Editor-in-Chief
David Topping |
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Called a "gadfly" in the Globe and compared to Don Quixote in the Post, David Topping probably falls somewhere between relentless nuisance and hopeless idealist. Born in the quiet west end and transplanted downtown to attend the University of Toronto, he has had ample time to develop a lot of love, a bit of hate, and several lifetimes worth of ambivalence for his city. He is probably most famous for taking photos of TTC stations, which he hopes isn't still the case by the time he dies. |
Assistant Editor
Marc Lostracco |
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Marc is a former country boy, uprooted from Freelton, Ontario and transplanted to Toronto, which he pronounces with the proper alveolar flap ("Tronno"). When not making a living doing film and design stuff, he futzes around with photography like an arts-community cliché. A proud Canadian and 416er, Marc recently won a National Post contest to redesign Toronto's flag, which undoubtedly the City will ignore. He holds high hopes for his beloved city, and observes our urban politics with a combination of reverie and horror. |
Contributing Editors
Jamie Bradburn |
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Jamie Bradburn was born in the deep southwest of Ontario, moving to Toronto just before the turn of the century (though he forgets if it was 1899 or 1999). He figures exploring the city and its past is a way to know his surroundings better and justify his history minor in university. He has also discovered his camera has fused itself to his hand, which is great for snapping pictures but lousy for most physical tasks. Online, you'll find Jamie hanging out at JB's Warehouse and Curio Emporium and his Flickr. |
Val Dodge |
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Val is a lifelong east ender who has believed since the age of ten that the west end begins at Yonge St. He started talking to strangers at the same age and discovered that it was the best way to learn about Toronto. Val's habit of wandering aimlessly throughout the city allows him to spend a lot of time looking up at his surroundings, to the constant annoyance of the people he bumps into and curbs he trips over. The most important lesson he's learned in life is that it doesn't hurt to ask. |
Jonathan Goldsbie |
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Jonathan was born in Toronto. So were both of his parents and all four of his grandparents, which is very unusual for someone who is not Protestant or even Christian at all (he's Jewish). His passion for all things Toronto—something which drives his younger brother crazy—manifests itself in the fact that his entire life is dedicated to organizations with "Toronto" in their names: he is a campaign coordinator with the Toronto Public Space Committee; a student at the University of Toronto; a daily rider of the Toronto Transit Commission; a flâneur with the Toronto Psychogeography Society; and now he also writes for Torontoist. |
Mathew Kumar |
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Mathew Kumar wasn't born and raised in Toronto…he wasn't even born and raised in Canada. Which means he's probably going to get kicked out of the country at some point, or something. So why on earth should you trust this perhaps-illegal immigrant with your favorite Toronto blog's weekly film news? Well, because unlike all the others, he didn't come to Toronto to steal your job, instead choosing to spend his time sitting around his apartment in his bathrobe, freelancing for publications such as Eurogamer, Twitch Film, and Plan B magazine. |
Kevin Plummer |
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Kevin Plummer grew up in Saskatchewan then bumped around Canada with stints living on the west coast and the east coast, before finally arriving here in the middle. Now, whenever he needs escape from the clichéd existence of a cubicle worker, he stumbles out to wander the city he loves. He’s got a very diverse set of interests from urban affairs and history to classic film noir to obscure soul music, and finding new ways to procrastinate. |
Sarah Nicole Prickett |
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Sarah (Nicole) Prickett (middle name optional) has survived evangelical Christianity, emocore, the University of Western Ontario, a blonde phase, and two decades of not living in Toronto. She has a cat named Franny, an ever-expanding vintage belt collection (the collection; not, thankfully, the belts), and a blog of her own. She also has lots of friends and doesn't write on the internet to make new ones. |
Miles Storey |
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Miles is a professional web developer—or "designer" if he's in hip company. A Brit by birth, Miles grew up on a small island in the middle of the Indian Ocean and thus doesn't get any TV references from the 70s. With the tropics in his blood Miles has never been one for settling down. He is a seasoned traveller who has lived in various parts of the world in the last thirty-something years before finding a relative stability in Toronto. As well as photography Miles also enjoys books, films and the music of Tom Waits. Miles' favourite thing about Toronto is the streetcars, I mean, it's like a train but on the street, how frickin' cool is that? |
Copy Editors
Meg Campbell |
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Meg was born in Oakville, spent her formative years in Calgary, went back to Oakville for high school, and escaped to Toronto as soon as she started studying art at U of T. And after spending a frightful number of years in or near the Annex, she can tell you what it means to know too much about a neighbourhood. Meg now writes and edits things for a living and also sifts through some (very) short story submissions and posts them here. She's also into local infrastructure, local politics, local arts and media, and very local wildlife (her cat, Gustav). She has an unhealthy grammar and punctuation obsession—hence, the copy editing. Psst: her real name is Meagan, but no one really uses that, unless they are her employer...or her mom. |
