As queers across North America and beyond face increasing threat and diminishment of hard-won human rights, we check in with writers who have faced significant personal and political challenges and emerged creative and resilient on the other side.
This intergenerational panel brings together younger and elder queers and invites the audience to enter into a lively discussion of creative resilience through a queer lens.
Location: Room C440, UBC Robson Square
Type: Panel, 2SLGBTQIA+ Programming
Moderator: Nicola Harwood, Guest 2SLGBTQIA+ Curator, Flight Instructions for the Commitment Impaired (Caitlin Press)
Readers: Johnny Aitken, Two Tricksters Find Friendship (Orca Book Publishers) | Betty Baxter, Outspoken: A Journey from Olympic Athlete to Activist (Harbour Publishing) | Li Charmaine Anne, Crash Landing (Annick Press)
About The Moderator
Nicola Harwood
Nicola Harwood is an interdisciplinary artist and writer. Their plays, performances and installation projects have been produced and exhibited in Canada, Europe and the US. Nicola often works in collaboration with other artists and has facilitated many art, writing and theatre projects in communities. They are grateful to live on the ancestral, unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, and səlilwətaɬ Nations also known as Vancouver, Canada.
About The Readers
Johnny Aitken
Elder Johnny Aitken, he/they, is a physical actor, writer, carver, filmmaker, activist, and educator. Johnny’s mixed ancestry includes Coast Salish, Scottish and Haida. Johnny, self identifies as a 2Spirit First Nations individual. Johnny is currently co-writing a series of children’s books with his friend and colleague Jessica Willows. Their first book, Two Tricksters Find Friendship is now available in most bookstores. Johnny considers himself a cross-cultural bridge builder, a lifetime occupation he takes very seriously with a lot of humour! Johnny most enjoys collaborating with members of the Settler community, creating stories that lead us all to a place of healing.
Betty Baxter
Betty Baxter (she/her) spent twelve years in Canada’s high performance sport system in the 1970s and 1980s, as an athlete, as captain of the 1976 Olympic volleyball team, and as a coach internationally for Canada and in Norway. From 1977-79 she was a member of the National Advisory Council on Fitness and Amateur Sport, reporting to the Minister of Fitness and Amateur Sport in Ottawa and in 1981 was a founding member of the Canadian Association for the Advancement of Women and Sport (now called Canadian Women & Sport). After her expulsion as Canada’s national volleyball coach in 1982 she spent decades as an outspoken activist for LGBTQ+ community and human rights. She initiated the creation of a National Coaching School for Women (1987–1991). In 1993 she was the first open lesbian to seek federal public office as a candidate in Vancouver Centre, and from 2011- 2018 she served as a trustee of her local school board. She spent over 30 years in adult education, strategic planning, and for fourteen years ran a successful small business. She has served as a director on a dozen boards for nonprofit, health, municipal and political organizations. Her essay Homophobia, Hypocrisy and Power Abuse was published in Playing It Forward: 50 Years of Women and Sport in Canada (Second Story Press, 2014). In 2022/23 she published several memoir pieces in the Canadian Horse Journal, a national publication with 75,000 subscribers. Her work has appeared in online journals and in the anthology Potato Soup Journal: Best of 2022 (Potato Soup Press, 2023).
Li Charmaine Anne
Li Charmaine Anne (李倩文; she/they) is a Cantonese diaspora writer and settler who grew up in the unceded xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) territories otherwise known as Vancouver, BC. Her first novel, Crash Landing, won the 2024 Governor General’s Literary Award in Young People’s Literature - Text. Shorter works by Charmaine can be found in The Tyee, SAD Mag, Plenitude Magazine, and more. Char’s influences and inspirations include the rugged natural landscape of the Pacific Northwest, her Chinese heritage, birds, boardsports, and the people and places she has had the privilege of meeting.
