Toronto-based writer and composer Alexander Paul Burton has shipped 100 copies of his two poetry collections, A-Z Of Being Gay In A World Which Also Wants To Be Gay (or Not) and A-Z of an Expat’s Life Abroad, to ten public and academic libraries across eastern Ontario as a Pride season gift. The books are expected to arrive at recipient libraries during the first week of August. The donation has a retail value of $2,500.
The eastern Ontario wave is part of a wider Pride donation programme Burton has been running across the UK and Canada, which has now placed close to 400 books in public libraries, with a particular focus on smaller and rural communities that often receive less attention from national LGBTQ+ publishing outreach. Earlier waves have reached libraries on Vancouver Island, in Niagara and Sudbury, and in Somerset and Oxfordshire in the UK.
Recipient libraries in this wave are: Kingston Frontenac Public Library (Central, Isabel Turner, Calvin Park and Rideau Heights branches), the Joseph S. Stauffer Library at Queen’s University, Belleville Public Library, Quinte West Public Library in Trenton, Lennox & Addington County Libraries (Napanee and Amherstview branches), and Picton Public Library in Prince Edward County. Each location receives ten books, split evenly between the two titles.
Burton, who lives and works in Toronto’s Distillery District, describes the programme as a thank-you gesture from a newcomer. “Settling here has shaped everything I have written since I arrived,” he says. “Sending these books to eastern Ontario libraries during Pride season is my way of saying thank you to a country that has been generous to me, and of leaving something behind for readers who may be sitting with the same questions about belonging that I was. I have deliberately weighted the wider programme toward smaller towns and rural regions, because those are often the places where a book on queerness or migration matters most and travels furthest.”
Both titles are structured alphabetically, using each letter as a gateway into themes of chosen family, estrangement, queerness, memory and migration. Both are written and illustrated by the author. Recipient libraries have no obligation to shelve, review or acknowledge the donation, and are welcome to pass copies on to partner organisations, Pride displays, reading groups or friends-of-the-library sales.
About the author
Alexander Paul Burton is an independent author, composer and publisher based in Toronto. He writes literary fiction, poetry and philosophy, and composes neoclassical piano under the name Tremolo A Tiempo. His work is distributed internationally and held in institutional collections including Library and Archives Canada and the Swiss National Library.
