Liminal

Destabilizing from its opening pages, Liminal by Jordan Tannahill places readers firmly between life and death, fact and fiction, consciousness and unconsciousness. A quasi-fictional version of the author’s own life, the main character, Jordan, finds his mother in bed. Unsure if she is dead or asleep, he is flooded with memories and a constant interrogation of what it means to be caught in limbo between life and death. Liminal moves at a breakneck pace, combining science, philosophy, spirituality, and pop culture in a way that makes Jordan’s mother’s death feel secondary as he ponders the fragility of mortality. Readers may never think about living or dying the same way again.

Floating City 

Floating City by Kerri Sakamoto—who was nominated for a Governor General’s Literary Award for The Electrical Field—gives a voice to Japanese-Canadians during post-WWII. Loosely inspired by Richard Buckminster Fuller and Shoji Sadao’s plans for Project Toronto, Sakomoto takes readers on Frankie’s journey from the coasts of B.C. to the bustling streets of Toronto. Written in a whimsically poetic and almost magical tone, Floating City explores themes of hope, chasing dreams, struggle, and the need to belong. When the book ends, readers will feel nothing short of reflective upon reading the final chapter.

This was the opening scene of a landmark, limited-run revival of the musical Spring Awakening, where d/Deaf* actors were given the spotlight and their hearing counterparts acted as their vocal shadows. This integration of hearing and d/Deaf performers is what Artistic Sign Language (ASL) interpreter Landon Krentz and his team hope to achieve with Theatre Interpreting Services (TIS), a Vancouver-based company that helps theatre organizations gain exposure to d/Deaf culture and make theatre more accessible for the city’s d/Deaf population.

However, TIS is not your average interpretation service—it’s the only d/Deaf-owned business of its kind in Canada. “It’s important to have a d/ Deaf person to represent the d/Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing community because of our understanding of our cultural values and ASL aesthetics,” said Krentz—one of six interpreters in TIS—in an email interview with This.

TIS interpreters—some of whom are also hearing—are specialized for theatre, which means their work involves much more artistry than simple translation. Rather than having a hearing interpreter stand off to the side of the stage and interpret on the fly, TIS interpreters must develop and rehearse an ASL version of the script. On top of that, Krentz says they like to encourage inclusive practices that allow for more artistic interpretations for d/Deaf audiences such as shadow interpreting, a method in which they follow actors around while performing ASL simultaneously.

But there’s still a lot of work to be done when it comes to making theatre more accessible: most production companies usually don’t allocate budget for these deep-integration methods and often scramble to find interpreters for productions a month prior to performances, says Krentz.

“[Typically,] interpreters are expected to show up and disappear,” Krentz says. “This is not an authentic approach to adding artistic sign language stories on stage and often, d/Deaf people will notice a disconnect in synergy.”

To remedy this, the government offers funds through accessibility grants that can be used to bring interpreters in earlier in the production process, but Krentz said many theatre companies don’t know those funds are available.

“We have a social responsibility to people from our community to do this work and try to create these kind of important conversations within the Canadian theatre community,” said Krentz. “It is slowly on the rise.”

* This Magazine has stylized d/Deaf to be inclusive of all deafness on a spectrum

Dear Current Occupant
By Chelene Knight

In her memoir Dear Current Occupant, writer Chelene Knight asks, “Is home a place we were, a place we are, a place we want to be, or is it simply a state of being?” Using poetry, essay, flash nonfiction, and photography, Knight weaves what she refers to as a “patchwork” story of her life, told through the lens of different places she’s called “home” throughout her life. The effect is absolutely dazzling. Knight smartly embraces “the cracks in the narrative” that come from imperfect memories, proclaiming, “I can fill those cracks with gold, if I choose to.” She does.

QAVAVAU MANUMIE, ARNINIQ INUUSIQ (BREATH OF LIFE), 2017 STONECUT AND STENCIL 62 X 79 CM · REPRODUCED WITH THE PERMISSION OF DORSET FINE ARTS

Alexia Galloway-Alainga pushes in a pair of earbuds to tune out the clatter of cutlery and coffee cups hitting cafeteria tables at Ottawa’s Carleton University. She looks straight into her smartphone camera, wearing a slight smile, and begins speaking: Sanngijuq, she says slowly, the last syllable coming from the back of her throat. The Inuktitut phrase means “he/she is strong.” Pijunnarniq, she continues, translating as she goes—“to be able.” Then Galloway-Alainga uploads the video to her Instagram feed.

