Summer reading list: Canadian 2SLGBTQIA+ authors

Casey Plett

Casey Plett won the Amazon First Novel Award, the Firecracker Award for Fiction, and the Lambda Literary Award for Best Transgender Fiction. Her biography notes, “I’ve moved around so much in my life, but more than anywhere else I’m from Treaty 1 Territory, Winnipeg and Southern Manitoba. I’m a trans woman and my writing tends to center around that, in one way or another.”

Books: Little Fish, On Community

Cherie Dimaline

Cherie Dimaline is an award-winning author who lives in her Georgian Bay Métis Community in Ontario and writes/produces for screen and stage. “All I ever wanted to be was a writer,” says Cherie. “My stories come from generations of halfbreeds on the Great Lakes over to Manitoba and reaching into the US, and guided and influenced by powerful, generous women who had already done the heavy lifting of blazing the literary trail.”

Books: The Marrow Thieves, VenCo

Gabrielle Boulianne-Tremblay

Gabrielle Boulianne-Tremblay is a writer, actress, trans rights activist, model, and speaker. Her book, La fille d’elle-meme was a Quebec bestseller and is now available in English, translated by Eli Tareq El Bechelany-Lynch.

Book: Dandelion Daughter

Li Charmaine Anne (李倩文)

Li Charmaine Anne (李倩文) is a Hong Kong diaspora writer and settler on the unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh), q̓íc̓əy̓ (Katzie), qʼʷa:n̓ƛʼən̓ (Kwantlen), and kʷikʷəƛ̓əm (Kwikwetlem) nations. Comfy with the pronouns she and they, “Li” is her family name, which she lists first as per Chinese tradition. Charmaine’s first novel Crash Landing won the 2024 Governor General’s Literary Award in Young People’s Literature—Text. Charmaine believes that by sharing and listening to each other’s stories, we create a more just world.

Book: Crash Landing

Jillian Fleck

Jillian Fleck is a multidisciplinary artist who lives in Calgary, Alberta. Jillian’s art practice consists of comic-making, drawing, writing, and storytelling. They work within themes of queer identity, the weird and the uncanny, as well as mental illness.

Graphic novel: Cheryl

Joshua Whitehead

Joshua Whitehead is an Oji-Cree, Two-Spirit storyteller and academic from Peguis First Nation on Treaty 1 territory in Manitoba. He is an associate professor of Indigenous Studies and English at the University of Calgary on Treaty 7 territory. 

Books: Making Love with the Land, Indigiqueerness: A Conversation about Storytelling

Linzey S. Corridon

Linzey S. Corridon is a Vanier Canada Scholar, educator, and writer. Born and raised in the Caribbean multi-island nation of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, he now resides in Canada. Linzey’s research focuses on the experiences of queer Caribbean (Queeribbean) peoples.

Book: West of West Indian