2022
2021
2020 • I joined several other writers of shared heritage for Can You Smell the Garlic? (My five-minute reading begins at 31:30, and I answer some questions at 58:12).
In early 2020, I was on retreat, translating a Québecois novel for Dagger Editions. I shared about it via this newsletter. More about this book here.
A big highlight of 2019 was being on stage with Queer Songbook Orchestra at Vancouver’s Queer Arts Festival. I performed my piece about listening to David Bowie’s Changes as a kid and what it meant to me. I couldn’t hold back my emotions when the orchestra performed the Owen Pallet arrangement of the song afterward. I’ll never forget listening to Alex Samaras while I looked down at the very album cover I had held in my small hands.
2019 News | On June 19th, I’m pleased to be joining Andrea Jenkins , Kai Cheng Thom , and Michael V. Smith in Danny Ramadan‘s A Night of Storytelling celebrating Queer and Trans voices in literature as part of Vancouver’s Queer Arts Festival. MicroMacroCosm Literary Review had much to say about What the Mouth Wants in their February audio review: “I see this as a totem for future generations of young, queer and alternative-minded souls searching for a path to find their way, a constant rectification of where we were and the future becoming…. For those of a more traditional leaning, it might be as hard to grapple with as an olive pit between shifting teeth but that is exactly why they should read it. If more people were to read What the Mouth Wants, the divide between traditional and alternative would fade a little more, distend and dissipate like the memories of hardships which fade after a family meal filled with moments of reconciliation and appreciation.”
June 2018 | Italian Heritage Month and Pride season– Lots to celebrate!
- Won the Bisexual Book Award for Memoir
- CBC Books includes What the Mouth Wants among 14 Books to Celebrate Pride Month
- Siamo Vancouver airs radio interview
- OMNI News Italiano broadcasts interview
- Interview on The Typing Horse blog
- The Globe and Mail published this essay.
- Reading in New York City at the Sixth Annual Multi-arts Reading & Bisexual Book Awards Ceremony
- Nominated for Bi Writer of the Year
- Attended Lambda Literary Awards Gala at the Skirball Centre in NYC as a finalist for Bisexual Nonfiction.
May 2018 |What the Mouth Wants is a contender for a 6th Annual Bisexual Book Award in the memoir category.
March 2018 |What the Mouth Wants is among three finalists for Lambda Literary’s 30th Annual Award for Bisexual Nonfiction
February 2018 |What the Mouth Wants made the 2018 Recommended Book List chosen by the Over the Rainbow committee of American Library Association‘s GLBT Round Table.
Anthology Launch for BC Bestseller Love Me True: Writers Reflect on the Ins, Outs, Ups and Downs of Marriage (Caitlin Press) on Wednesday, February 28 7-9 p.m. at The Heatley.
January 2018 |CBC Books listed What the Mouth Wants as a must-read of 2017. Co-founder of Queer Arts Festival Vancouver tweeted: “A delicious, sensual, divinely transgressive love story.”
December 2017 |Review of What the Mouth Wants in the Edmonton Journal by Food Columnist and Blogger Liane Faulder: “…deeply erotic, and decidedly queer.” Casey the Lesbrarian recommended What the Mouth Wants in an Autostraddle column, saying, “Above all else, this memoir by bi poly writer Monica Meneghetti will make you hungry.” Sensing the author as being a “hiking and digging in the dirt kind of femme.”, the Lesbrarian has me pegged! Other great books recommended 8 Soft Femme Memoirs for Your Femme but not too Femmey Needs.
November 2017 |My life is very full with teaching 1001 Ways to Tell the Truth: Creative Nonfiction at Langara, working on client manuscript evaluations, and crafting a series of personal essays. Some highlights:
- I’m proud to see my Nutritional Torture piece alongside the work of award-winning chefs and writers in an upcoming anthology intended to provide refugee or low-income families with fresh, locally grown produce. Sustenance: Writers from BC and Beyond on the Subject of Food (Anvil Press) is BC Poet Laureate Rachel Rose’s Legacy Project. Just launched at the Vancouver Writers Festival, the third launch event is on December 2nd at VPL Strathcona.
- My personal essay, The New Sacred is part of an anthology slated for spring release. Love Me True: Writers Reflect on the Ins, Outs, Ups and Downs of Marriage is now available for pre-order, and may launch Valentine’s Day – more on this later.
October 2017 | Island Sexual Health selected What the Mouth Wants for its Sex-Positive Book Club. I’ll be in Victoria to discuss my book with readers on October 1. 
September 2017 | More deliciously sexy literary sampling from my memoir resumed this fall.
- First and foremost will be my free book event with the support of Il Centro, and multi-talented guest Lara Varesi presenting spoken word on Monday, September 18, 2017, 7 p.m.
- The Writer’s Studio Reading Series Thursday, September 7, 2017, 8–10 p.m. @ Cottage Bistro. Admission by donation.
- Real Vancouver Writers’ Series Thursday, September 21, 2017, 7 – 11:30 p.m. @ the Russian Hall. Admission by donation.
- Absent Mothers (Demeter Press, ed. Frances Greenslade), an anthology in which personal narrative and theoretical framework come together to recognize and begin to understand the impact of motherlessness that ripples through our cultures and our art, will be available September 10th. Launch events TBA.
- I’m proud to be included alongside award-winning chefs and writers in an upcoming anthology intended to support refugee or low-income families with fresh, locally grown produce. Sustenance: Writers from BC and Beyond on the Subject of Food (Anvil Press), edited by BC Poet Laureate Rachel Rose as her Legacy Project, is now available for pre-order. Launch events TBA.
Whew! It’s been a busy! Here’s a little about what I was up to before summer swept me away
- June 3rd at multi-author event Chapters in Nanaimo
- Toronto launch on June 7th at 8 p.m. at the world’s oldest LGBTQ bookstore with co-reader Andrea Zanin
- Association of Italian Canadian Writers’ Books & Biscotti reading series in Montreal June 8th, Ottawa June 11th.
- On Thursday, June 22 at 6:30 p.m., Jane Byers, Fatima Amarshi, and I were at Jim Deva Plaza taking back the words that hurt us in Pride Reading Series Part 1 of 3.
- On Tuesday, June 27th, the Association of Italian Canadian Writers’ Books & Biscotti reading series in Vancouver at Il Centro Italian Cultural Centre, featuring Anna Foschi, Robert Pepper-Smith, and yours truly, plus 3 solo performances from dance artist Carolina Bergonzoni.
1st Tuesdays of the month | Writing Queewritica is on hiatus as I focus on the release and launch of my memoir. I’ll announce here and on Facebook when we resume. I’m grateful for the support of the Pride in Art Society of Vancouver and the Roundhouse Community Centre in this venture. Write libido’s continuum with us at the Roundhouse on the first Tuesday of every month, 7:30-9:30pm.
Monica Meneghetti 