Billy-Ray Belcourt: Coexistence

Bestselling author Billy-Ray Belcourt discusses his new collection of intersecting stories about Indigenous love and loneliness.

Across the prairies and Canada’s west coast, on reserves and university campuses, at literary festivals and existential crossroads, the characters in are searching for connection. They’re learning to live with and understand one another, to see beauty and terror side by side, and to accept that the past, present, and future can inhabit a single moment.

An aging mother confides in her son about an intimate friendship from her distant girlhood. A middling poet is haunted by the cliché his life has become. A chorus of anonymous gay men dispense unvarnished truths about their sex lives. A man freshly released from Pr*son finds that life on the outside has sinister strictures of its own. A PhD student dog-sits for his parents at what was once a lodging for nuns operating a residential school—a house where the spectre of Catholicism comes to feel eerily literal.

Billy-Ray Belcourt speaks with author and educator Jeffrey Ansloos about Coexistence, a crystalline, emotionally potent collection of stories.

Q&A and book signing to follow. Books available for purchase.

Ticket registration for this event is required: Free tickets for this event will be available to book via Eventbrite beginning on April 30 at 9:00am ET.

About this event’s guests:

Billy-Ray Belcourt

Jeffrey Ansloos

Read more:

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This event is part of our signature Salon Series, where we host local and international authors, artists and thinkers in conversation about their new books and big ideas.

It is also part of our Indigenous Celebrations series, generously supported by TD Bank Group, through the TD Ready Commitment.

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Note: This is an in-person event at The Bram and Bluma Appel Salon, the premiere event space for Toronto Public Library's cultural and heritage programming located on the second floor of the Toronto Reference Library (789 Yonge Street).

Arrive early, meet people. The talk starts at 7pm, but doors open at 6pm. Come early so you can chat with your fellow literature lovers, and make new friends. As with all Appel Salon events, we'll have a bar with a selection of beer and wine, as well as snacks, available to purchase (only debit and credit cards accepted).

Reminder! We oversell these events to make sure that the most people have an opportunity to attend. Tickets are only guaranteed until 15 minutes before the show starts, at which point we will start opening up available spots to the rush line.

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Accessibility at Toronto Public Library:

Toronto Public Library is committed to accessibility. Please call or email us if you are Deaf or have a disability and would like to request accommodation to participate in this program. Please let us know as far in advance as possible and we will do our best to meet your request. At least three weeks’ notice is preferred. Phone 416-393-7099 or email [email protected].

Host or Publisher Toronto Public Library