My Body is Yours
(Arsenal Pulp Press, 2015)
ART 376
Michael V. Smith is a multihyphenate force of nature: a novelist, poet, improv comic, filmmaker, drag queen, performance artist, and occasional clown. In this, his first work of nonfiction, Michael traces his early years as an inadequate male–a fey kid growing up in a small town amid a blue-collar family; a sissy; an insecure teenager desperate to disappear; and an obsessive writer-performer, drawn to compulsions of alcohol, sex, reading, spending, work, and art as a means to cope and heal.
As an artist whose work focuses on our preconceived notions about the body, Michael questions the very notion of what it means to be human. He also asks: How can we know what a man is? How might understanding gender as metaphor be a tool for a deeper understanding of identity? In coming to terms with his past “failures” at masculinity, and with an aging father he is only beginning to come to know, Michael offers a new way of thinking about breaking out of gender norms, and reconciling with a dangerous childhood.
(Description Source: Arsenal Pulp Press)
Author
Michael V. Smith is an associate professor at the University of British Columbia, where he teaches creative writing. His first novel, Cumberland, was shortlisted for the Amazon.ca / Books in Canada First Novel Award. His short fiction has won the Western Magazine Gold Award for Fiction and been nominated for the Journey Prize. In 2007, Smith received the Dayne Ogilvie Award for Emerging Gay Writers and Vancouver’s Community Hero of the Year Award. A native of Cornwall, Ontario, Smith currently lives in Kelowna, BC.
UBC Library Holdings
How to Purchase this Book
From the Publisher – Arsenal Pulp Press
From Used-book Sellers – ABE, Amazon, Antiqbook, Biblio, Vialibri
Paper ISBN: 9781551525778
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