FREMANTLE’S LGTBQIA+ community is set to be celebrated in the city’s first ever Pride Festival next weekend, featuring Hungerford-award winning author Holden Sheppard.
The City of Fremantle, headspace Fremantle, and the Department of Communities are hosting Pride Fest on Saturday, November 2 from 1pm at Walyalup Koort.
The festival will include live music, creative workshops, and market stalls including Dykes on Bikes, the Youth Pride Network, Living Proud, and TransFolk of WA.
• Author Holden Sheppard will be holding an an “author conversation” as part of the Pride festival.
Additionally, 2018 Hungerford Award winner Holden Sheppard will be featured in an author conversation about his novels Invisible Boys, The Brink, and his upcoming book Two Kings. Invisible Boys, which won the Hungerford, addresses the experience and complexity of growing up gay in regional Australia.
Sheppard says it’s “really heartening” to see Pride festivals celebrated at a local government level, especially in the wake of ‘book banning’ controversies in councils like Albany and Cumberland in Sydney.
“It’s great to have the support of local councils, not just as an artist, but as a human being, to know that we’re welcome and that we’re being supported,” Sheppard said.
“There is a very unwelcome trend around the state to be kind of lobbied, from a literary literature perspective, to censor LGBTQI+ books, which makes a lot of LGBTQI+ people frightened and scared.
Sheppard says there is “power” in sharing LGBTQI+ stories as it can help readers to gain insight into the experiences of the community, especially in Australia.
“It humanises people who are otherwise sometimes reduced down to our identities and sexualities,” he said.
“When you can tell a story through characters, through human beings with all of their flaws, it communicates to readers that we are just people, and we’re just trying to live our lives.
“I think telling those stories gives us a chance to feel seen, understood, and represented, and it tells people we’re really just humans.”
Sheppard will be in conversation with Angela Aris as part of Pride Fest, at Fremantle Library at 2pm.
Tickets are available via Humanitix.
by KATHERINE KRAAYVANGER