Marta Balcewicz is a graduate student of English at U of T, who likewise has done her undergraduate studies here. She has been writing stories and poems ever since she was little, and one of her favourite memories is winning a short story contest in grade 2 while she was attending school in a tiny village in Spain. The story was about a princess, and the knight who saves her.
Shannon Blake is a stunning Irish-Catholic girl raised in Kitchener. She specializes in English and has planned a long career of starving artistry.
Laura Carrie gets no greater joy than when she finds it with a word. She was fortunate enough to travel to Italy this past summer and found many poetic inspirations there. She used many of these to write poems, with the hope of capturing a bit of the beauty she saw. She will write about where she has gone for as long as she lives. She is twenty-two years old.
Kimberly Chiew was born in the isolated town of Thunder Bay. She is a recent graduate of the U of T neuroscience program who became enthralled with modern art to the point of generating art-related absurdity. In a past life, she wrote a comic strip called The Misguided 70s Project (aka m70sp).
Kerry Clare is a Master’s student in Creative Writing at the University of Toronto.
Upon the completion of this semester at U of T, Cassandra Drudi will be released into the world with nothing more than a degree in English (with a superfluous minor in Linguistics) firmly in hand. She has had poems in the Acta Victoriana as well as in several extremely obscure (and limited edition!) chapbooks on campus.
Howard Fruchman-Nigoretsky was born in Whitechapel; he was bred in Pôrto Alegre, Brazil with centaurs; and he hopes to one day live on the Île de Miquelon breeding monarch butterflies for the French government.
Helene Goderis studies German, collects snails when it rains, admires Mary Poppins and listens to Flemish radio. One of the above statements is untrue…go ahead and guess which one.
Ramya Jegatheesan was born in a convent nestled in the slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro where she raised sheep. Growing up she fell in love with a French intellectual who bore a striking resemblance to Che, but he broke her heart when he came out of the closet and admitted to being bourgeois. She now spends her time leading a crusade against post-colonial fascists in Casablanca.
Mary T. Kapusta is a Toronto-based writer who is grateful to be included in this publication.
Lauren Kirshner is in the English Department. Her work has been published in Exile Quarterly and NOW.
Wynne Lawrence is a fourth year student in International Relations and English. She loves traveling in streetcars and being in close proximity to volcanoes.
Vladislav Malik was born in Ukraine. He is presently completing an undergraduate degree in Linguistics, with minors in French and German. He teaches essay writing and literature.
Damir Maltaric is an indecisive, pretentious bottle of Perrier. He likes playing with his friends and especially his best friend Watz. He occasionally attends school, studying English literature, but his main ambition is to become a world famous bodybuilder, and maybe one day a governor. He became interested in poetry when he was told that it would make him really rich, famous and attractive. Discovering later he was Punked, he settled for anonymity in a low wage poetry writing cubicle job: 2 cents a word with some dental benefits and a free pen every fiscal year.
Aaron Marques is a fourth year student at the U of T, studying English and Psychology. He wishes he slept substantially less, and works at this goal every day.
Jacqueline McIssac is a third year student studying English, History and Celtic Studies. She has been writing for five years and she is also an avid photographer. Jacqueline plays soccer during the summer and currently she is learning how to play the bodhran.
Stephen Andrew Potts is a second year World Lit/English student. He pretends to speak French. He has a red beard (like a pirate).
Agatha Podgorski is a 3rd year Scarborough campus journalism dropout turned St. George English/Political Science major. She has been a photography junkie for 10 years, taking pictures everywhere she goes. She has studied it, taught it, gotten frustrated with it and loved it every step of the way. She’s inspired by great people and fabulous surroundings. Whether it’s a studio shoot or a random night in the park, you’ll find her behind the lens.
Sara Quinn is psyched to be a second year psychology student at the University of Toronto. She is majoring in psychology to help her script a Woody Allen-esque screenplay about Freud and your mother. Her other writing credits include her play, Double Scoop, her blog (eclecticeel.blogspot.com), and this biography. When not writing, Sara enjoys ridding the streets of monotony and boredom with her special power of telling puns (they call her ‘The Punisher’), other forms of comedy, food, and baseball. She is the reason why the Boston Red Sox won the 2004 World Series, and will be the reason why the Sox finish ahead of the Jays this year. Stay tuned.
Alicia Rouault, an international student from Syracuse, New York, is a second year currently studying political science. She began her artistic experimentation with stencil art in the summer of 2004 and continues to enjoy the creative process. Influenced by street art and stencil graffiti, she greatly admires political and expressionist forms of urban art.
Tristan Samuk is a senior English Specialist at University College. He enjoys writing, reading, and playing music. Tristan is a regular contributor to The Varsity’s Review section, and is also the bassist for the Torontobased band Showroom. This is his first literary publication.
Niru Somayajula: science by day and art by night - Niru is a Master’s student in Mechanical Engineering with a great passion for photography. Her photographic quests are often paired with her love for travel and her photos often depict the people and places she has seen. Her pictures aim to shed light on the ways of other people’s lives, and in trying to do so she has met many incredible people.
Jessica Taylor is a student living in Toronto.
David Yu finds descriptions like “Joe Blow is a first-year Life Science student at Victoria College” too lacking in wordiness to suit his taste for quasi run-on sentences and excessive characterization. Having not contributed anything of literary merit to this volume, he feels the moral obligation to spill unnecessary ink right up to, but, Heaven forbid, not over, the seventy-word limit imposed on him by the editors. There. Count it.
Talia Zajac is in her final year of Medieval Studies at the University of Toronto. Writing has been a lifelong passion. This year she is thrilled to have her play, Many Happy Years, produced at the U of T drama festival. She has previously been published in the Hart House Review and Misunderstandings Magazine. Talia is currently a member of Hart House’s Le Mot Juste, a weekly prose group.