I took my first class at Vic College in 2002 or so. It was a red stone castle across from a crazed squirrel filled park, across from what used to be the Planetarium. It felt like a dream come true – going to school, the reading-writing-reading kind of school after years of dance school (which was great, but not all that bookish).

I took a course on Canadian literature with a kind, wise older prof, who let me wax poetic about Margaret Laurence’s The Diviners as much as I wanted. The class was on the second floor, or maybe the third, and I always sat near a window (a habit I picked up after going to a windowless high school)

I loved the smell of old wood, the strange scientific equipment exhibits that would be housed in glass cases on the second floor, the buzz of those hallways, the worn floorboards, but most of all, I loved the staircase.

So I wrote it a love poem. And the folks at the University of Toronto magazine met me there while I tucked it between the paint railings. You can read the poem and my interview with Janet Rowe here!