CockTales with Tamara Faith Berger, Daniel Allen Cox, Megan Butcher, Nerys Parry and Jasmine Aziz

Hosted by Bywords' Amanda Earl

In Person Fiction

Admission

Free

Sunday

Apr , 2012

8:30pm

Eastern

Venus Envy

320 Lisgar St. (At Bank St) • Ottawa

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CockTales with Tamara Faith Berger, Daniel Allen Cox, Megan Butcher, Nerys Parry and Jasmine Aziz

'Maidenhead is by turns creepy and seductive and unlike anything you’ll read this spring.

Fashion

Let’s talk about sex! Where better than Venus Envy for an evening of prose exploring lust and desire and the power of intimacy to heal and harm?

Join us for an explicit evening with Tamara Faith Berger, author of Maidenhead; Daniel Allen Cox, author of Basement of Wolves; Megan Butcher, author of Here, There, Home; Nerys Parry, author of Man and Other Natural Disasters and Jasmine Aziz, author of Sex & Samosas.

The Authors

Daniel Allen Cox

Daniel Allen Cox is a Canadian novelist shortlisted twice for a Lambda Literary Award. AfterElton.com named Daniel one of its “Favorite Gay Canucks.” He was a columnist for Xtra Ottawa from 2008 to 2011. He lives in Montreal, where he works as a writing mentor. After stints as a Jehovah’s Witness and a porn model/actor, Daniel wrote Tattoo This Madness In, his novella about LGBT Jehovah’s Witnesses who use Smurf tattoos to rebel against their faith. Next was Shuck, his semi-autobiographical debut novel about a New York City hustler. It was published to wide acclaim and rave reviews, and was shortlisted for a Lambda Literary Award and a ReLit Award. His apartment burned down on November 2, 2007, while he was writing the book. His second novel, Krakow Melt, was also published by Arsenal Pulp Press. It was excerpted in The Advocate, chosen by San Francisco’s A Different Light bookstore as its October 2010 book club pick, named a Book Marks Best Fiction 2010 selection, and selected as a finalist for the Ferro-Grumley Award for LGBT Fiction and for a Lambda Literary Award. Istanbul-based Altikirkbes, the publisher behind the renowned Underground Poetix journal, will be translating and releasing a Turkish-language version of Krakow Melt as part of an underground literature series featuring Lydia Lunch. Daniel has spoken and performed widely, including at the Blue Metropolis International Literary Festival, gritLIT Hamilton Literary Fetsival, Ottawa International Writers’ Festival, Atlanta Queer Lit Fest, Northeastern Illinois University, Columbia College Chicago, McGill University, Wilfrid Laurier University’s Rainbow Centre, WESTFEST, the San Francisco Sex Worker Arts Festival, AIDS Committee of Ottawa, and on CBC Radio One. Daniel has read with Marcia Clark, the lead prosecutor in the O.J. Simpson murder trial. Daniel’s new novel, Basement of Wolves, is forthcoming from Arsenal Pulp Press in April 2012.

Jasmine Aziz

Jasmine Aziz is a retired vibrator seller. She worked as a consultant for four years doing in-home party presentations. In that time she met many amazing and diverse women and was inspired by them to write a novel that would help both men and women navigate the subtle complexities of the modern woman's life. Her debut novel, Sex & Samosas was released in October 2011 and sold out its first print run in only 4 months. Jasmine has been interviewed on Carleton University's CKCU program "Special Blend with Susan Johnston", as well as CBC 1 Radio's "All in a Day with Alan Neal". Sex & Samosas has received excellent reviews from both Capital Xtra weekly as well as Ottawa's largest daily newspaper the Ottawa Citizen. The Citizen review made special note that, "What saves the book from deteriorating into the gratuitousness or banality often found in chick lit is the earnest way the sex scenes are treated - with information, kindness and hilarity - and the surprisingly poignant family anecdotes." She was recently interviewed on sex therapist Rebecca Rosenblat's late night show Sex@11. Jasmine is currently working on her next two projects. One, a novel, and the other, her memoirs already titled Bring Your Own Batteries.

Megan Butcher

Megan Butcher is a librarian, sex educator and writer. The author of three chapbooks, most recently Here, There, Home, as well as co-author of a zine entitled A Guide to the Mannerly Wooing and Winning of the Object of Your Affection, her work has also appeared in Herizons,Capital Xtra, Ottawa Xpress, and SMUT Magazine. Visit her online at http://meganbutcher.com/

Nerys Parry

Nerys Parry's debut novel, Man & Other Natural Disasters, was a finalist for the Colophon Prize and tied for seventh in the Giller Prize Reader’s Choice Awards. Her writing has been described as “gorgeous throughout” (Kerry Clare, editor of Canadian Bookshelf), “compulsive reading” (Katherine Lyall-Watson), “engaging and thoughtful” (Winnipeg Free Press), and has been shortlisted for several awards, including the Kenneth R. Wilson Canadian Business Press, Event Creative Non-Fiction, and FreeFall’s Fall Fiction Awards. Man & Other Natural Disasters tells the story of Simon Peters, a recluse full of half-cocked theories on every subject from heart-broken shrimp to the Jungian consciousness of DNA who spends his days hiding from his horrific past. Enter Minerva, a twenty-two year-old business major whose ghostly resemblance to Simon’s dead sister compels him to reveal his shocking past. But parts of Simon’s story do not add up. When he finds Minerva passed out and bleeding on his bathroom floor, he must conquer the tyranny of his own memory and confront what really happened that summer of 1962. But the truth, when uncovered, proves no less astonishing than the original tale. Based on real events, Man & Other Natural Disasters is a testament to the power of story in a world too often shaken by forces outside our control: nature, terrorism, death—even love. Of all the planet has yet to throw at us, the question remains: can we recover from the worst natural disaster yet—ourselves? An engineer with a passion for hidden history, Nerys holds a Bachelor of Engineering from Queen’s and a Masters in Fine Arts in Creative Writing from UBC. She lives in Ottawa with her husband and two children.

Tamara Faith Berger

Tamara Faith Berger was born in Toronto. She wrote porn stories for a living and attempted to make dirty films before publishing her first book, Lie With Me, in 1999. It was made into a film in 2004. In 2001, A Woman Alone at Night was published. These two novels were collected in Little Cat. Her third book, Maidenhead, won the 2012 Believer Book Award. She is also the author of Kuntalini and is writing for film and television.