Reading Room

Texture, Illness, and Metaphor

Texture, Illness, and Metaphor

My introverted grandfather used a code to let my extraverted grandmother know when he was running out of steam at parties: fists by his side meant he had some energy; one fist in the air, spotted across the room, meant he was running on steam; both raised above his head meant he was finished and had no energy left for socialization.

Brown Girl in the Ring

Brown Girl in the Ring

Amidst all the swirling anxieties of the pandemic, I had almost forgotten I was brown. I had forgotten that the eyes looking out from above my mask were deep inky pools which so often failed to reflect familiarity and belonging.I had forgotten that, while my hands were gloved and hidden, my sepia arms betrayed my origins in a sun-washed and sun-dried land.

Notes on Abundance 

Notes on Abundance 

from LooseLeaf Magazine In 2015 I had a wild dream to start a publication for pan-Asian writers and artists, and that winter, in partnership with a bunch of equally naive and down-for-anything Asian creatives, LooseLeaf Magazine emerged. Like a lot of other grassroots...

Plasticnic and Plasticpoems by Fiona Tinwei Lam

Plasticnic and Plasticpoems by Fiona Tinwei Lam

Below are short, animated poems created by Fiona Tinwei Lam in collaboration with Vancouver animators Tisha Deb Pillai and Nhat Truong. These short, plastic-pollution-themed video poems were intended to be screened at the 2020 Growing Room Literary & Arts...

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ROOM 49.1 NO FUTURE FOR WHO?

We are really asking. We are coming in hot. We are not fucking around. These existential crises, these states of emergency. The poetry, prose, and art in this issue ask: what are we to make of, or in, them?

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ROOM 48.3 Rest/Unrest

In Room Magazine 48.3 Rest/Unrest, may you find rest as you engage with profound, necessary unrest.

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