QAF Narrative

QAF Narrative No. 60 The House That Burned and the House That Remained Yesterday, I was dizzy. Whenever that happens, I think of Hitchcock’s Vertigo. The film arrives uninvited, bringing its longing to recover what has disappeared. I had postponed visiting Gibson House for months. This time, I didn’t want to miss the opportunity. I went with the dizziness, hoping the house would give my attention somewhere else to settle. When I arrived, the guide was explaining a clock to another visitor....

QAF Narrative No. 59 A Fictional Reimagining of The Long Dry Season “Dad, come out a little farther!” Steve looked toward his son. The boy was waving from the lake. Sunlight flashed across the water around his legs. Steve lifted his foot, then settled it back into the sand. A wave reached his shins. His hand moved toward the dressing on his chest. “Within forty-eight hours,” the doctor had said. The room had been too bright. Somewhere overhead, a fluorescent light hummed. Steve looked down at...

QAF Narrative No. 58 When the Island Called Me Two years ago, I rented an apartment on Queens Quay because its windows faced Lake Ontario. I still live there. I often sit by the window, watch the water, and let my mind wander. Daydreaming has always given me pleasure, though it can also be painful. I can spend so long imagining a place that I forget I could go there. The Toronto Islands are part of my view. For two years, I watched ferries carry people across the harbour and kept meaning to...

QAF Narrative No. 57 The Artistic Life of Jameson Schaefer The writer carried his laptop and coffee onto the balcony of his Toronto apartment and sat facing Lake Ontario. He looked pleased with himself. Humans often do when they believe they have chosen the perfect place to live. The lake glittered below him, the islands rested in the distance, and for a few minutes he imagined that beauty had arranged itself for the sole purpose of helping him write. Then the smoke arrived. At first, he...

QAF Narrative No. 56 Wine in the Wilderness and the Stories We Write About Others On Saturday, September 19, at 7:30 p.m., I took my seat in the last row at Canadian Stage. A man sat beside me with a laptop open on his knees. As the lights dimmed, he began to type. The stage came alive. Harlem was burning, and inside Bill Jameson’s apartment, another kind of fire was taking shape. Bill, a painter, was completing a triptych about Black womanhood. He already had innocence. He already had his...

QAF Narrative No. 55 The Guardian: The Artistic Life of Wendie Donabie Smoke had erased the farthest mountains. From the passenger seat of the rented car, Wendie watched another ridge disappear. Black trees stood close to the road, their branches lifted into a sky without colour. She lowered the window. The smell entered first—burnt wood, hot stone, something bitter beneath both. For a moment she kept looking. Then she closed her eyes. It could have happened that way. But it did not....

QAF Narrative No. 54 When The Wizard of Oz and a Live Orchestra Turned Meridian Hall into a Space Between Imagination and Reality Advertisement for the 1925 silent-film adaptation of The Wizard of Oz. Chadwick Pictures, published in The Film Daily, December 10, 1925. Public domain. Source: Wikimedia Commons. At two o’clock on Saturday, September 12, we gathered inside Meridian Hall. We came from different parts of the city, of different ages and from lives that may have had little in common....

QAF Narrative No. 53 What We Have Done—and Where We Are Going Around the beginning of summer, a journey began without a clear destination. All I knew was that Toronto, behind its busy streets, tall buildings, and familiar routes, held countless stories. Some were hidden in archives, some waited quietly inside museums, and others lived in the memories of people who had made this city their home. For more than three months, QAF Narrative explored Toronto’s neighbourhoods, museums, and diverse...

QAF Narrative No. 50 Cabagetown South Cabbagetown, Toronto, between 1972 and 1994. City of Toronto Archives, Fonds 200, Series 1465, File 619, Item 31. Rain has been falling over Cabbagetown all morning. T. sits beside the window, dressed for the festival, his face already painted. The street outside is empty. There are no children in costumes, no sign that a parade is about to begin. A cabbage rests on the table in front of him. He takes it in both hands and slowly pulls away an outer leaf....

QAF Narrative No. 49 A Return to Spadina Museum Jim as a child with his father, who worked as the Austin family’s chauffeur at Spadina. Photo courtesy of Spadina Museum. Not money. Not jewellery. Not one of the expensive things that filled the Austin house. A cookie. It was sitting on a tray in the kitchen at Spadina, still warm, and I had been looking at it for what I considered a very reasonable amount of time. I was a boy. The cookie was unattended. What happened next was really the...