Issue 3: Winter 2024

  • Rochdale

    IT’S HARD TO BELIEVE THAT a nondescript high-rise on Bloor Street between Huron and St. George was once the city’s most contentious piece of real estate. But, fifty years ago, it was exactly that. This building, not even really a high-rise anymore when measured against Toronto’s ever-rising altitude, once towered over its surroundings with anarchic…

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  • My Courtesy Aunt

    EVERY FAMILY HAS A RICH AUNT. Mine was Aunt Sally. Living in an exclusive area of Toronto, so exclusive it didn’t have a name, she was what my mother called haikara (snob), a proud member of the Curators’ Group at the Art Gallery of Ontario, the Music Director’s Circle of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, and…

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  • Quid Pro Crow

    WHAT MADE ME THINK THAT GOING TO MONTREAL in the middle of February would somehow shake me out of my seasonal depression? The free flight from Prince Edward Island? The free hotel room for the two days of this literary conference? The opportunity of networking with other writers, editors, illustrators, publishers, agents and educators from…

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  • Range Anxiety

    JENNY SAID SOMETHING THE OTHER DAY at Elena’s soccer game that I’ve been thinking about a lot. Jenny’s my ex-wife. We get along, not just for Elena. It’s in our natures to keep the peace no matter what’s roiling inside us. I was telling her about my consulting business, StoryTeam, which has branched into internal…

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  • The Joke

    IN 1951, MAX BIELER BOUGHT A FAILED RESTAURANT in downtown Binghamton and turned it into an Army-Navy store. His family members, who were not shy with their opinions, assumed he would call it Max’s Army-Navy Store. But Max was determined to call it Mac’s, and no squawking by his family could alter his mind. Suits…

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  • God Box

    THE GOD BOX SAT ON THE COUNTER in Burkhardt’s mother’s kitchen, where everything was dark faux-marble lined with white streaks like fat in a steak. Painted pale gold, the box, which was sandwiched between the wall and a trio of LED candles with dust rimming their cupped bulbs, was the kind of thing in which…

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  • Magic Tricks for the Blind

    STRIPPING TO MY UNDERWEAR while standing at the foot of a hospital bed belonging to an elderly woman is both embarrassing and nerve wracking – worse than trying on clothes in the store aisle when the change rooms are full. The thin sheets hang tight to the husk of her body. She appears to have…

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  • Peace is Here

    Credit: Library and Archives Canada, 1984-92-141. https://recherche-collection-search.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/home/record?app=fonandcol&IdNumber=3839577 Rochdale CollegeRead all about me: https://torontojournal.com/issue3-rochdale/

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