PRAIRIE ROYALTY

  • Anime drag queen in purple and yellow

  • Anime drag queen in purple and yellow swinging a sledge hammer

  • Drag Queen with black and green hair in a short olive skirt, fishnet tights, and a black tee with a red fishnet long sleeve top underneath

  • Purple and yellow anime drag queen pretending to drink from a large stuffie taro boba

Prairie Royalty: Winnipeg Drag Artists Reign Supreme

is a celebration of the drag artists of Winnipeg, Manitoba. This full size coffee table book has rich, full colour images of 40 Winnipeg drag artists in all their finery. The introduction gives a brief writeup on Winnipeg, Drag, and the scene we have here. The glossary in back handily defines terms for anyone new to drag, using definitions and explanations from the artists themselves. But what makes this book special is the 150+ full colour photos of our Winnipeg drag performers.

The Winnipeg drag scene has been around for over 50 years, and currently counts people of all different ages, gender identities, ethnicities, physical abilities, economic levels, neurotypes and sexualities as members. It wasn’t always this way, as racism, sexism and ableism exist in queer spaces and hetero spaces alike. Thanks to the ongoing work of our local drag artists including (but not limited to) individuals like Ruby Chopstix and collectives like the Bannock Babes and Slunt Factory, racial and gender barriers are actively being broken down. There is room for everyone in this scene thanks to the hard work of those who came before. This is one of the great strengths of the Winnipeg drag scene: Winnipeg knows that drag is for everyone.

The struggle for equality is still ongoing, both in society overall and in the microcosm of drag scenes across the country. But the struggle has borne fruit, as these images attest. This book is a celebration of where the scene is today. Diverse. Free. Creative. Challenging. Beautiful. You never knew Winnipeg drag was sososo good!

Winnipeg drag artists bring light and joy to Canada’s heartland, while raising money for charitable causes and working with and for organizations that, in some cases, literally save lives. See them in all their glory here.


Prairie

Royalty

FAQs

Why a book?

Because I love books.

I love reading them, paging through them. I love how they look on the shelf. Photobooks are especially wonderful, as they can hold so many desperate images in such a small space.

I love that they don’t rely on an internet connection, on followers, on silicon and cyberspace. They are a real thing that I can hold in my hands, not graphics hosted on a cloud somewhere that will inevitably be shut down when some dweeb’s money spigot runs dry.

I am sick to death of being told that real things don’t matter anymore. Real things matter. Real people matter. The real world around us matters. The internet, while important, is not a replacement for real lived existence.

And so I am making something real. Something I can hold in my hands, that I can show people. And in 30 years, it will still be on my shelf. Do you visit any 30 year old websites? No. Most of them have long since gone offline, their content gone forever. But a book from 30 years ago can still look like new and be enjoyed by anyone. 

Why Drag?

As a kid there was not a lot of queer joy around me. I was in a conformist suburb with no internet access. San Francisco was close enough for my mother to commute into every day, but far enough away that as a kid it may as well have been the moon. No Castro for baby queers like me.

But there was tv. Drag queens on the news, on Jerry Springer, sometimes in movies. And they were bright and vibrant. They were joyful. They seemed to surf above the waves of sorrow that otherwise seemed to wash over the zeitgeist when the community was discussed.

Drag queens were living proof that it wasn’t all disownment, homophobia and AIDS. It wasn’t all sadness. It was also music. Dancing. Fabulous outfits. Love. Joy.

That made a huge impression on me as a closeted kid. To Wong Foo, Paris is Burning, Priscilla. Drag Queens on the news at Pride. Finally going to Pride as an adult and seeing them in the parade, waving and happy.

And it just keeps getting better. RuPaul, Dragula, Call me Mother, Pose, the list goes on and on. We are all so very, very lucky to be living in this era of incredible drag at our fingertips. And I feel incredibly privileged to document some of it. 

Where can I learn more about the business of making photobooks?
Next

Screaming on the Inside: The Lived Experience of Depression and Despair