Illustration by Diana Bolton In the foreword of Maxine Roper’s No Heels, No Problem, a survival guide for women with ADHD and dyspraxia, I describe neurodivergent womanhood as a “guessing game.” That choice of words reflects my experiences getting a diagnosis of dyspraxia: a neurodivergent condition that presents difficulties with the coordination, planning, and sequencing […] More »

Photo by Akinbostanci All Hannah Kreager can do is wait. She’s spent months in Calgary now, a decision she made after hearing talk about intensified uses of federal power from the Trump administration. She had always thought she would leave her home in Tucson, Arizona, maybe for college, but she’d never planned to leave the […] More »

Illustration by Mitch Duncan The piercer first applied freezing gel all over Tora’s mouth, like sloppy lip gloss. Within 15 minutes consonants were impossible and her lips flapped around like jelly. She “chatted” with Shanna, her stylist, trying to be playful. Shanna only tilted her lips up. The piercer coughed pointedly. He held the needle […] More »

Photo by Chris LeDrew Atlantic Canada’s music scene has always been filled with rich, diverse sounds, from sea shanties to hip hop, with artists building followings far beyond home. And for over three decades, the East Coast Music Association (ECMA), the nonprofit that runs an annual awards show and industry marketplace, has been part of […] More »

Photo by Durrah Alsaif, QIMASH, 2017 Several times per day, the Adhan sounded from the depths of the Mohammad home. When sisters Salmana Janjua and Sharae Mohammad were growing up in Brossard, Quebec in the ’90s, the Islamic call to prayer signalled that it was time for Ahmadi Muslims in the area to gather in […] More »

Photo by Dave Swiewicki Desiree Dorion was born to play country music. Growing up in rural Manitoba, Dorion’s love of music led her to riding her bike to the Dauphin’s Countryfest, the longest-running country music festival in Canada, as a little girl. By the time she was five, the Juno nominee and member of the […] More »

Illustration by Sal Scheibe They move in on the first day of August when the air feels like a panting dog’s breath. From our third-floor balcony, I watch the pickup truck pull up with a cat-shredded couch sticking up out of it like the half-sunk Titanic. Five of them get out. There are three guys […] More »

When Rimah Jabr first applied to the Toronto Palestine Film Festival’s (TPFF) 2025 residency, she was so unsure about being able to accurately address anti-Palestinian racism that she withdrew her submission. Jabr wasn’t used to creating work for commissioned themes and worried about the compromises she’d have to make. “As an artist, I was like, […] More »

Photo by Chris Randle Two ghostly figures appear, moving across a vast field strewn with steel sculptures. The dancers—a man and woman, shaved bald and painted white—move with a languid fluidity, bending space and time. This is A Simple Way, performed this summer at The Jeffrey Rubinoff Sculpture Park on Hornby Island off the east […] More »

Photo by Chris Wong/iStock In 2005, I was a 15-year-old trans queerdo who had no idea who I was. Living in a sleepy suburb in Ottawa, I didn’t know any trans people and only saw them portrayed in media as caricatures of monstrosity or madness. I was depressed, anxious, and felt like I didn’t belong […] More »

Illustration by Moe Pramanick I hate speaking Tamil. It’s one of the oldest languages still spoken today, dating back to at least 450 BCE, and I’m proud it’s part of my life. It’s the language of my parents, who fled Sri Lanka’s civil war (1983–2009), a conflict that left hundreds of thousands of Tamils killed […] More »