BGSQDBureau of General Services—Queer Division
BGSQD
Presented by the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division and What Would an HIV Doula Do?
Friday, December 3, 2021
4 PM PST / 5 PM MST / 6 PM CST / 7 PM EST
Online, Free (registration on Eventbrite required for Zoom link)
Two Writers… One title. Decades apart, and unbeknownst to each other, writers Berend McKenzie and Francisco Ibanez Carrasco both wrote very beautiful – and very different – short stories about community, connection, and HIV set in Vancouver in the late 20th century, with the same unique title: HOCKEY NIGHT IN CANADA.
For the first time, the two writers will come together for World AIDS Day to share their short stories, and talk with each other and an audience about living and creating with community, history, and HIV. Along the way they will also answer the question: What does hockey have to do with HIV anyway?
Berend´s story is part of the collection BETWEEN CERTAIN DEATH AND A POSSIBLE FUTURE: Queer Writing on Growing Up with the AIDS Crisis.
Francisco´s story appeared in the underground publication, Diseased Pariah News (issue 11).
Hockey Night image: Juan Saavedra (knowjuan.com)
This event is free, but donations to support the Bureau’s work are always welcome!
You can make a donation when you register for the event on Eventbrite.
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BIOS
Berend McKenzie (he/she/they interchangeably) is a Treaty 6 Edmonton Alberta, Canada based, award-winning playwright, producer, actor, screenwriter, and published author, known for their unflinching, first-person writing style while drawing from their own lived experiences as a black, mixed-race Canadian. Berend began writing short plays in 2004 for the Loud & Queer Festival in Edmonton, Alberta, leading to his first full-length play, Get Off the Cross Mary! In 2009, Berend premiered, NGGRFG (Would you say the name of this play?). Their published works include NGGRFG (Signature Editions), Tassels (Brindle & Glass), Hockey Night in Canada (Arsenal Pulp Press). Berend is the 2021 Catalyst Theatre Confluence Fellow as well as a part of the 2021 Warner Media Global Access Writer’s Academy.
Francisco Ibanez-Carrasco’s rags-to-(somewhat)-riches story started with migrating from Chile, from poverty and military dictatorship, to 1985 Canada at 22 years old, getting diagnosed with HIV in 1986, becoming an AIDS activist in 1989, and pursuing a thrilling combo of community work and qualitative social-behavioural research. Currently, he is an Assistant Professor at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto. His fiction shows desperate measures for desperate time and oblique relationships. His memoir Giving It Raw was published in 2015 by Transgress Press, Oakland, CA. https://givingitraw.ca/ On December 1, World AIDS day, Francisco has been presented with a POZ Toronto Award from POZ Planet magazine for his fight to HIV-stigma – https://www.facebook.com/groups/POZPLANET/
Kristy Harcourt (she/her) is a member of the What Would an HIV Doula Do? Collective based in Edmonton, Alberta. A 2SLGBTQ community worker, social worker, therapist and writer, she is also a Sessional Instructorin Social Work and Gender Studies at MacEwan University. Kristy was a co-host and performer in the long running Loud’n Queer Cabaret (Guys in Disguise / Workshop West) and a contributor to Queering The Way: The Loud’n Queer Anthology (Touchwood Editions).
What Would an HIV Doula Do? is a community of people joined in response to the ongoing AIDS Crisis. We understand a doula as someone who holds space during times of transition. We understand HIV as a series of transitions that begins long before being tested, continues after treatment and beyond. We know that since no one gets HIV alone, no one should have to deal with HIV alone. We doula ourselves, each other, institutions and culture. Foundational to our process is asking questions. Learn more at hivdoula.work