The Ken Popert Media Fellowship program was developed to fund innovative journalism projects that bring new voices to Xtra and provide an opportunity for journalists to learn about LGBTQ2S+ media and audience engagement.
The Ken Popert Fellowship was established in 2021 by Pink Triangle Press, which publishes Xtra Magazine, on the eve of its 50th anniversary. The fellowship honours the legacy of former executive director Ken Popert, who retired in 2017. The fellowship provides resources and support for journalists to create and publish unique and powerful LGBTQ2S+ stories.
The fellowship is open to people at any stage in their journalism career. “We established the fellowship as a commitment to making space for new voices and groundbreaking projects,” said Pink Triangle Press executive director David Walberg. “The fellowship helps ensure that Xtra continues to broaden our audiences and connect our diverse communities.”
The journalism projects funded by this fellowship can take many different shapes—from single features to investigative series; from visual documentaries to audio stories.
To view all content produced under the Ken Popert Fellowship, click here
2025 fellowship
This year, we’ve brought five early-career BIPOC journalists on board as part of a paid mentorship program that will include producing a series about LGBTQ2S+ people at work.
Candidates were selected in October and November. Each person will be paid $1,000: That’s $500 for participation and another $500 for published work.
About this year’s project
The world of work feels broken. Young people are struggling with poverty, precarious work, poor working conditions and burnout. For LGBTQ2S+ people, these issues have a particularly sharp flavour: nearly half of trans people report workplace harassment, bisexual women face an enormous wage gap and workplace policies often don’t recognize queer identities or families.
But there’s a long history of queer and trans people taking fights for fairness and equality into our workplaces–and winning. Work is where we make ends meet; where we spend the majority of our waking weekday hours; the avenue through which many of us try to improve the world.
The five mentees chosen for the program will work as a team to plan an editorial package, pitch story ideas and produce content. Each mentee will write one article that will be published on Xtra’s website as well as contribute to multimedia content associated with the chosen topic.
Xtra is a non-profit online magazine and community platform covering LGBTQ2S+ culture, politics, relationships and health. For more info about our mission, read our principles.
About the mentorship
Mentees will work with guest editor Saima Desai. They will also have opportunities for training and networking with Xtra’s editorial staff and other journalists and journalism organizations.
Mentees can expect to spend roughly five hours per week on the program from late October to late December 2025. This will include meetings with the group of mentees, with Saima, and with other Xtra staff; researching, pitching, and writing your article; collaborating with Xtra’s multimedia team on other content to accompany your article; and other potential training and networking opportunities.
Saima is an editor, writer and indie media diehard. She’s written for The Breach, THIS Magazine, NOW Toronto, and The Tyee. She’s a senior editor at The Grind and The Breach; sits on the editorial collective of Between The Lines Books; and was previously the editor of Briarpatch Magazine, where she won Issue Grand Prix at the 2022 National Magazine Awards for Briarpatch‘s Land Back issue. At Briarpatch, she edited the magazine’s annual Labour Issue and mentored young BIPOC writers and editors.
How to apply
Send the following to saima.desai@xtramagazine.com by October 27:
- Your resume
- Two samples of your writing
- A letter of no more than 500 words that answers the following questions:
—What’s a topic about work that you’re interested in exploring during this mentorship program? Why do you think it’s timely and important? (This could be a broad question or a specific story. Feel free to write about a story idea, but know that–in discussion with Saima and the rest of the mentee group–you may end up writing about something else.)
—Why would you benefit from this mentorship program?
We will contact selected mentees by Nov. 7. Whether or not you’re selected for this program, we will get back to you with a bit of feedback on your application.
2021 recipients
Tre’vell Anderson (they/them) joined Xtra as editor-at-large in 2021. Anderson is an award-winning writer, editor and podcaster based in Los Angeles. Listed as one of The Root’s 100 most influential African Americans of 2020, Anderson is a co-host of the Fanti podcast, a contributor to the Los Angeles Times and regional director of the National Association of Black Journalists.
As editor-at-large, Anderson worked with Xtra, leveraging the Ken Popert Media Fellowship, to commission stories by and for underrepresented LGBTQ2S+ communities, with a particular focus on Black queer and trans voices.
About Ken Popert
Ken Popert joined The Body Politic (TBP) in 1973, and established the historic gay publication’s news department. As an active member of the TBP collective, Popert faced persecution in court several times in the late 1970s and was part of the ad-hoc group that spearheaded the protests over the 1981 Toronto bathhouse raids. In 1986, he was made publisher of Xtra (which began in 1984 as a four-page insert in TBP). The TBP ceased publication in 1987, but parent company Pink Triangle Press continued to run Xtra. As executive director, Popert bolstered the Toronto-based publication’s finances and oversaw the launch of the Vancouver and Ottawa editions in the mid 1990s. He directed the transition from print to online in 2015 before retiring in 2017.