Transgress lineup announced

Coyote back, joined by East and West Coast writers

A year ago, 200 lit-loving queers packed into the National Archives to soak up readings by sinful and sexy writers from across Canada.

Now in its second year, Transgress will bring together writers from both the east and west coasts to raise the temperature of the Ottawa International Writers Festival.

Ivan E Coyote is back with her gender-bending storytelling. Her short story collections include Loose End, One Man’s Trash and Close To Spiderman and her most recent work, the novel Bow Grip, was the 2007 winner of the ReLit Award for Best Novel and shortlisted for the 2007 Ferro-Grumley Award For Women’s Fiction.

Francisco Ibáñez-Carrasco is the author of a visceral novel, Flesh Wounds And Purple Flowers — shortlisted for the Commonweath Writers Prize in 2001 — and more recently a collection of short stories, Killing My Softly: Morir Amando. Both Coyote and Ibáñez-Carrasco are columnists at Xtra West, Capital Xtra’s Vancouver sister paper.

Gender bending? Check. Sense of humour? Check. Rough sex? Big check.

The pair will by joined by Joey Comeau, a young Halifax anarchist with two barbed wire publishing credits: a gender-bending punk novel, Lockpick Pornography, and surreal, bruising short story collection, Too Late To Say I’m Sorry.

Gender bending? Check. Sense of Humour? Check. Rough sex? Double check. Sex in space? Um, check.

The event will be cohosted by Coyote and Montreal- and Otttawa-based performance artist Mike Hickey.

Marcus McCann

Marcus McCann is an employment and human rights lawyer, member of Queers Crash the Beat, and a part owner of Glad Day Bookshop. Before becoming a lawyer, he was the managing editor of Xtra in Toronto and Ottawa.

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