Join authors Aaron Chan, Tash McAdam and Candie Tanaka as they discuss why they write emotionally engaging characters that are outside the traditional queer canon. The event will be followed by a few short fun creativity exercises to get your imagination gaily motivated.
Optional: Bring a pen and a notebook (or your phone) to generate attributes for a character that you can use for your next novel or short story.
Post-event baked goods from Chinatown + conversation graciously donated by the queer patron saints of storytelling!
Location: Room C400, UBC Robson Square
Moderator: Candie Tanaka Guest LGBTQIA2S+ Curator, Baby Drag Queen (Orca Book Publishers)
Readers: Aaron Chan, The Broken Heart (Penguin Random House), Tash McAdam, No One Left But You (Penguin Random House)
About The Moderator
Candie Tanaka
Candie Tanaka is a multiracial trans writer, artist and librarian challenging the binaries continually reconstructed between self and other while exploring archive and memory in a socio-political context. They are a creative writing graduate of The Writer’s Studio program at Simon Fraser University and have a BFA in Intermedia from Emily Carr Institute of Art + Design. Their first YA book, Baby Drag Queen was published with Orca Books in April 2023 and was a finalist for the City of Vancouver Book Award. They’ve also published work in Resonance: Essays on the Craft of Life and Writing with Anvil Press and This Will Only Take A Minute: Canadian Flash Fiction with Guernica Editions. Forthcoming publications include an essay in the Queer Country Crossroads Anthology with Caitlin Press in October 2025.
About The Readers
Aaron Chan
Aaron Chan is a musician, filmmaker, and writer born and raised on unceded Coast Salish territories (Vancouver, BC). He holds a BFA from the University of British Columbia and an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of California Riverside. He is the author of This City Is a Minefield (Signal 8 Press), a collection of memoir and personal essays about growing up gay and Asian in Vancouver, and the children’s picture book, The Broken Heart, published by Rocky Pond Books His writing has been published in literary magazines and publications including Plenitude, filling Station, Polychrome Ink, and Xtra. He won subTerrain‘s Lush Triumphant Literary Award in Creative Non-Fiction, and he has published a poetry chapbook, Romantic Hopeless. He is the recipient of the L.M. and Marcia McQuern Endowed Graduate Award in Non-Fiction Writing. His piece “Quiz” was longlisted for the 2024 CBC Nonfiction Prize.
Tash McAdam
Tash is a Welsh-Canadian author, activist and educator. Their publications include the critically acclaimed trans led murder mystery, No One Left But You (SoHo Teen), Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selections Blood Sport and Sink or Swim from Orca Books and more. Tash is passionate about social justice and mentors trans youth through the Gender Generations Project, a program they sit on the board for and were instrumental in founding. When they’re not writing or reading you can find Tash in a lake, lying on the carpet thinking about monsters, or getting a new tattoo. They enjoy regular cups of tea, DIY, existential philosophy, and sharp objects.
