We Will Still Need a Space // Lo Humeniuk

You can find everything you need to be a writer online: books, magazines, even writing communities. In Toronto in 2019, you can still—for now—find several literary events to attend every night of the week. With everything made available from the comfort of one's own home, what draws writers out—in the dead of winter, even—to see other writers share their work? And why is this important?“Our spaces are under attack,” asserts writer and artist Hana Shafi. “Look at the gentrification. Look at all the places—the independent cafes and things, that let artists do these things—being bulldozed, and condos coming instead.” Shafi laments the loss of D-Beatstro, which closed in February 2018 due to unexpectedly costly renovation issues. Faith/Void, a record store/venue/gallery, also closed this February. Carla Gillis, in examining the causes and effects of closing local venues and community spaces, discussed how in the first three months of 2017 alone, seven venues were forced to close. Gillis's focus in her article is on music venues, but venues for arts of different mediums are facing a similar crisis. Why are these spaces important in the first place? We have a plethora of options online on which to share our art and connect with others. Matt Lake of ComputerWorld cites the mid-1990s as a time when online communities began to flourish; a time when opportunity arose to seek out like-minded writers and others to bounce ideas back and forth on the internet. Geography was no longer a barrier for forming bonds and support networks with other authors. A quick search for “online writing communities” yields tens of millions of search results for websites to visit, forums to check out and groups to join where you can chat to fellow authors in any area of the world. In Lisa McLean's “Are magazines really dying out?,” published in The Guardian in 2010, she asks, “Will humanity ever accept the idea of completely ephemeral media? The internet can offer faster, relevant news and information, it can provide a multimedia experience on demand, but it cannot provide you with something tangible—and that is the fatal flaw.” Tangible space matters. Despite the dramatic shift towards a screen-based culture, having a space in which to meet, share ideas, and have that face-to-face connection is as important as ever. Shafi notes one of her motivations for relocating to Toronto: “[I wanted] to be more invested in the arts scene—to be visible in it, because when you don't get to be part of any of the events and no one sees your face, it's hard to make connections, it's hard to feel you're part of something. You want [your work] to exist in a physical space.”While writing in and of itself has long been considered a solitary and even isolating pursuit, having a support system to hear and feel one's words can add meaning and depth to a work. “[We need] more accessible spaces in Toronto that are affordable. I think that we need that for cultivating a literary community. People need space to come and sit where as many people as possible are welcome,” says Terese Pierre, poetry editor at Augur Magazine and one of the hosts of Toronto's self-proclaimed “most diverse monthly poetry reading and open mic series,” Shab-e She'r.At January's Shab-e She'r event, founder Bänoo Zan noted the series as being a great space for networking, where one can read their work to determine whether it makes sense to others. Pierre stresses the importance of presence, actually being there to support and lift up new readers. “I go to open mics a lot, and it's a good opportunity to showcase your work. If people aren't sure if what they write is good or if it has the same effect on the audience as it does on them ... I always encourage [them] to go up and read. And whenever I hear that 'oh, it's my first time reading my poetry ever,' I try to make it really supportive.”The opportunity for new authors to meet one another face to face, to gain exposure to new works, and to meet more experienced writers is a huge draw. In his piece on literary scenes and communities in Canada, Stewart Cole writes that “communities, like functioning democracies, are participatory; a cultural community requires of its members the imagination to envision themselves as part of an unseen structure greater than any one of them, and the dedication to devote real time and energy to building that structure through considered public dialogue.” Although Cole is speaking about communities in the more general sense—that is to say, those that exist either geographically or not—the participatory nature he speaks of is exemplified in those venues that host literary events throughout Toronto.For many, that participation is amplified and at its best when it is done face-to-face—an element that is currently being threatened. Shafi discusses her ability to enter into literary spaces and share her work: “I can't go [to a literary festival] if it’s not paid for; I wouldn't be able to physically be in that space, and that's shit that's paid for [...] because of grants through things like the Ontario Arts Council, which is getting its funding slashed by the Ford government. Without those things, they will force us back into just online spaces, because they don't want us to occupy physical spaces. That means time and money, and they don't want to give us either. It's really important that we protect our physical spaces so we don't just have to exist online.”Shafi acknowledges that there is also a pragmatic component to physical