field Guide to Deception , by Jill Malone (Bywater Books) Forgetting the Alamo, Or, Blood Memory, by Emma Pérez (University of Texas Press) Risk , by Elena Dykewomon (Bywater Books) This One's Going to Last Forever , by Nairne Holtz (Insomniac Press) Lesbian Debut Fiction The Creamsickle , by Rhiannon Argo (Spinsters Ink) The Bigness of the World , by Lori Ostlund (University of Georgia Press) Land Beyond Maps, by Maida Tilchen (Savvy Press) More of This World or Maybe Another , by Barb Johnson (HarperCollins) Verge , by Z Egloff (Bywater Books)

Hi all, I forgot to blog about The Gilda Stories . For me, something of a "vampire stories are hokey" kind of person, it was impressive. It was well-written. The transitions were great. The vampire stuff wasn't hokey. It was kind of interesting. To me!!! To others in the book club, who actually appreciate vampire stories, it was better than that! Consensus seemed to be all thumbs up except for some lack of love for the ending. Wrapped up too quickly, too much of a twist in character, and just yech on the future stuff that wasn't far enough in the future to be believable... I think it would make a GREAT movie. Especially if the last section with the hunters was left out and she instead went and fell in love with Aurelia's great-granddaughter!

Author Cris Beam's website has a teacher's guide for Transparent: Love, Family and Living the T with Transgender Teenagers . The guide could also work as discussion questions for us. Last month we talked about having discussion questions in mind while reading... so. Take a look. Here are a couple that caught my attention... 1) Cris Beam outlines the difference between being transgender and transsexual. Were you familiar with this distinction before reading the book? 2) How have you defined family throughout your life? Who have your best “parents” been? Did you have the equivalent of a “drag mother,” someone you were not related to but who modeled your ideal and gave you entry into an otherwise closed community? 3) An element of adolescence is experimentation. How, ultimately, do we know which aspects of our behavior are pure experimentation and which ones reflect our true identity? Have you ever encountered a situation in which the line between healthy and harmful experimenta...

The annual Canada Reads festivities have started and guess what? One of earliest reads in this book is one of the five finalists this year. I thought maybe, if people are interested, we might revisit Fall on Your Knees by Ann-Marie MacDonald at our next meeting. Does anybody remember it? Did anybody read it? I remember I myself couldn't quite finish it as it was too disturbing and sad for me. But maybe I'll try and pick it up again. Of course, this would only be in addition to our current month's pick: Transparent , by Cris Beam.

An event happening in Edmonton... check it out on Facebook! Hiromi Goto at Olive!