Tell us what you’re doing at The Coast is Queer this year

 I am speaking at a panel on queer disability history, and wandering round the festival attending as many of the events as possible.

Why is The Coast is Queer an important festival?

TCIQ is such an important festival because it creates a space where queer writers and themes are the norm rather than being approached tokenistically, or being the ‘only one in the room’.

What is the queer book that inspired you as a writer?

Stone Butch Blues (fiction) – Leslie Feinberg (a queer, disabled author) draws his characters so deftly and clearly, and engages with politics ferociously but never preachily.

What is the book you would add to the queer bookshelf for future readers?

Borrowed Time (autobiography) and Last Watch of the Night (personal essays) – Paul Monette (another queer, disabled author) creates work that is intensely honest and sharp, angry and present, beautiful and bleak, and I think if we forget the lessons of the AIDS crisis we lose a lot of who we are as a community.

Jamie Hale will be speaking on the Queer Disability Panel on Saturday, 17 October at 3:30PM.