spaces: “I don't think that I would have been as popular as I am now without social media, because I don't know where else I would have gotten that attention and that platform. I think that social media is really necessary for a lot of marginalized artists right now. Because otherwise who's going to give them the chance?” Despite this, she goes on to explain that “physical space is where the money's at. I don't make money off of Instagram. I'm not selling a product; I'm just posting art for free on there. And people are consuming it for free which is fine, I want people to be able to consume it for free, but I have to make a living somehow, and that happens in physical spaces: that happens at readings, that happens at art markets, that happens in gallery shows.”There are currently several writing series in Toronto that are making an effort to form supportive networks of diverse voices, and having these tangible meeting places is integral to the formation of these communities. Shafi asserts that “if marginalized authors are banding together and making their own events and making their own platforms, it is a huge part of resistance. If they don't include you, you build your own thing.”Glad Day Bookshop, for example, is host to a number of literary events, among them The Brockton Writers Series, Proust & Company Reading Series, The Rowers Reading Series, and Naked Heart Festival. Having been bought by a collective in 2012, Glad Day currently exists as a community hub within one of Toronto's gay villages. Existing as a cafe, bar, event space, and bookstore, Glad Day fulfills a need for many in Toronto. When asked about the programming that occurs here and the broad scope of voices, bookstore administrator Michael Lyons says, “You often hear the term 'give them space' but in Glad Day's case, we literally give them a physical space. If somebody comes to Glad Day and they're like, I'm a queer Indigenous author who has a book launch, we'd prioritize that. But I don't even think it's necessarily prioritizing; I think no voice is less valid than any other voice, but some voices we need to give more space for.” Glad Day's reputation makes it a space where authors and listeners alike know they can find both a safe haven and open-minded people with whom to share that space. Shafi, who had a book launch at Glad Day and has read there twice since, notes, “I felt like the inclusiveness, the diversity of Glad Day's space felt more in tune with my identity and the things I write about. It wouldn't have made sense to do it in a more corporate setting or a straight setting, so Glad Day was kind of perfect in that sense.” Cole, in writing about the “erosive impact of social media on our poetry culture” argues that “it blurs the line between intimacy and civility.” Relating to others personally or impersonally has different layers of meaning when done over the Internet. “Facebook,” he writes, “encourages the knee-jerk.” Online interactions have the potential to become free-for-alls, with commenters shrouding themselves behind the anonymity of their false online personas. While online literary communities have the potential to build up, they can also act as unsafe spaces in which to share one's work. Alternatively, to interact in person can add that layer of civility, or humanity, of which he speaks. Lyons notes Glad Day is a gathering space “where the people who are feeling oppressed can come and have discussions.” Glad Day, like many of the literary venues in the city, is a space of creativity, a meeting of minds, a place of support, encouragement and critique, and a space in which to lift one another up—something that goes against what the cuts in art funding, steady increase in real estate, and prioritization of condo developments appear to support.“When you have an ultra conservative, borderline fascist government, the first thing that they go after is media arts. Because that's where subversive and destructive things can happen,” says Shafi. She goes on to say, “If you do the actual research, that governments have done, it shows that communities with arts funding [...] are mentally happier communities. They're communities that thrive more [...] And we need that, it's actually vital to a community's health and ability to survive hardship.”In a time when politics are so divisive, when rising to the top often means pulling others down to do so, community building becomes almost an act of resistance in and of itself. We need to lift up voices and attempt to level the playing field, to support and rally for instead of picking apart or dismissing another author's work. To have a space in which to do that, and to actually sit down with other writers, has become essential. We need that literal connection.Emily Sanford, one of the hosts of The Brockton Writers Series which began in the hands of Farzana Doctor, echoes this sentiment. “We have to reach out and form a network of people who are heading in the right direction and who are ready to stand up for what's right because there are very loud and very powerful voices that are trying to subvert us. I think it's essential that we form a strong network and make eye contact with people who have the same plan, who are willing to support diversity and support one another and create a new dialogue in CanLit.” While Glad Day is only one example wherein an author or literary enthusiast can go to make that eye contact, it is imperative that these spaces remain a part of writing culture and literary communities for the foreseeable future.