The 20-year-old Inuk woman follows the social media feeds of the Qikiqtani Inuit Association (QIA) based in her hometown of Iqaluit. A few times a week, the QIA posts Inuktitut words and phrases on Facebook and Twitter, so people can learn as they go. Galloway-Alainga’s followers comment under her posts, offering advice and encouragement. Qinuisaarniq means patience, she reads in another post. “Qinui-saa-rniq,” offers one follower. “Long A sound and not the N. Keep it up!!”

Moving to Ottawa from Nunavut invoked a desire to speak Inuktitut—a language Galloway-Alainga grew up with but never spoke fluently. Many of her Inuit relatives do. “So I find it very important to try and learn just so I can communicate with them,” she says.

While English remains a broadly used means of communication across Nunavut, the inability to speak Inuktitut poses a hurdle for youth like Galloway-Alainga, who equate those language skills with success and well-being in their homeland. The social work student aspires to work in territorial or Indigenous politics. But she also wonders, “Am I Inuk enough?”

***

Galloway-Alainga has seen other Inuit grapple with the same question. On September 17, 2015, Labrador-raised, Iqaluit-based, and not-quite-bilingual Natan Obed ran to serve as president of Canada’s national Inuit association, Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami (ITK). He went on to win the election, but not before his language and identity were scrutinized by other Inuit leaders.

“There are ancient words given to us to live by,” Cathy Towtongie, president of Nunavut’s land claim organization, told Obed that day in 2015. “What do you recall in your Inuit identity that you have not lost while you went through the western education system?”

“I recognize that not being fluent in Inuktitut is a liability,” Obed responded, noting he has a strong skill set to make up for it, including his experience in Indigenous governance and socioeconomic development. “What most people who don’t have the language struggle with is that they’re not as Inuk as those who speak the language,” Obed told the board members. “The fact that I don’t have Inuktitut is only one small part of who I am.”

In fact, Obed’s fluency in Inuktitut—or lack thereof—tells a much larger story about Inuit in Canada. The legacy of Canada’s residential school system is one of loss—children were sent away from their communities with a goal to withdraw them from their “savage” surroundings, as former prime minister Sir John A. Macdonald once described it. In that sense, Inuit, living in isolated, northern regions, were able to safeguard many parts of that culture. Obed’s family wasn’t so fortunate: His father spent many years of his youth in a residential school where he lost most of his language. In turn, he never spoke Inuktitut to his children.

Still, Inuktut, a term that encompasses all the country’s Inuit dialects, remains the second most spoken Indigenous language among Canada’s Indigenous groups, only after Algonquian languages. Sixty-four percent of Inuit say they can carry a conversation in their mother tongue, and that percentage is much higher in parts of Nunavut and the Nunavik region of northern Quebec.

It’s a point of pride among Inuit. But it also places undue pressure on those who haven’t mastered the language. It challenges Inuit identity and divides communities, in a time when Indigenous language reclamation is synonymous with reconciliation.

***

Inuit identity isn’t just questioned in the North; it extends to many urban centres, where Inuit communities are small but tightly knit. Ottawa is often considered the unofficial southern capital of Nunavut, with an estimated population of 2,500 Inuit, and is home to a number of Inuit organizations and services. Lynda Brown is the manager of youth programming at one of them, the Ottawa Inuit Children’s Centre, which offers culturally relevant child care and community programs. She’s called Ottawa home most of her life; she was born in Iqaluit to an Inuk mom and white dad, though her family moved south to Edmonton when she was six. Her mom wanted to make sure her children’s English was strong, so she stopped speaking Inuktitut at home. Brown didn’t think much of it until her mid-20s.

“I remember when I first started learning [Inuktitut] and some people not being so encouraging with my pronunciation,” Brown recalls. It was the late 1990s, and Brown was working the reception desk at Tungasuvvingat Inuit, a centre for Inuit-focused health and cultural services. She answered a phone call from an elder, who was speaking Inuktitut. When Brown responded in English, she said the woman went on a tirade about not getting served in her first language. “Why are there qallunaat working there?” the woman demanded, using an Inuit term to describe white people. “Well actually, I’m Inuk,” Brown replied, and broke into tears. The incident turned her off Inuktitut for a period. When she decided to give it another try, she opted to learn Inuktitut through song at the early childhood program where she worked. Singing masked her accent, and she was encouraged by the children’s voices accompanying hers. Brown spent years learning to work her tongue around the song called “Quviasuliqpunga,” or “I Will Be Happy,” until an Inuktitut-speaking co-worker congratulated her on how much her pronunciation had improved.

