KEYNOTE SPEAKER - Ivan Coyote
photo credit: Sarah Race Photograpy
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Ivan Coyote is the author of eleven books, the creator of four short films, six full-length live shows, and three albums that combine storytelling with music. Ivan is a seasoned stage performer, and over the last two decades has become an audience favourite at storytelling, writer's, film, poetry, and folk music festivals from Anchorage to Amsterdam and Australia.
The Globe and Mail newspaper called Coyote "a natural-born storyteller" and the Ottawa Xpress once said that "Coyote is to Canadian literature what kd lang is to country music: a beautifully odd fixture." Ivan often grapples with the complex and intensely personal issues of gender identity in their work, as well as topics such as family, class, social justice and queer liberation, but always with a generous heart, a quick wit, and the nuanced and finely-honed timing of a gifted raconteur. Ivan's stories remind of us of our own fallible and imperfect humanity while at the same time inspiring us to change the world. Ivan's 11th book, Tomboy Survival Guide, was released in the fall of 2016 with Arsenal Pulp Press. Tomboy Survival Guide was named an American Library Association Stonewall Honour Book in 2016, shortlisted for the Hilary Weston Roger's Trust prize for non-fiction, and long-listed for Canada Reads 2018. In 2017 Ivan was given an Honorary Doctorate of Laws from Simon Fraser University for their writing and activism. |
Coyote resists reading trans-ness in hindsight, refuses to centre trans-ness as the single primary concern in trans lives and, in this regard, is quietly radical. Late in the reading, I realized this is a book about family. An emotionally powerful memoir by a great storyteller about normal life. - Jade Colbert, The Globe and Mail, Nov 2016
PLENARY SESSION (8:45-10:00 am, Vanier Hall)
Keynote from Ivan Coyote
WORKSHOP SESSION (10:30-12:00, library)
Session I 10:30 am - 12:00 p.m: Follow-up session with Ivan Coyote in -- Q&A -- discuss the keynote topics in a more interactive setting.