Name: The World We Long For - Double Book Launch: Vivek Shraya, Kai Cheng Thom @ Kingston Frontenac Public Library - Central Branch - Nov 23, 2026
Start: 2026-11-23T18:00:00-05:00
End: 2026-11-23T23:59:00-05:00
Location: Kingston Frontenac Public Library - Central Branch

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The World We Long For - Double Book Launch: Vivek Shraya, Kai Cheng Thom

Dual release of their new fiction works exploring dystopian & utopian realities.

In-Person Event

Literary Author Readings / Public Readings / Book Signings

Mon. November 23rd + Add to Calendar

Kingston Frontenac Public Library - Central Branch (All Ages)

6:00pm

Free

Artists

Vivek Shraya

from Toronto Ontario

Kai Cheng Thom

from Toronto Ontario

Event Description

Join two of Canada's most beloved trans as they celebrate the release of their two new works. This event is held in partnership with Queen's University.

With a poetry reading by Corey Page Martin.

About The Hystericals and Vivek Shraya:

From the bestselling author of I'm Afraid of Men comes a propulsive and chilling novel for the post-#MeToo era, set in an isolationist state where one woman's death sparks a movement that could liberate women or destroy them all.

When Sarah Munroe is sexually assaulted on her university campus and her attacker walks free, she makes a devastating choice: she publicly takes her own life in a final act of defiance against a regime that has stripped women of their rights. Her final message ignites a radical movement called #FreeToo. Soon, masses of women are taking up "Sarah's Call" and "freeing" themselves as extreme acts of protest. As these deaths multiply across the state, the government declares the movement a contagion. Overnight, all women are reclassified as "hystericals." Forced into a new reality where her very existence is criminalized, Sarah's sister, Kennedy, struggles with her own grief, guilt, and anger. And as the regime tightens its grip, she will have to reckon with her sister's legacy--and decide whether to surrender or survive.

Vivek Shraya is an artist whose body of work crosses the boundaries of music, literature, visual art, theatre, and film. She is the author of The Subtweet, Death Threat, even this page is white, The Boy & The Bindi, She of the Mountains, and God Loves Hair; and her best-selling I’m Afraid of Men was heralded by Vanity Fair as “cultural rocket fuel”. She is one half of the music duo Too Attached, founder of the publishing imprint VS. Books, and an Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Calgary.

About The Shapeshifter's Guide to Gym Class and Kai Cheng Thom:

In every generation, a special few of Nor Numinem are born shapeshifters. Unfortunately, being one of the “special few” does not get you out of gym class.

Nor Numinem. A town of hope and beauty. A place where freedom for all blooms as abundantly as the flowering vines that cover the buildings on every street. Yet even in this beautiful town, a kid like Maia’s got problems.

Maia is a shapeshifter. And worse, she’s starting middle school.

In every generation, a special few of Nor Numinem are born children who develop the mysterious ability to transform into a part-animal shape. Unfortunately for Maia, her ability is merely to grow giant moth wings that grow uncontrollably out of her back whenever she’s excited, or upset, or for some reason, whenever her new classmate Luke looks at her in a particular way. Worse than worse? Maia’s wings are useless. Weak and fragile--unlike her talented friends.

But Maia’s problems are about get much harder than even she knows. A strange illness is spreading through the gardens of Nor Numinem. The very gardens that feed and sustain this once-perfect town. Worse still, some of the adults think the shapeshifter children are to blame. A rumors turn into hate, life gets tougher for those who aren't seen as "normal". Maia and her friends will soon discover that there is a dark rift in Nor Numinem, one that will take all their talents, known and unknown, to heal.

Kai Cheng Thom is a writer, performance artist, social worker, fierce trans femme and notorious liar who loves lipstick and superhero cartoons. A prolific essayist and poet, her work appears online in publications including BuzzFeed, xoJane, Everyday Feminism, and Autostraddle; and in print in Asian American Literary Review, Plenitude, and Matrix Magazine, among others. As a spoken word artist, she has appeared and featured at venues including Buddies in Bad Times Theatre and the Banff Centre for the Arts. She is also a mental health community worker and co-founder of the collective Monster Academy: Mental Health Skills for Montreal Youth. Kai Cheng lives in Montreal and Toronto, both of which were built on unceded Indigenous territory.

The event is drop-in. No registration required.

AGE GROUP: Teens Adults