Every other Thursday I profile a new incredible woman, each from a different walk of life. Different professions, causes, backgrounds, ethnicities, orientations, and anything/everything else!

So without further delay, let me introduce the wonderful Erin Karpluk…

Erin Karpluk knows how important life’s pivotal moments can be. As the lead in CBC’s incredibly popular Being Erica, Erin’s character has the chance to revisit key points in her life and change what she believes went wrong. A challenging role that Erin nails to perfection.

The show being just one of her many and continuing credits, we’ve definitely only seen the beginning of Erin, and as this week’s Shameless Woman, she tells us why she pushes her limits “physically, mentally, and creatively” and why you should be prepared to work your ass off.

(more inside…)

Hello, Shameless readers!

I’m Julia, and it will be my privilege over the next month to write a series of guest posts aimed at introducing you to size acceptance and teasing out some of the feminist issues inherent in discussions of size and body image.

I stumbled into size acceptance exactly two years ago. I was about to embark on yet another dieting cycle; I didn’t even know I was looking for something different until I found it. As I read on and began to interact with others in the “Fat-o-Sphere,” I found a huge network of people, including (among others) scientists, health professionals, and many, many feminists, who spoke about the futility of dieting and the oppressiveness of beauty culture, particularly its negative effects on women.

I hope to enter into an interesting and informative dialogue with you all over the next month. Can’t wait to get started!

We are working on an exciting new project, and we need your help. Some of you may remember the Shameless teen editorial collective, a group of young women who advised the magazine in its first few years. The editorial collective has been dormant recently, but we hope to bring back youth involvement in a big way this January, in the form of Shameless Wire – a journalism training program for teen girls.

What is Shameless Wire?
We will recruit a diverse group of at least 10 high school-aged teens from across the Toronto area and introduce them to pitching, researching and writing articles. Participants will have the chance to write, report, edit, and meet other women journalists in eight workshops held over four months. The program will be free to participants, and we want to provide transit tokens and lunch for each workshop, to make Shameless Wire accessible to girls who might not otherwise be able to join this sort of program.

Why is this project important?
Last year, while working with new writers at a university student paper, Allison - now one of the Shameless Wire directors - noticed a gender divide. She found that right out of high school, women fall behind their male colleagues in the newsroom. Men arrive at student papers full of confidence, ready to pitch and take assignments, while women hang back, feeling that they need more training, experience, and time before they can start publishing.

While there is no shortage of young female writers in the industry, there are systemic barriers to them entering positions of power in editorial, which means that they often cannot decide what stories are covered. This problem, it seems, are not disappearing over time. Routes into journalism are difficult - most of us can’t get published or network until we’ve done at least one unpaid internship, and for many talented young women, that’s just an impossibility. Once it’s time to hire junior reporters and editors, the applicant pool has already narrowed far too much. If we want to change the face of journalism, we need to start with youth.

Why do we need your help?
As a grassroots, volunteer run magazine, we can’t do this alone.
Please consider helping us get Shameless Wire off the ground by making
a donation of any size. We need a small starting budget to provide
food and tokens for 10 students, and to cover teaching essentials like
photocopying. A contribution of just $36 would cover one participant’s
travel to and from every workshop. A donation of $100 would let us
provide one modest lunch for all of our participants and speakers. Another $500 would allow us to expand the program from 10 young women to 15.

The easiest way to donate is through PayPal:

Or, you can send a cheque with “Wire” on the memo line, payable to
Shameless magazine, to: Shameless Magazine, P.O. Box 68548, 360A Bloor St. W., Toronto, Ontario, M5S 1X1.

If you have any questions or comments about this exciting new project,
please get in touch with us at wire@shamelessmag.com.

Are you an Emerging Female Playwright?

“Nightwood is a fertile breeding ground for new female talent.” – Michele Landsberg, Toronto Star

Nightwood Theatre’s 11th annual emerging playwriting program, Write From the Hip is now accepting submissions from 18-29 year-old women looking for an opportunity to develop and write a play and advance their craft. Write from the Hip is a series of weekly workshops, mentoring and hands-on seminars in writing skills and professional play development specifically designed for emerging playwrights. Past mentors have included: D’bi Young, Ann-Marie MacDonald, Judith Thompson, Claudia Dey, Morwyn Brebner, Florence Gibson, Iris Turcott, Marjorie Chan and Lisa Codrington. This year each participant will complete a new short work of 20-25 minute inspired by a newspaper article. The workshop will include a pitch session with artistic director Kelly Thornton. The play is then workshopped and staged on the final night of Write from the Hip in August 2010. Write from the Hip will begin January 25th and runs mainly on Monday nights from 6:30-9:30pm.

