Writers and aspiring playwrights take note: NOW!, the by-youth for-youth sustainability organization, is hosting a national playwriting competition for youth. From the NOW! newsletter:

Are you an innovator passionate about the environment? Do you want a challenge? Do you love writing? Enter the Act NOW! National Playwriting Competition!

Who? Dreamers and change-makers (Ages 14-26, divided into junior and senior categories)
What? The Act NOW! Playwriting Competition! Write a short play on sustainability.
When? Deadline: March 31st 2010 (At the end of this month!)
Where? All across Canada.
Why? Make a difference and push your creative boundaries.

Plus, cash prizes ($500 for each winner), and the opportunity for your play to be performed all over Canada and filmed and aired by Sustainability TV, to an estimated audience of 10,000 people! Quality plays will be published in a free online sustainability play database for change-makers to ripple sustainability innovations.

Check out the NOW! website for more information and to enter.

(via flickr user masaaki miyara)

Over two weeks have passed since the death of mystified literary icon, J.D. Salinger, the author of The Catcher in the Rye and creator of its angst-ridden and much-loved antihero Holden Caulfield. Headlines and obituaries emphasize Salinger’s reclusive and secretive lifestyle, mentioning diehard fans’ wild goose chases for the man in his small town of Cornish, New Hampshire.

Although Mikki Halpin at Salon.com says she understands the appeal to see Salinger as a “higher intellect who has rejected it all,” she also finds this portrait of him “curious,” suggesting it conveniently bars the public from facing some uneasy assertions about the late writer’s relationships with women.

(more inside…)

There are only 21 women’s bookstores worldwide, just three in Canada, and now, one is at risk of closing its doors for good. The Toronto Women’s Bookstore announced yesterday that it is so cash strapped, it may join the list of Toronto independent bookstores like Pages, that have been forced to close because of low sales and high rent. It’s not the first time the 36-year old Harbord Street landmark has had to overcome financial hurdles — among other challenges in the store’s rich past.

TWB started as a cooperative in 1973, and was accidentally destroyed by being in the crossfires of an anti-abortion terrorist firebomb that was meant for Henry Morgentaler’s abortion clinic formerly located beneath the non-profit store. TWB relocated,but was unable to balance its financial books, facing a possible closure on its twentieth birthday. Volunteer efforts made it possible to stay open.

The feminist institution is hoping the same thing will happen this time around. They are asking for donations and hope to raise $40,000 by January.

Donations can be made via their website, and a Facebook group has been created to support the cause.

AQSAzine, a grassroots zine for 16-35 year-old women and trans people who identify as Muslim, is launching its second issue at a free event hosted in partnership with The AGO Youth Council. The event is also a launch for Making Noise! Muslim women and trans people video project, and Jasmine Magazine, the first Palestinian Magazine in Toronto.

Making Noise! is an exciting hands-on media arts training that addresses the invisibility and negative portrayals of young Muslim women and trans people in the media, supported by the Urban Alliance on Race Relations.

The event will showcase videos, visual art, and readings by Azza Abbaro, Shadi Eskandani, Sidrah Ladin, Sara Mir, Samira Mohyeddin, Shara Mohammed, Golie Moulaie, and Sahar Rizi.

Musical performances by Farheen Beg & Arun Chaudhuri and Tanya Jacobs.

Dance performance by Raja Jalebi and Sheesha YaDil.

Plus: silk screening and zine-making workshops.

This event is part of the 16 Days to THRIVE! Challenging Violence Against Racialized Women and Our Communities.

Friday Dec. 4th, 6-8 p.m.
Art Gallery of Ontario
Anne Tannenbaum Gallery School
317 Dundas Street W., Toronto

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…)

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…)

Here’s something you Toronto readers may want to check out. It’s an art opening and also a screening of a film made by Jessica Yee, activist, community organizer, and Shameless blogger and contributor.

The Centre for Women’s Studies in Education and The Native Youth Sexual Health Network present:

Youth Resisting Colonialism and Rebuilding Pathways to Hope - A Film Screening and Art Exhibition

Monday, September 21st, 2009
OISE Building, 252 Bloor St. W., Room 2-212
6 pm to 9 pm (film @ 7 pm)

This event exhibits the work of youth reflecting their resistance to violence and colonialism through artistic expression.

The exhibit will be followed by a screening of Building a Highway of Hope, a documentary filmed and directed by Indigenous feminist activist Jessica Yee about the numerous disappearances and murders of Aboriginal women along Highway 16 in British Columbia, followed by a panel discussion featuring Jessica Yee of the Native Youth Sexual Health Network, Charlene Catchpole, Executive Director of the North York Women’s Shelter, and Tannis Nielsen, Artist and Youth Program Coordinator, Native Canadian Centre of Toronto.

The exhibition will continue until October 2, 2009.

Light refreshments will be served. Venue is wheelchair accessible.
For more information contact the Centre for Women’s Studies in Education at: 416-978-2080 or cwse@oise.utoronto.ca

If you’re in Toronto this month, you may want to head over to the North York Central Library to check out artist Karen Miranda Augustine’s new exhibition “AMERICAN EMPRESS: Credit for the Empire’s Troubled Royalty.”

“From Tonya Harding to Lauryn Hill to Amy Fisher, AMERICAN EMPRESS: Credit for the Empire’s Troubled Royalty is a solo exhibition that explores adversity as a rite of passage. Presented as a series of mixed-media paintings, contemporary pop culture figures are transformed into a series of credit card portraits that speak to far-reaching, everyday human concerns: the transcendence of loss, social stigma, mental illness, addiction and personal crisis.”

Exhibition runs: September 3rd - 27th, 2009
Opening Reception: Thursday, September 3rd, 6:00 to 8:30 p.m.

North York Central Library
5120 Yonge Street
2nd Floor
Toronto, Ontario

ARTIST SITE: http://KarenMirandaAugustine.com
EXHIBITION SCHEDULE: http://KMAugustineNews.blogspot.com

For more about Karen Miranda Augustine, make sure to check out my interview with her for next week’s Shameless Women post.

The 2009 Scream Literary Festival Presents
Youth These Days: The Scream Youth Workshop
Sunday, July 12th, 2009 – 1 pm
The Loop Studio at Wychwood Barns
601 Christie Street, Toronto
Cost: PWYC

The book may be dead, but words aren’t. What’s old is new again —
narrative hip hop music is a dynamic occurrence of a thriving oral
literary tradition. Led by hip hop artist Paul Sackichand and professional
storyteller Rico Rodriguez, the Scream’s youth workshop provides an
opportunity to learn how to add suspense to your rhymes and rhythm to your
stories—participants will get to create, as well as perform, their own
narrative raps.