It’s a Pride mashup! To celebrate Pride in Vancouver through the month of August, Plenitude Magazine is pairing with the Vancouver Public Library for a live literary reading and speed friending event!
On Tuesday, August 26 at 6:30pm, join us at the downtown branch to hear local Plenitude authors read poetry and prose. Readers include Cayenne Bradley, Alex Leslie, David Ly, Mezi, Harry McKeown, Devon Rae, and Jane Shi. This event will be hosted by Vancouver’s best queer bookstore, Cross & Crows Books.
At 5:30pm prior to the reading, take part in Speed Friending! Are you looking to expand your circle of queer friends? Celebrate Pride all year round by bringing your favourite book, graphic novel, DVD, podcast, blog or zine to discuss at this fun, casual, in-person event. Lightning rounds of 6 minutes each will allow you to meet potential new friends and have interesting conversations.
Author books will be for sale at the event, courtesy of Cross & Crows Books.
The event is FREE but registration is required: https://vpl.bibliocommons.com/events/68841168faa427ea055db94d
This is an anti-oppressive, queer positive, scent-reduced and accessible safer space. Attendance will be capped at 50 people, so sign up early!
This event takes place at the Vancouver Public Library (central branch), 350 West Georgia Street, in the Montalbano Family Theatre, Level 8. Elevator access is available with the main elevators on level 2. The theatre has three wheelchair accessible spaces in the front row on the right hand side.
Cayenne Bradley is a writer and visual artist living on the unceded territory of the Lekwungen peoples in Victoria BC. She received an Honourable Mention at the 2023 National Magazine Awards, was a finalist for CBC Books’ 2022 Non-Fiction Prize, and won first place in EVENT’s 2021 Non-Fiction Contest and Room’s 2020 Short Forms Contest. Her work can be found in publications such as Contemporary Verse 2, Plenitude, and The Temz Review. She’s currently working on an MFA in creative writing at The University of Victoria.
Alex Leslie has published two collections of short stories, People Who Disappear and We All Need to Eat, and two collections of poetry, The things I heard about you and Vancouver for Beginners, which was shortlisted for a City of Vancouver Book Prize and won the Western Canada Jewish Book Prize for poetry. Alex’s first novel If I Don’t Go Now is forthcoming from Freehand.
David Ly is the author of Mythical Man (Anstruther Books, 2020) and Dream of Me as Water (Anstruther Books, 2022), both short-listed for ReLit Poetry Awards. He is also co-editor (with Daniel Zomparelli) of Queer Little Nightmares: An Anthology of Monstrous Fiction and Poetry (Arsenal Pulp Press, 2022). David’s debut novel, Not All Dragons, is forthcoming with Poplar Press in 2026.
Harry McKeown (they/them) is a queer and trans poet. Their debut chapbook I Need Not Be Good was published in February 2022 by Rahila’s Ghost Press and shortlisted for the 2023 bpNichol Chapbook Award. Their poems have appeared in SAD Mag, Poetry Magazine, Room, Peach Mag, Poetry is Dead, The Ex-Puritan, and Bad Nudes. They were awarded the George McWhirter Prize for Poetry in Winter 2020. Harry’s first full-length poetry collection is forthcoming with House of Anansi.
Mezi is a Vancouver-based poet, photographer, and Zen student. His work appears or is forthcoming in Plenitude, The Malahat Review, EVENT, filling Station, Beyond Queer Words, and other publications. He is also the author of Medellín (2017), a chapbook of photopoetry for the benefit of refugees. Learn more at mezi.site.
Devon Rae is a queer writer from Montreal, QC who now lives in Vancouver, BC. Her work has appeared in Arc Poetry Magazine, Canthius, PRISM International, Room, Plenitude, The New Quarterly, and elsewhere. She is the author of the poetry chapbook Thirteen Conversations with My Body (Anstruther Press, 2024).
Jane Shi is a poet, writer, and organizer living on the occupied, stolen, and unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəýəm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) nations. She is the winner of The Capilano Review‘s 2022 In(ter)ventions in the Archive Contest and author of the chapbook Leaving Chang’e on Read (Rahila’s Ghost Press, 2022). Her debut poetry collection echolalia echolalia (Brick Books, 2024) was shortlisted for the Raymond Souster Award. She wants to live in a world where love is not a limited resource, land is not mined, hearts are not filched, and bodies are not violated.