Staff
Todd Aalgaard |
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Todd Aalgaard is an Islander of B.C. extraction, but threw a dart at the map in 1999 and ended up in Toronto. After studying anthropology at York University, he became a writer, musician, freelance journalist, web-ordained minister, and that guy who's not around enough but will totally buy you a drink once he gets paid. Having appeared in places like MONDOmagazine and Momentum, Todd's friends and family best describe him as "tall." Get him drunk enough and he'll probably write a song about you. |
Roxanne Bielskis |
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Roxanne grew up in Jane-Finch, which is really all she's got for street cred. She writes and draws Povertyville for Torontoist, Poverty High for Shameless Magazine, and occasionally puts together whole books of her comics that she calls...Poverty. In her real life, she teaches high school. I know, weird, eh? Other things that ruin her street cred: she cries whenever she sees a cute baby and always says "please" and "thank-you" to her cat. |
Christopher Bird |
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The Explosively Talented Christopher Bird (or the ETCB to his family and friends) has worked in no particular order as a filmmaker, waiter, administrative assistant, script doctor, freelance writer, freelance character assassin, web monkey, teaching assistant and hobo who dances for quarters. He is now a student at Osgoode Hall Law School, so Shakespeare wants you to kill him first. Everything he writes that The Man won't allow you to read on Torontoist can be found at mightygodking.com. |
Kasandra Bracken |
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Some summers ago, Kasandra left a big house in the world's largest hamlet and relocated to an apartment one block away from the busiest pedestrian square in Canada. She made the move for the best journalism program in the nation, yet was wary of the scary city, petrified of nearly three million potential pickpockets. Thus far unscathed (no jinx intended), Kasandra has come to terms with her clichéd "falling in love with the city", and when she's not writing (about the aformentioned city), she likes taking part in the art of Lomography, working towards her master's in Wikipedia, and listening to as much Beach Boys as possible. |
Ashley Carter |
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Ashley is a film school dropout turned journalism grad with fine words in fine places like Exclaim! magazine, TO411, and the bathroom wall at your parents' house. Sometimes she rips your ticket at the not-for-profit Revue Cinema and one time she defeated Bowser and saved the Princess. You don't know her, but she knows you. And she's not overly impressed. Jokes! She actually thinks you are pretty alright. That's the dichotomy of Ashley Carter: initial skepticism followed by warm tolerance. |
David Fleischer |
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If you google "David Fleischer" you should know that: first, he is not a Brazilian economics expert; and second, he does not write for The Advocate (not that there's anything wrong
with that!). A native North Yorker, he has written for the National Post and Post City Magazines (no relation) and is a co-founding editor of Afterword, Canada's national Jewish student newspaper. Really. David writes stories no one has published and once wrote songs and played guitar in a band called Urban Cactus. It featured several people who are now sufficiently successful that it would be pathetic to so much as drop their names. |
Robin Hatch |
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Robin Hatch grew up in Oakville, but don't judge. She knows what it means to work an entry level job or two or three. Robin is a full-time student at the University of Toronto, specializing in English. Robin used to be really good at the piano, but now her piano is where she puts her purse when she enters her apartment. Her favourite television channels are an inaccurate reflection of her intellectual ability. Do not be fooled, Robin occasionally has good taste. She can also make a mean box of Kraft Dinner. When she's not writing for Torontoist, Robin works as an usher at the Isabel Bader Theatre. Additionally, she plays keyboards and sings in Sports: The Band. |
Roxanne Ignatius |
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Originally hailing from Cincinnati, Ohio, Roxanne has lived in Toronto for 7 years. In addition to illustration she has tried her hand at screenprinting, feltmaking, and millinery. She also enjoys creating band posters and discovering all the great music Toronto has to offer. Her work can be seen at http://roxanneignatius.blogspot.com. |
Stacey May Fowles |
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Stacey May Fowles is one of the few remaining people in Toronto without a Facebook account. She's a semi-reclusive fiction writer and lit-geek who grew up in Scarborough and no longer attempts to hide it. She’s written a book and contributed to a few others, publishes a feminist magazine for teenage girls, enjoys television shows about cylon invasions and crime scene investigation, and loves Earl Grey tea, agreeing with a barista at the Queen and John Second Cup when he called it "the Cadillac of the tea community.” When she’s not having lengthy conversations with her dog, she’s trolling eBay for shoes from the fifties, obsessively self-Googling, or finishing up an illustrated novel about a neurotic urban lonely-heart. You can stalk her at www.staceymayfowles.com. |
Stephen Johns |
