Words Worth will be having a table at the 2019 Waterloo Region ETFO PD Day, featuring keynote speakers KIM KATRIN MILAN, TIQ MILAN, & VIVEK SHRAYA.
About The Keynote Speakers
KIM KATRIN MILAN
Warm, entertaining and inclusive, Kim Katrin Milan is a powerful speaker igniting conferences, universities & corporate training sessions on human rights considerations and communications. Kim is the co-founder and Executive Director of The People Project; an initiative to bring forth local and international community development for queer and trans folks of colour and their allies, through alternative education, art-activism, and collaboration. She is also one of the owners of the Glad Day Book Shop, the oldest LGBT bookstore in the world.
TIQ MILAN
Tiq has been most inspired by his years mentoring LGBT youth at the Bronx Community Pride Center and the Hetrick Martin Institute in the New York City. He was able to witness first hand the intersectional lived experiences of gay and trans youth and how it is affected by social systems put in place to help them. He most recently was the Senior Media Strategist and National Spokesperson for GLAAD where he utilized the media to call attention to the needs of the LGBT community, particularly transgender people of colour.
VIVEK SHRAYA
Vivek Shraya’s best-selling new book, I’m Afraid of Men, was heralded by Vanity Fair as “cultural rocket fuel,” and her album with Queer Songbook Orchestra, Part‑Time Woman, was included in CBC ’s list of Best Canadian Albums of 2017.
She is one half of the music duo Too Attached and the founder of the publishing imprint VS. Books. A Polaris Music Prize nominee and four-time Lambda Literary Award finalist, Vivek was a 2016 Pride Toronto Grand Marshal, was featured on The Globe and Mail’s Best Dressed list, and has received honours from The Writers’ Trust of Canada and The Publishing Triangle.
She is currently a director on the board of the Tegan and Sara Foundation and an Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Calgary.