An award-winning author of eight collections of short stories, one novel, three CDs, four short films and a renowned performer, Ivan Coyote's first love is live storytelling. Over the last 19 years, those stories - which often grapple with the complex and intensely personal issues of gender identity, as well as topics such as family, class, social justice and queer liberation - have become an audience favourite at music, poetry, spoken word and writer’s festivals from Anchorage to Amsterdam. 

Coyote's novel Bow Grip was awarded the ReLit Award for Best Novel in 2008, shortlisted for the Ferro-Grumley Award for Women's Fiction, and listed as An American Library Association Stonewall Honor Book. The Globe and Mail newspaper called Coyote "a natural-born storyteller" and the Ottawa Xpress once said that "Coyote is to Canadian literature what KD Lang is to country music: a beautifully odd fixture."

Richard Sager '73 established the Sager Fund in 1988. To combat homophobia and related discrimination, the fund sponsors events that focus on concerns of the LGBTQ communities. Sager also created provides funding for students in internships with nonprofit organizations whose primary mission address LGBTQ issues.

Read more about Coyote's visit in The Phoenix.