This Magazine

Progressive politics, ideas & culture

Menu

November-December 2019

A thank-you note to Gen Z D&D gamers

With appreciation for making gaming more inclusive

K. J. Aiello

Picture this: Kurt Cobain, 20-hole Doc Martens, plaid shirts, and Jurassic Park—the first one. Then there was me. I was the only girl in a 10-person Dungeons & Dragons campaign reeking of pimply closet-nerds. If this picture reminds you of something, it should. Those kids in Stranger Things are adorable, sure, but there’s something hauntingly […]

Spotlight on: Art Brat Comics

Halifax cartoonist Mollie Cronin makes no apologies

Jillian Morgan

With bare midriffs, tattoos, and mermaid tails—or no clothes at all—Mollie Cronin’s unapologetic characters ride alligators, eat pizza, swim, lounge on cheese, and raise their middle fingers. The Halifax cartoonist distills millennial dating woes, the perils and joys of East Coast living, and the complexities of gender and body politics in her honest and funny […]

Montreal’s Black Theatre Workshop

Carving out space for Black theatre artists since 1972

Denise Hansen

Mainstream Canadian theatre, put frankly, is a typically white world. Visions of white performers extending their bodies and amplifying their voices across stages and spaces come to mind; a sea of white faces listening in rapture appears just as easily. The popular theatre world reflects our public comforts: comfortable for performers and audiences who fit […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

Price-matching our groceries is part of the struggle

A meditation on low-income vigilance

Hadiyyah Kuma

  Monday evenings at FreshCo always carry an air of anxiety, but one particular evening was accented by a white couple with Apple watches. They were behind my mother and I in the checkout line, leaning against the conveyor belt and communicating through grimaces. Every time the woman sighed, my stomach tensed. The tension was […]

Who are you calling a foreigner?

When visiting your ancestral home doesn't go quite as planned

Bilan Hashi

The children raced barefoot alongside us in the muddied street through the shallow pools of water that were left over from the building of mud houses. It didn’t matter if we were in a small village or a sprawling metropolis, on a boat that just landed on their island, or rushing to catch a bus […]