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November-December 2019

Leaving a literary legacy

In the wake of my cancer diagnosis, I decided to read

Melanie Masterson

When you are diagnosed with a terminal illness there is a lot of talk about leaving a legacy. Some people write letters to their children. Some record videos. I have a pretty active Instagram account and have blogged for decades and hope my daughters will enjoy looking back on that. Some things older women living […] More »
November-December 2019

How the casting process fails mixed-race actors

Being mixed-race in the theatre and film industries isn't easy

Catherine Abes

Kenneth Tynan’s natural hair colour is a warm auburn, the kind that changes with the seasons and reveals copper undertones when it catches the light. He gets it from his mother, an Irish immigrant. He says he’s always liked his hair, but when he dyed it jet black, he tried not to get emotional about […] More »
November-December 2019

How circus arts helped me deal with body shame

On aging, gender presentation, and—of course—trapeze

Dana Baitz

  After reaching my late-40s, becoming more visibly trans, having a child, and losing most of my employment prospects, I finally became comfortable with myself. A lot of that comfort and acceptance came from a new love affair—with, oddly enough, trapeze. In grad school, my girlfriend went to the gym.  I followed suit, because everything […] More »
July-August 2019

Breaking Up With Bjork

When You've Built a Shrine to Your Problematic Fave

mel monoceros

Dear Bjork, The year leading up to my 30th birthday almost killed me, quite literally. The stress from my living situation at the time was pushing me to the edge of my sanity. I was living in a place I didn’t want to be in because I had gotten priced out of the place I’d […] More »
July-August 2019

Glenn Copeland’s Musical Rebirth

Brennan McCracken

From his time studying classical music in the 1960s to decades spent writing songs and performing on CBC’s Mr. Dressup, Glenn Copeland has long been interested in looking inwards to “the core of one’s own being.” Seventy-five and a practicing Buddhist, he has never been too concerned with signifiers of success or following musical trends. […] More »
May-June 2019

Death of the Rom-Com

Has messy love on screen killed the rom-com? We sure hope so.

Lisa Whittington-Hill

I blame John Hughes for my great sleepover shutout of 1984. It was a Betamax copy of his teen romantic comedy Sixteen Candles that was my downfall. While my friends clapped their hands and cheered at the final scene that brings together Samantha Baker and Jake Ryan, I was silent. I just couldn’t buy it. […] More »

We’re hiring fiction and poetry editors!

Tara-Michelle Ziniuk

Do you love CanLit? Are you always on the lookout for emerging authors and poets? If so, we want you! This Magazine is looking for both a fiction editor and poetry editor! Our fiction editor is responsible for overseeing the magazine’s fiction section. This Magazine publishes six print issues a year, with each issue featuring a short story by a […] More »

State of the Art

Canadian art is about so much more than documenting our picturesque landscapes. Artists Lezli Rubin-Kunda, Sandra Rechico, and Susan Fiendel say home is where the mind is.

RM VaughanWebsite@rm_vaughan

One of the crumbliest of the many old chestnuts rotting away in Canadian art discourse is that all Canadian art is ultimately about the landscape that surrounds us. This is of course true (that’s how antique ideas last) and also very much not true, especially in an era when the digital presence of art and […] More »
November-December 2018

I grew up in the age of VCR recordings and pay-per-view. Now, I’m raising my son in the streaming era.

Anne Thériault on what she's learned from Netflix, iPads, and her seven-year-old

Anne Thériault

Now that my son is seven, our weekend mornings have gelled into a proper routine. He wakes up at some ungodly hour—earlier, by the way, than he gets up on weekdays—and plays for a while in his room. When he’s tired of that, he’ll grab a couple of granola bars from the kitchen and then […] More »
November-December 2018

Tout le monde en parle has gripped Quebec viewers for nearly 15 years. Why can’t it reach the rest of Canada?

Sara Black McCulloch unpacks the talk show Franco Quebecers can't stop watching

Sara Black McCulloch

Singer Grimes on Tout le monde en parle in 2015 When Canadian singer Grimes appeared on a segment of Tout le monde en parle in 2015, she was the only guest on the Franco-Canadian talk show answering questions in English. When co-host Dany Turcotte discovered she had lived in Montreal for six years, he asked […] More »
November-December 2018

I gave up television for 35 years. Why I started watching again

Writer Thelma Fayle jumps back into the world of TV and finds value in the medium that she never did before

Thelma Fayle

In the 1980s, Dan Hubbard and Richard Catinus were two brainy young guys trying to sell Apple computers when I was working in a government office that used IBMs. While outlining the advantages of using a Mac for my work, Dan mentioned in passing that, after reading Jerry Mander’s book, Four Arguments for the Elimination […] More »