NON-FICTION
| SHAKESPEARE LIED | Sky Gilbert | Toronto:Guernica Editions, April, 2024 |
| Shakespeare Beyond Science When Poetry was the World | Sky Gilbert | Toronto:Guernica Editions, September, 2020 |
| Small Things | Sky Gilbert | Toronto:Guernica Editions, October, 2018 |
NOVELS
| I, Gloria Grahame | Sky Gilbert | Toronto:Dundurn Press October, 2021 |
| Sad Old Faggot | Sky Gilbert | Toronto:ECW Press September, 2016 |
| Come Back | Sky Gilbert | Toronto:ECW Press May, 2012 |
| WIT IN LOVE (NOVELLA) | Sky Gilbert | Toronto:Quattro Books 2008 |
| BROTHER DUMB | Sky Gilbert | Toronto: ECW Press 2007 |
| AN ENGLISH GENTLEMAN | Sky Gilbert | Toronto: Cormorant Books 2004 |
| COUPABLE French translation of Guilty | Sky Gilbert | Paris: H&O Editions 2002 |
| I AM KASPAR KLOTZ | Sky Gilbert | Toronto: ECW Press 2001 |
| ST. STEPHENS | Sky Gilbert | Insomniac Press 1999 |
| GUILTY | Sky Gilbert | Insomniac Press 1998 |
POETRY COLLECTIONS
| THE MOMMIAD | Sky Gilbert | Toronto: Playwrights Canada Press May, 2012 |
| A NICE PLACE TO VISIT | Sky Gilbert | Toronto: ECW Press October, 2009 |
| TEMPTATIONS FOR A JUVENILE DELINQUENT | Sky Gilbert | Toronto: ECW Press 2003 |
| DIGRESSIONS OF A NAKED PARTY GIRL | Sky Gilbert | Toronto: ECW Press 1998 |
PUBLISHED PLAYS
| TOLLER AND OTHER PLAYS | Sky Gilbert | Toronto: Playwrights Canada Press |
| IT’S ALL TRU | Sky Gilbert | Toronto: Playwrights Canada Press |
| ST. FRANCIS OF MILLBROOK | Sky Gilbert | Toronto: Playwrights Canada Press November, 2014 |
| I HAVE AIDS! | Sky Gilbert | Toronto: Playwrights Canada Press 2009 |
| BAD ACTING TEACHERS | Sky Gilbert | Toronto: Playwrights Canada Press 2007 |
| ROPE ENOUGH | Sky Gilbert | Toronto: Playwrights Canada Press 2006 |
| AVOIDANCE TACTICS | Sky Gilbert | Fredericton: Broken Jaw PresS 2001 |
| THE EMOTIONALISTS | Sky Gilbert | Winnipeg: Blizzard Publishing 2000 |
| PAINTED, TAINTED, SAINTED: FOUR PLAYS BY SKY GILBERT | Sky Gilbert | Toronto: Playwright’s Canada Press 1996 |
| THE UNKNOWN FLESH: A SELECTION OF PLAYS BY SKY GILBERT | Sky Gilbert | Coach House Press 1995 |
| PLAY MURDER | Sky Gilbert | Winnipeg: Blizzard Publishing 1995 |
| THE DRESSING GOWN | Sky Gilbert | Toronto: Playwright’s Canada Press 1984 |
MEMOIR
| EJACULATIONS FROM THE CHARM FACTORY | Sky Gilbert | Toronto: ECW Press 2000 |
BOOKS EDITED BY SKY GILBERT
| GAY MONOLOGUES AND SCENES | For those men who are naturally effeminate, and would rather work from their strengths than their weaknesses, these monologues and scenes provide an opportunity for acting training. Of course not all gay men are effeminate, and masculine men of all persuasions may be interested in stretching their acting muscles. And for those passionate about exercising their ability to experience (as actors) all aspects of the human condition, these scenes and monologues will be a welcome addition to the canon and an opportunity to move – aesthetically speaking that is – beyond the missionary position. | Sky Gilbert | Toronto: Playwrights Canada Press |
| PERFECTLY ABNORMAL | These plays include random musings on gay life, or anachronistic views of gay history, or impossible Utopian fantasies, or hilarious nonsense. They are art, and they work their magic through their mysterious forms: the prose that verges on poetry, the inaccurate histories, the bizarre and seemingly fictional detail that nevertheless resonates so strongly with the realities of queer life. | Sky Gilbert | Toronto: Playwrights Canada Press |
SAMPLE EXCERPTS
ODE TO PRESIDENT WILLLIAM JEFFERSON CLINTON
