Maurice Vellekoop: I'm So Glad We Had This Time Together

Presented in partnership with the Toronto Comic Arts Festival, acclaimed artist and illustrator Maurice Vellekoop visits the Toronto Reference Library to discuss his new book, I’m So Glad We Had This Time Together. This graphic memoir tells the epic story of an aspiring queer illustrator surviving an intensely Christian family, coming of age and coming out in 1980s Toronto, becoming a successful artist and the long process of coming to terms with the traumas of childhood.

Meet little Maurice Vellekoop, the youngest of four children raised by Dutch immigrants in 1970s Etobicoke. The Vellekoops are devoted to art, music, and film, and they instill a deep reverence for the arts in young Maurice—except for literature. He’d rather watch Cher and Carol Burnett on TV than read a book. He also loves playing with his girlfriends’ Barbies and helping his Mum in her basement hair salon. In short, he is really, really gay.

Vellekoop struggles with intolerance at home and at school until he finds a welcoming community of bohemians at the Ontario College of Art, including a brilliant, flamboyantly gay professor who encourages him to come out. But just as he’s dipping his toes into the waters of gay sex and love, a series of disasters set him back. Maurice retreats to the safety of childhood obsessions, seeking to meet his emotional needs through film- and theatre-going, music, boozy self-medication, and prolific art-making. When these tactics inevitably fail, Vellekoop at last embarks on a journey of self-discovery. In therapy, a spiderweb of family, faith, guilt, and sexuality at last begins to untangle.

Author Maurice Vellekeep is joined by journalist Rachel Giese to discuss this enthralling portrait of what it means to be true to yourself, to learn to forgive, and to be an artist.

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