Jenny Heijun Wills was born in Seoul, South Korea and was adopted and raised in a white family in Southern-Ontario, Canada. In 2008, she reunited with her family in Asia. Jenny has lived, studied, and worked in Toronto, Montreal, Boston, and Seoul. Her debut...
Dr. Cheryl Thompson is a writer, author, and academic. She is an Assistant Professor at Ryerson University in the School of Creative Industries. Her book, Beauty in a Box: Detangling the Roots of Canada’s Black Beauty Culture, was published with Wilfrid Laurier Press...
Molly Cross-Blanchard sits down with Room editor of 43.4 Geffen Semach to chat about the issue, the world of publishing, and what Geffen has been reading lately. Geffen Semach recently moved to Toronto where she works at Doubleday at Penguin Random House Canada. For...
We are thrilled to announce Whitney French as Room’s Mentor-in-Residence! Room’s mentor-in-residence program is a brand new program designed to pair established mentors with emerging writers. This year’s mentor, Whitney French, will mentor about eight students (free...
Naava Smolash is a white settler from a working class immigrant family. Her writing appears in Studies in Canadian Literature, West Coast Line, LitHub, Everyday Feminism, Briarpatch, and the University of Toronto Quarterly. Her essay "The Opposite of Rape Culture is...
To celebrate the upcoming Growing Room Festival 2020, we are chatting with a few festival authors to learn more about them and their work until the festival rolls around. Isabella Wang chats with some of the talented young writers who will be performing at this year's...
In the following interview, Manahil Bandukwala chats with poet and fellow festival author, Liz Howard, whose debut poetry collection, Infinite Citizen of the Shaking Tent won the Griffin Poetry Prize in 2016. The author spoke about contamination and poisoning in...
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,...
Next up, Chimedum Ohaegbu chats with Jillian Christmas, who is—in addition to being a festival author—one of the programming committee members of Growing Room 2020 and the host and curator of the opening night event at Fox Cabaret. The writer and artist is a force in...
Cassandra Blanchard’s debut poetry collection, Fresh Pack of Smokes, is an immersive, intimate account of drug addiction, love, sex work, and survival on the streets of Vancouver. These are prose poems that shake with urgency, deftly stacking vivid imagery which...
ROOM 48.2 TRAVELLERS
In ROOM 48.2 TRAVELLERS we reflect, dream, manifest. Join us in these human ways of time-travelling, from infancy to the future, through relationships and into surreal realms.
ROOM 47.4 FULL CIRCLE
Step back with Room into the past, to parents, to childhood homes, and to people once known and loved; dig into themes of grief and healing; and ultimately explore what it means to come full circle in literature.
Seeking members who love literature, events, merchandise, and supporting marginalized creators.
Travellers | 48.2
$10.00 – $20.00
Wits End | 48.1
$15.00 – $25.00
Full Circle | 47.4
$15.00 – $25.00
Bodies | 47.3
$15.00 – $25.00
Seedpod | 47.2
$12.00 – $25.00
Utopia | 47.1
$12.00 – $25.00
Sponsor a Contributor
$250.00
Sponsor a Writer
$100.00
Sponsor a Poet
$50.00
Fever Dream | 46.4
$12.00 – $25.00