Even for those who are willing and able to learn, Inuktitut-language training and courses aren’t always accessible. It varies across the Inuit Nunangat, the Inuit regions of Canada. In the best-case scenario, classes are taught in Inuktitut from kindergarten until Grade 3, as is the case in Nunavik and roughly half the communities in Nunavut. But try as it may, the Government of Nunavut hasn’t been able to increase the presence of Inuktut in its schools since the Inuit territory was created in 1999.

That concerns Ian Martin, an associate professor in the Department of English at York University’s Glendon College who’s studied language in the territory since its inception. The use of Inuktut in Nunavut homes dropped from 76 percent in 1996 to only 61 percent in 2011. If current trends hold, he predicts that Inuktut will be spoken by just four percent of Inuit in Nunavut by 2051. He’s further incensed by amendments made last year to the territory’s Education Act, which had proposed delaying plans to introduce bilingual English-Inuktut education up until Grade 9—a goal the government once set for 2020 and has now pushed to 2030. “If we can’t use the school system as a place where language is strong… why bother having a Nunavut?” he asks.

Language instruction options aren’t much greater for adult learners, but they exist. Following the creation of Nunavut, educator Leena Evic founded Pirurvik Centre, an Iqaluit-based centre for Inuit language, culture, and well-being. The centre’s first language students were non-Inuit government officials contracted to take the class, but Evic gradually saw the need to develop a program for Inuit who wanted to learn Inuktitut as a second language. That required a re-think of how the language was taught; even Inuit who speak only a handful of words in Inuktitut tend to be familiar with certain elements of the language that newcomers are not.

“Inuit already have our own way of teaching and learning. We try to come from that perspective,” Evic explains. “If I’m taught to make an amautik—a traditional Inuit woman’s parka with a wide hood used for carrying babies—my teacher won’t start with little pieces. She’ll show me the whole product first and that’s how I start learning.” The course uses the tupiq, or “tent,” as a metaphor: Attavik is the beginners’ level, where you look for the best ground to pitch a tent, and then kajusivik ensures the learning builds on a strong foundation. Naarivik, the course’s advanced level, takes on cultural issues and traditional knowledge, imparting what Evic calls “authentic vocabulary.”

Teaching Inuktitut as a second language to Inuit is still a relatively new concept. But Evic, who’s counted Obed among her students, says the program is helping address the rapid level of Inuktut loss in Nunavut. “We must always take into account how our language looks 20 years from now, what state it is in—in that time. And because it is at stake presently, we need to ensure we address its importance right now. All Inuit should be given the opportunity to continue to learn in their own language formally.”

That, however, will require a greater commitment on the part of the federal government, whose funding dedicated to the instruction and promotion of Indigenous languages pales in comparison to how it funds its two official languages, English and French. (Inuktut is an official language of Nunavut, though only at a territorial level.) The Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s final report notes that Canada spends about $14 million each year for the preservation and revitalization of the country’s 90 Indigenous languages, compared to the $348 million earmarked for official minority language communities. In its most recent federal budget, the Trudeau government has committed more money to Indigenous languages—$89 million over three years, money meant to help implement an Indigenous Languages Act his government has yet to produce.

Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami has taken a more Inuit-focused lead on language revitalization; the national organization oversees Atausiq Inuktut Titirausiq, a group exploring a unified writing system for Inuktut. While a number of Inuit regions favour the use of syllabics, a writing system developed by English missionaries in the late 19th century, the group has recommended a shift to Roman orthography for all written Inuktut. The proposed changes have created conflict in certain regions, where Inuit worry those changes will erase the unique character of regional dialects. But proponents of a universal writing system, like Brown, believe it will help preserve Inuit language in the long term by creating standardized learning materials across the Inuit Nunangat. The process makes her optimistic that the Inuit language will flourish throughout the lifetime of her Ottawa-raised children and, she hopes, into her future grandchildren’s generation.

