Fall Updates
My most recent book titled Toronto Living With AIDS has been nominated for the 2025 Heritage Toronto Awards in the book category. Since 1974 the Heritage Toronto Awards have celebrated outstanding accomplishments in the field of public history with a focus on Canada largest metropolitan centre. The award ceremony takes place on October 20th at the Carlu on Younge Street.
A screening of auto/biographical shorts featuring the voices of queer and trans Canadian sex workers will take place on Saturday November 8th as part of the ChromaQueer Film & Arts Festival. The Queer / Sex / Work screening features video works from the 1970s-90s and includes the voices of Margaret Dwight-Spore, Mirha-Soleil Ross, Danny Cockerline, Andrew Sorfleet, and many former staff members at Maggie’s. Most of the shorts haven’t been screened since they were first circultated in the late 20th century. The screening is presented by the “Sex Worker Self-Authoring in the Canadian Women’s Movement Archive” project at Carleton University, Maggie’s, Ottawa Independent Companions, and C.O.R.A.‘s.
My SSHRC-funded research looking at the sex worker-authored materials in the Canadian Women’s Movement Archive (CWMA) housed at the University of Ottawa continues. With the ethics protocol approved, the team is now moving into stage two of the project where we will be interviewing veteran sex workers whose materials, or their colleagues, have ended up in institutional archives without their knowledge. These interviews will contribute towards the creation of a guide for archives and memory institutions as to how to best steward these materials. Most archivists want to do right by these materials, but often do not know where to start. Interviews will begin later this fall and conclude in the spring.
This fall I am working hard on behalf of the 3,000 part-time contract academic workers at Carleton University. Both units of CUPE Local 4600, of which I am the president, are in negotiations with the employer for a new collective agreement. While funding in the university sector in Ontario is dismal, compounded by decades of neglect by both Liberal and Conservative governments, I am hopeful for a swift and successful round of bargaining.
