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ARTS & CULTURE
Book Review: All My Puny Sorrows by Miriam Toews (2014)
It’s been a really long time since I have had such a visceral reaction to a book. Around a month or so ago, a good friend of mine recommended Miriam Toews’ All My Puny Sorrows after realizing we shared the same love of books that hold the capacity to destroy their reader.
Abbigale Kernya
Feb 9
Book Review: Everything is Tuberculosis - The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection by John Green (2025)
Lately, I’ve been thinking about COVID. But I still skip every episode from whatever TV show in 2020 where a pandemic invades the static screen. I don’t want to talk about it, and yes, I also can’t believe it happened.
Abbigale Kernya
Dec 8, 2025
Book Review: Genderqueer by Maia Kobabe (2019)
This 2019 memoir by author, advocate, and storyteller Maia Kobabe (e/em/eir) is a tender journey through childhood to adolescence, exploring gender expression and the anxieties of growing up. It’s a beautiful walk with time and acceptance of oneself—a teacher, a guide, and at times, a friend.
Abbigale Kernya
Oct 9, 2025
Book Reviews
Artist Spotlight
Artist Spotlight: Feels Zine
[Q]ueer romances have far fewer representations in the media, and often the ones we do aren’t written by us, and are rooted in pain and trauma. This, for me, is a huge part of why I believe queer love stories are so important to share–because seeing ourselves represented gives those of us who don’t yet feel safe or seen a place to have their experiences reflected back and honoured.
Mikaela Brewer
Feb 9
Artist Spotlight: Extended Mic
I remember, when I was younger, I would dream about having a megaphone. In the dream, I’d be speaking to everyone—setting everyone free. I just love that; telling everyone things to encourage them to rebel. I feel like poetry is that. The poems that I want to include in Extended Mic will be, of course, meaningful, and they’ll have to speak to people and say something.
Mikaela Brewer
Dec 8, 2025
Artist Spotlight: Bob Cole & Modern Music Studio
We see it time and time again in our studio. The kids who come to see us often have this perception that music is magic, that it can’t be understood. Learning about melody and harmony, chord progressions, and just how simple the construction of their favourite music is, a lot of the time, helps to break down that mysticism, making learning the language of music more accessible.
Mikaela Brewer
Oct 9, 2025
Poet's Corner
Poet’s Corner: “Rosa Parks” by Nikki Giovanni
In 1971, Nikki Giovanni spoke with James Baldwin at length in A Dialogue (also released as a book). When I first read it, not long after she passed away in December 2024, the texture and resonance of her voice felt like double-sided sticky tape. It hasn’t left me, and sticks to what I read now. Her conviction is unparalleled not only in its power but in its grace; grace as in its dexterity of love. And for that reason alone, I struggled to choose just one poem for this essay.
Mikaela Brewer
Feb 9
Poet’s Corner: “The Same City” by Terrance Hayes
Terrance Hayes is one of my favourite poets, with a long list of collections, awards, and fellowships which you can explore here. He is known to invent formal constraints, and often writes on themes of music, masculinity, popular culture, and race. His breathtaking poem, “The Same City,” is no different.
Mikaela Brewer
Dec 8, 2025
Poet’s Corner: “half-blood” by Justene Dion-Glowa
The brilliance of Justene Dion-Glowa’s poem shines through their use of white space on the page, which is one of my favourite craft tools in poetry. In “half-blood”, space—including caesuras, stanza breaks, line breaks, and indents, for example—works as hard as words, enacting the feeling of being ‘halved’ alongside a sort of sinister whiteness.
Mikaela Brewer
Oct 9, 2025
Short Stories (Writers Room)
Writers Room | ICE Murders: Lives in Slow Motion
They say that in the last seven minutes of brain activity, approaching death, a person re-experiences their whole life. Others say it’s just surges of memory and awareness. Me? I’m a writer. At least half of my life happens in my head with characters I’ve never met. But they’re the residue of not only people I’ve known, but people I’ve passed in life—on streets, at schools, in restaurants. Mothers, poets, fathers, cooks. So I say, why not?
Mikaela Brewer
Feb 9
Writers Room | What Happens When You Call 211: Re-braiding Trust in Community Care
As the holidays approach, bringing with them colder weather, loneliness, and isolation for everyone—especially folks in need of mental health support or experiencing homelessness—the Toronto Community Crisis Service (TCCS) “provides free, confidential, in-person mental health supports city-wide from mobile crisis worker teams.
Mikaela Brewer
Dec 8, 2025
Writers Room | A Story of Foster Care & Adoption: Ghosts on the Ocean
Every Halloween, bobbing on the ocean in Big Barnie, my parents read aloud our favourite ghost story at midnight: The Little Mermaid. “Even the ghosts of the sea were cold,” my dad, Jack, whispered, making use of the gap in his teeth. He frizzed up his blue-black hair so it looked spiked with hair gel.
Mikaela Brewer
Oct 9, 2025
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