Two Canadian queer authors take New York by storm!

Improv artist, sex radical, genderqueer uni professor Michael V. Smith launches a memoir, My Body Is Yours (Arsenal Pulp Press), exploring his emancipation from masculinity. In a night of hijinks and stunnery, you can expect: sexy confessions, giveaways, tear-jerking, and a naughty touch of stand up improv hairyness.

Like Michael, Shawn Syms is also hairy—and so are the situations described in his debut short-fiction collection Nothing Looks Familiar (Arsenal Pulp Press). With a particular focus on the lives of the downtrodden and marginalized, the book marries a vivid and distinct sense of place―the sights and smells of a meatpacking plant; a church-basement meeting hall full of sexual abusers―with universal themes such as the nature of friendship and relationships, and the configuration of the self. Each author will take you to places both dark and light—real, and imagined.

Michael V. Smith is a writer, comedian, filmmaker, performance artist and occasional clown. His novel, Cumberland (Cormorant Books, 2002), was nominated for the Amazon/Books in Canada First Novel Award. Smith won Vancouver’s Community Hero of the Year Award and the inaugural Dayne Ogilvie Award for Emerging Gay Writers. He teaches creative writing in an interdisciplinary fine arts department, Creative Studies, at the University of British Columbia, Okanagan.

Shawn Syms has written about sexuality, politics and culture for over 25 years in more than 50 publications. He’s the author of the short-story collection Nothing Looks Familiar, and he edited the first book of literary fiction about social media, Friend. Follow. Text. Shawn is currently at work on a novel about the power of dirty money, fetishistic sex and compulsive gambling.