A Queer Film Classic on the groundbreaking 1977 documentary that profiles the lives of ordinary gay men and lesbians of different ages, races, and backgrounds. Word Is Out found a wide audience theatrically and, perhaps more importantly, had a national public-television broadcast. The film provided an intimate portrait of gay men and lesbians, and by doing so, it played a significant role in the then-nascent struggle for gay rights. It premiered six months after Anita Bryant's infamous "Save Our …

The Words Wanting Out is the first selection from one of Canada's most respected poets. In 1982 Barry Dempster landed on the short list for the Governor General's Award for Poetry for his very first book, and has since published seven more collections to high praise.

Over this time, Dempster has chosen to keep a relatively low profile, relocating from Toronto to the small town of Holland Landing, Ontario, and only publishing his work at small literary presses. Many of his collections are either o …

A Queer Film Classic on John Greyson's controversial 1993 film musical about the AIDS crisis which combines experimental, camp musical, and documentary aesthetics while refuting the legend of Patient Zero, the male flight attendant accused in Randy Shilts' book And the Band Played On of bringing the AIDS crisis to North America. The film features the explorer Sir Richard Francis Burton, who is working as a taxidermist at the Museum of Natural History in Toronto; seeking exhibits for his Hall of …

Ivan E. Coyote is one of Canada's best-loved storytellers; their honest, wry, plain-spoken tales of growing up in the Yukon and living out loud on the west coast have attracted readers and live audiences around the world. For many years, Ivan has performed in high schools, where their talks have inspired and galvanized many young people to embrace their own sense of self and to be proud of who they are. One in Every Crowd, Ivan's eighth book with Arsenal Pulp Press, is their first specifically f …

Danny thinks he must be the only seventeen-year-old guy in Cape Breton—in Nova Scotia, maybe—who doesn't have his life figured out. His buddy Kierce has a rule for every occasion, and his best friend Jay has bad grades, no plans and no worries. Danny's dad nags him about his post-high-school plans, his friends bug him about girls and a run-in with the cops means he has to get a summer job. Worst of all, he's keeping a secret that could ruin everything.

A wide-ranging anthology of Asian Canadian literature to celebrate 20 years of Ricepaper.

2015 marks the 20th anniversary of Ricepaper magazine, a pioneering periodical devoted to Asian-Canadian writing. Over the years, Ricepaper's focus has shifted from predominantly arts and culture reporting to the publication of original literature; as such, it has both witnessed and cultivated the maturation of an Asian-Canadian literary tradition; indeed, many of today's most acclaimed Asian-Canadian writer …

A Globe 100 Best Book of the Year

Lambda Literary Award winner

The debut book by Hasan Namir is a revelatory novel about being queer and Muslim, set in war-torn Iraq in 2003. Ramy is a closeted university student whose parents have died, and who lives under the close scrutiny of his strict brother and sister-in-law. They exert pressure on him to find a wife, leaving him anguished and struggling to find a balance between his sexuality, religion, and culture. Desperate for counsel, he seeks the adv …

A memoir about fathers and sons, breaking out of gender norms, and reconciling with a dangerous childhood.

Lambda Literary Award finalist

Michael V. Smith is a multihyphenate force of nature: a novelist, poet, improv comic, filmmaker, drag queen, performance artist, and occasional clown. In this, his first work of nonfiction, Michael traces his early years as an inadequate male--a fey kid growing up in a small town amid a blue-collar family; a sissy; an insecure teenager desperate to disappear; …