Post by Greg Macdougall (originally on apt613.ca)

Eternia, proclaimed by Exclaim! Magazine as “Canada’s dopest female MC,” was born in Ottawa and spent the first part of her life here. She later moved to Toronto, and at 15 she says she “started to take [hip hop] more seriously.”

Her latest album, “At Last” with producer MoSS, was nominated for a Juno and has made the long-list for the 2011 Polaris Prize. She’s performing in Ottawa this coming Thurday as part of the international Women’s Worlds 2011 conference.

“I’m really really excited and honoured that they would even consider me a voice for the Women’s Worlds conference. It’s actually a lot of responsibility, I think about it and I’m like, it’s kind of a big deal, especially when I go to the website with all the different programs they have going on.”

The economic recession has been tough for retailers all over, and the few independent bookstores left were taking a real beating even before that from large stores like Chapters Indigo, Walmart and Amazon.

Usually, I'd just shrug and say "that's capitalism" but in the case of the Toronto Women's Bookstore, it really is more than just a bookstore. It really is an important fixture of the left and feminist movement in Toronto.

As Kristin Schwartz wrote in the recent issue of Canadian Dimension, independents matter.

The Toronto Women's Bookstore has always stocked a good amount of anarchist books and magazines and have helped sponsor and promote many progressive events in the city.

So when I read the letter they sent to the community I had to blog about it and encourage our readers to support them.