A couple of months ago, I started writing an essay about toxic empathy – the point at which our caring for others becomes detrimental to ourselves. I have a fair amount of first hand experience on the subject, and have seen people slip into this pit, never to be seen as their whole selves again.

Sandwiched between a candle-making cafe and a dancing bar at the intersection of Saint-Laurent and Duluth is Le Club DD’s—the latest and hottest fixture in Montreal’s queer nightlife scene. Even on the coldest of winter nights, club goers are greeted by a lively and welcoming crowd hanging out in front of the venue, having a smoke or catching some air before heading back inside.

The word on the street is Hanta Virus. One can tell by the hushed tones, and careful media coverage, that even though the cruise ship outbreak is still considered a localized event, and the virus doesn't appear to be spreading any differently than usual, a lot of people are holding their breaths.

If you’ve ever walked the streets of Montreal, you’ll recognize the languages and sounds that define the city. Some of the sounds that make our city’s music culture were created by the queer community, enriching the scene with distinct subcultures, life-experiences, and fascinating rhythms.

Jinwoo Park is a Saint-Henri-based Korean Canadian writer and literary translator. A graduate of the University of Oxford’s creative writing program and winner of the Jim Wong-Chu Emerging Writers’ Award, his work explores the complexities of the Korean diaspora and national division.

It's funny -- in a laugh so I don't cry way -- to notice how people are getting dumber. Yes, social skills have crumbled (ask anyone who's worked in the service industry, or with the public long enough to see), and we can blame the whole internet for that.

Fannie L’Heureux is a Montreal-based multidisciplinary artist whose practice reclaims femininity and resilience as radical acts of resistance. With a background in visual and media arts from UQÀM, her "undisciplined" work spans performance, relational art, and video.

Let's take a short time warp back to Monday of last week. It was a lovely day, the hope of spring was shining brightly, and I was sure we'd seen the last frost warning of the season. (More disappointed than surprised, my flowers are in for the night as I write this, because, well, weather.)

In 2011 I read Patti Smith’s Just Kids, and what stood out to me was the idea of identifying as an artist. The idea of saying, “I am an Artist”. I was living in Toronto, working as a “professional actor”. I wasn’t just an actor, though, I was a writer, a singer, a dancer, I enjoyed painting and sculpting, making music, but out of necessity, I was an actor.

Naghmeh Sharifi is a New Rosemont-based multidisciplinary artist whose work bridges the gap between the tangible immediacy of painting and the narrative depth of time-based media. An Iranian-Canadian artist with degrees in both Visual Arts and Psychology, she explores the oral transmission of matrilineal folktales. Through a process of layering and erasure, she investigates the body as a site for memories that are personal, cultural, and ancestral.