***

For many years, Brown used the expression Qanuippit? when she greeted other Inuit. “How are you?” she thought she was asking. An elder finally explained to her that the expression directly translates to English as: “Are you feeling better after being sick?” It was adapted as the common western greeting, typically asked without much concern for an honest response. There’s no such greeting in Inuit culture, Brown learned: “Inuit just smile at each other instead.” But that’s besides the point; Brown thinks the many Inuit who’ve responded “I’m fine” to her question over the years are part of a supportive network of Inuktut speakers who have made it possible for her language skills to grow.

“For those who are trying—keep trying. You’re going to make mistakes,” Brown says. “No one picks up anything with the snap of a finger. And for those who speak the language and hear people who are learning, be really conscious about how you correct them. Because how you correct them can either empower them to go further or impede them. If I listened to that first lady who made me cry on the phone, I wouldn’t have learned any more.”

More than two years into his leadership at ITK, Obed has pushed Inuit to move beyond what he calls a “hurtful and divisive debate” over language and identity, and instead focus that energy on building stronger, healthier Inuit communities and regions. “There are so many things that bind us,” he says in an interview from his Ottawa office. “No matter who you talk to, all Inuit want culture and language, we want to be able to express ourselves in our language.”

A scroll through Facebook or Twitter in November would have brought many Nunavummiut to the Qikiqtani Inuit Association’s latest Word of the Day: katimmajuuk, which means “together,” illustrated by a Saimaiyu Akesuk print of two geese with necks intertwined. It seems to drive Obed’s point home. But for many Inuit, language learning will be a lifelong endeavour. Since we first chatted last spring, Galloway-Alainga hasn’t kept up her own Inuktitut Instagram feed, though she gets a chance to practise the language on her visits home over the holidays. In Iqaluit, her grandmother has adopted a baby who is being raised in Inuktitut, and she hopes to be able to converse with the child on her visits North. “I want to be part of the generation that keeps our culture and keeps our language alive, because that’s very important to who we are as Inuit,” she says. “That’s very important to Nunavut.”

This is the question west-coast filmmakers Ian MacKenzie and Nicole Sorochan want their audience to think about, especially within the realm of female DJs with their transmedia project, Amplify Her.

Through a documentary-style, feature-length film, a graphic novel, and a motion comic series, Amplify Her tells the story of seven female electronic artists making their way and growing as musicians in an otherwise male-dominated industry. The project’s mandate is to recognize the distinct qualities women bring to the electronic scene.

What started as the brainchild of MacKenzie as part of his mission to “uncover and amplify stories of the emerging paradigm” soon turned into something much larger when Sorochan came on board after learning that the project would celebrate these women rather than asking why there aren’t more of them in their industry. “I think many women today are tired of that question,” says Sorochan. It’s this refreshing perspective that allows the project to not only focus on what DJs like Blondtron, AppleCat, and Lux Moderna uniquely bring to the table, but also bring to light how these women are expressing sexuality, body positivity, and gender diversity through their art. Moreover, when the graphic novel was put into production, various artists came together and “it created a safe environment for women to share their talent, collaborate with other women, and shine a light on the value they each bring to the world through story,” says Sorochan.

Amplify Her has toured across the west coast in Canada, the U.S., and Australia. Sorochan says she’s been ecstatic with the response from viewers, especially those from audience members who say they can identify with the film. And while there are no current plans to add more elements to Amplify Her, Sorochan is currently focused on securing more screenings to reach different audiences, inspire more women, and provide meaningful discussion.

Last summer, freelance journalist Katie Jensen shared her 2016 net income with the Twittersphere. “If we knew exactly how much Canadian freelancers, columnists, copywriters, broadcasters, and journalists made,” she wrote, “how revelatory would that be?”

This question resonates with the precariously employed, who don’t benefit from certain protections linked to full-time, permanent jobs. Many have no base incomes, no benefits, and sometimes, no contracts. Without an official guaranteed income for freelance work, being underpaid—or even unpaid—for their work is common.

Ethan Clarke of the Canadian Freelance Union (CFU) says freelancers often don’t think they have any bargaining power and accept a client’s first offer, which is typically low and occasionally nothing at all. The CFU is currently developing tools to help freelancers negotiate, such as common rate sheets and contract templates. “People cannot live on exposure,” he says.

