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Eternity Martis is an award-winning Canadian writer, editor, journalist, critic, professor, and speaker. Her debut memoir, They Said This Would Be Fun, was published on 31 March, 2020 by McClelland & Stewart. The memoir became a critically acclaimed national bestseller and was a finalist for the International Book Awards.

Biography

Martis was born in Toronto, Canada. Her maternal family immigrated to Canada from Karachi, Pakistan in 1973.

Martis received a Certificate in Writing and completed a Double Major in Women's Studies & Feminist Research and English Language & Literature from the University of Western Ontario, in London, Ontario, Canada. She completed her Masters of Journalism from Ryerson University, in Toronto, Canada.

Martis currently resides in Toronto.

Career

As a journalist and editor, Martis has worked at CBC, CTV, and Xtra Magazine. She has also held a number of academic positions. She is the original course developer and instructor of Reporting On Race: The Black Community in the Media at Ryerson University, the first course of its kind in Canada which focuses on the representation of Black people in the media. The course was introduced partially due to a petition launched by the students calling for more diversity and representation in the curriculum.

Martis is currently working as an adjunct professor in the department of Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice at the University of British Columbia (UBC), in Vancouver, Canada. She is also the 2021 Journalist-in-Residence at UBC.

Writing

Martis’s journalistic and non-fiction writing focuses on uplifting marginalized voices. Her works deal with raising awareness on issues surrounding racism, feminism, gender inequality, sexual abuse, and intersectionality. Her journalistic features have appeared in Vice, Huffington Post, The Walrus, Hazlitt, The Fader, Complex, Chatelaine, etc.

In 2013, her essay on race, family, and belongingness was selected by Bad Feminist author Roxane Gay to be part of her series for Salon, a digital media outlet that covers a wide-range of issues from politics to culture and lifestyle.

In 2019, Martis's essay titled "A Family Complication: Writing About Race as a Black, South Asian Woman," was featured in the critically acclaimed anthology “Black Writers Matter,” published by University of Regina Press. Martis's work has also been featured on CBC Metro Radio.

They Said This Would Be Fun

On 31 March 2020, Martis published her debut memoir, They Said This Would Be Fun: Race, Campus Life, and Growing Up. The book was published by McClelland & Stewart.

They Said This Would Be Fun features Martis’s coming-of-age experiences as an undergraduate student at Western University and a Black person living in London, Ontario, a city where the majority of population is white. In the memoir, Martis delves into the racism she encountered as a Black woman, on and off campus, detailing instances of frequent microaggressions and physical threats of violence. The memoir raises larger questions of exclusion and racism in academia, sexual misconduct on campuses, lack of institutional support, and the ignorance prevalent among white Canadians. The memoir also investigates the discrimination arising from intersectional social identities and ends with ideas of reclamation and self-empowerment.

In an interview with Toronto Star, Martis explained: "It’s about a body. It’s about being a woman. It’s about being a feminist. It’s about what happens to your body when your mind is stressed. It’s about what the body goes through under oppression. What happens when it is sexually assaulted or it becomes a novelty for white men." Martis initially planned to pursue these themes in a blog post, then in a play, before finally deciding to write the story in the form of a memoir.

Awards and Honors

In 2017, Martis became a finalist in the Best New Writer category at the National Magazine Awards for her long-form feature, “Know Your History, Know Your Greatness,” published in Hazlitt. In 2018, she won the Gold prize for Best Investigative Feature at the Canadian Online Publishing Awards for her journalism piece, “The Health Effects of Anti-Black Racism,” published in The Local.

Upon its release in 2020, They Said This Would Be Fun instantly became a national bestseller and was featured on the Toronto Star, Globe and Mail, and Vancouver Sun bestseller lists. In April 2020, CBC declared the book as one of “20 moving Canadian memoirs to read right now.” It was also deemed one of Globe and Mail’s “Favorite Books of 2020” and one of Chapters/Indigo’s “Best Books of 2020.”They Said This Would Be Fun audiobook was mentioned in the “Best Audiobooks of 2020” list curated by Apple and Audible. The book was a finalist in the 2020 International Book Awards in the categories of Autobiography/Memoir and Social Change.

CBC named Martis one of “Six Canadian writers of Black heritage to watch in 2020.” Martis was also recently named one of Canada’s Top 100 Most Powerful Women by Women’s Executive Network and one of Toronto’s Most Inspiring Women.

Activism

Martis is a vocal advocate for issues surrounding racism, sexism, intersectionality, and sexual violence. Her article “A Capital Idea,” published in The Ryerson Review of Journalism, explores the importance of capitalizing “Black” and “Indigenous" when referring to said communities and has helped influence the adoption of the change across media outlets in Canada, including tvo.org and Xtra.

They Said This Would Be Fun has been featured on curriculums that teach writing for activism. The memoir has stirred a larger conversation surrounding racism, tokenism, and sexual violence on campuses. It is one of the recommended reads by the Canadian Race Relations Foundation (CRRF) for understanding race relations.

Since the release of her memoir, Martis has led several workshops and been the keynote speaker at various panels that discuss the importance of representation and cultural recognition on campuses and within academia, writing for social justice and healing, and amplifying diverse and underrepresented voices.