Writing Outside The Margins
Queer Literary Festival
Sunday August 24th, 2008

Featured Authors John Cameron Mitchell, Michelle Tea and Kinnie Starr

Writing Outside the Margins returns to the streets of Toronto on Sunday August 24th, after the incredible success of the 2007 inaugural event. This all day festival features an array of activities for everyone, including panel discussions, an open mic stage, a poetry slam, children’s area, and exclusive readings by all confirmed authors.

Once again Church Street will become a pedestrian-only zone where LGBT readers and writers will join forces to participate in a day-long interactive celebration of queer literary arts. This year provides a completely different roster of over a dozen authors soliciting a summer sensory exploration. As well, after the popularity of last year, there will be an expanded Pink Ink Open Mic series, where anyone can garner their 15 minutes of fame. The three featured authors bring a wealth of creative influx representative of their home towns New York City, San Francisco and Vancouver.

Headliners

	John Cameron Mitchell directed, wrote and starred in the film Hedwig and the Angry Inch (2001), for which he received the Best Director and Audience awards at the Sundance Film Festival and the Teddy Award for best Gay Film at the Berlin Film Festival. The film was honored as Best Directorial Debut by the National Board of Review, the Gotham Awards and the L.A. Film Critics Society. John was also nominated for a Golden Globe as Best Actor. He was executive producer of Jonathan Caouette's award-winning autobiographical film Tarnation (2004). His second film Shortbus (2006) won various awards in Athens, Zurich and Gijon Festivals. As an actor he appeared in the original Broadway casts of The Secret Garden, Six Degrees of Separation and Big River. Off-Broadway he won an Obie Award for the stage production of Hedwig and another for his performance in The Destiny of Me by Larry Kramer. He has directed music videos for Scissor Sisters and Bright Eyes.
	Michelle Tea is the author of four memoirs, including the Lambda-winning Valencia and the illustrated Rent Girl; the poetry collection The Beautiful, and the novel Rose of No Man's Land. She created the legendary Sister Spit all-girl open and mic and performance tours of the 90s, which have been revived under the name Sister Spit: The Next Generation and is currently dragging a whole new ear of queer-centric female-ish performance literature around the US. Tea is the creator of Radar Production, a literary non-profit that produces readings in San Francisco and beyond.
	Kinnie Starr Alida Kinnie Starr is one of Canada's most adored and critically acclaimed underground musicians. Widely known in hip hop circles as an artist with a strikingly authentic voice, Starr has been blazing trails since 1996 with her beat slamming recordings, outspoken race and gender politics, edgy visual art and stunning good looks. The New Yorker described Starr as "edgy and enchanting". Japan Times wrote, "never didactic, always intelligent". Canada's own Globe and Mail described Starr as a "raw and feral talent". Having sidestepped the machinery of "fame" by squeezing out of a record deal with Mercury/Island/DefJam in 1999, Starr chose instead to forge a slow burning, multi faceted career. Since 1999, she has worked for Lakeshore Records (USA), Maple Music Canada, and is currently signed to the illustrious Ole Music Publishing as a songwriter. In 2003 Starr sung and cat walked in Las Vegas for Cirque Du Soleils’s naughty X-rated show, “Zumanity”. That same year she was nominated for a Juno as Best New Artist (she lost to crooner Michael Buble). Starr played the National Aboriginal Achievement Awards in 2004 and 2006, and has had her music featured prominently in The LWord, Zellers, and Catherine Hardwicke's feature film, "Thirteen". Kinnie Starr's latest artistic ventures are alongside the fabulous Chin Injeti and Parlange Jesus out of "The Hastings Set", Vancouver, BC. This new EP, "A Different Day", is a tight collection of raw, sexy, 'chanteuse' songs exclusively about love. For the first time in her career, Starr leaves the bravado of hip hop/rock for the intimacy of songs so naked and tender they stop traffic. The album will be available in 2009 following closely on the heels of Starr's first book through House Of Parlance, entitled "How I Learned To Run". After four albums and a decade of international touring, this is her long awaited book of poetry,photos and drawings; a contemplative look at sexuality, love, hisory and the complexities of being part Mohawk in a Canadian family that has yet to come to terms with its indigenous roots.

