It’s a great weekend to be queer and nerdy! Here are some free/pay-what-you-can (PWYC) events happening this weekend — Friday August 17^th through Sunday, August 19^th — in Tio:tia-ké (so-called Montréal), including our very own queer bookfair, that we think everyone should check out!

1) Queer Between the Covers’ queer bookfair

This year in its 11^th installment, Queer Between the Covers is a book, zine and art fair bringing you DIY queer culture and hard-to-access queer materials from the island and beyond.

WHEN? Saturday, August 18^th, from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.

WHERE? At the Centre communautaire de loisirs Sainte-Catherine d’Alexandrie, located at 1700 Amherst, in the Village.

HOW MUCH? The bookfair is free to attend, but donations are always welcome!

Sign language interpreters will be present for both LSQ (langues des signes du Québec) from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m., and ASL (American Sign Language) from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. The location is wheelchair-accessible. The bookfair is a scent-reduced space, so we ask folks to smoke in the designated area and wait a bit before coming in, and refrain from wearing scented products.

For all the details, please check out the Facebook event!

2) Metonymy Press’s “The Prairie Wind Is Gay AF: Preview of Lindsay Nixon’s nîtisânak”

Here’s what the organizers (our friends at Metonymy Press) have to say:

“Lindsay Nixon‘s kinship memoir, nîtisânak, is out this fall from Metonymy Press. As part of Pervers/cité 2018, Lindsay will be reading from the upcoming book alongside some special guests. Join us for a night of queer AF readings, featuring Lindsay, Helen Chau Bradley, and Eli Tareq Lynch!”

And here’s a bit about the book:

“Lindsay Nixon’s nîtisânak honours blood and chosen kin with equal care. A groundbreaking memoir spanning nations, prairie punk scenes, and queer love stories, it is woven around grief over the loss of their mother. It also explores despair and healing through community and family, and being torn apart by the same. Using cyclical narrative techniques and drawing on their Cree, Saulteaux, and Métis ancestral teachings, this work offers a compelling perspective on the connections that must be broken and the ones that heal.”

WHEN? Saturday, August 18^th, from 7 to 9 p.m.

WHERE? At Le Cagibi, located at 6596 St-Laurent.

HOW MUCH? The event is free, that said, donations are accepted for the readers.

Check out the Facebook event for more details.

3) (be)longing, a QTBIPOC arts festival

(be)longing is a brand new arts festival by and for QTBIPOC folks! The festival actually started on August 11^th, and it ends this weekend, so don’t miss out! Here’s more details from the organizers, via the event’s Facebook page:

“(be)longing aims to give our communities control over their narratives, their art, their truths and their future. In bringing together a diverse programming over the span of 10 days, (be)longing is an exercise of the imagination, the realization of a collective vision of QTBIPOC futurities where we engage with the aftermath of colonial histories.

Through this festival, we seek justice, we seek healing, and we seek self- and collective-empowerment. We explore themes and conversations that are threaded in the fabric of our everyday lives in order to imagine what a utopian future might look like. We engage with diasporic loss, colonial violence, imagined homelands, cultural alienation etc. as they relate to our sexual and gendered experiences of being queer and/or trans. Through this festival, we also deepen our understanding of the histories of these lands and honour the traditional keepers of these territories.”

WHEN? The festival started August 11^th and the last day is this Sunday, August 19^th. There are still events happening this weekend, including a QTBIPOC fashion show (open to all, but only QTBIPOC folks may model) on Saturday and a community picnic (QTBIPOC only) on Sunday! Check out this Facebook event for a full schedule.

WHERE? Again, locations vary depending on the event you’re attending! Check out the main Facebook event for all the details.

HOW MUCH? All events are free, but donations are always welcome!

***

That’s it for us! We hope you go to some of these events and have a great time. Enjoy the weekend, stay hydrated, and don’t forget: GAY NERDS UNITE!

 The 2018 edition of the Queer Between the Covers bookfair will take place on

PERSONAL ACCOUNTABILITY STATEMENT

QBtC is committed to creating a space that prioritizes those who experience intersecting oppressions and those who are acting in solidarity with them. As such, we encourage anyone who is planning to attend the bookfair to take personal accountability for the ways in which their choices of things such as clothing play into experiences of oppression. If you are someone, for example, who is white and chooses to wear dreadlocks or other culturally appropriative fashions (e.g., “native” art that is not made by native people, bindis, etc.), we encourage you to consider whether this might make BIPOC feel uncomfortable or unwelcome.

Cultural appropriation is the adoption of icons, rituals, aesthetics, and/or behaviours of one culture or subculture by another, particularly when the culture being appropriated belongs to or originates in groups that have been systematically oppressed culturally, politically, and/or economically. Appropriation happens when – intentionally or not – the cultural object or practice is used by someone without regard to or understanding of the legacy and history of that object or practice. The meanings and nuances of various cultural practices are often emptied or changed without regard or respect for their origins. More information on what cultural appropriation is, and why it is harmful, can be found at the links below.

