Tattle Tales: 6 writers on discovering, recording, and shaping forgotten stories

The ArQuives is proud to present Tattle Tales: 6 writers on discovering, recording, and shaping forgotten stories. Assembled by writer Elizabeth Ruth, each member of this online panel will share valuable insight into how they’ve used archival & other research to resurrect, amplify, and represent invisible or lost stories. How are these writers working to challenge, expand, or reinvent into the future? How does their work intersect with social change, if it does? Does legacy play a role in their creative process? Queer people’s lives and communities have often gone unrecorded within the mainstream and are too easily ignored or lost to dominant cultural memory & time. Join this eclectic group of writers as they explore these questions and more.

The event is free, but registration is required.

BIOS

Elizabeth Ruth is the author of the novels Ten Good Seconds of Silence, Smoke, Matadora, and Semi-Detached. She has also written a plain language novella for adult literacy learners entitled Love You to Death and edited the anthology Bent on Writing: Contemporary Queer Tales, which evolved from her long running literary series, Clit Lit. Elizabeth’s debut poetry collection, This Report Is Strictly Confidential is forthcoming, in fall, 2024. Before publishing, Elizabeth worked with homeless women and children, counselling in the areas of violence, trauma and recovery. Elizabeth Ruth teaches creative writing through SCS at the University of Toronto. Find her on Insta @elizabethruthauthor

Bear Bergman is an author, storyteller, educator and the founder and publisher of children’s book press Flamingo Rampant, which makes feminist, culturally-diverse children’s picture books celebrating LGBT2Q+ kids and families. He writes creative non-fiction for grown ups, fiction for children, the advice column Asking Bear, and was the co-editor (along with Kate Bornstein) of Gender Outlaws: The Next Generation. These days he spends most of his time making trans cultural competency interventions any way he can and trying to avoid stepping on Lego. His forthcoming book is SPECIAL TOPICS IN BEING A PARENT, from Arsenal Pulp in July 2024.

Erica N. Cardwell is a writer based in Toronto. She is the recipient of a 2021 Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant. Erica teaches creative writing at the University of Toronto Scarborough. Her book, Wrong is Not My Name: (Notes) on Black Art, will be published in 2024.

Nancy Cooper is an Anishinabe/Potawatomi/Irish woman from the Chippewas of Rama First Nation. Nancy has worked within the Indigenous community at local, provincial, national and international levels throughout her career.  She currently works with all First Nation Public Libraries in the province of Ontario as a consultant with the Ontario Library Service.  She is the author of two children’s books, The Trading Tree and Biindigen! Amik Says Welcome.  Her third children’s book will be published in 2025.  Nancy is currently experiencing the thrill of parenting twin teen boys.

Robin Pacific is a visual artist with some thirty years of creating paintings, drawings, videos, computer art, installations, performances and large scale community art collaborations. She is the founder of the Writers Trust Dayne Ogilvie Prize for emerging LGBTQ++ writers. Robin is currently publishing her first full length book with Guernica Editions: Skater Girl, An Archaeology of the Self.

Karleen Pendleton-Jimenez is the author of Lambda Literary Award finalists, Are You a Boy or a Girl? and How to Get a Girl Pregnant; Tomboys and Other Gender Heroes; her middle grade novel The Street Belongs to Us, and numerous short stories and essays. She wrote the award-winning animated film Tomboy and has been recognized by the American Library Association and the Vice Versa Awards for Excellence in the Gay and Lesbian Press. She is professor of education, gender, and social justice at Trent University. Raised in Los Angeles, she lives in Toronto with her partner and daughter. Find Karleen on Insta @Kp Ximenez