Rainbow Art Club 2021

This book tells the story of a very special group of kids and their adventures at Rainbow Art Club at Studio Dreamshare in downtown Pembroke, ON. It is also the start of our memory-keeping as a queer community here in the Ottawa Valley. We have so many more stories to tell, but this is a start. We could have told the stories of hardship and suffering we have had to and continue to endure, but these portraits and words of wisdom are about our resilience and living in our truth and rainbow joy. Through the eyes and words of our youth, with stories and resources from inspiring community elders and allies, come along with us as the story unfolds.

These pictures and captured moments are a snapshot of our own rural rainbow today in the Ottawa Valley.

Photovoice 2021

Youth artists in the Ottawa Valley met with adults in the summer of 2021 at Studio Dreamshare in Pembroke, ON to create a collaborative community arts response to climate change and the state of the environment in our communities. Through a series of photographic art pieces and poetry, this book offers a snapshot of how our community is reacting to climate change on a grassroots level, and where we are going. "Glimpses of Tomorrow" expresses sorrow, rage, disappointment, and helplessness, but also hope, inspiration, and strength. May we rise as a community to the challenge of our times: the unsustainable destruction of the lands we love.

Contributing artists: Beth Goddard, Øzen, Emery Verch, Lindsay St.Amour, Ainsley O'Hagan, Rose Bennett, Hilda Young, Tys Burger, Clare Leamen, Caroline Rex, Emma Pinto, Ki Myra, Meara Caughey, Argo Jackson-Beek, Cameron (Dreamshare) Montgomery.

Lying Shards

A book written by Emma Pinto. Lily Maid is a thirteen-year-old who has it all. She is beautiful and popular, and to everyone her life seems perfect. but the mirror in her room is beginning to crack... a mirror that holds a dark secret.

Let the madness begin.

Unthinkable

A book written by Meara Caughey. Isabel's life was pretty normal. When the Right Truth Army took over her country and her school, life didn't seem to change very much. Isabel was happy to keep coding and hacking and skipping recess to go to the library... until the unthinkable happened. (this book will appeal to fans of the Hunger Games, The Maze Runner and Divergent.)

A World so Small

Business woman Valkyrie Snow has built an architecture company and career she is proud of. She thinks she has everything she ever wanted-- until she meets Jordan Barker, a talented young musician hungry for success. Jordan struggles with depression and feels like he is wasting his life washing dishes at a local restaurant. Their friendship changes both of their lives forever, and just when things start to get interesting, Valkyrie's ex-husband Baron steps in. How can Jordan compete with a man like Baron?Explicit sexual content.

*This book ends in a cliffhanger resolved in book 2, Mercury's Crossing.*

“Altered Carbon meets Anais Nin—dark, sexual, futuristic—romance set in Ottawa, Canada.” –Premiere Reader

Get ready for a dark, smutty, softly futuristic romance novel that reads like a film (think Spike Jonze’s Her and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind). -Premiere Reader

Mercury's Crossing

Mercury Elmahdy is a computer programming prodigy who loves to dance. Raised by her grandparents in London, she is ready to fly away to America on her first great adventure, university in Washington D.C. Her first love and other dangers of the adult world await her. Jordan Barker is finally getting the recognition he desperately craved for his music, but his confusing breakup with Valkyrie Snow has left him utterly raw with heartbreak. He loses himself in his performances, but self-destruction lurks in the darkness backstage, and in the arms of angels and demons drawn to his newfound fame. Valkyrie Snow struggles to recover from a year of health crisis. She pours her focus into Mother House, the intentional community she is building on the east coast. She nurtures the baby inside her whose father is a mystery. Her body remembers but her mind does not. Baron Toussaint’s company faces serious charges and media scandal. Baron was unstable to begin with, but with all of this pressure, he is ready to blow. What will happen when he finds out that Valkyrie Snow, his ex-wife, is pregnant? The saga of Jordan Barker and Valkyrie Snow continues with an unexpected new ally, Mercury Elmahdy. This book is the sequel to A World So Small.

Critical Religion

A book written by Cameron Dreamshare. Critical Religion's entry point is the understanding that religion is not a thing that is simply there 'in the world'. While many people would claim that they know a religion 'when they see one', there are on going debates in Religious Studies on how to define the very subject of the discipline, or whether it should be defined, or whether in academic discourse we should even have a term ;religion; that is wrought with so many complexities and associations with conflict and violence.