Ice Cream For Zombies

It’s three weeks until the solstice, which is a time for a lot of different celebrations all around the world. We return this year to what we hope will become a yearly tradition at Renaissance: an advent calendar of stories, art and posts leading up to the solstice.

We begin this year with a delightful story from Éric…

Broken Things (a short story)

Hello to all humans, creatures and robotic entities!

I’ve got a little something for you! As you probably know if you follow this blog, I’ve struggled a whole lot with my health and that has meant I don’t update and produce a lot. BUT! Renaissance is running a Kickstarter campaign to finance the release of its first anthology, called We Shall Be Monsters, an EXCELLENT collection of short stories…

And here is the part where I share what my goals are for next year. I’m counting on all of you to ask me how I’m doing with these throughout the year; keep me accountable!

Social media

I want to try to limit my personal time on social media. I need them for work purposes, since it’s hard to create content and reach an audience without using them at all. But I use them too much for myself, and I…

Continuing from yesterday’s gushing positive post, it’s time for me to talk about a few of the things that were less happy times for me in 2017.

If you’re close to me, you know that I also had some pretty rough times this year as well. I’m glad I went through what I went through though, because everything I’ve been through has led to me learning something important which has improved my life. All…

Surprise entry in this week-long series of posts about the new year! I wrote a post on the Spoonie Authors Network regarding the experience of choosing a new name for myself. Enjoy!

Looking back, looking ahead

It’s the beginning of a brand new year, and for me, as for many people, this time is a time of relaxation, but also it’s a time for reflecting on things to come and things that have just come to pass. 2017 was a year of so many things for me, amazing and terrible things and all the shades in between, and so this year, instead of thinking strictly about resolutions, I…

This short story takes place after Blood Matters, and is part of the Renaissance Holiday Blog roll. To find out more and read more great stories, click here!

  There had been light, and laughter, and joy; sweet-scented trees with bright ornaments, with presents underneath, and cookies, smiles, and hugs.

Not in the end, though. The last Christmas had been quiet, and subdued, and he’d begun to…

CW for transphobia, murder, suicide.   It’s transgender day of remembrance.   Today we remember our transgender siblings who have fallen to murder and suicide. This year is the deadliest on record for the murder of transgender people, with transgender women of colour being at the highest risk. But it isn’t just about murder; transgender people are at a disproportionate risk of suicide. Every…

Help me name a new project!

Hello there guys, gals, and non-binary pals!

I’m not sure where to begin with this, so I will go ahead and just spill it all, and hope that it makes sense to you.

For those who follow me only here and not on Facebook: I’ve recently come out as transgender. I’m a man. This is a necessary piece of information for what comes next.

Over the past couple of weeks (and years, really) I’ve found myself…

My thoughts on Can-Con 2017

Hello all,

I know it’s been a very long time since I’ve posted here, and I apologize. I’ve been struggling with my mental health more than usual lately (more posts forthcoming) and have been nearly completely unable to write. Eventually I will be able to post regularly again, but in the meantime, I absolutely had to write about my experience at Can-Conthis weekend, while I’m still riding the…

Voice, Lists, Existing, and Being Heard

Twelve years ago, I moved from Montreal to Ottawa. I left a lot behind when I did, but I’d never realized until now how much that was. One of the things I hadn’t really thought of is my LGBT community. When I came to Ottawa, I thought, surely in a city that’s almost a third of the population of the one I just left, I could find a community. And I tried. I tried to see out groups and places to…

Guest post – I give myself permission

This week, I wrote a guest post for Spoonie Authors Network. I was asked to talk about how I write despite my mental illness, and how I manage the days when I simply don’t have the “spoons”, or the energy reserves, to even function. My answer is called “I give myself permission”, and is about how everything is really a work in progress, especially mental health.

It’s a subject I’ve written about…

Guest post – Fluid mom!

As a lot of you now know from my last post regarding gender, Vicariously Male, I am genderfluid, which means my gender oscillates from one end to the other of the gender spectrum. Today, I one of my dear friends published a comic on mine as a guest post on their blog. I had originally published this one in the Ottawa QueerCon zine, last year, but I’m very glad to have it out there. Enjoy!!

Favourite reads of 2016

Just before 2016 is over, I wanted to pick a top ten books I have read this year to present. It was a pretty hard feat, trimming it down to only 10, and I had to cheat a little… I made two lists! You’ll find below my choices for both novels and graphic novels!

I couldn’t bring myself to pick absolute favourites, so the books in both lists are in no particular order.

*A note: not all these books…