About this Event
The Night of Storytelling series returns from its own slumber with its signature edge: an invitation for writers to take the stage and perform original pieces shaped around this year’s theme, Rebirth.
Think of Jesus on the Cross; think of Frankenstein's monster. Think, too, of the quiet and the private; the resurrections that reverberate through one's body.
This is not a gentle evening. It's one of transformation, risk and revelation.
Join author and curator Danny Ramadan as he brings together a lineup of powerful voices stepping onto the stage, offering work that is raw, immediate, and alive to this moment.
Featuring Danny Ramadan, Amber Dawn, Aaron Chan, jaz papadopoulos and jaye simpson.
PWYW Sliding Scale
Base tickets are set at $25 plus tax and fees. Enter one of these promo codes to adjust the sliding scale pricing:
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Artist Bios
Danny Ramadan
Danny Ramadan is a Syrian-Canadian author and a Canada Scholar. His memoir Crooked Teeth is critically acclaimed, and was nominated for the Governor General’s Award, the BC and Yukon Book Prize, and the City of Vancouver Book Award. He is also the author of the novels The Foghorn Echoes and The Clothesline Swing, along with the award-winning Salma children’s series. His books have won the Lambda Literary Award, the Publishing Triangle Award, and the Independent Publisher Book Award, and they’ve been translated into multiple languages. Since arriving in Canada, Danny has raised over $300,000 to support queer and trans refugees. When not writing, he can be found playing video games.
Amber Dawn
Amber Dawn is the author of six books and editor of three anthologies. Her body-of-work largely explores queerness, trauma-informed cultural production and madness. Her newest poetry collection Buzzkill Clamshell (2025) flaunts the chronically pained body as a source of lewd feminine power.
Aaron Chan
Aaron Chan is a writer from unceded Coast Salish territories (Vancouver, BC). He holds a BFA from the University of British Columbia and an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of California Riverside. He is the author of the memoir This City Is a Minefield (Signal 8 Press) and the picture book, The Broken Heart (Rocky Pond Books). He won subTerrain‘s Lush Triumphant Literary Award in Creative Non-Fiction and is the recipient of the L.M. and Marcia McQuern Endowed Graduate Award in Non-Fiction Writing. His piece “Quiz” was longlisted for the 2024 CBC Nonfiction Prize.
jaz papadopoulos
jaz papadopoulos (they/them) is an interdisciplinary writer/artist/educator/party planner. A self-described emotionalist and avid Anne Carson fan, jaz likes talking about media, horticulture, lyricism, nervous systems, anti-Imperialism and erotics. Their debut poetry collection, I Feel That Way Too (Nightwood Editions), was a McNally Robinson best seller. They are currently writing their second collection—a chapbook on the sacred—in partnership with the St. Boniface Hospital and the Buhler Gallery in Winnipeg. jaz grew up in Treaty 1 and currently lives on syilx land in the Okanagan. Find them online at textualdealings.com.
jaye simpson
jaye simpson (she/they) is an Oji-Cree Saulteaux Indigiqueer from the Sapotaweyak Cree Nation. simpson is a writer, advocate and activist sharing their knowledge and lived experiences in hope of creating utopia. she is published in several magazines including Poetry Is Dead, This Magazine, PRISM international, SAD Magazine: Green, GUTS Magazine, SubTerrain, Grain and Room. They are in four anthologies: Hustling Verse (2019), Love After the End (2020), The Care We Dream Of (2021), and Queer Little Nightmares (2022). Their first poetry collection, it was never going to be okay (Nightwood Ed.) was shortlisted for the 2021 ReLit Award and a 2021 Dayne Ogilvie Prize Finalist while also winning the 2021 Indigenous Voices Award for Published Poetry in English. a body more tolerable, her second book of published poetry was recently shortlisted for a Lambda Literary Prize. she is a displaced Indigenous person resisting, ruminating and residing on xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), səl̓ilwətaɁɬ (Tsleil-waututh), and sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish) First Nations territories, colonially known as Vancouver.
Queer Arts Festival 2026: On the Edge
Queer Arts Festival 2026 embraces the precipice as both danger and possibility. Around the world, queer and trans communities are being pushed to the brink: rights stripped away, identities erased, futures uncertain. Yet edges are also where transformation begins, where risk and reinvention thrive. On the Edge asks what happens when we refuse to fall, when we linger in tension, desire, and anticipation — holding that charged space just a little longer before what comes next.
Event Venue & Nearby Stays
Sun Wah Centre, 268 Keefer Street, Vancouver, Canada
CAD 27.96
