On April 8, The Simpsons aired the episode “No Good Read Goes Unpunished.” The 15th episode of the series’ 29th season addressed the issue of the racist portrayal of Kwik-E-Mart owner Apu Nahasapeemapetilon. “Addressed” insofar as Lisa Simpson looked at the camera and said, “Something that started decades ago, and was applauded and inoffensive, is […] More »

Dear art thieves, Yes, that’s what you are. No, I don’t care that you just really liked my work. No, I don’t care that I didn’t use a watermark. It’s my design, you took it, you didn’t get my consent. You’re an art thief. I know we live in a time where millions of delicious […] More »

For a long time I thought of journalism as something I did in my spare time, not as a part of my identity. I was lucky enough to stumble into this field, becoming arts editor at the Varsity, the University of Toronto’s student newspaper, in 2016. Then the wave of sexual harassment allegations began. Story […] More »

Growing up in Canada in the mid-2000s, there was never quite a role model in Western popular culture who looked like me. As an 11-year-old, it didn’t occur to me that there was anything amiss with my pop idols, or that their portrayals of North American life were missing an important element of cultural relevance […] More »

I went to church in August. I hadn’t been in 20 years. It was Monday and St. Paul’s Anglican in downtown Halifax was dead quiet. A young woman in burgundy sat at a table near the door. I looped around the pews before asking the question I had come here to ask: “Charles Lawrence is […] More »

It’s 1:30 a.m., and I’m in my family’s living room giggling and staring at my laptop screen. I’ve been online for 10 hours in a chatroom with a rotating cast of friends. We have members from every time zone, scattered across the globe; the Australians are just coming online while some of the Americans are logging off. […] More »

Confession: The first thing I do when I start reading a book is crack the spine. It’s satisfying. I’ve never understood people who keep their books in pristine condition. They are meant to be lived in—dog-eared and coffee stained and marked up all to hell. The pages should be wrinkled from that time you dropped it […] More »