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Author Talk | Jayme Canty

Join author Jayme Canty as she discusses her book "Snapping Beans: Voices of a Black Queer Lesbian South."

Snapping Beans offers a collective narrative of Southern queer lesbian women and gender-nonconforming persons. Throughout the text, the American South acts as both a region and a main character, one that can shame and condemn but also serve as a site of reconciliation. Blending autoethnography and oral histories, Jayme Canty explores how both geographic location and social spaces, such as the Church, intersect with categories such as race, gender, and sexuality to shape and mark identity. Just as the intergenerational practice of snapping beans provides an opportunity to slow down, Canty enables readers to make space and to hear a new Southern narrative. Filled with both hurt and healing, Snapping Beans chronicles a multivocal journey of coming out, ultimately revealing a South where Black queer lesbians not only live but also, more importantly, thrive.

Books will be available for sale and signing from Black Dot Cultural Center & Bookstore

Registration is recommended. 

Jayme Canty, Ph.D., is a native of North Carolina. She earned her doctorate degree from Clark Atlanta University in humanities, with concentrations in Africana women’s studies and political science. Her research focuses on the social, economic and political experiences of Black queer women in the American South and Black South. She specifically looks at the ways southern Black queer women experience heterosexism and the methods of resistance they employ to resist the oppressive realities in the South. Her current work focuses on the ways various social institutions such as the Christian Black church impact the lives of southern queer women and how the church becomes a space of resistance and healing for them. 

Moderating the talk is Forrest Evans a licensed, Atlanta-based librarian working in Sports and Tech, for Warner Brothers Discovery. As a low-country native, she's committed to combating under education, fighting for gender equality and systemic patriarchy that brings joy to her day. She is also known as "Favorite Librarian" on social media, where she provides an array of Queer Books and Resources. This published poet is a new member to the Board of Directors for the Atlanta Pride Committee, and Front Runners Atlanta, along with being the Logistics Coordinator for Gaye Magazine. Her published work can be found in Pen+Brush, Lavender Review: Lesbian Poetry and Art, TQ Review: A Journal of Trans and Queer Voices, and The Apogee Journal to name a few.

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