Literary: Local Writer Garners Major Award

Commercial Drive writer, Ivan E. Coyote's book, Bow Grip, is the recent winner of the ALA Stonewall Honor Book Award.

The first and most enduring award for lesbigay books is the Stonewall Book Awards, sponsored by the American Library Association's Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgendered Round Table. Since Isabel Miller's Patience and Sarah received the first award in 1971, a total of forty-eight books have been honored for exceptional merit relating to the gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgendered experience.

Ivan E. Coyote is one of North America’s most beguiling storytellers and the author of three story collections, including Loose End, which was shortlisted for the Ferro-Grumley Award for Fiction in 2006. Bow Grip, Coyote’s first novel, is a breathtaking story about love and loneliness; in it, a good-hearted, small-town mechanic struggles to deal with a wife who has left him for another woman until a used cello and an acquaintance’s suicide attempt compel him to make some changes in his life. With quiet authority, Bow Grip is about one man’s true rite of passage—trying to keep the ghosts of personal history at bay with a heart that’s as big as the endless prairie sky.Arsenal Pulp Press | 9781551522135 | Trade Paper $19.95



Signs of the Times, Bud Osborn/ Richard Tetrault (Anvil Press) 978-1895636710 “... Where Tetrault's strength is in the lines, the communication of emotion through the visual, Osborn's tends more towards the honesty. Real people; real places; real events. This volume is the best value for your money you could ever hope for, as lovers of art, as lovers of people. It puts art into your sweaty hands; it forces you to engage in the politics of humanity." -- Prairie Fire




Both books are available at
People's Co-op Bookstore (est 1945)
1391 Commercial Drive
Vancouver, BC
V5L 3X5
Tel/Fax 604-253-6442
Toll Free 1-888-511-5556
www.peoplescoopbookstore.com

Bent on the Drive: Queer residents ponder their place in the Drive's past, present and future

Natasha Barsotti / Xtra West / Friday, June 08, 2007

When Denise Sheppard and her partner decided 14 years ago to pull up their Ottawa stakes and move to Vancouver, they called The Book Mantle, a lesbian-owned bookstore on Commercial Dr looking for signs of lesbian life.

"We were moving to a city where we had no contacts," recalls activist journalist Sheppard. "We wanted to rent in the right area, and where I like to live is in my community."

Not only did the shop's co-owner, Bonnie Murray, tell Sheppard she had called the right neighbourhood, she also invited Sheppard and her partner to stay in the basement apartment of her home until they found digs of their own.

Read the full story here...

FREE Workshop for Lesbian, Bisexual, & Two-Spirit Women

Saturday March 31, 2007, 1:00 pm - 4:30 pm at Britannia Info Centre

Knowing Me, Knowing You: Negotiating Separateness and Togetherness in Intimate Relationships

Through discussions and small group exercises this workshop will explore issues related to separateness and togetherness in intimate relationships. How do we communicate our needs for privacy, time alone, intimacy, and togetherness? When does "together" start to feel unhealthy? To register: call Britannia at 604-718-5800 or register on-line at www.britanniacentre.org (you will need a Britannia membership which costs $5 and can be obtained on-line) OR call 604-633-2506 ext. 12