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Stephen Johns is a proud Northwestern Ontarian who nonetheless spent his childhood wishing he could live in Toronto. It took him twenty-four years (not to mention a five-year layover at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario) before his wish finally came true; three years later and he's now an erstwhile Torontonian who's scratching together a meager existence in Calgary, Alberta while plotting his eventual return. Steve cares far too much about the fortunes of the Toronto Maple Leafs, the Toronto Blue Jays, the Minnesota Vikings and Manchester United for his own good; the rest of his life is generally devoted to reading, going to musical theatre and worshipping at the altars of the Who, Bruce Springsteen and Pearl Jam. He's currently trying to figure out to incorporate his myriad interests into a lucrative career with minimal hours. |
Sarah Lazarovic |
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Sarah Lazarovic is an illustrator, filmmaker and writer. Her work lives at www.SarahL.com. She would love to paint your portrait. |
Tony Makepeace |
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Tony Makepeace (panoramaist) was born in Montreal and experiments with photographic processes, from 19th century to current. He is currently on the faculty of the Visual and Creative Arts program at Sheridan Institute. Feel free to contact him with your questions regarding optics, chromatic aberration, and toning formulas. He will also take questions of a general nature. |
Maneesh Mohindra |
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Maneesh Mohindra was the Grade 2 spelling bee champion of his elementary school. (He was eliminated in the first round of the following year's competition.) He paid for school by spending summers counting other people's money in the dank basement of a bank in the financial district. He hasn't used his turntables in quite a while, but he still thinks he could rock a party if he had to. His only other job these days is to do the dishes but, come on, can't he just do them later? He has an awesome dog. |
Posterchild |
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Posterchild is a Street Artist, now living in Toronto. He creates public installations (or "Street Art" pieces) that are both playful and political in order to engage with his environment and those who share it with him. You can see his work at Blade Diary.com. |
Andrew Pulsifer |
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Andrew Pulsifer is a part-time freelance writer, part-time musician, and works part-time at other miscellaneous odd-jobs. An Ottawa expatriate, Pulsifer moved to Toronto in 2006 after discovering that one could buy Chinese food from a truck on the University of Toronto campus. He was pretty excited about that and doesn’t regret moving here at all. He buys lots of food from vendors on the street. Maybe one day he will write an article about it/write a song about it/work at one. |
Robin Rix |
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Born and raised in Toronto (thanks, Mom and Dad!), Robin now lives in London, England. A graduate of the University of Toronto and the University of Oxford, he now works as a lawyer in the field of carbon emissions trading and other stuff relating to the Kyoto Protocol that he tries to understand. He also volunteers at a legal aid clinic and is involved with some pro bono activities. Longstanding interests include politics, travel, and the Beatles (so contact him if you are also interested in making a pilgrimage to Liverpool). Newer interests include urban affairs, vintage anything, and maps. Robin has contributed a chapter to Notes from Canada's Young Activists: A Generation Stands Up for Change, wrote Canada25's annual policy report, Canadians & the Common Good: Building a Civic Nation through Civic Engagement, and is a previous national winner of Magna's annual "As Prime Minister..." essay competition. |
Torontoist vs. Torontoist |
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Torontoist vs. Torontoist cannot agree on a profile, or anything else. One is an optimist, the other a pessimist. One is liberal, the other conservative. One likes cats, the other dogs. One's a little bit country, the other's a little a bit rock n' roll. On and on it goes: chocolate/vanilla, Star Wars/Star Trek, original recipe/extra crispy, yin/yang, matter/anti-matter, G.I. Joe/Cobra Command. Sometime it's hard to tell if they really are diametrically opposed on every issue, or whether one of them just insists on playing Devil's Advocate. Then again, maybe they're just a couple of jerks who can't get along. One thing that's certain though, is that any time there's an issue that's important to our city, TvT will find a way to disagree about it. |
Johnnie Walker |
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Johnnie Walker is not a pseudonym. Born at Mount Sinai Hospital, Johnnie has spent his whole life in Toronto and currently lives in Little Italy. A recent University of Toronto graduate, he spends his non-blogging life going to concerts, making pancakes and dancing better than you. He is also an actor and a playwright and he even founded a theatre company. Neat! Although his life may seem haphazard and even happenstance, it is actually directed by a brilliant and inscrutable plan that will one day lead him to his goal of being declared an International Darling. Also, he thinks he would make a pretty good late night talk show host. |
Jaime Woo |
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Jaime Woo has often based his career aspirations on his favourite television shows. There was a brief period that he wanted to be a lawyer because of Law and Order, then he wanted to work as a CSI due to the show of the same name. Previous to that, he had been fully committed to work as a vampire slayer. Currently, he juggles being a writer, a public relations practitioner, and a cynic. He has not yet figured out how to become a Pollyanna-esque WASP. Although born and raised in Toronto, when drunk, his accent morphs into one native to the Isle of Man. |