The Violet Letter, Nov. 2025
This month: November events, VHBC & Expozine, the Guignolée des Drags Patronnesses, how you can support Violet Hour, book news and literary links.
VIOLET HOUR: The Next Chapter
Friends,
Welcome to the November edition of The Violet Letter. Notice a change? I’ve been sending out these monthly dispatches for over six years now (since October 2018) and figured it was time to take things up a notch.
I’m now using Substack as the main platform for The Violet Letter. Not only will this allow me to archive each issue and find new readers, but it will also allow me to publish additional content, like interviews and features and behind-the-scenes looks into the work that goes into producing the Violet Hour Literary Series & Book Club. All things that I have wanted to do for a long time.
We’ve accomplished a lot together in the past decade. Since 2014, Violet Hour has presented more than 200 events that have showcased the work of over 300 LGBTQ+ writers. Every year, we produce between 20 and 30 literary events for the public, with most, if not all of them, being free. I don’t know how I’ve done this so far, operating as I do without a budget. Mostly, it’s been the friendships and personal connections made that have been the reward.
However, for me to accomplish the things I want to do moving forward, I have to start accepting support. For years now, people have asked me how they can contribute, and I never had a satisfying answer. Now I do… So, if queer literary programming in Montreal is important to you, and you would like to see me grow as both an events producer and a writer, I am going to ask you to consider paying for this newsletter.
If you can’t, no worries. This newsletter will always be free. But know that if you are able to contribute, you’ll have not only my deepest and most heartfelt gratitude but also exclusive access to the extra content I’m planning, including personal behind-the-scenes posts about my writing projects/process and Violet Hour events.
I have a lot of ideas/plans for Violet Hour in 2026 and can really use your help to achieve them. Thanks for being a part of this community.
Photo by Vincent Fortier
MONTREAL LAUNCH: Soundtrack by Michael V. Smith
Writer, performer, and filmmaker Michael V. Smith reimagines the book launch for his latest publication, Soundtrack: A Lyric Memoir. A collection of poems inspired by songs and albums from the 80s and 90s, Soundtrack tells Michael’s story of growing up gay in the shadow of AIDS. With his humour and tenderness, and guided by the music of the era, he catalogues social prejudices, court rulings, and medical breakthroughs, alongside personal devastations, triumphs, and the search for community.
For his new release, Michael is throwing karaoke + poetry parties across the country and will be hosting one in Montreal on Monday, November 10 at 7 PM at Casa de Popolo (4873 St Laurent Blvd.). Michael will read from the work and have local friends lead sing-alongs of some of the songs/albums featured in the book. I have agreed to sing “Church of the Poison Mind” by Culture Club (check out the photo of me as Boy George one Halloween when I was a kid). Joining us on stage for the other tracks will be Guizo LaNuit, Hana Shafi, Christine White, and Maggie MacDonald.
Boy Chris
VIOLET HOUR: Readings Nov. 11
If you miss Michael V. Smith as part of his Soundtrack launch, you can catch him the following night (Tuesday, November 11 at 7 PM) at the next Violet Hour: Readings event. Also coming through town will be Victoria poet John Barton who is touring his latest collection, Compulsory Figures. Not many people know this, but John appeared at one of my very first events in 2014. It was because of John’s visit to Montreal that I was inspired to create a regular reading series that featured visiting and local queer writers.
Joining Michael, John and I will be three Montreal writers with new publications. VHBC member Su J Sokol will read from xyr latest work of speculative fiction, Five Points on an Invisible Line (also, our January book club selection), while Jordan Coloumbe will read from the latest edition of his zine, Crooked (our November selection). Rounding out the local writers will be Emilie Nantel, author of the new young adult book Load Game.
We’re also going to be at a new venue. The Rocket Science Room is a DIY arts/cultural space, which facilitates live events in the city. It’s located in the Atlas Lighting Building (170 Rue Jean-Talon O #204).
VIOLET HOUR ZINE CLUB: Crooked and Gender Trash from Hell
This month, the Violet Hour Book Club becomes the Violet Hour Zine Club, as we explore the world of Canadian zine culture through two influential publications: the 10th anniversary edition of Crooked (2025) by Jordan Coulombe, and the first edition of Gendertrash from Hell (1993) by Mirha-Soleil Ross and Xanthra Phillippa.
Members are also invited to bring copies of their own and/or favourite zines to share with others. I’ll be showing off my own not-queer-at-all publication I created with friends in high school called Botan: The Mag (below).
First three pages of my high school zine
Copies of Crooked can be purchased directly through Jordan’s website or at Librairie L’Euguélionne (1426 Rue Beaudry). Copies of Gendertrash from Hell can be downloaded for free through the Queer Zine Archive Project, although Little Puss Press just released the collected issues as an anthology. Jordan has also made available this downloadable file, which gives a brief history of fagazines.
