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Little Blue Encyclopedia (for Vivian)

$9.99$18.95

Available in print (for customers living in Canada and in the US), PDF (worldwide), and EPUB (worldwide).

by Hazel Jane Plante

Fall 2019

Winner of the Lambda Literary Award for Transgender Fiction
Winner of the Expozine Alternative Press Awards (Literary, English)
BC and Yukon Book Prizes Jim Deva Prize for Writing that Provokes, Finalist
Publishing Triangle Award for Trans and Gender-Variant Literature, Finalist

The playful and poignant novel Little Blue Encyclopedia (for Vivian) sifts through a queer trans woman’s unrequited love for her straight trans friend who died. A queer love letter steeped in desire, grief, and delight, the story is interspersed with encyclopedia entries about a fictional TV show set on an isolated island. The experimental form functions at once as a manual for how pop culture can help soothe and mend us and as an exploration of oft-overlooked sources of pleasure, including karaoke, birding, and butt toys. Ultimately, Little Blue Encyclopedia (for Vivian) reveals with glorious detail and emotional nuance the woman the narrator loved, why she loved her, and the depths of what she has lost.

Hazel Jane Plante is a queer trans librarian, cat photographer, and writer. In a previous life, she co-founded a micro-press, co-edited a little literary journal, and co-hosted a podcast.

She currently lives in Vancouver on the unceded ancestral territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and sə̓lílwətaʔɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations.

SKU: N/A Category:

Author: Hazel Jane Plante

ISBN: 9780994047199 (print)

ISBN: 9781999058814 (EPUB)

ISBN: 9781998898077 (PDF)

Cover design by LOKI
Illustrations by Onjana Yawnghwe

  • Papberback, 200 pages
  • Printed in Quebec
  • Publication date: October 7, 2019

“Little Blue Encyclopedia understands perfectly how pop culture — and pop culture fandom — can become bound up in our lives inextricably. As the narrator assembles her encyclopedia, memories of Vivian when she was alive start to trickle into the text. Sometimes the narrator is conscious of those memories taking over, and sometimes it happens almost without her having to try.”
Emily St. James, Vox

“Grief is a process that encompasses the death of the past and of future possibility. Despite this, Little Blue Encyclopedia is an undeniably optimistic text, one that takes up mournful subject matter and suggests ways it can be worked through.”
—Nour Abi Nakhoul, Quill & Quire, starred review

”Hazel Jane Plante’s quirky, queer debut destined to be a cult classic.”
—Sue Carter, Toronto Star

“An exquisite, kaleidoscopic novel bursting with ache and delight.”
—Zoey Leigh Peterson, author of Scotia Bank Giller Prize longlisted novel Next Year, For Sure

Little Blue Encyclopedia (for Vivian) is gorgeously whimsical, inspired, odd and anguished, a tale of longing between trans women, it is also a magical ekphrasis, a tender portrait of where a woman was through a melancholy anatomy of the imaginary world she loved. Reminiscent of early Jeanette Winterson, but also utterly innovative, this is a love letter to heart break and to art as its only, imperfect salve.”
—Trish Salah, Lambda Literary Award-winning poet and author of Lyric Sexology Vol. 1

 

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Format

EPUB, PDF, Print

Availability

Print books available for purchase to addresses in Canada and the United States. EPUBs and PDFs available worldwide.