As the nights become longer and winter deepens, we seek stories to warm and fill our souls until spring blooms. This new Issue of Inventio seeks to provide those stories to carry you through the winter months with a diverse range of human experiences. Our contributors share moments of love and beauty, of feeling lost and powerless, and of finally finding their place in the world. In their pieces, the authors also explore new physical and emotional territory while staying grounded and true to their roots. By exploring these new territories, our authors find and create new ways of being that ultimately challenge the status quo and demand a better world for all.
Two of our non-fiction essays explore the topic of happiness—one essay explores happiness as it is felt in a particular moment, and the other follows the author’s search for the keys to a consistently happy life. Three of our poems delve into the experience of immigration and the loss of a homeland while illustrating the ways they are still connected to their native culture. A number of our works also observe and question the systems of our society: systems that shape the way we see the world and systems that oppress. These works inhabit both the personal and the societal realms, demonstrating not only the authors’ desire for change, but the love for this world that propels them to desire a positive change.
The team at Inventio would like to thank all of our wonderfully talented contributors for sharing their work with us: Aakira Marshall, Andromeda Pratt, Brooklyn Churchill, Donielle Francis, Ganna Elgabbas, Giuseppe Joshua Lopez, Hamzah Taleb, Isabella Laba, Jenel Jackson, Joshua Cheng, Levona Ng, Megan Bendo, Megan Hook, Sadie de Arruda, Sonia Vintan, and Suraiya Jiwani. We hope that these pieces both warm you through the winter months, and light a fire that inspires the same desire for change in you.
Written by Ayyub Hussain, AEiC, and Madeline Sanguedolce, EiC
In the form of a nature guide, a young woman reflects on her experience at nature camp and the barriers that exist between the Black diaspora and Canadian outdoor traditions.
In this personal essay, a young woman details a memory with her mother, reflecting on the unexpectedly beautiful moments in life.
The author conducts an experiment by asking family, friends, and strangers about their definition of happiness to find new meaning and ways of being.
A sensory adventure that asks readers to join the speaker on a slow stroll through an urban park.
A poem that confronts the unspoken through inviting its audience to read beyond the surface.
An exploration of the child-parent relationship through the sensory rich lens of a lemon and its tree.
A poem that asks the question: how far must one go before their struggles are resolved and prayers are answered?
A rhythmic journey that grapples with the change in dynamic as a friendship faces long distance.
An eerie journey through one’s dreams and their larger relationship to the world.
An empowering poem about one’s relationship with their hair and identity.
A poem that illustrates what it means to grow up Black, yearning for the day when the colour of one’s skin no longer inflicts generational trauma.
A poem that depicts the importance of family and culture in one’s own journey of self-discovery.
A poem that explores the idea of home through the lens of an Asian Immigrant.
In this unusual blog post, a woman narrates how she came to create her new lasagna recipe…