The Work Issue was two years in the making. The project began in 2017 when we mounted free creative writing workshops at the Bloor-Gladstone library and made work the thematic focus. Women learned writing techniques from professional writers, wrote narratives about work, shared and collaborated with peers, and went through a professional editorial process to polish their stories for publication.
The Work Issue offers insight into the intersectional experiences of women working in industries where inequality persists. While each story is unique in subject matter and style, many writers describe feeling inadequate, comprised, and undervalued, but still manage to take pride in surviving challenging work situations and, sometimes, confronting injustice. Canadian women earn 77 cents for every dollar men earn. And most precarious and minimum wage workers are women. In fact, one third of Canadian women earn less than $15 an hour.
By writing about these issues, the writers hope to open the door for change.
Sister Writes’ The Work Issue and its mini documentary explore what women’s work looks like in Toronto today. In 20 diverse, real-life stories, Toronto women explore the wage gap, racism, workplace harassment, emotional labour, language barriers, and much more, through stories that are by turns moving, raw, and powerful.
Now on sale in bookstores across Canada, you can also watch The Work Issue mini documentary.
The final stage was designing and publishing the issue, which we launched at a packed event on November 19, 2019 at Burdock in downtown Toronto.
We’re proud of this issue. To our knowledge, it’s the first full-length volume of true stories by women in Toronto’s service industries. Over half of the writers born in other cities or countries. For many, this is this is their first professional publication. Ready to read stories from The Work Issue? Visit our magazines page.