INKspire’s Rising Voices Book Launch

Every writer’s dream is to be published. To be able to physically hold their stories in their hands, the words jumping off the page at the achievement.

INKspire is a youth-led nonprofit organization that, for 10 years, has aimed to amplify youth voices across Canada. On May 3rd, 2026, they held their first print launch of their long-awaited book anthology. The anthology’s first issue, with many more to come, is a compilation of articles and stories published by the Writer Fellows across 4 different platforms: Arts, Creative, Science & Tech, and Social Issues.  

Writer Fellows (Image Source: Vivian Van)

The book launch was held at Ben McNally Books in the afternoon. After a few inspiring words from MPPs Kristyn Wong-Tam and Councillor Chris Moise, 15 writers read out loud their pieces published in the book, or talked about the process of creating them and the meaning behind them. The applause encouraged them all; a full house attendance filled the bookstore with friends, family, and fellow bookworms who came in support of the writers. 

Some were nervous, some excited, others a mix of both. Sierra, a Social Issues platform fellow, was nervous but felt fulfilled by the experience, especially as someone who wants to put herself out there more.

“This book launch is a form of collaborative storytelling,” said Sandini, a Science and Tech platform fellow.

Other Writer Fellows such as Nadine from the Arts platform really wanted to focus on the storytelling and encourage more people to try and play with it, to spark that interest in literature through captivating articles and stories.

Julia from the Social Issues platform describes sharing her work as liberating. “I felt really good because of that specific piece I wanted to write and share it for so long, and it’s not hidden anymore,” she said.

Julia on stage (Image Source: Vivian Van)

Samantha from the Arts platform describes writing as a way to process something. “It’s for catharsis, it’s for really expressing yourself,” she stated.

After the readings, the guests were invited to mingle among themselves along with appetizers provided by the team.

INKspire’s Co-Executive Director, Frank, recalls the times when they crowdfunded for the first year at INKspire, and now they are honourable recipients of the Ontario Trillium Youth Opportunities Fund. 

When asked, “What was the process of doing this first issue?”, Frank responded, “It’s been really hard. A lot of trial and error. A lot of things that we needed to do from scratch. We had a great design team who knew how to do layouts, knew how to do illustrations. But it was basically a big time crunch. We were able to produce this in a month and a half. It was very stressful, but I think it’s all worth it in the end.”

The publishing team shared Frank’s happiness. Nadima, the Creative Lead at INKspire, passionately detailed how the team worked together and gathered everything, giving so much of their time. “Blood, sweat, and tears. We’re really proud,” she said with a smile. 

INKspire Publishing team (Image Source: Vivian Van)

Danielle, the Program Director at INKspire narrated how this project came to fruition. “This has been an idea for 2-3 years to make an official publication. Last year we got the funding…the process has been kind of crazy, just happened in the past 6 months to collect all the articles, edit them, do the proofreading, organize them in the right order, alphabetize, and then get the design team to bring everything to life, put the layout, proofreading the design a million times…the process has been long but so worth it to see everyone here happy and with a book, their work in their hands published. I’m really proud.”  

And it wasn’t just the publishing team working on this anthology, but a whole in-house design team as well in order to create the cover and illustrations to accompany some of the writers’ pieces. “Seeing it in physical form is really rewarding,” Vivian stated, a UX/UI and graphic designer that has been with INKspire for many years now. For the print anthology, she created illustrations, which required not just an understanding what the piece is saying but also what it wishes to communicate at a deeper level.

“I really enjoy drawing for pieces that touch on identity, belonging, and the human condition, so some of my favourites I’ve illustrated are for ‘I Did it for Her’ by Aisha Duldul and ‘How Robert Schumann Composed My Memories Before I Lived Them’ by Kelly Hong. It was fun to experiment and tailor the drawing style to the tone of the written piece.” 

Illustration in Rising voices (Image Source: Renfred Ragos)

“The print anthology has truly been a labour of love.” She further stated, “We’re proving that print and literature will always have a place to thrive.” 

INKspire’s Co-Executive Director Vivian answered that their next milestone is to improve the Writer Fellowship Program for next year by ensuring that writers get out of the most out of the experience and everything is running smoothly for the publishing team. They’re hoping for another print anthology next year and to secure funding for the future.

This print publication, featuring a blue phoenix on its cover, has made its appearances in 4 book signing events in May and June at bookstores such as Book People on Queen, Type Books – Forest Hill, Indigo, and Glad Day Lit. The Eaton Centre Indigo gave INKspire a lot of visibility. Although the two other locations didn’t have much foot traffic, the people who attended the event were very kind; the store owner at Book People gave advice to the fellows on their future writing careers. This book launch marks the end of this chapter for us writer fellows, yet it opens a new one filled with hope, and all the knowledge to be ready to take on the publishing scene. 

Book launch audience (Image Source: Vivian Van)

With such a collaborative and creative team behind the process, INKspire: Rising Voices is a must read. Get your copy now at Ben McNally Books, Book People on Queen, and any of the Type Books locations, and support emerging writers!