How an inspiring new generation of spoken word poets found their voices—and are using them to confront racism and challenge damaging stereotypes about Muslim women
Nasim Asgari is looking at the tofu sitting in her shopping cart, waiting for her mother to join her at the food aisle at the No Frills store in north Toronto. I wonder what it’s going to taste like, she thinks. She adjusts her headscarf. Tomorrow she’ll start her trial 40 days as a vegetarian. […] More »
Growing up in a low-income household in a small Quebec town, Starchild Stela passed the time drawing. “It was one of the few things I felt I received validation for,” they say. As a teen they started to graffiti and moved to Montreal where they have been working since. Within the last five years the artist says they have become […] More »
YOU DON’T EXPECT the word “amazing” to come out of someone’s mouth so often when they speak about difficult issues every day. Splitting her time between New York and Toronto, Kim Katrin Milan is an an educator, writer, artist, yoga instructor, and activist. She does so much that a casual viewer would be forgiven for […] More »
The wonderfully non-human retelling of a Canadian novella on stage IT’S A STORY that needs to be retold. “The Faustian bargain is a classic hook,” says Gil Garratt, referring to Derek McCormack’s 2008 novella The Show that Smells. Garratt is adapting the book for the stage via Clawhammer, the small company he founded in 2011 […] More »
From our education system to our literary community, why is CanLit so white? Nashwa Lina Khan challenges the default narrative JUNOT DÍAZ UNLEASHED A BOMBSHELL on the writing world when he published his essay “MFA vs. PoC” in the New Yorker last spring. The Dominican American author is a creative writing professor, a fiction editor […] More »
Lowell’s bold, new vision for a women- and girl-friendly pop future POP SINGER-SONGWRITER Lowell has recently been experiencing a recurring dream in which she’s robbing a bank, then driving away on a motorbike with her lesbian lover. Given the surreal imagery in the videos for her songs “The Bells” and “Cloud 69,” it’s easy to […] More »
Métis in Space is a hilariously smart take down of Indigenous stereotypes in popular science-fiction LAST SUMMER, friends Molly Swain and Chelsea Vowel were having a rough time, and looking for an excuse to spend more time together. Swain and Vowel, who are both Métis and live in Montreal, came up with a solution to […] More »
Four Toronto community programs that empower the city’s youth Over the past month, we’ve featured amazing Social Justice All-Stars and the work they’re doing to make Canada a better place to live. Fellow Canadians have taken notice. Our readers have sent us dozens of nominations, highlighting individuals for the great contributions they make, whether its […] More »
Editor, designer and professor Sheila Sampath is a refreshing voice for intersectional, accessible feminism IT’S OCTOBER 2014 and I’m sitting on the floor in Sheila Sampath’s Toronto living room, discussing the progress of the newest issue of Shameless, an independent magazine for teen girls and trans youth. Surrounded by communal snacks, the team talks about […] More »
Guelph’s ReMediate project connects devastating bee loss, our food system, and the environment In spring 2014, the ReMediate project brought together artist Christina Kingsbury, writer Anna Bowen, and non-profit Pollination Guelph, to make a 305 square metre quilt for the decommissioned Eastview Landfill in Guelph, Ont. Embedded with native seeds Kingsbury collected, the quilt was […] More »
Inside The Weakerthans’ bassist Greg Smith’s studio Beer in hand, Greg Smith sits in a chair wedged into a corner. A microphone stand, angled overhead, partially frames him. The room is full of instruments: four- and six-stringed guitars on stands, a mandolin hanging from a hook, a drum kit and keyboards facing one another. But […] More »