A Common Understanding: Queer Situations Literary Festival reads the entire room

Iceland has long been famous for its highly prolific literary output. Heck, it wasn’t so long ago that we held the world record for most published authors per capita! What is best known are more mainstream styles of literature — what happens on the fringes tends to stay there. The new literary festival Queer Situations is poised to shift the focus away from the status quo.

“Many queer people are tired of being a subject in novels and just something that’s talked about,” says organiser Halla Þórlaug Óskarsdóttir. “Like being the funny gay friend or the trans person where being trans is a plot twist.”

We caught up with Halla in a decidedly queer situation; over speakerphone while she was at the Gröna Lund amusement park in Stockholm. As we speak, the delighted screams of children on rides in the background infused our call with the sense of reckless abandon that comes from finding and releasing one’s queer voice.

“The focus is on writers who identify as queer but also we want to focus on literature that is queer in itself,” says Halla. “When queer literature is discussed in Iceland, it’s discussed through a lens that is used to discuss mainstream literature, too. We need a platform where we can talk about queer literature on its own terms without othering.”

Halla and her wife, Eva Rún Snorradóttir, are the founders and artistic directors of the festival, which will take place August 22 to 24. They each hail from diverse backgrounds in the fields of writing, media and performance. Their team is rounded out by graphic designer Elías Rúni and a group of dedicated volunteers.

“Last summer when we were on vacation, we just started thinking that this is something that we really enjoy when we go abroad,” says Halla. “We seek out literary events and like to meet or listen to interesting authors. We are kind of missing this for the queer literary scene in Iceland, and we wanted to make a platform for it.”

The festival will feature more than twenty authors, both local and international, including marquee names like Maggie Nelson, Harry Dodge, Ia Genberg and Kristín Ómarsdóttir. Halla explains that queerness is the oxygen the festival will breathe, rather than a subject that will be scrutinised.

“Sometimes you can sense that literature is queer without even knowing that the writer is queer and maybe before that writer even comes out,” says Halla. “When you talk to someone that has similar experiences, you relate. You have a common understanding that influences the way you think, the way you talk, the way you write. That is something that you often feel in queer literature.”

Although the festival takes place only a couple of weeks after RVK Pride, the timing was entirely coincidental. They had, however, always intended for it to be its own thing and not subsumed within a party-centric framework.

“With full respect for Pride, it was important for us as writers and literary people to have this festival just on its own,” says Halla. “We’re hoping that this festival preaches outside the choir as well. This is definitely a queer literary festival, but everyone should be reading queer literature. The main focus is literature — that’s what this is about.”

Queer Situations takes place at Salurinn in Kópavogur on August 22 to 24. The full programme and more information is available at queersituations.com.