Our meeting takes place on a Sunday this month: Sunday, November 16, beginning at 3 PM at Espace des Possibles La Petite-Patrie (6450 Christophe-Colomb, Beaubien Metro).
The November meeting of the VHBC is also an official activity of Expozine, Montreal’s annual small press, zine and comics fair (November 15 & 16). For those who are interested in attending the fair in a group, I will be at the doors of the Égilse St. Arsene (1015 Rue Bélanger) at 1 PM. Come tour this year’s exhibitors with me.
WINTER VHBC TITLES
I’ve finally selected VHBC’s winter titles and dates. Here are the next four titles we will be reading together:
A Last Supper of Queer Apostles: Selected Essays (2024) by Pedro Lemebel (Saturday, December 20), a collaboration with AIDS Community Care Montreal
Five Points on an Invisible Line (2025) by Su J Sokol (Saturday, January 24)
How We Fight for Our Lives: A Memoir by Saaed Jones (Sunday, February 22)
The Tiger and the Cosmonaut by Eddy Boudel Tan (Saturday, March 21)
All meetings take place from 3 PM to 4:30 PM at Espace des Possibles La Petite-Patrie (6450 Christophe-Colomb, Beaubien Metro).
Books are available at a discount for members at Librairie Paragraphe (2220 McGill College) and Librairie Pulp Books & Cafe (3952 Wellington).
THE QUEER SHELF: Béatrice de St-Maurice
Violet Hour is one of several local queer orgs helping Montreal’s Les Drags patronnesses raise funds and collect food this holiday season for Maison Plein Coeur, a non-profit supporting people living with HIV/AIDS to better cope with solitude, isolation, and poverty. From November 15 to December 15, the queens will be holding their Guignolée des Drags Patronnesses with funds and foods collected going to help create Christmas baskets for individuals and families in vulnerable situations.
The troupe has planned a number of events throughout the month, and I will be accepting donations of non-perishable food items at both November’s and December’s book club meetings. If you want to also make a financial contribution, you can do so here.
To inspire participation, I asked one of the patronesses, Béatrice de St-Maurice, to share with us a favourite read for our Queer Shelf column. She selected A Single Man by Christopher Isherwood (seen below in its French translation).
“A gentle, moving, and deeply painful story, Isherwood brilliantly explores the depths of the soul and the weight of grief. The book’s aging protagonist lives in a world completely detached from the society around him, at a time when openly being homosexual is fraught with difficulty. This is a poignant meditation on loneliness and aging within a conformist world. I found the book profoundly affecting in its depiction of everyday gestures, and Isherwood’s prose masterfully balances emotional complexity with the simplicity of language. A book to discover (or rediscover).”
BOOK NEWS & EVENTS
New and recent books to discover this month: Fire in Every Direction: A Memoir by Tareq Baconi; The Royal We: A Memoir by Roddy Bottum; And the Dragons Do Come: Raising a Transgender Kid in Rural America by Sim Butler; Isaac by Curtis Garner; Cindy_16 by Louis-Daniel Godin; Read This When Things Fall Apart by Kelly Hayes; You Watched in Silence by H. Lee Justine; The Silver Book by Olivia Laing; Thirst Trap by Gráinne O’Hare; Town & Country by Brian Schaefer; Terry Dactyl by Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore; Palaver by Bryan Washington; and Like Family by Erin O. White.
Montreal writer H Felix Chau Bradley (and author of our March 2025 VHBC selection, Personal Attention Roleplay) is in Ireland right now, taking part in the QWF’s Max Margles Writing Residency at the Tyrone Guthrie Centre. You can read how it’s going here.
On Thursday, November 6 (tonight), Librairie Pulp Books & Café (3952 rue Wellington) launches Ziyad Saadi’s Three Parties, in which “a queer Palestinian refugee plans to come out at his elaborate birthday dinner party in this tragicomic modern reimagining of Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway.” With Eli Tareq El Bechelany-Lynch, starting at 7 PM.
On Saturday, November 8, Joie de livres Bookstore presents another one of their Sapphic Saturdays highlighting WLW (women-who-love-other-women) books and social activities (cocktails, tarot card readings) for queer community members and allies.
If you feel like heading out of town this weekend, Ottawa has a new queer arts festival called ChromaQueer taking place (November 7-9). Among the offerings is the return of Wilde About Sappho, the legendary queer reading series that was a central part of Lambda Foundation Canada’s activities. Wilde About Sappho takes place on Sunday, November 9, in the Arts Court Theatre (2 Daly Avenue), to honour the voices that shaped the foundation’s early years and celebrate the national scholarship programs that have grown from that legacy. Reading will be John Barton, Donna Sharkey, and Montrealers H. Nigel Thomas and Eli Tareq El-Bechelany Lynch.
