Ivan E. Coyote's Blog, page 2
June 24, 2014
Push the Binary
National Post says that calling 2014 the year of transgender stories wouldn’t be an understatement. [Click here for the full story]
April 28, 2014
Gender Failure and the danger of “he” and “she”
And why refusing the artists' gender-neutral pronoun means we have our own failure to contend with.
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What would it mean not to be a man or a woman?
That’s the central question of Rae Spoon and Ivan E. Coyote’s new book Gender Failure, a text archive of their storytelling and musical performance of the same name. Spoon, Canada’s critical darling of indie-folk-to-electronic and Coyote, author of eight books, take turns telling stories about their experiences trying— and failing—to navigate the gender binary, that social construct that demands everyone must be either a “boy” or a “girl” in the way they dress and behave.
April 9, 2014
Edmonton Journal: Rae Spoon and Ivan Coyote question ‘the order of things’
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Content Teaser:
As a species, we’re capable of awesome cognitive leaps.
With a handful of touchy subjects, though, we can become deeply prejudiced baggage-carriers. Whether it’s calcified thinking, a knee-jerk bad habit, or a vestigial imperative woven into our DNA, we’re drawn to restrictive categories and norms over and again.
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by Rae Spoon and Ivan Coyote
Arsenal Pulp
As a species, we’re capable of awesome cognitive leaps.
With a handful of touchy subjects, though, we can become deeply prejudiced baggage-carriers. Whether it’s calcified thinking, a knee-jerk bad habit, or a vestigial imperative woven into our DNA, we’re drawn to restrictive categories and norms over and again. Ever suspicious, we’re prone to slap on hard-to-remove labels that determine “belongs” and “does not belong.” We isolate “unacceptable” from “acceptable” in a mere heartbeat.
If you’re doubting this blanket statement, just consider that most mundane of events, the twice-daily commute. A transcript of the snap judgments from just one of its minutes would reveal a veritable jamboree of sexist, racist, ageist, and classist attitudes (that usually stay locked inside individual skulls nestled within individual vehicles, fortunately).
Contesting such ingrained and seemingly instinctive patterns can be thankless work. And difficult too, an uphill battle.
March 27, 2014
NOW: 10 more must-reads
Bookstores may be going under – the Cookbook Store, the World’s Biggest Bookstore and, most lamentably, Book City’s Bloor West location – but stories are more powerful than ever. Whether you’re reading them the old-school way or on your e-reader, as PDFs or online, here are this spring’s major must-reads.
10 Transgender Artists Who Are Changing The Landscape Of Contemporary Art
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Working in an array of artistic media including photography, video, sculpture, classical music and the spoken word, transgender artists are sharing their stories and experiences, their trauma and hope, their pasts and futures -- on their own terms. Whether defining themselves as transgender, gender variant, transfeminine or gender failure, the following artists challenge our current understandings of identity while paving the way for a more aware and accepting future.
With skill, bravery, humor and passion, the following artists interpret transgender life in radically different ways, revealing the infinitely multifaceted reality of the trans experience. The following artistic forces have contributed immensely to the growing transgender presence in the art world and thus in the greater cultural consciousness. Behold, 10 trans artists who are radically changing the landscape of contemporary art.
February 11, 2014
An Interview with Ivan Coyote
Interview in CWILA - Canadian Women in the Literary Arts
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in CWILA (Canadian Women in the Literary Arts)
Interview by Tina Northrup
In an interview with Joy Parks that was published in Books in Canada in 2003, you speak of learning to tell stories in the company of your huge extended family. How did you begin to publish and perform?
I actually started off as a sort of a three-or-four-chord lesbian folk singer, and quickly realized that I liked and was better at the banter in between songs, I guess. Then there was a period of doing open mikes and such, it is a little blurry in there, but all of a sudden there I was on the bill with folks like the Minimalist Jug Band and Cass King and even Al Purdy before he died, the literary performance types, this was before the slam poetry scene really took off. Then around 1996 or so I was one of four founding members of Taste This, a four-person (we all identified as women back then, I don’t really, now, I call myself trans, it is closer to the truth of me) performance troupe that blended music, storytelling, performance poetry and monologue type of stuff. I’ve never really been much into labels, they only serve us until they don’t, and they stifle innovation sometimes.
February 4, 2014
2014 Queer Canadian Books to Be Excited About
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2014 Queer Canadian Books to Be Excited About
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2014 Queer Canadian Books to Be Excited About - January 30, 2014
If you missed Ivan and Rae’s show of the same name that toured in 2012, here’s your chance to catch up. Both neither fitting the narratives for hetero and cisnormative gender or for dominant ideas about trans identities, Ivan and Rae are calling themselves gender failures. But, it turns out, Gender Failure tells us that gender is never really a success for anyone.
Ivan Coyote Featured in CBC Booklist
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Ivan was featured in CBC's new booklist of writers you need to put on your radar
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CBCBooks Friday, January 31, 2014
Ivan Coyote is a gender-bending author who loves telling stories and performing in front of a live audience -- often weaving music and humour into these live performances. It should be noted that Coyote identifies as transgender and uses the gender neutral pronoun "they."
Coyote has published eight books: the latest is the 2012 collection One In Every Crowd, aimed specifically at queer youth. Coyote's novel Bow Grip won the 2007 ReLit Award, was named a Stonewall Honor Book by the American Library Association and is in development as a feature film. More recently, Coyote has been collaborating with Rae Spoon on the multimedia show Gender Failure, which will be released as a book this April.
Here is a link to the full article on the CBC website.
March 12, 2013
The New Current Interview: Ivan Coyote "Gender Failure" - London Lesbian Gay Film Festival 2013
TNC is proud to share another LLGFF EXCLUSIVE pre-festival interview with the multi-award winning spoken word performer and writer Ivan Coyote.
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thennewcurrent Mar 11, 2013
The 27th London Lesbian Gay Film Festival is less than a week away and things are really starting to heat up. It is undeniable that this years festival has hit all the right notes with more originality and more diversity that ever before in its 27 years.
Link to the full interview article.
January 27, 2011
Missed Her in Top 11 Over the Rainbow Book List
Chosen out of several books, Missed Her made it into the top 11.
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You can see the entire list here.
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