Tara-Michelle Ziniuk

1 week ago | xtramagazine.com | Tara-Michelle Ziniuk

When conservatives talk about families, they are [almost exclusively] talking about nuclear families: all parties cis and straight; a mother and a father; son and a daughter (if a girl child is wanted at all—ask me later about the video I watched last night on “gender disappointment” in the context of a gender reveal). All parties are imagined as traditionally masculine or feminine, as assigned.

2 months ago | xtramagazine.com | Tara-Michelle Ziniuk

Sook-Yin Lee was Chester Brown’s last girlfriend. For those not in the know: Lee is a multi-talented artist, working in music, film, broadcast and more. Brown is a renowned Canadian cartoonist. In 2011, Brown released a memoir in comics,Paying for It, about his time—post-relationship with Lee—paying for sex. Last year, Lee adapted the book into a feature film by the same name, which is now in theatres after enjoying a successful festival run.

Nov 14, 2024 | xtramagazine.com | Tara-Michelle Ziniuk

The recent spate of provincial elections in Canada were a mixed bag of results. They were in turn dwarfed by the re-election of Donald Trump in the United States, which has forced a reckoning of progressive politics and the pundit class commenting on them. There are lessons to be learned from Trump’s win, but possibly not entirely obvious ones.

Nov 8, 2024 | xtramagazine.com | Tara-Michelle Ziniuk

Last night I fell down an internet rabbit hole. A friend posted a screenshot of an announcement that Dorothy Allison, femme lesbian working-class feminist writer from the U.S. South and author of the acclaimed semi-autobiographical novel Bastard Out of Carolina, had died at age 75, and was wondering if anyone else had seen anything.

Sep 24, 2024 | xtramagazine.com | Tara-Michelle Ziniuk

When I began reading Sarah Leavitt’s Something, Not Nothing: A Story of Grief and Love, I had just returned from the college town I used to live in where I was attending a posthumous album release for a friend who received medical assistance in dying (MAiD) almost exactly a year before. This was the second person I knew who chose to receive MAiD; the third was peripheral—someone close to someone I am close to—the fourth is pending, someone I know who was approved and is thus far still here.