This caps off a really literary year for Capital Xtra, one I'm super proud to have been a part of. It's the fifth Capital Xtra cover story about a queer writer in twelve months (5/17ths -- not so bad eh?). The Stephen Slessor interview with Joey Comeau follows cover-story interviews with Ivan E Coyote, Megan Butcher, Shane Rhodes and Ken Boesem. That's in addition to interviews we've run with Jane Rule, Julia Serano, Allan Heinberg, Richard Labonte, Marusya Bociurkiw, Wayson Choy and others, plus book reviews like this one by Globe writer Jim Bartley on Brett Josef Grubisic. Or Bartley on Comeau, for that matter. In addition to our shit-kicking anarchist, the current issue's also got interviews with Ivan E Coyote and Francisco Ibáñez-Carrasco.

Did you see the Xtra West article about poet Sean Horlor, written by Xtra West (Vancouver) writer and former Event editor Billeh Nickerson? Or the Xtra (Toronto) interview with James St James?

You may not realize it, but the Xtra team works from an explicit mission statement. You can read the whole thing here but there's a part about the written word. It says, "Words are power and they always serve some purpose. Others use them to oppress us. We use them to express our lives. We assail the work of censors. Our drive is to arouse debate, to inform and to enlighten in a fair and honest way."

Join Capital Xtra for Transgress, in conjunction with the Ottawa International Writers Festival.

Transgress.
Fri, Oct 19.
Ivan E Coyote, Francisco Ibáñez-Carrasco, Joey Comeau and Mikiki.
Library And Archives Canada, 395 Wellington.
Tix $12/10
at 613.562.1243
or Nicholas Hoare, 419 Sussex.