Should I be collaborating with artists of color solely because of their race and my politics? This question is weighted with my own worry that I have been invited to speak or collaborate solely because of my race, and not because of my abilities.

I am more likely to get paid for my art if it's presented alongside a white artist, so the questions around value and agency arise: What choices should I make, or do I have to make, if I want to be compensated for my work? Why isn't my art valued on its own?

If anything, I have witnessed the ways my art travels, or is rendered more accessible, when sanctioned by or connected to white artists.

I don't yet know what style will be required for my next novel, but my sense is that each book will involve a new relationship to language.

I especially worry about the ways Canadians can be glib about our supposed difference from the US in our "acceptance" of "diversity."

In my thirties, I have felt a greater urgency to make art that highlights what it feels like to be racialized, likely due to living in a country that obscures our racism with the idea of "multiculturalism."

It's exciting to consider how art, in its ability to reveal, can be ahead of the artist.