Search:

Results 51 to 60 of 762 | « previous |

Everything and nothing at all : essays / by Wills, Jenny Heijun,author.;
Includes bibliographical references."From Hilary Weston Prize-winning author Jenny Heijun Wills comes a new collection of piercing, breathtaking essays on beauty, identity, and language -- as well as the grey zones that exist between and within these notions of self. As an adoptee, Jenny Heijun Wills has spent her life navigating the spaces of race and ethnicity. As a polyamorous, pansexual femme, she occupies a liminality between family -- adopted, biological, chosen -- and "freedom;" queerness and heteronormativity; monogamy and a constellation of love. As a person who self-harms to cope with mental illness, she moves between the desire to be beautiful and the urge to make herself ugly, preening in the limelight while daily wishing her body would disappear. And as a parent with a lifelong eating disorder, her love language is to feed, but she finds it near-impossible to consume anything herself. These facets of Jenny's personhood have served as both the anchors she has clung to, in the time before self-discovery and understanding, and the harsh parameters of what others now imagine she can be. Everything and Nothing At All weaves together literary criticism, cultural context, and personal history into a staggering tapestry of knowledge. Yet Jenny is acutely aware of the cost of this knowledge: the more she uncovers, the more parts of herself she must reconcile. And though she is guided by those who came before -- her Korean grandmother, Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, even Emily Brontë, when read with intention -- and the lovers she has sewn into her life, they cannot shield her from the combined weight of this knowledge. It feels at once like everything she has been seeking in order to set herself free, and that which threatens to extinguish her, one day, into nothing at all. Devastating, illuminating, and beautifully crafted, these essays breathe life into the ambiguities and excesses of Jenny's life, where she lingers always at the intersections within the intersections of identity."--
Subjects: Biographies.; Autobiographies.; Essays.; Personal narratives.; Wills, Jenny Heijun.; Body image.; Pansexual people; Self-perception.; Authors, Canadian (English);
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
unAPI

Everything is perfect when you're a liar / by Oxford, Kelly,1977-;
A humourous autobiography of Canadian writer Kelly OxfordLSC
Subjects: Oxford, Kelly, 1977-; Authors, Canadian (English); Mothers; Mothers; Mothers; Canadian wit and humor (English);
© c2013., HarperCollins,
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
unAPI

When you find out the world is against you : and other funny memories about awful moments / by Oxford, Kelly,1977-;
A collection of stories by Canadian writer Kelly Oxford drawn from all periods and aspects of her life.LSC
Subjects: Oxford, Kelly, 1977-; Authors, Canadian (English); Mothers; Mothers; Mothers; Canadian wit and humor (English);
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
unAPI

Saga boy : my life of Blackness and becoming / by Downing, Antonio Michael,1975-author.;
Antonio Michael Downing's memoir of creativity and transformation is a startling mash-up of memories and mythology, told in gripping, lyrical prose. Raised by his indomitable grandmother in the lush rainforest of southern Trinidad, Downing, at age 11, is uprooted to Canada when she dies. But to a very unusual part of Canada: he and his older brother are sent to live with his stern, evangelical Aunt Joan, in Wabigoon, a tiny northern Ontario community where they are the only black children in the town. In this wilderness, he begins his journey as an immigrant minority, using music and performance to dramatically transform himself. At the heart of his odyssey is the longing for a home. He is re-united with his birth parents who he has known only through stories. But this proves disappointing: Al is a womanizing con man and drug addict, and Gloria, twice abandoned by Al, seems to regard her sons as cash machines. He tries to flee his messy family life by transforming into a series of extravagant musical personalities: "Mic Dainjah", a punk rock rapper, "Molasses", a soul music crooner and finally "John Orpheus", a gold chained, sequin- and leather-clad pop star. Yet, like his father and grandfather, he has become a "Saga Boy", a Trinidadian playboy, addicted to escapism, attention, and sex. When the inevitable crash happens, he finds himself in a cold, stone jail cell. He has become everything he was trying to escape and must finally face himself. Richly evocative, Saga Boy is a heart-wrenching but uplifting story of a lonely immigrant boy who overcomes adversity and abandonment to reclaim his black identity and embrace a rich heritage.
Subjects: Biographies.; Autobiographies.; Downing, Antonio Michael, 1975-; Downing, Antonio Michael, 1975-; Authors, Canadian (English); Musicians; Musicians;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
unAPI

