Author

Sara Swain

Sara Swain is a Contributing Editor at The Independent. She holds a PhD in Communication and Culture from York University and has taught courses about media, film, and television studies. Her essays have appeared in Offscreen magazine and PUBLIC journal, among others. She likes public art and culture, bioregionalism, placemaking, hospitality, and anything to do with carrier pigeons. She recently moved back to St. John’s.

Sara's Latest Articles

No Woman is an Island

When she came to Newfoundland 14 years ago, Cuban-born filmmaker Tamara Segura never intended to stay. But she’s glad she did.  

Signs of the Times

Korab joins Team Furey. A slipway ties the whole community together. An apartment building downtown. A tale of two experiences from two city parks.

St. John’s women of influence

Awards, birthdays, marriages, and retirements are celebrated as two distant food trucks duel for the night in the parking lots of old establishments history forgot

Holidaying on Indigenous land

June Day is renamed no thanks to Tom Davis. A questionable debate about parking relief. Minor sport, major expense. Trash is a symptom of a bigger problem.

The litter, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind

Land uses near landfills. Home businesses are trending. Market Family moves ahead. Sheila’s Brush abides. A private clinic...with MRI.  

Be there with balaclavas on 

Safe workplaces. Clean streets. Rising bakeries. A promising new apartment building. Development regulations relax. New meets old on Monkstown Road.

A spring in my step?

Let's keep this momentum going

Our Eleanor

Playwright Megan Gail Coles and director Emma Tibaldo talk about their new play, Grace, and how art can transform our collective narratives, safeguard us against chronic stress, and build resilience in our communities

Main Entrance to the Mary Brown's Centre
The puck stops here

The Growlers are iced out. Development is on Fire. Volunteers are celebrated. Neurodiversity is embraced, and so is mixed-use. Poetry is shared. O’Leary Avenue gets artsy. 

‘One of the nicest areas in the west end’

Hazelwood rezoning is axed. Sheffield Estates is safe for now. Tom Davis gets sworn in. Truth and reconciliation is formalized, and density increases, one micro unit at a time.