Reading Room

Roping It In

Roping It In

“The calm lunatic—now that is something to aspire to.”—Mary Ruefle, “On Fear” I learned to skip this year. I use a heavy, knotted rope that thwacks the ground and burns my shoulders and whips my bare toes raw when I stumble. In the early days I’d walk around with...

To All The White People Who Voted for Change But Not To Hurt Me

To All The White People Who Voted for Change But Not To Hurt Me

On Nov. 8th just before midnight, I began to disappear. Because if he were that person, I myself would be the first to say "I made a mistake, I made a terrible mistake."                                                                                      —Eric...

Patchwork

Patchwork

The Honourable Mention in our Winter 2017–2018 Short Forms Contest. She did her eyebrows in seventh grade, her pubic hair in eighth. By grade nine she had found the sweet spot between total visibility and inconvenient stealth: the downy patches above each temple,...

Announcing the Winter 2017-18 Short Forms Shortlist!

Announcing the Winter 2017-18 Short Forms Shortlist!

The long-awaited Short Forms Shortlist is here! We'll be announcing the winners—as chosen by judge Jane Eaton Hamilton—in the coming week. Room's Winter 2017-18 Short Forms Contest ShortlistThe long-awaited Short Forms Shortlist is here! We'll be announcing the...

An Atmospheric Pressure

An Atmospheric Pressure

for Gordy 24. Picture the girl. See her pull the black cardigan closed in a tight fist as she shoves the heavy door open with her shoulder. The warm evening air hits her like a slap in the face. As she steps out onto the sidewalk and sees the sunset bleeding orange...

Announcing the Winners of our 2017 Cover Art Contest!

Announcing the Winners of our 2017 Cover Art Contest!

We are thrilled to announce the winners of our 2017 Cover Art Contest, as selected by our esteemed judge Judge Zainub Verjee, the Executive Director of the Ontario Association of Arts Galleries in Toronto. Please join us in congratulating the artists! Congratulations...

Running a Balance (excerpt)

Running a Balance (excerpt)

The anonymous woman in bed beside me adamantly shakes my shoulder. She had a name last night. She must have, as part of my hook-and-line I complimented her “pretty name” and said, “it suits you.” Unless a woman’s name is Mavis, I normally compliment her pretty name....

#MeToo: On Backlash and Burnout

#MeToo: On Backlash and Burnout

#MeToo backlash is here, and it is exhausting. Backlash against the #MeToo movement had to come—it is part of a recognizable cycle in social change: (1) A long period of people individually speaking out. (2) Organization of groups of people who press for systemic...

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ROOM 49.3 NO CANADA

In the new era of CanCon, as feminists and writers it is our task to reject this Canadian exceptionalism, this too-comfortable back-patting. How can we begin to imagine alternative arts economies, Indigenous economies around art, that start with treaty, that align with BDS? What art, what literature, would such a system free us to create?

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Cover image for Room Magazine Issue 49.2, Science. Art by Candace Cosentino of an old-fashioned computer monitor with a bounty of dandelions growing from it.

ROOM 49.2 Science

Welcome to the Science issue of Room Magazine, where we privilege questions: questions about how to construct better worlds; questions about how to destroy hyper-capitalistic, necropolitical systems; questions that beget questions and new questions.

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