Lauren Kirshner
The Women Behind the Books

The Women Behind the Books

Publishing’s most avowed history is usually an American one with an all-male cast, peopled by scions like Scribner and Knopf who ruled from corporate thrones. But in an engrossing new book, Toronto Trailblazers: Women in Canadian Publishing (UTP), noted scholar,...

Shining a Light on the Labour of Sex Work

Shining a Light on the Labour of Sex Work

Red Light Labour is a groundbreaking new collection of bold, engrossing, and timely essays and personal narratives that explore sex work with the nuance, care, and rigour. Lauren Kirshner connected with the three editors of Red Light Labour, Elya M. Durisin, a...

I’m Not Here

I’m Not Here

While reading GG’s new graphic novel, I’m Not Here, I was reminded of a short story by Delmore Schwartz, in which the narrator goes into a cinema and, much to their amazement and dismay, finds that the film being screened is of their parents’ first meeting. Knowing...

Where it Hurts

Where it Hurts

The essays in Where It Hurts are deeply felt, original, and a moving requiem for lives extinguished too early to have left a trace. De Leeuw writes with love and conviction while also asking important questions of the reader: how do we live with the empty spaces death...