LGBTQ+ Literature
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Gay, Lesbian, Bi, Trans, Leather, and Queer Community Seasonal • Spring 2021 free copy Pop Culture: LGBTQ+ Literature Also: Kate Bornstein, Brad Fraser, The ArQuives, Fiction, Travel, From The Heart, Horoscopes, Home & Garden Special Presentation Your Service & Installation Experts! ECRA/ESA License #7002124 COMMERCIAL • INDUSTRIAL • RESIDENTIAL & INSTITUTIONAL - Service Work & Maintenance - Distribution Services, Wiring, Panel Boards & Motors - New Lighting & LED Lighting Retro-Fits (incentives available) - New Constructions, Renovations & Additions - Design Build & Electrical Consulting Services Available - Fire Alarm Systems - Back up Generators 31 Elford Blvd. Toronto, ON M8Z 2L3 [email protected] 416-236-5678 www.trademarkelectric.com 2 springplay! 2021 Pop Culture: Literature Pop Culture: Literature springplay! 2021 3 From the Publisher was an awkward teenager. What a way to start my letter I read EVERYTHING. Comic books (Superman being my number one), mystery, history, famous eh LOL, and really aren’t all Arabic literature, fun-fair like 1001 Arabian I Nights, novels about Russian Tsars, and French teenagers awkward? I was novels of times pre, during, and post the revolution were a particular favourite (translated anti-social, and I hated my body. to Arabic or English). I loved films for many reasons, but I loved reading because I could Nothing was wrong with it, I just imagine and make up visuals of the characters and hated it, so I always wore long worlds that the writer is speaking of. Reading continued into my 20s and early 30s. I sleeves and pants… even to the really got into Anne Rice for a while (still do), Dan Brown for a while, but I mostly wanted beach. the chance to catch up on the most influential queer writers, and literature; Oscar Wilde, Walt I was obsessed with the colour black. Mom was Whitman, Tennessee Williams, Virginia Woolf, terrified when I wanted to have black sheets, Emily Dickinson, Armistead Maupin, and so black drapes, and black carpets, when we were many others. remodelling. I knew I was “different” and that made me scared of what might happen if my In the last couple of decades though, I haven’t family and the world found out, especially being had as much time to read with the pressure of a born in a very conservative country like Kuwait. very consuming career and community volunteer My parents are Lebanese, and born Catholic. life. I still read, but only a book every couple of This stuff piles up LOL. I liked art and film and months. BUT when you can’t read, you become BOOKS. a publisher and literary agent, so that’s why, when I was approached in the past few months to be Reading was my escape, from my own part of a queer publishing house, I jumped at the awkwardness, from thinking, from the family, opportunity www.brainspiredpublishing.com and from going out with them to see relatives and friends. I might end up slipping and telling Welcome to our 2021 theme of looking at them how I feel about the pressures of being different disciplines of Pop Culture. It’s going to sexually different and not having any support in be a fun year. Enjoy. that society. I always made reading an excuse for everything, “sorry I can’t go with you, I am in Antoine Elhashem the middle of this novel and I have to finish it”. Publisher I would consume a whole big, thick book over a [email protected] weekend, sitting on my bed, door closed, and food brought in on a tray by my mother. 4 springplay! 2021 Pop Culture: Literature Pop Culture: Literature springplay! 2021 5 springplay! In this issue From the Editor Gay, Lesbian, Bi, Trans, Leather, and Queer Community Seasonal from PinkPlayMags 10 A Historical Look Back at Queer Free • Spring 2021 Literature – Aaron Rothermund Publisher/Creative Director: Antoine Elhashem 14 Kate Bornstein Editor-in-Chief: Bryen Dunn – Mandy Goodhandy Here we are, 2021, a new year and a new Art Direction and Production: Mychol Scully 18 The Future of Travel – Bryen Dunn theme for our magazine. Over the course Contributors 23 Fiction: The Tender Grave Writers: Aaron Rothermund, Mandy Goodhandy, – Sheri Reynolds of the next four issues we’ll be looking Jon Pressick, Kelly Wilk, Sheri Reynolds, Bryen Dunn, at Pop Culture influences from within Mychol Scully, Julie Antoinette the LGBTQ+ community and beyond. Regular features We begin with a look at Literature, with 21 Hot Artist: Brad Fraser a detailed retrospective from Aaron The ArQuives in Toronto, chatting with Gay, Lesbian, Bi, Trans, Leather, and Queer Community Seasonal • Spring 2021 – Jon Pressick Rothermund that begins with Walt free copy Executive Director, Raegan Swanson. Our 25 Community Cornerstone: Whitman and Oscar Wilde, and takes Fiction piece is titled The Tender Grave, The ArQuives – Kelly Wilk us through to Armistead Maupin, and written by Sheri Reynolds. 