Pay secrecy also adds to the persistent wage gap for marginalized people, including women, people of colour, and those with disabilities. Gender discrimination in the workplace has been illegal for decades, but the stigma around divulging one’s salary allows it to go unnoticed. In a 2015 report, the Government of Ontario encouraged pay transparency policies in both the public and private sectors, but stopped short of legislating it. The Trudeau government has promised new pay equity legislation for federally regulated employers due out this year, but they haven’t said if pay transparency will be required under the new law.

Other jurisdictions are making progress. On January 1, Iceland became the first country to mandate that all employers prove they pay women and men equitably. In England, pay transparency requirements for public and private sector employers brought to light a 50 percent wage gap between two female senior editors at the BBC and their male colleagues with the same title. “One of the key tools that is absolutely necessary to end discriminatory pay is transparency,” says Toronto-based human rights lawyer Fay Faraday. Likewise, until freelancers’ pay is made known, workers have little recourse to demand better pay.

Jensen, meanwhile, stresses that solving the problem isn’t up to one party alone. “If we’re all going to make this industry better, we all have to demand better from everyone,” she says. “There is enough money for everyone, we just have to shuffle it and figure out why there’s such a disparity.”

Nova Scotians’ bigotry is softer and quieter than its white supremacist cousins in headline-grabbing places like Charlottesville, Virginia—but it’s no less devastating.

Late last year, the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA) released its 2017 Report Card on Child and Family Poverty in Atlantic Canada’s most populated province. In a single table the CCPA manages to demolish the notion of Canada’s greater inclusivity: Of 10 desperately poor communities in Nova Scotia, eight are predominantly First Nations or Black. Child poverty rates in those communities range from 72 percent in Eskasoni (First Nations) down to 38.7 in nearby New Waterford.

This is just one shocking fact revealed by CCPA director Christine Saulnier and Acadia University sociologist Lesley Frank, who co-authored the study. In 2015, the year this report covers, 21.6 percent of Nova Scotia children—almost 36,000 kids—regularly went to bed hungry or walked to school in windbreakers and sneakers following January blizzards.

By neglecting these kids’ basic needs so dramatically, the province is setting many children up for failure while perpetuating their cycle of poverty.

It’s been 29 years since Canada’s Parliament announced it would eliminate poverty among Canadian children by the year 2000. This millennial goal seemed entirely attainable. As the Berlin Wall fell, politicians the world over touted a peace dividend that would build just societies. Yet Canada has failed horribly: More children live in poverty now than when that lofty aspiration was proclaimed.

While that is tragedy enough, the report card’s granular truths are even more disturbing. Nova Scotia, the wealthiest Atlantic province, maintains the region’s highest percentage of children living in poverty and Canada’s third-highest rate. Recently, the provincial government has deemed balancing the budget their greatest priority, knowing that a few strategic investments could save lives.

Poverty rates follow expected geographic patterns. Halifax is home to industry, choice universities, and a world-class seaport, allowing for a quality of life that helps the city boast the province’s lowest poverty rate at 18.7 percent. Yet Cape Breton, though steeped in natural beauty, is a hard place to prosper. Resource industries have been dying for generations, and the tourism season is short. There, nearly one-third of kids face increasingly bleak futures.

Heartbreakingly, a rising tide doesn’t lift all boats. While Halifax’s poverty rate rivals the national average, the historically Black community of Preston, a 20-minute drive from downtown, is nearly two-and-a-half times worse.

The CCPA report also highlights how challenging a place Nova Scotia is for immigrants to land, despite a legendary reputation for hospitality. Many visible minorities often struggle below the poverty line for years. Numerically, 67.8 percent of Arabic children live in poverty here, compared to a (still dismal) national average of 43.3 percent. More than 50 percent of Korean children suffer. When immigrant children are twice as likely as white children to live in poverty, is it any wonder so many immigrants are quick to move on?

Gender, too, is a powerful force in determining which single-parent families will struggle. Women invariably earn less than men and are far more likely to cobble together multiple part-time positions or seasonal work to provide for their children. In single-parent male households, 30.4 percent of children struggle; in homes with single mothers, nearly one-half live in a Dickensian world of want and need.

