It's no small feat in the age of multinationals, big houses doing good numbers with e-book sales and celebrity memoirs to self-publish a book that garners the respect of one's peers and general and lasting buzz interest. It's also no small feat to have this same book a 2011 Lambda Literary Award finalist. Recently re-released, Vivek Shraya's God Loves Hair is a DIY masterpiece in the age of Wal-Mart top 10 book clubs.

What happens when a woman with "dykey clothes" confronts a man with a bushy beard about the lesbian book he's reading? Is life easier for a butch or a lipstick lesbian? Is it better to be queer in Whitehorse, where you're subjected to direct questions, or in Vancouver, where PC politeness masks embarrassed confusion? Missed Her, a collection by Vancouver writer and performer Ivan E. Coyote of her Xtra! West columns, conveys these lifestyle collisions with thoughtful humour.

Henry Chow is an unlikeable character. He is the embodiment of the clichéd high-school student: A class clown with a crush on Charlene, a "close-lip smiler, always trying to conceal her lavender braces," who Henry doesn't even think is "hot" because she's flat chested. He's that guy -- the one who concludes a love interest is a "bitch" when he realizes his affection is unrequited.

Post-slavery black pioneers to the West were drawn by the same social and economic factors as other, white settlers (the Gold Rush, for instance).  Unlike the r