Naked Heart 2019!

The 5th annual Naked Heart: An LGBTQ Festival of Words (the worldā€™s largest queer/trans literary festival) happens this weekend.  I love this event every year, for its realness, freshness, relatability; for featuring queers like me and unlike me, all having meaningful, vulnerable conversations about, and presenting work about, the intersection of queer/trans lives and literature.  Itā€™s one of the few multi-event festivals or conferences Iā€™ve presented or attended where I feel like itā€™s safe to show our whole selves.  Plus they work hard on accessibility, and this year as previously they have a scent-free policy for everyone attending.  So as soon as the festival was confirmed, I rearranged my week and a half around the festival to allow best spoon usage and ability to participate in everything I can.  Iā€™m so excited, I feel all sparkly.

If you want to go too (and I imagine you do!), the schedule of Naked Heart events can be found here: Naked Heart Festival Program.  There is a separate link to buy passes (on a sliding scale), or you can pay $5 per session.  (Additional info for fellow poor folks: there are completely free passes for folks who canā€™t afford to pay for one.  Email vip@gladday.ca to claim one.)

About my participation:

Iā€™m performing my poetry at the opening event on Friday November 22nd, at 8:30pm, at Glad Day Bookshop, as part of a reading titled ā€œPoetic Justiceā€.  The event page is here: https://www.nhprogram.com/friday/reading-poetic-justice.

Then Iā€™m speaking on a panel on Saturday November 23rd at 11am at Buddies in Bad Times, titled ā€œAnything Can Happen With A Panel Of Neurodivergentsā€.  This is a rare panel topic ā€” though it totally shouldnā€™t be.  Autistics and other neurodivergents are a riot on panels.  Weā€™re entertaining, unique, and unfiltered.  You want to see particularly unvarnished queer writers?  This is the place.  Iā€™m so looking forward to this experience of bonding and belly laughs.  The event page: https://www.nhprogram.com/saturday/anything-can-happen-with-a-panel-of-neurodivergents

And Iā€™m running a workshop called ā€œSubmitting Your Work to Journals & Anthologies: Step-by-Step Strategies for Emerging Writersā€ on Saturday November 23rd at 2:15pm at Buddies in Bad Times.  Yes, that title is a mouthful, but also ā€” it says exactly whatā€™s in the tin.  If youā€™re an emerging writer, this might be a useful session for you.  I spent a few years re-inventing the wheel on submitting writing work, and stumbling a lot, because I didnā€™t have a manual.  Now that Iā€™ve worked that shit out, Iā€™m sharing a short version of that manual on what to do, how to do it, and…how to survive it emotionally.  The event page has a longer blurb: https://www.nhprogram.com/saturday/submitting-your-work-to-journals-amp-anthologies-step-by-step-strategies-for-emerging-writers.  I am also super happy that this workshop will be ASL interpreted!  The interpreters will be Ayoka & Tammy.

Other events I am super looking forward to and am recommending:
* Workshop: ā€œWriting Sex For Trauma Survivorsā€ on Saturday.  (The session I didn’t know I needed, but I do.)
https://www.nhprogram.com/saturday/writingsexfortraumasurviviors
* Panel: “Mixed Racial Identity in the Urban Imagination & Experience” on Saturday.  (With ASL interpretation.)
https://www.nhprogram.com/saturday/mixed-racial-identity-in-the-urban-imagination-experience
* Reading: ā€œPost-Trauma – What Comes After You Surviveā€ on Sunday.  (With ASL interpretation.)
https://www.nhprogram.com/sunday-1/post-trauma-what-comes-after-you-survive
* Panel: ā€œRage and Channelling Angerā€ on Sunday.  (With ASL interpretation.)
https://www.nhprogram.com/sunday-1/rage-and-channelling-anger
* Panel: ā€œWriter’s Bodyā€ on Sunday.  (With ASL interpretation.)
https://www.nhprogram.com/sunday-1/writers%20body

Access notes: Both venues for the festival events are wheelchair-accessible, including the washrooms.  (At Buddies the washroom is accessed via elevator that has to be operated by a staff member.)  Both have gender-non-policed washrooms, including single-stall washrooms, and both venues are explicitly trans- and gender-non-conformity-friendly.  All events at the festival are designated scent-free, as some performers (and attendees), including me, have severe scent sensitivities.  So in the interests of us scent-disabled folks being well enough to speak and perform, please please arrive unscented.  (More info on being scent-free is here: https://docs.wixstatic.com/ugd/325005_4a979e8ae5844b8d8039a7fd905873e4.pdf or here: https://brownstargirl.org/fragrance-free-femme-of-colour-genius/)

Happy festival weekend, and hope to run into you there <3.

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