QBtC does not endorse discrimination based on appearances. We acknowledge that it is not possible to assume the cultural identity of anyone based off of their visual presentation, and we do not endorse authoritarian attitudes or profiling in that regard. We respect each individual’s right to self-identity and bodily autonomy; we simply ask our community to be conscious of their choices, and to consider that engaging in what might be perceived as appropriation may contribute to folks feeling disrespected, and could potentially lead to uncomfortable discussions with other vendors and attendees. As always, our collective members and support volunteers will be available on the day of the bookfair to help negotiate any concerns that arise.

Links for further reading:

http://www.anarchistbookfair.ca/policies/statement-on-cultural-appropriation
http://shoutbackfest.tumblr.com/culturalappropriation
http://everydayfeminism.com/2013/09/cultural-exchange-and-cultural-appropriation/
http://everydayfeminism.com/2015/08/white-feminist-with-dreadlocks/

There’s less than 2 week until the bookfair!  AUGUST 19, 2017 11 AM-6 PM!

Dear lovely queers,

Applications for  the tenth edition of Queer Between the Covers are now closed, but you can fill out our application form for a spot on our waitlist!

If you or anyone you know wants to volunteer for this year’s queer bookfair, we could really use some extra hands! Contact us at queerbetweenthecovers(at)gmail.com if you want to help.

Here’s a list of specific tasks we need help with:

Queer Hosts:
We’re looking for queer and trans-friendly houses to host tablers coming from our of town. If that’s something your house could do, e-mail us with info about what you can offer! We’re looking for houses close to transit. We also need some sober housing.

Postering

Flyering day-of
Runners
Signs/decorating/sidewalk chalking
Support
Childcare
ASL interpreters

If you are available to help, we would appreciate the support!

Cheers and solidarity <3

Queer Between the Covers is organized by a collective of volunteers with the support of QPIRG Concordia. Through this event, we hope to provide access to queer materials that are otherwise unavailable or hard to find in the city, as well as draw attention to the role of queer bookstores in providing community space and supporting queer cultural production. The book fair is being organized as part of the tenth annual Pervers/Cité, a series of events aimed at providing a financially accessible and issue-based alternative to the city’s annual pride festival. This approximately 10-day programme will be taking place in early August 2017.

Last year’s book fair attracted several hundred participants and this year we are aiming to build upon this success. We are inviting local and out of town bookstores, publishers, zine distros, and individual zinesters and authors to bring queer books, zines, videos, and other materials to sell. Please visit our website to get more information about Queer Between the Covers’ mandate, how the collective functions and the types of queer production we prioritize. Every year we get applications from vendors and artists in a variety of media and we make our selection based on the following statement, which is at the heart of our mandate:

*We will prioritize spaces for applicants whose work most directly corresponds with our mandate, which means authors, zinesters and print media vendors whose voices have been traditionally marginalized and whose tabling content represents a variety of queer experiences. We aim for the bookfair to reflect our collective’s strong commitment to anti-racism, anti-colonialism, anti-capitalism, anti-ableism, and gender and body self-determination and feminism. Therefore, we will prioritize spaces for applicants who experience intersecting oppressions and whose work stands in solidarity with these struggles.*

QBtC is committed to creating a space that prioritizes those who experience intersecting oppressions and those who are acting in solidarity with them. As such, we encourage anyone who is planning to attend the bookfair to take personal accountability for the ways in which their choices of things such as clothing play into experiences of oppression. If you are someone, for example, who is white and chooses to wear dreadlocks or other culturally appropriative fashions (e.g., “native” art that is not made by native people, bindis, etc.), we encourage you to consider whether this might make BIPOC feel uncomfortable or unwelcome.

Cultural appropriation is the adoption of icons, rituals, aesthetics, and/or behaviours of one culture or subculture by another, particularly when the culture being appropriated belongs to or originates in groups that have been systematically oppressed culturally, politically, and/or economically. Appropriation happens when – intentionally or not – the cultural object or practice is used by someone without regard to or understanding of the legacy and history of that object or practice. The meanings and nuances of various cultural practices are often emptied or changed without regard or respect for their origins. More information on what cultural appropriation is, and why it is harmful, can be found at the links below.

QBtC does not endorse discrimination based on appearances. We acknowledge that it is not possible to assume the cultural identity of anyone based off of their visual presentation, and we do not endorse authoritarian attitudes or profiling in that regard. We respect each individual’s right to self-identity and bodily autonomy; we simply ask our community to be conscious of their choices, and to consider that engaging in what might be perceived as appropriation may contribute to folks feeling disrespected, and could potentially lead to uncomfortable discussions with other vendors and attendees. As always, our collective members and support volunteers will be available on the day of the bookfair to help negotiate any concerns that arise.

Links for further reading:

http://www.anarchistbookfair.ca/policies/statement-on-cultural-appropriation
http://shoutbackfest.tumblr.com/culturalappropriation

The Difference Between Cultural Exchange and Cultural Appropriation

This White Feminist Loved Her Dreadlocks – Here’s Why She Cut Them Off

If you have any questions about how your material may or may not fit our mandate please don’t hesitate to get in touch.

Please feel free to email back with any specific inquiries. We would love it if you could participate, and will do whatever we can to support your doing so. If you know that you would like to participate, please fill out our online form to reserve a table: https://www.queerbetweenthecovers.org/en/table-reservations/.

Looking forward to hearing from you,

Queer Between the Covers collective

 The 2016 edition of the Queer Between the Covers bookfair will take place on