Daughter of Family G : a memoir of cancer genes, love and fate. by McKay, Ami,1968-author.;
Includes bibliographical references."Weaving together family history, genetic discovery, and scenes from her life, Ami McKay tells the compelling, true-science story of her own family's unsettling legacy of hereditary cancer while exploring the challenges that come from carrying the mutation that not only killed many people you loved, but might also kill you. The story of Ami McKay's connection to a genetic disorder called Lynch syndrome begins over seventy years before she was born and long before scientists discovered DNA. In 1895 her great-great aunt, Pauline Gross, a seamstress in Ann Arbor, Michigan, confided to a pathology professor at the local university that she expected to die young, like so many others in her family. Rather than dismiss her fears, the pathologist chose to enlist Pauline in the careful tracking of those in her family tree who had died of cancer. Pauline's premonition proved true-- she died at 46-- but because of her efforts, her family (who the pathologist dubbed 'Family G') would become the longest and most detailed cancer genealogy ever studied in the world. A century after Pauline's confession, researchers would identify the genetic mutation responsible for the family's woes. Now known as Lynch syndrome, the genetic condition predisposes its carriers to several types of cancer, including colorectal, endometrial, ovarian and pancreatic. In 2001, as a young mother with two sons and a keen interest in survival, Ami McKay was among the first to be tested for Lynch syndrome. She had a feeling she'd test positive: her mother's side of the family was riddled with early deaths and her own mother was being treated for the disease. When the test proved her fears true, she began living in "an unsettling state between wellness and cancer," and she's been there ever since. Intimate, candid, and probing, her genetic memoir tells a fascinating story, teasing out the many ways to live with the hand you are dealt."-- Provided by publisher.
Subjects: Autobiographies.; Biographies.; McKay, Ami, 1968-; McKay, Ami, 1968-; McKay, Ami, 1968-; Genetic disorders; Cancer; Authors, Canadian;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
unAPI

Consent : a memoir / by Ciment, Jill,1953-author.;
"From acclaimed novelist and short story writer, a deft, somewhat shocking, memoir -- a 21st-century Lolita turned upside down, told from the point of view of the girl, the author, seen in the context of the current discourse on sexual harassment and abuse in the era of #MeToo. A close-up look at the ardent, willed love affair between the author and her art teacher that began when she was 17 and he, 47, married with two children, and the contortions and erotic wild ride their illicit, urgent passion took them on as it turned into an improbable but blissful marriage that lasted for 45 years until his death at 93. A stunning, riveting book about morality and about a decades-long marriage that begins with a kiss and consensual sex (into criminality?), that asks -- and explores -- many questions along the way: does a story's ending excuse its beginning? Does a kiss in one moment mean something else entirely five decades later? Can a love that starts with such an asymmetrical balance of power ever right itself ... ?"--
Subjects: Biographies.; Autobiographies.; Personal narratives.; Ciment, Jill, 1953-; Ciment, Jill, 1953-; Authors, Canadian; Sexual consent.; Teacher-student relationships.;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
unAPI

Crooked teeth : a queer Syrian refugee memoir / by Ramadan, Ahmad Danny,author.;
"'Writing this memoir is a betrayal.' So begins this electrifying personal account from Danny Ramadan, a celebrated novelist who has long enjoyed the shield his fiction provides. Now, to tell the story of his life, he must revisit dark corners of his past he'd rather forget and unearth memories of a city he can no longer return to. Starting with his family's humble beginnings in Damascus, he takes readers on an epic, border-crossing journey: to the city's underground network of queer safe homes; to a clandestine party at a secluded villa in Cairo; through Arab Spring uprisings across the Middle East, a reckless hoax that threatens the safety of Syria's LGBTQ+ community, and a traumatic six-week imprisonment; to beaches and sunsets with friends in Beirut; to an arrival in Vancouver that's not as smooth as it promised to be; and ultimately to a life of hard-won comfort and love. What emerges is a powerful refutation of the oversimplified refugee narrative -- a book that holds space for joy alongside sorrow, for nuance and complicated ambivalences. Written with fearless intimacy, Crooked Teeth is a singular achievement in which a master storyteller learns that his greatest story is his own"--Back cover.
Subjects: Biographies.; Autobiographies.; Personal narratives.; Ramadan, Ahmad Danny.; Novelists, Canadian; Refugees; Refugees; Sexual minorities; Authors, Canadian (English);
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
unAPI

Where I live now : a journey through love and loss to healing and hope / by Butala, Sharon,1940-author.;
Includes bibliographical references.
Subjects: Biographies.; Butala, Sharon, 1940-; Butala, Sharon, 1940-; Bereavement.; Moving, Household; Authors, Canadian (English); Women authors, Canadian (English);
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
unAPI

And a dog called Fig : solitude, connection, the writing life / by Humphreys, Helen,1961-author.;
Includes bibliographical references."Poet and novelist Helen Humphreys's And a Dog Called Fig, a meditation on the benefits of dogs to the creative life, including the dogs of well-known writers from history, portraits of all the dogs from the author's life, and the arrival and raising of her new puppy"--
Subjects: Biographies.; Autobiographies.; Personal narratives.; Humphreys, Helen, 1961-; Authors, Canadian; Authorship; Dog owners; Dogs.; Human-animal relationships.;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
unAPI

From oral to written : a celebration of Indigenous literature in Canada, 1980-2010 / by Highway, Tomson,1951-;
Includes bibliographical references and indexes.Author Tomson Highway surveys Indigenous literature published in Canada between 1980 and 2010, highlighting gifted authors and the best stories they have told.LSC
Subjects: Canadian literature; Indian literature;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
unAPI

Results 51 to 60 of 762 | « previous |