27 In the City – Sherry Sylvain Timothy Findley. We’re hear, we’re queer As always, we have our quarterly 29 From the Heart – read all about it! – Mychol Scully horoscopes, and the always inspiring From For our second feature, we welcome Mandy 32 Spring Horoscopes The Heart column written by Mychol Goodhandy to our family, who had the Scully Pop Culture: LGBTQ+ Literature – Julie Antoinette , our Creative Director, who also Also: Kate Bornstein, Brad Fraser, The ArQuives, Fiction, Travel, From The Heart, Horoscopes, Home & Garden Special Presentation opportunity to chat with author, artist, and designs this publication for us. A special activist, Kate Bornstein. Since 1989, this thank you goes to our cover illustrator, Cover Pop Culture: LGBTQ+ Literature trans trailblazer has ushered us into a world SK Dyment, who will be doing the full Concept & Creative Direction Antoine Elhashem of limitless possibility through a daring Cover SK Dyment four-issue series for us this year. Our event re-envisionment of the gender system as listings remain mostly virtual, which our we know it. Today, Bornstein identifies as Events Editor, Sherry Sylvain, takes great non-binary: going by the pronouns she/her pride in compiling for us. or they/them, and has been writing about non-binary gender identity for nearly thirty Finally, be sure to check out our special years. Home & Garden Special Presentation that provides some great tips on how to In our Travel feature, we take a look at rejuvenate your living space, which is even what the future of travelling might look more important in these days of staying in, like post-pandemic. LGBTQ+ individuals and working from home. Published by Websites are expected to be one of the first www.inspiredmediainc.com Be sure to catch the remaining seasonal INspired Media Inc. demographics to hit the road, and skies, Operating INspiredcreative (www.inspiredcreative.ca), and www.thepinkpagesdirectory.com and we chatted with three industry experts issues, as we look at Fashion, Music, and publishers of The Pink Pages Directory, PinkPlayMags, theBUZZ, and www.pinkplaymags.com Theatre. The Local Biz Magazine. www.thebuzzmag.ca to get their thoughts on...what’s next? Our President ................................Antoine Elhashem We’d love to hear from you. Please send comments, questions or Hot Artist feature is with author Brad General Manager ................................Kim Dobie any other matters to [email protected] Enjoy the read! Advertising Consultants ............ Carolyn Burtch, Darren Stehle For advertising inquiries Fraser, who is releasing his first memoir, Counsel ................................Jerry Herszkopf Law [email protected] All the Rage: A Partial Memoir in Two Bryen Dunn Notice INspired Media Inc., its divisions, publications, the editors, authors, photographers, salespersons, graphic and Mailing address production artists shall have neither liability nor responsibility to any person or entity with respect to monetary or Editor-in-Chief emotional loss or damage caused, or alleged to be caused, directly or indirectly, by the information or claims contained Acts and a Prologue. With Community 205-1691 Pickering Parkway, Pickering, ON L1V 5L9 in this Publication. [email protected] Furthermore the opinions of the writers expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the Cornerstone, we take a look at the work of To contact us publishers. 416.926.9588 Toronto 905.231.9722 GTA Full copyrights reserved. Any copying of material in this publication in whole or in part is prohibited and legal action will be taken, unless authorized in writing by the publishers. 6 springplay! 2021 Pop Culture: Literature Pop Culture: Literature springplay! 2021 7 A WIDE SELECTION OF NATURAL STONE AND PRECAST CONCRETE PRODUCTS Date: Feb 16, 2021 Filename_ Version# 2552_BV_Inspire Media AD pink pages w5.25xh1.75_CLR_01 Client: BEAVER VALLEY Built By: Desc: Artist: MC Supplier: Acct. Mgr: 647-283-1093 Trim: 5.25"W x1.75"H # Colours: 4C Safety/Live: 0" x 0" [email protected] File Built at: 100% (1:1) PMS PMS Explore the frontier Find cars you’ll love at dag.cars of luxury appliances. On the edge of the appliance world you’ll find the design renegades, the game-changers, the innovators. We’ve traveled with this crowd for over 65 dag.cars years and know them well. Let a Tasco Appliance Professional be your guide. tascoappliance.ca 8 springplay! 2021 Pop Culture: Literature Pop Culture: Literature springplay! 2021 9 queer authors were unable to artistic value, the book ban was conceal their oppression, such reversed, and the publisher was as Richard Bruce Nugent, who released from prison. wrote Smoke, Lilies, and Jade Also around this time, American (1928) as a modernist stream of author James Baldwin consciousness style short story published based on his experience being Giovanni’s Room (1956), which was a complex Black and bisexual. Nugent is story based on his experience documented as the first Black being Black and bisexual. author to openly explore biracial Baldwin said he, “witnessed the relationships, homosexuality, birth of the queer movement,” and bisexuality in his work.