Kalden Rangdröl Dhatsenpa is a Tiohtià:ke/Mooniyang/Montréal-based Tibetan writer, poet, photographer, community journalist, and host of the local news podcast Local 514. His work, spanning lyrical poetry, photography, and nascent musical projects, explores Tibetan perspectives within a North American settler context, travel, and the interplay between urban spaces and the surrounding country.

I know, I know, everyone's against gatekeeping, and everything is supposed to be on demand, open to all, 24/7, and we should be able to manifest our desires as fast as we can conjure them. But realistically, no.

Kimberly Orjuela is a Colombian artist based in Rosemont-La Petite-Patrie who holds a BFA from Concordia University and specializes in ceramic sculpture. Her practice draws deep inspiration from pre-Columbian ceramics, ancient cosmologies, and Colombia's rich biodiversity to explore themes of collective care and decolonial thinking.

Regular readers will know that I've recently moved to the South Shore (I refuse to turn in my Montrealer card though). What you probably don't know is that I work in the West Island. Oh, and I don't drive; as in can't…as in, never even had a learner's permit.

Marshall Diabo is an award-winning Kanien’keha:ka (Mohawk)/mixed-heritage competitive dancer, choreographer, and instructor based in the Plateau. With a decade of powwow and street dance experience to the stage, he blends hiphop and contemporary styles to elevate queer, 2-spirit, and polyamorous representation in Montreal's arts scene.

Friday morning, I woke up and thought well, it's a beautiful day for a funeral. Mother Nature had turned up the heat, and the sun was out, loud and proud. While it's true that no one wants to go to a funeral, going on a beautiful day sure beats mourning in a snowstorm.

Hakeem Lapointe (Amselysen) is an Outremont-based recording artist, visual artist, and founder of the EAF label. Morphing experimental, ambient, noise, and punk into confrontational leftfield electronic music, he builds titles and visual scenarios before composing to strike a perfect balance between deep emotional affect and sharp aesthetic innovation.

We love to sort people into boxes. You have your party friend, your movie buddy, the astrology girl, the friend who can help you move; we don't do it on purpose. It seems natural that when a potluck comes up, we know to invite the foodies, the social butterflies who will keep the party flowing,…

While that's true, evidence has long pointed to the contrary. In fact, I'm on record for shit talking the suburbs – the most family oriented of all locales – consistently. I stand by everything I've said about the sleepy little contrived spaces where dreams go to die, especially about the West Island, but I am willing to admit that not all suburbs are created equal.

Carolyne Van Der Meer is an Old Montreal-based journalist, poet, and author of five published books whose work spans international articles, essays, and multi-disciplinary poetry collections. Obsessed with the sudden structural turns of a poem, her writing embraces an economy of words and minimalist punctuation to create space for quiet reader connection.