Confirmed Authors

	Zoe Whittall's first novel, Bottle Rocket Hearts, was named one of the Best Books of 2007 by The Globe and Mail and Quill & Quire magazine. Now Magazine awarded her the title of Best Emerging Author of 2007. She has published two books of poetry, The Best Ten Minutes of Your Life (McGilligan Books, 01) and The Emily Valentine Poems (Snare Books, 06). She is a freelance arts critic for a variety of Canadian magazines. The Globe and Mail called her "the cockiest, brashest, funniest, toughest, most life-affirming, elegant, scruffy, no-holds-barred writer to emerge from Montreal since Mordecai Richler…”. Her work has been anthologized widely in books like Brazen Femme: Queering Femininity edited by Anna Camilleri and Chloe Brushwood-Rose, Baby Remember My Name edited by Michelle Tea, Breathing Fire 2: Canada’s New Poets edited by Lorna Crozier and Patrick Lane and many more. Her third volume of poems, Precordial Thump, is launching this fall with Exile Editions. You can visit her online at http://zoewhittall.blogspot.com. She lives in Toronto.
	Nina Arsenault By her early twenties, transsexual Nina Arsenault had two postgraduate degrees and was one of the youngest university course instructors in Canada. She shocked her colleagues by sashaying away from academia to place an ad in the adult pages of Eye Weekly. Nina used her sex trade income to pay cash for the 60 cosmetic surgeries and procedures that hyper-feminized her body. Her tumultuous love life, her startling transformation from an awkward man who once resembled Crispin Glover to a shemale bombshell, and her adventures in the sex business have been the subjects of numerous mainstream TV documentaries, radio shows and print articles. Finally, discontent to be only the subject of media, Nina took ownership of her own stories and became a regular columnist for Fab magazine. She has gone on to write for The National Post and is currently writing her memoirs called The Silicone Diaries. In the summer of 2007, Pride Toronto and Toronto’s mayor, David Miller, honoured Nina with the prestigious "Unstoppable Award" for her cultural contributions to our understanding of sex and gender, for living unapologetically in a self designed identity and for embodying the theme of that year’s Pride celebration. Nina recently appeared onstage at the Toronto Fringe Festival acting in Sky Gilbert’s Ladylike, which was written expressly for her to star in. She has also adapted her Fab column into a one woman show called The T-Girl Monologues which premieres at The Theatre on the Edge Festival in Saint John, New Brunswick, in August 2008. Nina is a regular guest lecturer in Sexuality Studies and Sociology departments at Canadian universities. Her writing is now required reading at in least four Canadian universities.
	Todd Klinck is an award winning novelist (Tacones), a Genie nominated screenwriter (Sugar) and an acclaimed columnist (Trade, fab Magazine, 2002-2005). He has also written for the National Post, Saturday Night Magazine, and Bil Bo K (Belgium). He currently runs a pansexual nightclub in Toronto (Goodhandy's) and is a prolific pornographer, with a filmography of over 150 X-rated gay and shemale porn videos.
	Daniel MacIvor has been creating new theatre since 1986 and was for twenty years Artistic Director of da da kamera an international touring company based in Toronto which he ran with Sherrie Johnson. His published work includes: See Bob Run, Never Swim Alone, You Are Here, In On It, How It Works and I Still Love You: Five Plays which won the Governor General’s Award for Drama in 2006. With Daniel Brooks he created the solo shows House, Here Lies Henry, Monster and Cul-de-sac. He received an Obie and a GLAAD Award for his play In On It which was presented at PS122 in September of 2001. Also a film maker he has written and directed the feature films Past Perfect and Wilby Wonderful and co-wrote and stars in Whole New Thing. He was recently Playwright in Residence at the Banff Playwright’s Colony where he was developing his new play Communion and is developing a screenplay for Bruce McDonald called 45’s He is represented by Thomas Pearson at ICM Talent. Check out Daniel’s web log at danielmacivor.com.
	RM Vaughan is a Toronto-based writer and video artist originally from New Brunswick. He is the author of eight books, including Troubled: A Memoir in Poems and Fragments, published in the spring of 2008 by Coach House Books. Vaughan writes about art and culture for a wide variety of publications, and his plays, poems, essays, and fiction are collected in over 40 anthologies. Vaughan's day job is the column "The Q&A", wherein he bothers celebrities for The Globe and Mail. Please visit www.rmvaughan.ca
