We proudly present another amazine reading!
Our wonderful contributor Diana L. Gustafson reads an extract from her nonfiction piece Curating Death, published on The Amazine in January 2025.
Give it a listen below ❤
Read More »Category: Hear Me Out
On Getting Dressed and Getting Coffee
by Charlotte Deason Robillard
Getting dressed
When I was somewhere around age 8 or 9 – still homeschooled, living in rural Alabama, and mostly wearing thrift store clothes and hand-me-downs from my cousin – I meticulously put together an outfit I was proud of. Basing my vision off of whatever snippets of pop culture I’d been exposed to – Nickelodeon on the cable TV at my grandmother’s house, my best friend’s occasional copies of Tiger Beat – I pulled together a study in plum: purple jean shorts, a purple paisley oversized t-shirt, and a purple-hued tapestry vest. Since I didn’t go to school and I couldn’t wear jean shorts to church, the only obvious place to debut my outfit was homeschool day at the local roller skating rink. Despite my general lack of athletic ability, I was pretty good at skating, and I was excited to cruise around the rink in my fly new ‘fit. But my outfit was too avant-garde for the Pelham, Alabama homeschool crowd, and I soon had my first experience of bullying. Two girls (who I envision in the bland but popular Umbros and Hard Rock Cafe t-shirts of the era) shoved me and snickered about my clothes as they whizzed by me in a fit of giggles. I don’t remember what they said, but I remember being hurt and confused. I was the one who was dressed cool, right? I had seen vests and oversized t-shirts on TV, and I’d so carefully paired each color and pattern. This was my first introduction to conformity, and while my feelings were hurt, my taste for getting dressed up had not been stifled.
Read More »I Could Be Modern Art
by Natalie Hunter
I used to care so much about my body hair. I remember the face-melting shame I felt when a boy at school announced loudly that I had hairy arms, while we coloured pictures at a table. But, when I think of it now, it is just a memory of a memory. I feel detached from the experience. I grew up with plenty of unconditional love at home. Therefore, I knew intrinsically that my value was inherent and unshakable … at home. Like so many people in this world, it took venturing out into the world for school, to initiate the confusing experience of being “othered.” Some years later, at the age of fourteen, I would stand in front of the mirror enumerating every single thing that was unacceptable about my beautiful, youthful body, as if identifying the offending aberrations could bring me closer to perfection. It amuses me to think of that fourteen-year-old seeing me now, two weeks from my fortieth birthday, thinking, “How could you let yourself become so ugly?”
Read More »Curating Death
by Diana L. Gustafson
“What’s death got to do with it?” Our museum tour guide grins as she makes the irreverent reference to Tina Turner’s best-selling hit. Patty knows how to grab the attention of Gen X tourists clustered around her in the grand centre block of Toronto’s Royal Ontario Museum. In a former life, she was probably everyone’s favourite high school music teacher.
Patty leans in. “Death simultaneously intrigues and repels us.” I know she’s speaking to me. I signed up for the afternoon tour because I was curious about burial rituals practised in ancient times. At least, that’s what I tell myself. Easier than facing tough questions haunting my messy life. I soon discover that each pause on the tour unearths relics of my struggles to make sense of love and death.
Read More »The Letter Contract of the “Civilised”
by Roukia Ali
“The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.” – George Orwell, “1984”
Before you are to be welcomed into the ranks of us Civilised people, we ask that you review the criteria of your adherence below. Failure to abide by and/or blatant infractions committed in regards to these articles will not go unpunished. Know that in either case we are just, good, peaceful people. We weigh all matters impartially, as is the responsibility of our faculty as the supreme holders of power. Yet to ensure the order by which these operations are made possible, we hold you in writing and in action to the same regard of compliance and critical thought.
Read More »Sobriety is a marathon, not a sprint
by Lindsey Goodrow
The last day I drank was in no way remarkable. There was no epiphanous moment, nor atrocious circumstance that forced me to make the decision. It was a day like any other, when I wondered if this would be the time it finally stuck. The last day I drank had been one of many last days, another notch in a trailing belt of failed attempts.
Read More »My Little Demon
by Rowan Moskowitz
I have a little demon on my shoulder. Not the type who whispers in my ear encouraging me to do bad things to others like in a stereotypical cartoon setting, but more so one that whispers insults and lies to me. It’s my own personal bully, following me wherever I go and reminding me of all the things that could go wrong. Then? It tells me how I deserve it, claiming that I ruin everything and just bother people with my presence. It makes me feel as if I’m back in middle school sometimes, memories of childish insults being thrown my way all coming back in one quick swift like a gust of wind that’s never ending.
Read More »I Believe
resistance is joy, and joy is resistance
Ten Years (and why I still talk about Nico di Angelo all the time)
by Daisy Solace
It’s 2013. I’m 11, living in Saudi Arabia, and anticipating House of Hades’s release with bated breath, counting down the days. It’s all I talk about, my best friend is getting sick of me. I’m insufferable, and I like it. I haven’t been into Percy Jackson for very long — just about a month by this point, but it’s found its space in my head and settled there.
As a kid who had always felt ALONEALONEALONEalonealonealone, it’s nice to read about a boy who’d changed schools so much that he has no friends, except for the one whose job it is to protect him. It’s nice to read about a boy who knows the truth: that the best people have the rottenest luck. It’s nice to read about a boy who, despite this, fights. After rows upon rows of pleasant protagonists, there’s a certain level of solace (pun intended) in Percy Jackson. He’s not easy. He’s not agreeable. He’s angry, rowdy, and, as Percy would come to say in the musical, impertinent. As a fellow impertinent child, I’m delighted.
Read More »
The Amazine Community 