The Town Crier

The Town Crier operated as a hub for criticism and commentary, connecting a community of writers, readers, and commentators through social media, and focusing on the interplay of literary opinion in and around the city of Toronto until its closure in February 2021.

• Lost at Sea

  By André Babyn | March 15, 2014

  Pictures for sad children, by John Campbell, used to be one of the most popular comics on the internet. Now it doesn't exist. What happened?

• One Thing Changes Another

  By Jess Taylor | March 13, 2014

  Have MFAs become too corporate? What happens when counter-cultural institutions receive corporate or state funding? Jess Taylor talks to Stephanie Young.

• Masculindians

  By Tracy Kyncl | March 11, 2014

  Sam McKegney's new book, Masculindians, explores the difference between Native- and West-defined masculinity.

• Why We’re All Here

  By Kris Bone | March 7, 2014

  At Guernica Editions's Black History Celebration at Ben McNally Books, Orville Lloyd Douglas made comments that stuck with Kris Bone long after he left.

• When Up-Close Means Far Away

  By Jason Freure | March 6, 2014

  Once you could see the edge of NYC from the Park Plaza rooftop. Now that's impossible. So artists like James Gulliver Hancock undo the city otherwise.

• The Crier Presents: The Writing Moment

  By Daniel Scott Tydsal | March 1, 2014

  The second instalment of The Writing Moment contest! In honour of Obama and Harper, write poems that make the familiar strange and the strange familiar.

• There Are More Kinds of Love

  By Jaclyn Qua-Hiansen | February 25, 2014

  True Patriot has stories about hockey players, Tim Hortons, saving the environment, and First Nations Peoples, but its stories could have more diversity.

• Refusing Silence

  By Tracy Kyncl | February 24, 2014

  At February 12th's Indigenous Women Booklaunch and Fundraiser, participants celebrated Native women’s strength and called for more visibility in Canada.

• A Rob Ford Skin-Trampoline

  By Daniel Scott Tydsal | February 23, 2014

  The Writing Moment contest winner Gary Barwin's poem, "Dear Mayor (I’m thinking only of the babies)," as well as a selection from the runners-up.

• A Momentary Dislocation

  By Ryan Pratt | February 19, 2014

  Hamilton's Lit Live and St. Catharines's Grey Borders reading series are more than capable of meeting the requirements of literary outsiders.

• Sara Peters’s 1996

  By Jason Freure | February 17, 2014

  Sara Peters's debute book of poetry, "1996," is "an exceptional debut," sometimes "chillingly creepy"—but does that make up for conservative lyricism?

• Poets, Hug it Out

  By E Martin Nolan | February 15, 2014

  Despite online truculence and partisanship, all poets and critics have one thing in common they shouldn't forget: their love for poetry.