I would like to say I’m known for my local news and politics coverage, but most people who approach me in public to talk about my work at Arthur are more interested in my satire pieces. I’m starting to think this is the bane of all Arthur journalists: no matter how long we spend scrutinizing the work of local politicians and authority figures, the articles we hastily throw together about Swedish rap twinks and MILF canoeing scams will inevitably become what we’re known for.

This has never stopped me from enjoying my work at Arthur. To be honest, it feels more like the fulfillment of a life-long journey. Even as a young child, I always knew I wanted to become a transgender journalist who pretends to detransition in satirical articles for a communist student newspaper.

I would probably have had better chances at this had I not moved to Peterborough from my birthplace of Montreal, but as a three-year-old, I struggled to explain to my parents that my career aspirations were more likely to pan out in Montreal.

I grew up in Peterborough, intimately familiar with Trent as both my parents work as professors (they’re the ones with the French accents). Truth be told, I really did not like Peterborough as a child. As the only gay kid in a Catholic elementary school, I thought I would never find anyone like me here.

I progressively warmed up to this city throughout my teen years attending Thomas A. Stewart, its most pronoun-ridden high school. It’s there that I developed my communist sensibilities, as well as the adoration of noise music which would lead me to write my first article for Arthur about Kristin Hayter of Lingua Ignota’s side-project SAVED! I can’t say that that project has aged that well, or that I think of it quite as highly now as I did when I wrote that review, but it feels emblematic of a truly transformative period of my life.

That period is, of course, my arrival at Trent. Back then, I was a Social Work major who didn’t know many people here, and had only scarcely ever heard of Arthur through text exchanges with former Editor-in-Chief Evan Robins. It was ultimately the posters promoting Arthur’s Volume 58 hiring spree, styled after Soviet-era propaganda images, which drew me in.

Despite my interest in the paper, I procrastinated sending my application until the day of the deadline, at 11PM. I had no writing samples, and my high school essays had disappeared along with my Kawartha Pine Ridge District email address’ Google Drive. On a suggestion from Evan, I emailed the editors to request an extension, which I was promptly granted.

The next day happened to be my first day being medicated for my ADHD. Under the divine embrace of Vyvanse, I put together two writing samples, a review of Gretchen Felker Martin’s novel Manhunt so uninspired it would not have seemed out of place in the columns of Them and an op-ed (which I mistakenly called an editorial) about the backlash against James Whetung’s efforts to reintroduce wild rice cultures to Rice Lake First Nation.

These two samples got me an interview, and later a job as a journalist for Volume 58. In retrospect, it’s clear that I was hired mostly for my potential; Abbigale, Evan, and Sebastian gave me a chance to become a good writer.

Since then, Arthur has been a defining feature of my university experience: It opened my eyes to the burgeoning cultural life of a city I’d written off as yet another dead, sprawling suburb. I listened to live music I thought I’d only ever hear on my phone or trips to Toronto, I had riveting conversations about books I thought I was the only person in this city to have read, and I got to take an active part in the political conversations of the community.

Arthur didn’t just give me more hope in Peterborough, it gave me more hope in myself. I forwent my teenage belief that there was nothing interesting here, so I might as well live on my phone. I met people whom I could get into arguments with about the same kinds of music, books, politics I fought about on Twitter, and none of them would post my full address in the comments.

This made me happier, but more of a luddite. Having political conversations in real life forced me to think through the issues I was presented with, rather than resort to snappy Tweet-form shortcuts which so often went from shortcuts to replacements for critical thought. Arthur made me more pretentious, more outgoing, more argumentative, and ultimately more satisfied with my life.

With this Editorship, I want to give back to Arthur. Both on a professional and personal basis, I feel as though I owe it to this rag to keep her work going. Professionally, this means affording more new people the chance to learn at Arthur.

Two years ago, big boss David walked me through my first Trent Central Student Association (TCSA) Board of Directors meeting so that I could take TCSA coverage over for him.

This year, I did the same for staff writer Willow Latella, who is also now my roommate. I can’t promise that I’ll move in with the next person I teach how to cover TCSA, but I hope that they’ll at least teach someone else down the line.

I can’t wait to relive my first time at City Council, by Abby’s side, when a meeting that was expected to last about fourty minutes ended up taking three hours (many such cases) and Ashburnham Ward Councillor Keith Riel threatened to quit Council over parking regulation.

It’s moments like these that demystify the work of a journalist. In retrospect, that evening with Abby made writing about a complex organization like City Council, with all its inscrutable procedural minutiae and, dare I say Kafakesque internal bureaucracy seem feasible to me. In my time here, the Editorship of this newspaper has kept a hand reaching out to its staff, giving us the opportunity to learn their craft.

It is my greatest pride—and probably the reason I am here today—to have taken that hand. It is by taking that hand, by accepting to learn how to be a journalist at Arthur, that I was able to step in when David asked me to run as his Co-Editor. This is how we build legacies. It felt corny to write in our Editorial platform, but it is nonetheless true: we want to set up the Editors of Volume 70, 80, 90, 100, and so on for success.

Outside of the job, I want to take this year to build upon the life I’ve built since joining Arthur. This means no more living outside of Peterborough by proxy of Twitter. It’s been a long time since I’ve gotten off the site now dubbed “the everything app,” and I hope for my social media presence to shrink even further.

I’ll use this time to be more passionate, to argue with people I care about about things we both care about. I’ll use it to think, and never let anyone tell me to just “let people enjoy things,” or to stop being pretentious. I’ll use it to be genuine, to break that fucking oily, crass coat of post-ironic detachment which seems to envelop any serious thought I might have about the world around me.

It wouldn’t be enough to thank Arthur for taking me where I am now. I see my role as Co-Editor as that of a hand reaching out. I’m here to urge you; if you’re interested in joining our staff, writing for us, or just seeing what Arthur’s whole deal is about, we are just an email away. One day, you might be the one strangers approach in public to talk about your pretend detransition.