	Derek McCormack's most recent novel is The Show That Smells (ECW Press, October 2008). His previous novel, The Haunted Hillbilly (ECW Press, 2003), was named a book of the year by both the Globe & Mail and the Village Voice, and was nominated for a Lambda Award for Best Gay Fiction. McCormack writes on fashion-related articles for the National Post. He lives in Toronto.
	Trish Salah is a Montreal-based writer, critic and teacher at the Simone de Beauvoir Institute and Bishop's university. She writes at, and interrogates, the intersections of transgender, queer and anti-colonial projects. Her first book, Wanting In Arabic, was published in 2002 and her new manuscript, Breath Cuts, is nearing completion. Her poetry is forthcoming in West Coast Line and A Gathering of Tribes magazines.
	Anand Mahadevan is a writer and teacher based in Toronto; he was born in India and educated there as well as the US, Canada and Germany. He travels extensively and his writing explores how individuals are marginalized in social structures with a particular focus on kinship and family ties. He is the author of the critically acclaimed novel The Strike, which documents the uncertain coming-of-age of its queer child protagonist in 1980s India. Currently, Anand is completing a book about the lives and loves of a young Muslim student in North America before and after 9-11.
	Jeffrey Round is author of The P-Town Murders (Cormorant Books) and A Cage of Bones (Gay Men’s Press.) Forthcoming books include Death In Key West and The Honey Locust (2009) and Vanished In Vallarta (2010). His short fiction and poetry have been included in numerous journals and anthologies, including A Casualty of War (Arcadia Books, Peter Burton, ed., 2008), Bent on Writing (Canadian Women’s Press, Elizabeth Ruth, ed.) and Bend Sinister (GMP, Peter Burton, ed.). His short film, My Heart Belongs To Daddy, won awards for Best Director and Best Use of Music. Visit his website: www.jeffreyround.com.
	Hadassah Hill is a Brooklyn-based queer femme writer, creative, and activist who performs under the name Axon D'Luxe. She has worked in independent print, web, theater and audio production for 10 years, is currently the Art Director of the award-winning $pread Magazine [www.spreadmagazine.org], and is currently producing Ice-9, her second album and a graphic novel. D'Luxe's electrotext has been curated & performed all over North America, including at Queeruption 10, The Seattle Science Cabarets, at the Radar Reading series, Sista'hood, Femme 2006, Ladyfest, Hysteria Festival, High Femme Friday [at Buddies in Bad Times Theatre], Mayworks: Festival of Working People in the Arts; at colleges & universities, at her own and colleagues' shows, and with the now retired all-femme troupe, Trash & Ready. As a performing artist, she talks about the blurry lines between choice and situation, identity and representation, science and spirit. And she makes her own music and sometimes raps. She is currently completing her MFA in DIY by teaching no/low-cost multimedia strategies and is committed to empowering individuals to speak for themselves using new technologies, and to creating representations of the diverse communities she embodies using self-taught multimedia techniques. www.hadassahsbizzare.com
	Peter Dubé is the author of the chapbook Vortex Faction Manifesto (Vortex Editions, 2001), the novel Hovering World (DC Books 2002) and At the Bottom of the Sky, a collection of linked short fiction (DC Books, 2007). He is also the editor of the anthology Madder Love: Queer Men and the Precincts of Surrealism (Rebel Satori, 2008). In addition to writing fiction, he is a widely published cultural critic with essays on books and the visual arts appearing in journals such as Ashe, ESSE and Spirale, and in exhibition publications for various galleries, among them SKOL, Mercer Union and the Leonard and Bina Ellen Gallery of Concordia University. Peter lives and works in Montreal.
	Ryan Kamstra is a bi poet and songwriter originally from Thunder Bay, currently residing in Toronto. Between 2006-2007 he wrote a column on Bisexuality The B-word for abOUT magaine. He has one collection of poetry lATE cAPITALIST sUBLIME (2002 Insomniac Press) and has a new collection upcoming in Fall 2008: into the drowned world, my transparent fame, poems for a future, poems for a film (2008 Insomniac Press). He has appeared in publications and anthologies online, in Canada and internationally including Velvet Mafia, Suspect Thoughts, Everything I Have Is Blue: Short Fiction by Working-Class Men About More-or-Less Gay Life (2006 Suspect Thoughts), 100 Poets Against The War, This magazine and nth position. His writing also has been adapted to film, Darby and the Angels (2003 Margaux Williamson), and was an entry