QWF’s latest featured member is Christopher DiRaddo, author of the novels The Family Way (2021), shortlisted for the F.G Bressani Literary Prize; and The Geography of Pluto (2014). His essays and short stories have appeared in First Person Queer: Who We Are (So Far), Here & Now: An Anthology of Queer Italian-Canadian Writing, and The Globe and Mail. He has also written for several publications, including Elle Canada, Xtra magazine, and enRoute magazine, for which he won a National Magazine Award. In 2014, he created the Violet Hour Reading Series & Book Club, which has to date provided a platform for more than 300 LGBTQ writers in Canada. Last month, Christopher received the 2024 Judy Mappin Community Award for his work supporting Quebec’s literary arts, particularly LGBTQ+ literature.
QWF Membership Services Coordinator Riley Palanca spoke to Christopher about his work as a writer and literary events organizer, among other things. Here are Five Questions (plus a bonus one) for: Christopher DiRaddo
1) Congratulations again for winning the 2024 Judy Mappin Community Prize! What does “community” mean to you?
Community is everything. Life would be boring without a community of people you can share things with, who you can support, and who have your back. Community inspires, saves, creates bridges, leads to change, generates love, and can bring out the best in people. In particular, QWF’s community has been a blessing for me over the years. I find it to be a nurturing and inspiring place free of ego that does incredible work in paying it forward. So, to be recognized by the QWF community for my work is incredibly meaningful.
2) Over the past ten years, the Violet Hour has grown into one of the city’s most loved literary series. What makes you most proud about the Violet Hour?
The people. The readers who come out to hear from writers, who dig deep into the books we select for the book club and always share their thoughts and opinions in a kind and respectful manner. I love seeing new faces at meetings. And I love it when new faces become regulars, and when regulars become leaders (shout out to writers Michael Belcher and Brooke Lee). One of the things I had been missing before I started Violet Hour was access to a community of queer book lovers. I’m proud to say that we draw a large cross-section of people of different ages, orientations, genders, cultures, and languages at our meetings.
3) What inspired your most recent novel The Family Way?
After The Geography of Pluto, I wanted to write something that had a sense of humour. I also wanted to pay homage to my friendships. There’s this quote from W.H. Auden that says, “Among those whom I like or admire, I can find no common denominator, but among those whom I love, I can; all of them make me laugh.” And nothing is truer. The Family Way allowed me to write about my friends and those I consider my chosen family. They are the people who have stuck with me through thick and thin and continue to put a smile on my face.
4) How has mentorship shaped your path as a writer?
I did not go to university to learn how to write my books. Instead, what I learned came from the novels I read and whatever guidebooks I could get my hands on. So, mentorship was where I could beef up my toolbox, fill in the blanks, refine my work, and talk about it with others. Mentorship granted me a safe space to confess all my fears, insecurities, and doubts, allowing me to realize I wasn’t the only one dealing with impostor syndrome. In 2009, I was accepted into the QWF Mentorship Program as a mentee, and then last year I became a mentor. Being on the other side of that relationship was transformative. It reminded me that there is always more that we can learn as writers.
5) What do you believe is the future of queer literature in Quebec?
I don’t know how to answer this question. I don’t know what the future of queer literature will be like.But I can tell you what I wish for… I wish that queer lit continues to be as passionate and reflective and transgressive and sexy and full of love as it is now. I’m encouraged about the attention our books get in this country, and how not only queer people read our stories. I wish for more (and different kinds of) book clubs, translations, and cross-collaborations between English and French writers and publishers. I’d like to see more first-time authors get published and to hear about their work in ways that allow me to think about my own writing differently. I’d like to see more queer writers visit from out of town, and more of our writers celebrated elsewhere. Selfishly, I’d like to turn Violet Hour into a podcast and maybe even start a foundation that celebrates and promotes the discovery of queer books.
Bonus Question: What is your current favourite Achillean (male-male romance) novel?
In Memoriam by Alice Winn (our November selection for the VCBC). It’s an epic love story between two men set in the trenches of WWI. Henry Gaunt and Sidney Ellwood are high school chums at an English boarding school, reading about the untimely deaths of their former classmates in the school newspaper. When Gaunt is called upon to enlist at 17 to save his family’s honour, his best mate Ellwood runs to join him at the front. No Man’s Land might seem a strange place to have her characters confront their feelings for each other, but the author balances the tender with the tragic, pulling back the curtain on the lives of a generation of men who died way too soon. It’s a bloody book and hard to read at times, but it’s also beautiful and emotional in its telling. This is Alice Winn’s first novel, and she did a lot of research for it, basing the lives of many of her characters on the real men who fought and died in the war. Loved it.
Thank you, Christopher!
The Geography of Pluto and The Family Way are available for purchase online and in bookstores.
Subscribe to Christopher’s newsletter, “The Violet Letter,” on his website.