Governments have a huge role to play in righting this wrong. Saulnier and Frank note that a progressive child tax credit, implemented by Justin Trudeau’s Liberals in spring 2016, should help all provinces lift children out of poverty. And while Ottawa is crafting a national poverty reduction strategy, the provincial Liberal government under Premier Stephen McNeil has promised to create an anti-poverty blueprint. Hope remains for even greater gains, but the report suggests that incredible need requires immediate action and firm timelines.

Right now, when single parents receive child support payments from former spouses, McNeil’s government claws back provincial support, dollar for dollar. In addition, thousands of parents don’t pay court-ordered child support; enforcement is lax. Changing the rules and beefing up enforcement would lift thousands above the poverty line.

Income assistance can also be tied to inflation and made flexible, allowing families with members who have greater needs, including those with physical disabilities, access to more money. Additionally, federal social funding to provinces arrives in block grants, yet provinces don’t account for how that money is spent and if any is directed to fighting child poverty. Greater oversight is badly needed.

Nova Scotia’s minimum wage is also abysmally low: At $10.85, it’s the worst in Canada. Child care is limited and expensive. Working parents often resort to families for childcare, or lose out on paid time.

Implementing some or all of these options can make a real difference. Yet few will be effective unless financial and social policies begin addressing racial disparities in the province to promote the economic and cultural value that people of colour and immigrants bring to Atlantic Canada. It’s past time for Nova Scotians to talk about reparations to overcome the economic disadvantages nurtured by centuries of racism and colonialism.

We need to talk about the value of all Nova Scotia’s children. Period.

Dear art thieves,

Yes, that’s what you are. No, I don’t care that you just really liked my work. No, I don’t care that I didn’t use a watermark. It’s my design, you took it, you didn’t get my consent. You’re an art thief.

I know we live in a time where millions of delicious chunks of media are dancing on our fingertips—accessible, saveable, easy to find and use. I know you love following blogs on the social network Tumblr that post inspirational art (without crediting the artist), and cute online corkboards on Pinterest that post soothing illustrations (without credit), and so-called feminist Facebook pages that post sassy memes (without credit). But that does not mean you can take my art without my permission.

I’m talking to you, girl who was selling my stuff on her online store. And I’m talking to you, Instagram account with hundreds of likes for displaying my work without credit. And you, tattoo parlour that used my work without my consent. And I didn’t forget about you, art student who plagiarized my work for an assignment. And you and you and you, dozens who have overtly stolen my art, posted without credit, or attempted to sell it for profit.

I’ve been creating artwork for years. And for years, most of it went unnoticed. In April 2016, an illustration of mine—a floral EKG line, captioned with the words “healing is not linear”—blew up online. It was an earlier piece in an affirmation series I decided to create. Now, I’ve made more than 100. It’s a labour of love—I don’t get paid to make these pieces that I post every Monday. I do it because it’s something I care deeply about, something I believe in. I have a day job to keep me afloat. I’ve paid my dues, and you, art thieves, swoop in and steal the fruits of my labour in an attempt to catapult yourself to sudden Instafame without the years of work that actually went into my social media rise.

I think it’s cute when you decide to answer my messages with a long story of how deeply the illustrations in my affirmations series—like “you have survived so much” written over a mountain range—resonated with you and how much you care about mental health. What about the mental health of the artist you stole from? It really tickles me pink when you quietly remove the work in question, without an apology or acknowledgement of your wrongdoing. It’s even worse when, after I call you out, you proceed to lecture me on how better to protect my work or how hard it was to find the source. You really know how to make a girl smile.

I know what you’re thinking: It’s “just art” and I’m “just an artist.” Who cares about the time and energy that went into making the piece? Its only purpose is to serve you, completely unattached from the artist who made it. It’s on the internet, so that must mean that everyone can use and exploit it, however they choose. Right? Wrong. It’s my work. I made it. It’s for me, the creator of it, first. It’s for those who see it, second, after I choose to put it online to show them. I own the work. It’s my blood, sweat, and tears.

You should know that my livelihood is important. Like you, I’m trying to make a name for myself in this world and earn some money doing what I love. I deserve to be paid for my labour. When you don’t credit me, I don’t get recognition and it affects my career. When you steal my work, you’re taking potential profits from me.

The saddest part, art thieves, is that all you had to do was ask for consent to use my work or recreate it for your own leisurely purposes. Most of the time, I say yes. Sincerely, The girl who creates the beautiful things you like to steal.

—HANA SHAFI