in 2007s Toronto International Film Festival for their Wavelength series: tHE aCROBAT, adapted from a poem of the same name by San Francisco-based experimental film-maker Chris Kennedy. His poetry (pampered brats for peace) has also been graphic-novelized by Montreal artist and poet Sherwin Tjia and translated into French. Two albums of solo folk punk were released independently, aLL fALL doWN (2002) and i want an army (2005). He currently song-writes and performs with the queer-arts band Tomboyfriend who have appeared at such Toronto series as Wavelength, Pontiac Quarterly, Pride, Queer West Fest and The Box. Their song "The End of Poverty" has received play with CBC Metro Morning and Brave New Waves, and whose first full-length album If You Like This Planet should be released later this year. Lyrics for the song "Water Park on the Bonfire" will appear in Margaux Williamson's 2008 film Teenager Hamlet 2006 in which he was also a performer. Current activist projects include the knitgoods-for-the-homeless drive Streetknit and the anti-events courier service, The Social Debt Couriers, who, for a small donation to a homelessness service provider, provide hand-delivered customized regrets letters to events for Toronto's chronically culturally over-extended. He has been called "Heir apparent to the dissenting tradition in Canadian poetry" and his music has been characterized as "romantic post-Marxism in an polymorphic-bestiality-blues ballet, obsessed with global capital and melancholy sex, as if Xiu Xiu were making out with Lou Reed in a hotel bar in north Ontario."
	Stewart Lewis is a singer songwriter and novelist based out of New York City. His first novel ROCKSTARLET, about a closeted rock star, is also available from Alyson Books. He has performed all over the world and has opened for Sheryl Crow, Shawn Colvin, and Ani DiFranco. His songs have been featured on the TV shows Dawson’s Creek, Party of Five, Joan of Arcadia, Laguna Beach, Biggest Loser, and Ghost Whisperer. He recently became the first artist signed to Regent Entertainment’s new music label, HERE! Tunes. For more information, visit www.myspace.com/stewartlewis
	Tamai Kobayashi is the author of Exile and the Heart (Women's Press) and Quixotic Erotic (Arsenal Pulp Press). She lives in Toronto.
	Geneva St. James has recently returned from a decade of living in Tokyo and taken up residence in a slum cottage in Nelson, B.C. She has done radio commentary for the CBC and written various print articles. Her debut novel, Made For You, a fun look at rejection, was published in February by Alpha World Press and is destined to replace RubyFruit Jungle as the definitive lesbian classic. Geneva likes to explore the torments and solaces of the individual, especially as they relate to that hotbed of romantic dysfunction and intrigue, the lesbian community. (alphaworldpress.com)
	John Miller's first novel, The Featherbed, received stellar reviews and earned a devoted readership upon its release in 2002. Set in the early 1900s in Manhattan’s Lower-east Side and in Toronto, The Featherbed is the story of a woman whose unlikely friendship with a pregnant prostitute begets several tightly held family secrets. His second novel, A Sharp Intake of Breath is the story of Toshy Wolfman, born in 1916 with a split lip and cleft palate. Toshy is imprisoned after being caught stealing a valuable and famous diamond, the Orange Sunset. But Toshy’s story is not his alone - it is shared with his two sisters: Lil, a radical and devotee of anarchist Emma Goldman; and Bessie, who goes to work for one of Goldman’s enemies, the owners of the Orange Sunset. Both novels are published in Canada by Simon & Pierre Fiction, a member of The Dundurn Group (www.dundurn.com). John Miller grew up in Toronto, Ontario and holds a B.A. from McGill University and an M.A. in International Development from the Institute of Social Studies in The Hague. He began his career in social services, rising quickly to become an Executive Director of a palliative care hospice at the age of twenty-six. In his late twenties, he began to focus on his true passion, fiction writing. Besides novels, John has written on culture and politics and is currently a consultant in policy and organizational development with local and international not-for-profits and governments working with children affected by HIV/AIDS. His consulting work has taken him to Europe, Asia, Central America and Africa, but responsibilities to a chocolate Labrador retriever ensure that he maintains a home base in Toronto. John’s novel A Sharp Intake of Breath recently won the Martin and Beatrice Fischer Award for Fiction for 2008, and John was one of three finalists for the 2008 Dayne Ogilvie Grant for Emerging Gay Writers.

