When I wouldn't leave home without my blue contacts or when I was bleaching my hair, I didn't have the language to articulate that I was trying to assimilate to whiteness. If anything, I was trying to "look normal."

I am always hesitant to call myself an activist, mostly out of respect for the activists who are using their bodies and voices to protest or activists online who are constantly engaging and educating others.

Now is not the time for Canadians to be sanctimonious. It is time for us to be prudent and active.

As a brown artist, I have mixed feelings about my relationship to art and my "responsibilities" post-Trump.

As much as I believe in the capacity for art to create change, and as much as being an artist is physically and emotionally challenging, there is ultimately something a bit comfortable about making art in the comfort of your own home.

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.

As a person of color, I know race can't be stripped from admiration or preference.