Nightwood Theatre has a long history of producing socially relevant, provocative theatre about women’s place in the world. Mentorship is a key component at Nightwood Theatre and one that provides a fundamental service to the community of young female artists pursuing careers in professional theatre. We see ourselves as a gateway for women entering theatre, and believe that a passion and commitment to the emerging artist can indeed produce the leaders of tomorrow. Nightwood Theatre embraces cultural, racial and sexual diversity.

(more inside…)

Every other Thursday I profile a new incredible woman, each from a different walk of life. Different professions, causes, backgrounds, ethnicities, orientations, and anything/everything else!

So without further delay, let me introduce the awesome Erin Ross…

Erin Ross is responsible for half the singing, “guitaring” and songwriting in the Montreal band Nightwood. She also contributes regularly to the band’s art/style/music blog, where you can learn about their first full-length album coming out Oct. 1st on vinyl and mp3. With a BA in literature, Erin often finds musical inspiration in the classics. As this week’s Shameless Woman, she tells us about the precious aspects of being in a band and why choosing your “bandies” wisely is so important.

(more inside…)

Next week is the one year anniversary of my Shameless Women column.

Since I already have profiles scheduled for the next two installments, I thought I’d post quickly this week to say THANK YOU to all the Shameless Women we’ve met so far…

I have interviewed so many kinds of women, from musicians and artists, to doulas and environmental activists, to cake-makers, radio DJs, burlesque performers, and more! I have learned so much from these women and been touched by their words. I hope you have too!

Make sure not to miss the super-exciting Shameless Women I have lined up for you in the next few weeks!

(more inside…)

We here at Shameless are big fans of the Parkdale Street Writers, a fantastic forum for youth writers (some of which we’ve been very lucky to reprint in the magazine). And a new set of workshops are about to begin. In addition to workshops with some amazing Toronto artists, participants get to try their hand at a wide range of creative writing, including comics, lyrics, poetry, video narratives and storytelling.

Full deets from PSW co-ordinator Emily Pohl-Weary:

Are you 16-25 years old? Do you keep a blog or journal? Constantly update your Facebook page? Write super-long e-mails? Make up stories, films, rants, video game ideas, lyrics and/or poems in your head? Love to read and talk about books?

Why not join the…

Parkdale Street Writers

Free writing workshops led by kick-ass local authors, comics creators, hip hop poets and street artists in Toronto’s west-end.(more inside…)

Photo from post on I Am Friends With Sluts (iamfriendswithsluts.tumblr.com)

iamfriendswithsluts.tumblr.com thinks you are! This new-ish Tumblr roll is a compilation site of photos of girls that are posted on social networking sites like Facebook or Myspace. Readers submit photos they find on their friends or strangers sites to I Am Friends With Sluts and they are posted with ridiculously disappointing commentary:

“It only takes two wine coolers to make me a lesbian”

“I’m training to fight my eating disorder next month on Pay-Per-View.”

“Bound together by tramp stamps, father issues and low self esteem.”

Aside from the obvious problems of ye ol’ patriarchy rearing its ugly head on the internets, the site reads like bad bad news, even despite the “satirical blog” disclaimer which ensures any response to the site creators won’t be taken seriously because they’re “just joking”.

A more serious issue, and one that drives me crazy, is that the patriarch has made it crystal clear that they’re winning, and despite my constant proclamation of “we’re sexy by choice!!”, these pictures and their content confirm that these are oppressed choices. Slowly people are starting to talk about the personal sexualization of self on the ‘net but these discussions are often left to sites like Suicide Girls and other more porno’d sites and shows. These pictures read more like Girls Gone Wild, and the blocking out of eyes and randomizing of the photographs removes the reality of these girls’ lives and personalities (unlike Girls Gone Wild). But because these photos are pilfered from social networking sites, they are REAL girls and these are their REAL experiences; and they’re no longer theirs because they’re out there on the internet for anyone to see. And this is site is a perfect example of what someone might do to the party fun time content.

So, is the answer then that women stop putting pictures like this up on social networking sites? I’m not sure. Is it easier then dismantling the patriarch? Discuss!