Tag Archives: Shelf Life

Love Independent Bookstores!

Posted on April 27, 2023 by Kevin Allen | 1 comment

April 29th is Canadian Independent Bookstore Day. If you buy a book at your favourite indie bookshop this Saturday, you can enter a contest to win a $1000 gift certificate.

We genuinely appreciate these stores and thank our hometown favourites: Shelf Life, Pages, and Owl’s Nest, for stocking and selling literally hundreds of copies of our books: Our Past Matters and What Narcissus Saw.

*Kevin in front of Shelf Life Books in 2018*

Browsing the bookshelves, talking to informed staff, and bumping into people you know, are all good reasons to shop in indie bookstores. {Also: social snacking is good for our health!} The stores have online shops as well, so there is no need to support booksellers that are foreign corporate behemoths.

The following Saturday, May 6th, you are invited to Twisted Element for the Chinook Fund Variety Show Fundraiser. Tickets are only $20 and go to the great cause of the Chinook Fund. This endowment fund, housed at the Calgary Foundation, disperses grants to local queer community organizations under the direction of a volunteer steering committee. So come out for a good cause and be entertained at the same time!

{KA}

1 Comment

Posted in Gay history

Tagged bisexual, Chinook Fund, gay, Gay history, lesbian, Our Past Matters, Owls Nest Bookstore, Pages on Kensington, queer, Shelf Life, transgender, Twisted Element, What Narcissus Saw

What Narcissus Saw in Whistler

Posted on October 13, 2022 by Kevin Allen | 3 comments

Calgary Gay History Project volunteer, Gordon Sombrowski, heads to Whistler, British Columbia today. His book of short stories, What Narcissus Saw, is a finalist at the Whistler Independent Book Awards. Selected from hundreds of submissions, he said he was excited to make the short-list—now it is down to the final three books.

What Narcissus Saw is competing against Churchill at Munich by Michael Carin of Quebec and Rez Dog Blues and the Haiku: A Savage Life in Bits and Pieces by William George Lindsay of BC. The award winner will be announced at a Friday night event during the Whistler Writers Festival.

Sombrowski said it was a great honour to have been selected as a finalist.

“Like every writer who seeks to publish I set out to write stories that I hope readers will want to read. Having a jury of accomplished writing peers select my work helps me to feel like I have done that,” he explained.

Tomorrow, keep your fingers crossed for Gordon!

*What Narcissus Saw* event last month at Shelf Life Books, photo by Noel Bégin.

{KA}

3 Comments

Posted in Fiction, Gay history

Tagged bisexual, gay, Gordon Sombrowski, lesbian, Noel Begin, queer, Shelf Life, transgender, What Narcissus Saw, Whistler

Gay History Walk—Take 2

Posted on September 1, 2022 by Kevin Allen | 2 comments

Thanks to everyone who attended Kevin’s reading of Our Past Matters at Shelf Life Books last Saturday. As the event started a deluge broke over the Beltline and drowned Pride in the Park which also cancelled the scheduled Gay History Walk that afternoon.

*Minutes after this photo was taken on August 27, the storm clouds broke.*

We will try again this Saturday, September 3rd for a gay history walk through the Beltline. The weather forecast looks fine! The walk begins at 2:00 PM in Central Memorial Park (meet at the Boer War Memorial in the centre of the park) and ends at 3:30 PM at Lois Szabo Commons, a new city park celebrating LGBTQ2 history. Learn about the City’s fascinating queer past.

Spaces are limited; please register in advance through Calgary Pride or by emailing: calgarygayhistory@gmail.com and write in the subject line “history walk.” Free event.

{KA}