Rounding out this amazing roster of entertainment is two of Toronto’s most outrageous personalities, Ryan G. Hinds and Kristyn Dunnion, who will MC the stage readings.

Ryan G. Hinds is an award-winning actor, singer, dancer, writer, artist and activist. One of the founders of the ARTWHERK! Collective, Ryan has burned up stages at Buddies in Bad Times, Theatre Passe Muraille, Tarragon, The Gladstone, Circa, Revival, Goodhandy's, and Nuit Blanche. Over the past year, Ryan has written pieces for Salaam: Reflections and International Day for Human Rights; created (with Chelsea P. Manders) a new show, Glitter & Thorns; was seen in the African and Caribbean Council on HIV/AIDS national ad campaign for HIV/AIDS prevention; and completed his first solo tour. Ryan appeared in both the movie and a stage production of Hedwig & the Angry Inch (and was proudly the first actor of color to do the title role onstage) and has shared stages and screens with people like Liza Minnelli, Sky Gilbert, Damien Atkins, Ina unt Ina, Tara-Michelle Ziniuk, NSYNC's Lance Bass, and Gregory Hines. More info than you can shake a tube of glitter at can be found at ryanghinds.ca.

Dunnion is the author of MISSING MATTHEW (2003), a quirky mystery for rebels of all ages and MOSH PIT (2004), a queer punk novel for teens. Some of her short stories can be found in Periphery: Erotic Lesbian Futures (Lethe press, 2008), With a Rough Tongue: Femmes Write Porn (Arsenal Pulp Press, 2005) and Geeks, Misfits, and Outlaws (McGilligan Press, 2003). Her most recent novel, BIG BIG SKY (2008), is a queer futuristic love story, an anti-authoritarian bedtime fable, and a serious kick in the corporate pants.
Kristyn is also the trash talking hostess, Miss Kitty Galore.
Visit her at www.kristyndunnion.com

Additional Programming Notes

A' is for Orange presents: Over the Rainbow

Queer Writers of Colour and Two Spirited Writers discuss the challenges and rewards of writing, publishing and building community. Who publishes the stories of queer writers of colour and two spirited writers? What festivals program our work? Where in the literary community are our voices represented? Join us for a lively panel discussion exploring these and other questions.

Panelists include:

trey anthony
Farzana Doctor
Hope Engle
Dianah Smith
Moderated by:
OmiSoore Dryden

Poetry Slam!

Yehuda Fisher returns as host for Writing Outside the Margins second annual Poetry Slam! Come out to watch the vicious verse competition or maybe even sign up and compete yourself!

Pink Ink Open Mic

This is your chance to shine and present your work at the Pink Ink Open Mic. All writers are welcome to come and read on our open mic stage-expanded to two hours this year! Hosted by Karine Silverwoman and the Pink Ink crew. Sign up to read as early as you can, those two hours will fill up fast!

Kick-Off Party!

Writing Outside the Margins Kick Off Party 2008!

Reading Schedule

	North Stage Church & Alexander	South Stage Church & Wellesley
11:00	Jeffrey Round	Hadassah Hill
11:30	Geneva St. James	Daniel MacIvor
12:00	Derek McCormack	Tamai Kobayashi
12:30	Zoe Whittall	Anand Mahadevan
1:00	John Miller	Michelle Tea
1:30		Michelle Tea Q&A
2:00	Trish Salah	RM Vaughan
2:30	Peter Dubé	Nina Arsenault
3:00	John Cameron Mitchell
3:30	John Cameron Mitchell Q&A
4:00	Over the Rainbow	Pink Ink Open Mic
4:30
5:00	Ryan Kamstra
5:30	Todd Klinck
6:00	Poetry Slam	Stewart Lewis
6:30		Kinnie Starr

Who Put This Together?

The WRITING OUTSIDE THE MARGINS festival of queer literature is brought to you by Xtra, (www.xtra.ca), which has been proudly supporting and connecting Toronto's queer communities since 1984.

Brandon Sawh (Xtra’s Community Relations Manager) and Jon Pressick (Publisher of TRADE: Queer Things magazine) are co-producing the festival, and a host of other volunteers.

Thanks to our Sponsors, Supporters and Collaborators!

	Xtra
	Church Wellesley Village BIA http://www.churchwellesleyvillage.ca/

How can you support the festival?

• Get a booth or advertise in our program!  Booth info is here and here.

• Head over to Church Street on Sunday, August 24 and take it all in! Celebrate queer literature with our communities!

• Make a donation in order to support our infrastructure costs and the authors! Find out more by emailing brandon.sawh@xtra.ca.

• Volunteer! You will find our volunteer registration form here and the explanation of things we need help with here. E-mail brandon.sawh@xtra.ca to explore the possibilities.

Contact us!

We’d love to hear from you. Here’s how to find us.

Brandon Sawh
Xtra
491 Church St, Suite 200
Toronto, ON  M4Y 2C6
(416) 644.5204
1-800-268-9872 ext 204
brandon.sawh@xtra.ca

Jon Pressick
(416) 556-2451
jon.pressick@xtra.ca

 

Media inquiries, author bios, images, and interview requests:

Bryen Dunn, Dunn Write Communications
info@bryendunn.com, (416) 761.1673

Join Xtra for the WRITING OUTSIDE THE MARGINS
festival of queer literature
SUNDAY, AUGUST 24, 2008
11am-7pm

Church St between Alexander and Gloucester, Toronto

FREE!