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The features written for this year’s Review

Animated person sitting at desk, app icons flowing from computer.

The New Newsroom

From May to August 2024, Canadaland had two keen fellows, Mia Johnson and Leora Schertzer, who wrote stories for its flagship show, also Canadaland. Most mornings, they were at the office at nine in the morning—hours before podcast host Noor Azrieh arrived—and they would be the last to leave. Nobody showed up to the office that early, other than founder Jesse Brown. The fellows frequently engaged in meetings and talked about the news. The stories they produced on their own usually took a team of three to four people to accomplish, according to Azrieh. Johnson made an episode called “The Painful Truth about IUDs,” while Schertzer created “Waste Management: Sh*t’s Complicated.”
Abstract art collage of model walking runway surrounded by reporters.

Out of the Spotlight

It’s a chilly weekend in November 2024, but outside T3 Bayside, the crisp air is charged with excitement. Crowd control bollards funnel guests—hundreds of homegrown designers, models, photographers, artists, and fashion lovers—into the runway room, where they await the chance to see the new collections and mingle among art and clothing. Bursts of colour, texture, and personality transform this east downtown Toronto space on the waterfront. T3 Bayside, which boasts the title of tallest timber office building in North America, is hosting 8,000 attendees and participants at Fashion Art Toronto, a four-day annual celebration of Canadian fashion. This weekend, the event is debuting fall and winter fashions, showcasing more than 40 Canadian designers.
Illustration of one woman cartoonist amongst a group of male cartoonists.

Drawing the Line

David. Michael. Theo. Patrick. Greg. These are the names of the cartoonists I usually see as I flip through the Toronto Star, The Globe and Mail, Montreal’s The Gazette, and the Winnipeg Free Press.
Collage of headlines: "1200 killed by mental patients!"

Don’t Call Me Dangerous

On a rainy evening in November 2024, the Black Sheep pub in Toronto’s Liberty Village was alive with a warm energy. The space buzzed with laughter and chatter as guests showed up to attend the launch party for the sixteenth issue of Queer Toronto Literary Magazine (QT). The issue, “Dream State,” was dedicated to celebrating trans and non-binary voices.
A man and a woman facing away from a painting of a black woman at an art gallery

Not Talked About

On a cold evening late last fall, the crisp air urges guests to pull their coats tighter. When guests step inside capsul Studio in Toronto’s Liberty Village neighbourhood, the space radiates coziness, not just from the heating but from the energy of attendees. Conversations mix with the soft hum of background music.
Numbers 0, 1 are shown in green with outlines of people in shadows behind them.

Strength in Numbers

In 1994, Fred Vallance-Jones had been a journalist for 10 years, travelling across western Manitoba reporting stories for CBC Radio. Intrigued by a new and rapidly growing type of journalism called computer-assisted reporting, he flew to Ottawa to attend a training session organized by the Canadian Association of Journalists (CAJ). “They pulled out this mysterious database software called FoxPro, and I was amazed by what it could do,” he recalls.
Christian Allaire poses for a picture.

From Nipissing to New York

On the first Monday in May, Christian Allaire, a senior fashion and style writer at Vogue, is up at seven in the morning writing stories in preparation for fashion’s biggest event. By the early afternoon, he is ready and ravishing on Fifth Avenue for the Met Gala’s 2024 red carpet, themed “The Garden of Time.” Allaire, descending from Italian-French and Ojibwe lineage, wears a black suit and blazer detailed with purple lupines and scarlet red Indian paintbrushes—the flowers from back home. His designer, Jamie Okuma, added a traditional black-and-white Ojibwe breechcloth to the pants, mixing the tailored, modern suit with traditional, cultural attire. To top it off, Allaire carries an antique, multicoloured shoulder bag with floral beadwork to represent his heritage and home.
Collage of politician speaking and crowd with enlarged faces.

Missing Voices

On December 3, 2024, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol declared martial law. It was a move for political self-preservation that Yoon retracted only a few hours later. As the first such declaration since the 1980s, when martial law was used to silence pro-democracy protestors, it recalled a time many South Koreans believed was long behind them. In military barracks across the country, young soldiers stayed up late, against orders, watching the news and wondering what it might mean. They were frustrated—would they have to carry out Yoon’s order while serving mandatory military time? “We were very annoyed,” says one soldier, who spoke to the Review on condition of anonymity.

Alarmist, Inaccurate, Transphobic

On a rainy evening in November 2024, the Black Sheep pub in Toronto’s Liberty Village was alive with a warm energy. The space buzzed with laughter and chatter as guests showed up to attend the launch party for the sixteenth issue of Queer Toronto Literary Magazine (QT). The issue, “Dream State,” was dedicated to celebrating trans and non-binary voices.

Shireen’s Pitch

It’s April 2024, and Shireen Ahmed is sitting in her parents’ home in Windsor, Ontario, her hijab draped loosely over her head. It’s a three-hour drive from Ahmed’s own home in Toronto, but these visits with her mother and father would be routine regardless of the distance. It’s a few months before the 2024 Olympics and Paralympics in Paris, for which Ahmed is to write and create video essays as part of CBC’s coverage, on top of her regular column. But a scheduled call with CBC Olympic executive producer Sherali Najak has Ahmed slightly apprehensive.