Ivan E. Coyote is a master storyteller; her beautiful, funny stories about growing up a lesbian butch in the Canadian north attract audiences both gay and straight. In her fifth collection, Ivan addresses issues of family, queer youth, and homophobia with a trenchant and wistful eye.

Beloved storyteller Ivan Coyote returns with their most intimate and moving book yet.In the early days of the coronavirus lockdown, like every artist and creator, writer and storyteller Ivan Coyote was faced with a calendar full of cancelled shows and a heart full of questions that all rhymed with what now? To keep busy while figuring out what to write about next, Ivan began to answer the backlog of mail and correspondences that had come in while they were on the pre-pandemic road: emails, letters, direct messages on social media, soggy handwritten notes found tucked under the windshield wiper of their car after a gig, all of it. In Care Of, Coyote combines the most moving and powerful of these letters with the responses they've sent in the months since the lockdown. Taken together, they become an affirming and joyous reflection on many of the themes and ideas central to Coyote's beloved work as an author and storyteller—a giant love letter to the idea of...

Ivan E. Coyote has developed a reputation as one of North America's most disarming storytellers; her tales of life as an out dyke on the roads and trails of the North as well as rural America are rich in their plainspoken, honest truths. In Loose End, her third story collection, Ivan focuses her attention on the city: urban life, specifically in the East End of Vancouver, a diverse neighborhood of all types—old, young, gay, straight, white, black, Asian—communing at local coffee bars over hot rods, the art of skinny-dipping, and changes in the weather. Ivan presides over this circus of activities with her cool gaze, whether it's trying to impress the woman with the hot tub next door, or showing her mother how to use a cordless drill.Ivan's world is the world of being out and open and unafraid; it's also a world in which no ghettos—racial, cultural, or defined by sexuality or gender—exist. With the calm, observant eye of a master...

Close to Spider Man marks the debut of an exciting new literary talent: a collection of connected stories whose female narrators seek out lives for themselves amidst the lonely, breathtaking landscape of the Yukon. The young women in Ivan Coyote's deeply personal stories are looking to make a break from their circumstances, but the North is in their bones: so is their connections to family, friends, and other women. Like the protagonist in the title story, a waitress whose attempts to help a young co-worker saddled with a lunatic father finds her running across rooftops and climbing ladders; by getting close to Spider Man, she gets closer to freedom.Startling in their intimacy, the stories in Close to Spider Man make up a moving scrapbook of what it's like to be a young queer woman in the North, journeys imbued with the colours of a prescient sexuality and an honest heart.Runner-up, Danuta Gleed Award for Short-Fiction

”Coyote is an important literary voice, blending a keen sense of gay identity and community with a refreshing appreciation for the goodness at the heart of some straight people.”—OutThe first three story collections by Ivan E. Coyote featured insightful, deeply personal tales about gender, identity, and community, based on her own experiences growing up lesbian in Canada’s North. Ivan’s most recent book, Bow Grip, was her first novel; it was shortlisted for the Ferro-Grumley Prize for Women’s Fiction, was named a Stonewall Honor Book by the American Library Association, and won Canada’s ReLit Award for Best Novel of the Year.With The Slow Fix, Ivan returns to her short story roots in a collection that is disarming, warm, and funny, while it at the same time subverts our preconceived notions of gender roles. Ivan excels at finding the small yet significant truths in our everyday gestures and interactions....

In Close to Spider Man—which won a Danuta Gleed Literary Award—readers were introduced to the crystalline storytelling voice of Ivan Coyote. The talent evident in that first collection is confirmed with One Man’s Trash, a series of connected stories about being queer, searching out new frontiers, and being on the road.The characters in One Man’s Trash make evident the child in all of us, when heroes and superheroes won the day.Including the hilarious account of an attempted lesbian wedding in a Las Vegas chapel, and a touching tale of being beguiled by an uncle’s independent-minded girlfriend, these are stories about being on the road: to the northern tundra or the southern desert, through cities and towns, on horses, in trucks and vans, with friends, family, and lovers. In achingly personal tones, Ivan Coyote paints beautiful and honest portraits of life, the road, and the spirits within.Praise for Close t...

Ivan Coyote is one of North America's preeminent storytellers and performers; they are the author, co-author, or co-editor of eleven previous books, and their TED talk has received over 1.6 million views online. Their most recent book, Tomboy Survival Guide, was shortlisted for the Hilary Weston Writers' Trust of Canada Prize for Non-Fiction and was named an American Library Association Stonewall Honor Book.In their latest, Ivan takes on the patriarchy and the political, as well as the intimate and the personal in these beguiling and revealing stories of what it means to be trans and non-binary today, at a time in their life when they must carry the burden of heartbreaking history with them, while combatting those who would misgender them or deny their very existence. These stories span thirty years of tackling TERFs, legislators, and bathroom police, sure, but there is joy and pleasure and triumph to be found here too, as Ivan pays homage to personal heroes like Leslie...

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...