This food-focused magazine offers underrepresented food writers a seat at the table.

By Ado Nkemka

Tired of feeling unsatiated by mainstream food media, Kyla Pascal and Kathryn Gwun-Yeen Lennon co-founded Hungry Zine, in 2020. Hungry is a community-driven, food culture publication based out of Edmonton, AB, published two to three times per year. Writers and artists from across Canada contribute a range of food-focused tales and images from eccentric to sensual love stories with delectable images in between. “It feels very powerful to be doing this work, in this time, and to be creating our own offering,” Lennon says.

Kyla Pascal and Kathryn Gwun-Yeen Lennon, co-founders of Hungry Zine. Photo by Amanda Gallant.

Hungry’s aim is to serve up arts and culture stories that showcase voices and identities underrepresented in the food space such as emerging writers, amateur food influencers, artists of various ages and ethnic backgrounds and more. The magazine is guided by anti-oppressive, anti-racist, and decolonial values and hopes to serve a community of readers and writers interested in stories that highlight injustices, such as against migrant farm workers, to stories that support the resiliency and strength of food sovereignty, in the aim of creating an intersectional community to share food knowledge.

The publication became an Alberta Magazine Publishers Association (AMPA) member in February 2023 and just a few months later, won the 2022-23 Best New Alberta Magazine Award at the Alberta Magazine Awards. “We felt so honoured, excited and humbled, but also proud, to win that award,” says Lennon. “I think it meant a lot to us because we’re still so new.”

Kathryn Gwun-Yeen Lennon at the Alberta Magazine Awards in May 2023.

In the upcoming summer 2023 issue, look out for Mango Lake, a juicy tale of two people feeding each other mango on a hot day at an Ontario beach. The Black romance story is penned by Afro-Caribbean writer Jasmine Morris. “It’s so fun that we can take such a universal topic like food and then apply it to so many different themes and life experiences,” Pascal says.

Hungry Zine is available for purchase across Canada or can be ordered online at  hungryzine.com. Those of you in Edmonton can head over to local markets like the Royal Bison Art and Craft Fair to snag a copy in person and for those of your outside Edmonton, check out Hungry’s website for a list of retailers across Canada carrying the magazine and for upcoming calls for submissions and other news. The magazine’s seventh issue, Funeral Food, launches this Fall.