Description
Stonewall Book Award Honor Book winner; Hilary Weston Writers' Trust of Canada Prize for Non-Fiction finalist
Ivan Coyote is a celebrated storyteller and the author of ten previous books, including Gender Failure (with Rae Spoon) and One in Every Crowd, a collection for LGBT youth. Tomboy Survival Guide is a funny and moving memoir told in stories, in which Ivan recounts the pleasures and difficulties of growing up a tomboy in Canada's Yukon, and how they learned to embrace their tomboy past while carving out a space for those of us who don't fit neatly into boxes or identities or labels.
Ivan writes movingly about many firsts: the first time they were mistaken for a boy; the first time they purposely discarded their bikini top so they could join the boys at the local swimming pool; and the first time they were chastised for using the women's washroom. Ivan also explores their years as a young butch, dealing with new infatuations and old baggage, and life as a gender-box-defying adult, in which they offer advice to young people while seeking guidance from others. (And for tomboys in training, there are even directions on building your very own unicorn trap.)
Tomboy Survival Guide warmly recounts Ivan's adventures and mishaps as a diffident yet free-spirited tomboy, and maps their journey through treacherous gender landscapes and a maze of labels that don't quite stick, to a place of self-acceptance and an authentic and personal strength. These heartfelt, funny, and moving stories are about the culture of difference--a "guide" to being true to one's self.
Author: Ivan Coyote
Publisher: Arsenal Pulp Press
Published: 10/18/2016
Pages: 208
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.70lbs
Size: 7.90h x 5.40w x 0.70d
ISBN13: 9781551526560
ISBN10: 1551526565
BISAC Categories:
- Biography & Autobiography | LGBTQ+
- Social Science | Gender Studies
- Social Science | LGBTQ+ Studies | Lesbian Studies
About the Author
Ivan Coyote: Ivan Coyote is the award-winning author of eleven books, and the creator of four short films as well as three CDs that combine storytelling with music. Ivan is a seasoned stage performer and long-time road dog, and over the last eighteen years has become an audience favorite at storytelling, literary, film, and folk music festivals from Anchorage to Amsterdam.