January Sex Salon: Chronicling Our Stories: Narratives of 2SLGBTQ+ Communities and Chronic Health
The January 2022 Sex Salon will be held on January 27th, from 4:00pm to 5:30pm EST.
A collaboration between the Sex Salon event series and the Community-Based Research Centre (CBRC), Chronicling our stories: narratives of 2SLGBTQ+ communities and chronic health is a virtual event that honours narrative and creative approaches to the lived experience of being 2SLGBTQ+ and living with chronic disease/illness/struggle. Writers Nisha Patel and Eli Tareq Bechelany-Lynch will share from their creative work, and then be joined in conversation with CBRC’s Research Manager, Anu Radha Verma, to explore what it means to navigate community, health care systems, and creative worlds. The dialogue will also consider what we might gain from bringing together pressing questions, quantitative data, and calls for action. This event is free to attend and ASL interpretation will be provided. Contact sds.sexsalon@gmail.com with any access concerns.
Register on Zoom.
Speaker Bios:
Nisha Patel is an award-winning queer poet & artist. She was the City of Edmonton’s 8thPoet Laureate, and the 2019 Canadian Individual Slam Champion, as well as the 2021 Regional Writer in Residence. Her debut collection, COCONUT, is out with Newest Press.
Nisha has performed across the world. Her poetry speaks to themes of race and identity, focusing strongly on her struggles and triumphs as a woman of colour. She strives to build strong relationships, mentorship, and opportunities for artists around her, believing in the possibility and forgiveness of the Edmonton arts scene. Nisha works to further her goal of building a stronger artistic community through living in her truth. You can find her at nishapatel.ca.
Eli Tareq El Bechelany-Lynch is a queer Arab poet living in Tio’tia:ke, unceded Kanien’kehá:ka territory. Their work has appeared in The Best Canadian Poetry 2018 anthology, GUTS, Carte Blanche, the Shade Journal, The New Quarterly, Arc Poetry Magazine, and elsewhere. They were longlisted for the CBC poetry prize in 2019. You can find them on Instagram and Twitter @theonlyelitareq. Their book, knot body, was published by Metatron Press in 2020, and their second book, The Good Arabs, was published by Metonymy Press in September 2021.
Image description: Light cream background with soft pastel shapes resembling paintbrush strokes, in light pink and light orange. In black font: Chronicling Our Stories: Narratives of 2SLGBTQ+ Communities and Chronic Health. January 27, 2022. 4 to 5:30 pm EST. With writers Nisha Patel & Eli Tareq Bechelany-Lynch. An image of Nisha is on the left, standing in front of a painted mural wall, wearing a shiny purple dress and pink-purple tights. Nisha has long blonde hair and is smiling looking slightly to the side. Photo credit for Nisha’s image is Faiza. An image of Eli is on the right, standing in front of greenery, wearing a short sleeve denim button up, with the sleeves cuffed, and a white t-shirt underneath, and well as black pants. Eli has light almost white hair and is looking directly into the camera. Logos of the Mark S. Bonham Centre for Sexual Diversity Studies and the Community-Based Research Centre are at the top corners.