I never thought I’d be writing an ode to you after all those Big Macs But it’s just before nine o’clock on January 27, 1998 and I gave up nude swimming just to hear your State of The Union address (I didn’t really want to go anyway) I hope you’re lying I hope you did have sex with them all, every single girl with big teeth and big hair The same as every mother in America, I look at you quite differently now Now you’re a pervert, like me And there are all sorts of wonderful homosexual things about you like a) your arrangement with your wife b) the fact that you think oral sex isn’t adultery and c) that you don’t look fifty O send those girls to Washington In the past, they might just have become dry Republican husks of women, withering like William Inge schoolteachers, on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial Instead they run to you, hair uncombed by a summer breeze, having forgotten to wear underwear to that particular White House event Just remember Judy Holliday was fucking Bill Holden, in Born Yesterday, and that was much more important than wearing glasses and learning The Declaration of Independence No, it was some sort of declaration And Monica Lewinsky was an ugly fat girl Until just a few months before she fucked a president and she discovered (somehow, on her own) that she was free, white trash, and twenty one To some it’s exploitation and depravity And me, well I will never forget the moment when, at some public function, you swept her into your arms and she was all breathless and horny Like some young man You see where it all connects It’s all about a kind of expectation, that sometimes encompasses uncertainty and a kind of difficulty in not touching that which is offered, in admiration and bewilderment and danger and urgency and fear And love
WHY CATHY LEE GIFFORD IS JUST LIKE THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
She’s mean She’s greedy She’s very very pretty And of course she’s a lying hypocrite And of course she’s on TV every morning And just like America, Cathy Lee Gifford is a drag queen And what’s a drag queen? Well someone who just can’t stop drawing attention to how pretty they are I mean Cathy Lee everytime she moves her legs or bats an eye or touches her hair she reminds you, in that subtle way she has of how beautiful she is and yes okay so she IS beautiful but more than that each gesture says I’m beautiful, so beautiful, and that I’m barely, just barely conscious of it, and on top of that I’m intelligent (questionable) and vicious. I can be vicious. If I have to, I can defend myself against anything and I’ll still be beautiful, oooh I’m just stamping my little high heels right now and removing a stray lock of hair with my long long dangerous fingernails yes I can stand up for what I believe and be glamorous too And I believe in America (which means myself) Cathy Lee Gifford And I believe in fidelity and marriage and love (and all the other lies) And even when you find my husbands fat hairy wrinkly old dick up some forty-five year old Exercise Queen in a hotel I can pull my life back together and lie Like drag queens and the United States of America I can lie I can exploit Latina women in sweat shops and then I can appear with President Clinton and I can lie And you will love me, Cathy Lee Gifford You will But most of all, you will watch me on TV Because that’s the way mornings are; Inescapable, the beginning of all that treachery and drudgery and then there’s me, being more beautiful than you’ll ever be Look at me I’m Cathy Lee I’m some kind of an achievement
THE CRITICS RAVE
“Gilbert’s prose (which has always been Salingeresque) skips along as smartly and readably as ever. …the authorial presence that pervades other Gilbert monologues and performances continues to provoke and compel in this one”
(re: Brother Dumb) The Globe and Mail April 28, 2007
“As gay literature, An English Gentleman reaches out to a wider audience, allowing the outsider in for tea and empathy with a celibate homosexual man, quaint beyond belief.”
Montreal Gazette August 21, 2004
“Guilty is pleasure…fabulous.”
The Village Voice
“Gilbert is a world class rambler…nothing but entertaining.”
The Toronto Star
EVEN MORE SKY GILBERT…!
For more information about Sky Gilbert’s published work, check out the University of Toronto English Library entry in their listing of Contemporary Canadian Poets.
Hear Sky Gilbert read from his work live from the atrium stage of the CBC broadcasting centre in Toronto as part of the “Art at the Edge” series on CBC Radio One‘s Ideas program, aired Monday, October 26, 1998 (RealPlayer required). Click here for streaming version or here to download the 6.2 MB .ra file