Category: Spring 1999

Inside the boardroom at Xtra: Toronto’s Gay and Lesbian Biweekly, Eleanor Brown takes refuge far from the raucous production-night chatter to proof a story. “How do you spell palette?” she asks without looking up. She has the focus of a Tibetan monk at prayer. Nothing short of Mike Harris declaring himself to be queer, I… Continue reading We’re Here, We’re Queer. But Are the Dailies Used to It?

Two people arrived at their new jobs at Saturday Night magazine last September. Both wore a tie and a dress shirt tucked into chinos. Both looked like recent university graduates although both were a few credits short of a BA. Twenty-nine-year-old Duff Wallis walked to Saturday Night‘s downtown Toronto office carrying an attaché case. He… Continue reading Saturday’s Child

We were in the car on our way to cover a story when the photographer looked over at me and grinned. “So, how do you like working at The Ladies Home Journal?” I didn’t get it at first. Then my eyes widened and I must have seemed a bit flustered because he looked at me… Continue reading Black Ties

It’s the early 1920s and Lotta Dempsey is nervously walking into the MacDonald Hotel in Edmonton to meet the subject of her interview, Miss Charlotte Whitton. It’s the first time Dempsey has been entrusted with covering an official visitor on national business. Mr. MacPherson, the city editor of The Edmonton Journal, had only assigned the… Continue reading Driving Miss Dempsey

The Proposal In the fall of 1998, several well-known Toronto wine writers were asked to be consultants to Magnotta Winery Inc. The Toronto Star‘s Tony Aspler, The Globe and Mail‘s David Lawrason, The Toronto Sun‘s Gordon Stimmell, Toronto Life‘s Margaret Swaine, eye magazine’s Konrad Ejbich, and Andrew Sharp, who freelances for the Winnipeg Free Press… Continue reading What Would You Do?