Theatre Duceppe is offering VHBC members a 18% discount on tickets to see Corps fantômes, a collective creation that jumps back and forth between 1990 and 2025 and explores Montréal’s forgotten queer history during the AIDS crisis through a daughter’s discovery of her father’s past. It’s been called “a Quebec echo of Angels in America,” and a long play, too (clocks in at 3h30). There are two presentations with English sur-titles: Friday November 7 and Saturday, November 8. (I’ll be at the Nov. 7 one, if anyone is curious). Just use the code DUCOMMUNAUTE when purchasing tickets online.
If you’re looking for more queer plays, Luc Provost (Mado) stars as one of Michel Tremblay’s most iconic characters in Hosanna ou la Shéhérazade des pauves, which was first published as a novel before the author turned it into a play. The production opens November 11 at the TNM.
Leila Marshy launches Razing Palestine on Wednesday, November 12 at Kawalees (5175 AAve. Du Parc). The anthology was written by Canadians across the country who experienced repression, punishment and violence for standing up for Palestine. Joining Marshy at the event will be contributors Sheima Benembarek, Safa Chebbi, Yara Coussa, Yipeng Ge, Duha Elmardi, Sara Kendall, Kagiso Lesego Molope, Ehab Lotayef, and Hunaifa Malik.
On Thursday, November 13, Alex Manley launches Post-Man: Essays on Being a Neurodivergent Non-Binary Person at De Stiil Bookstore (351 Duluth E) at 7 PM.
Writer Samuel Larochelle celebrates the 10th edition of Cabaret Accents Queers with a special event Friday, November 14 at Usine C, featuring Tranna Wintour, Jean-Paul Daoust, Manal Drissi, David Paquet, Jonathan Bécotte, Maxime-Ève Gagnon, Chris Bergeron, Calamine and ChaCha Enriquez.
Image & Nation, Montreal’s queer film festival, returns November 20-30. Among the offering are a couple films with literary ties: the world premiere of episode one of the Crave series, Heated Rivalry, based on the book by Rachel Reid, and The Captive, a historical retelling of the life of Miguel de Cervantes, author of the novel Don Quixote. You can find this year’s entire program online.
Montreal journalist and film critic Matt Hays was a screenwriter on his brother Peter’s film Flashback, a documentary about an Edmonton bar that was considered Studio 54 of the Prairies during the 1980s. Watch the film for free here.
We have 18 sign-ups for our first meeting of the Violet Hour Book Club Toronto on Saturday, November 29 at Another Story Bookshop. The inaugural title is What I Know About You by Éric Chacour. Those who are interested in joining need to sign up to attend. Tell you friends.
At last month’s book club meeting, Ful mentioned Montreal’s Queer Cinema Club and their upcoming December 4 screening of 120 battements par minute at Cinéma du Parc. Find out about their monthly projections here.
QUEER VIEW MIRROR: October
A huge thank you to everyone who came out to celebrate 10 years of Jordan Coloumbe’s Crooked Fagazine on October 9. It was such a fun event, and I’m grateful to Jordan for the invitation. One of the things I love about Jordan is his creativity and vision. For this milestone, he knew exactly what he wanted to do. Since Crooked is all about confessional storytelling, Jordan thought it would be fitting for me to hear his confession of having produced 10 editions of the zine. To do so, he rented me priest’s outfit (below), and I sat on the stools of Dep Le Pick-Up with him and we talked all about early queer print culture, the role zines play in community building, and stripping shame of its power.
Photo by Su J Sokol
Thanks also to those who came out to hear me read at the 2025 edition of Literary Oktoberfest (below). Held at the L’Ambroisie et L’Espace Canal the event was a wonderful mix of keynotes and readings, plus dozens of tables of publishers, booksellers, and literary support organizations. Literary events often tend to skew older, but the organizers of this event (Montreal writer and editor Curtis McRae and his team at Yolk Literary Journal) really know how to talk to the next generation. I was beyond honoured to be asked to read, choosing to read an excerpt from my current work-in-progress. To be honest, I was nervous. This voice in this work is very different from what I have written before, but it was good to hear it out loud in a room and feel the words in mouth. I was pleased to get some laughs too, reassuring me they are not only in my head.
Photo by Héctor Gálvez
That’s it for this month. Happy reading!
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Love this new format and platform, Chris. Fantastic. And I’m happy to subscribe.
What a lineup of events you have, well, lined up for us this month, Chris! Thanks so much for all your work. You add so much love and pleasure to/for our community. ❤️
I’m in! It makes sense to have a subscription with all the work you put into it, Chris!