You can’t keep a good queen down

Help save 'the world's most glamorous book'

Having spent two years creating what he bills as “the world’s most glamorous book!” Vancouver actor/producer Christopher Logan was visiting his mom in Ottawa when he learned that the publisher of DRAG was going out of business.

“My heart sank,” he says, “for about five minutes. Then I realized rather quickly that it’s a great opportunity to relaunch.” The original hardcover book was a 160-page collection of dazzling photographs of drag performers that started, Logan says, by simply contacting them on Facebook. “All the photographers and performers donated their work to make the book happen.” He’s been thrilled by how proud they all were to take part. “There hasn’t been a bad word or a bitchy moment. With this many drag stars . . . I’m shocked.”

Tectum Publishing’s financial difficulties meant that fans had trouble finding copies of Logan’s book, so he ended up working directly with distributors himself. Now that he’s launched an Indiegogo crowd-sourcing campaign to publish a second edition himself, “we have distribution in the US and Canada already for the new version, which is unheard of for a self-published first book from a new company.”

The next version, Logan says, will have 20 pages of new material. “We’re adding bright, brilliant drag stars Yara Sofia, Queen Bee Ho, Acid Betty, Dallas Dellaforce and Jinkx Monsoon,” he says. Those who donate $50 will get their copy of the book before it hits store shelves, and, he says, all proceeds from DRAG will go into financing Logan’s next dream project: a drag documentary film.

“This all started because I wanted to raise funding for a drag film,” he says, “The book itself is a fundraiser, and all the funding and support for the movie is coming from people who love and support drag.”

indiegogo.com/projects/save-the-drag-book

A former editor of the late, lamented fab magazine, Scott has been writing for Xtra since 2007 on a variety of topics in news pieces, interviews, blogs, reviews and humour pieces. He lives on the Danforth with his boyfriend of 12 years, a manic Jack Russell Terrier, a well-stocked mini-bar and a shelf of toy Daleks.

Read More About:
Books, Culture, News, Drag, Arts, Toronto, Canada

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