I had the pleasure of talking with Shawn Micallef about his book Stroll, Spacing magazine, and walking in Toronto. Shawn and I also recorded a walk in the neighbourhood around Dufferin Grove Park in Toronto, an area familiar to both of us. Shawn lives south of Dufferin Grove Park, and I lived near the intersection of Bloor and Dufferin between 1996-2003.

Shawn Micallef is the author of Frontier City: Toronto on the Verge of Greatness (2017), The Trouble With Brunch: Work Class and the Pursuit of Leisure (2014) and Full Frontal TO: Exploring Toronto’s Vernacular Architecture (2012). The updated and expanded edition of his first book, Stroll: Psychogeographic Walking Tours of Toronto, was published in 2024. He’s a Toronto Star columnist, civics instructor at University of Toronto, and a Senior Fellow at Massey College where he was also a 2011-2012 Southam Journalism Fellow. Shawn is a co-founder of Spacing, a magazine about Canadian cities and urban issues. In 2002, while a resident at the Canadian Film Centre’s Media Lab, he co-founded [murmur], a location-based mobile phone documentary project established in over 20 cities globally. You can follow Shawn on Instagram and Bluesky.