VISION
Glad Day Lit exists to amplify the power, freedom and imagination of 2SLGBTQ+ people through culture and story.
Our Goals
- Support 2SLGBTQ+ writers & artists by paying them, increasing their audience and building supports
- Prioritize and promote underrepresented identities and experiences
- Work closely with Glad Day Bookshop to support its survival and continued community service
- Record, archive and share our stories and work on a variety of platforms
- Create both physical and virtual spaces that facilitate real relationships and community building across age, gender, ability and culture
- Use story as a catalyst to resist oppression, explore desire, increase love & heal trauma for anyone whose gender or sexual identity doesn’t fit society’s narrow limits and expectations
Our History
Glad Day Lit is the non-profit side of Glad Day Bookshop. Established in 1970, Glad Day Bookshop is the world’s oldest 2SLGBTQ bookstore and the 2nd oldest 2SLGBTQ organization of any kind in Canada.
Since 2012, the new team at Glad Day Bookshop has been supporting authors, organizing events and creating space for possibility. In 2015 we created Naked Heart - The LGBTQ Festival of Words which has become the largest LGBTQ literary festival in the world. Naked Heart and most of our major event organizing has been done in our unpaid, volunteer time. In 2016, we incorporated Glad Day Lit as a separate non-profit organization so we could expand our capacity and funding to further support this important work.
Funds Go Back Into Our Communities & A Snapshot Of Our Impact
Glad Day Lit funds, supports and organizes the many non-profit activities, events and services that Glad Day provides including, but not limited to: performances; literary events; community meetings; workshops; referral to community and social services; tourist support; informal peer support; crisis intervention; informal 2SLGBTQ speakers bureau; research support; teacher education; 2SLGBTQI+ neighbourhood safety; social justice advocacy; and responding to community-related emergencies.
We are committed to making sure our funds circulate back directly to our LGBT2S community members.
Our space is constantly being used at low-or-no cost by local performers, artists, authors and community groups, which is another way that over $100,000 a year gets generated and goes right back into our communities.
Over the course of a year, Glad Day hosts over 600 2SLGBTQ events, which includes over 1600 individual artist performances and provides $4000 worth of ASL interpreted events in our wheelchair accessible space. Glad Day pays over $40,000 directly to 2SLGBTQ artists and authors each year and generates an additional $120,000+ in revenue for artists and performers. Glad Day staff have over 80,000 direct points of contact with 2SLGBTQ people each year. Over the course of a year, we get over 1.5 million views on social media.
Glad Day Lit was one of the first organizations to respond to the COVID crisis. We set up an emergency fund for 2SLGBTQ artists, performers and tip-based workers on March 15th 2020. We raised over $230,000 in 7 weeks and provided emergency funds to over 800 2SLGBTQ people in need across Canada in the first 2 years of the pandemic.
Since 2015, Glad Day Lit has paid almost $120,000 directly to LGBT2SQ authors for being a part of panels, readings, workshops, performances and special events and has provided over $12,000 for Sign Language interpretation at events.