Author: Kai Cheng Thom
Profile: Kai Cheng Thom is a Canadian writer, social worker and performance artist. Thom has received a dual Master’s degree in couple and family therapy and in social work from McGill University.
She loves superhero cartoons and lipstick. She is a prolific poet and essayist, with her work appearing in a number of publications online including Autostraddle, Everyday Feminism, xoJane and BuzzFeed. Her work also appears in print in the Matrix Magazine, Asian American Literary Review besides others. Kai Cheng Thom has featured and appeared at venues including the Banff Centre for the Arts and in Bad Times Theatre, as a spoken word artist. She is also the co-founder and community worker of the collective Monster Academy: Mental Health Skills for Montreal Youth. She resides in both Toronto and Montreal which were built on un-ceded Indigenous territory. Her debut novel is ‘Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars: A Dangerous Trans Girl’s Confabulous Memoir’.
Writing style: Kai Cheng Thom’s genre is poetry, fiction and LGBTQ.
Published Texts:
2016 – Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars: A Dangerous Trans Girl’s Confabulous Memoir (novel)
2017 – No Homeland (poetry collection)
2017 – From the Stars in The Sky to the Fish in the Sea (children’s book)
2019 – I Hope We Choose Love: A Trans Girl’s Notes from the End of the World (a book of essays centered on transformative justice)
Awards and Acknowledgements:
2016 – Shortlisted for the Lambda Literary Award for Transgender Fiction at the 29th Lambda Literary Awards (Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars: A Dangerous Trans Girl’s Confabulous Memoir.
2017 – Won the Dayne Ogilvie Prize for LGBTQ Emerging writers
Her work was cited as sheer talent, creativity and joyful exuberance by the Dayne Ogilvie Jury
2019 – Chosen by Emma Watson for her online feminist book club Our Shared Shelf (Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars)
2018 – No Homeland was shortlisted finalist for the Publishing Triangle Award for Trans and Gender-Variant Literature.
2019 – I Hope We Choose Love: A Trans Girl’s Notes from the End of the World was a 2020 American Library Association Stonewall Honor book with won the Publishing Triangle Award for Trans and Gender-Variant Literature
2020 – From the Stars in the Sky to the Fish in the Sea was selected for inclusion in the Julie’s Library podcast by Julie Andrews.