Podcast: Season 9, Episode 8, “To Build and Sustain: Publishing Roundtable”

Season 9

The final episode of season 9 features a live recording from Momus’s To Build and Sustain Publishing Roundtable, held at PHI in Montreal on June 26. Bringing together leaders of independent publishing initiatives across Canada and the US, the conversation asks how platforms for art writing are being shaped, challenged, and sustained in the present moment. Moderated by Tiana Reid (critic and co-editor of Pinko), the roundtable included Dr. Kemi Adeyemi (Director, The Black Embodiments Studio), Sky Goodden (Publisher, Momus), and Molly Kleiman (Director, Triple Canopy) in a wide-ranging discussion of the financial, political, and structural conditions of the field today. They also reflect on the pressures facing independent arts publishing—and the possibilities that persist within them. Together, they consider publishing as both a cultural practice and a form of civic life, and the value of art writing that is vital, rigorous, and accessible.

This roundtable was the culminating public event of the 2026 Momus Convening: To Build and Sustain, a gathering of independent art publishers and editors from across Canada and the US focused on sharing resources, strengthening peer networks, and imagining more sustainable futures for critical art writing. The Convening was supported by Terra Foundation for American Art, Critical Minded, the Canada Council for the Arts, and the Dorothea and Leo Rabkin Foundation.

Momus: The Podcast is edited by Jacob Irish, with production assistance from Chris Andrews.

Thanks to this episode’s sponsors, the Illingworth Kerr Gallery and Esker Foundation, for supporting our work.

Hosts: Sky Goodden and Lauren Wetmore

About the Guests

About the Guests, and more

Tiana Reid is an assistant professor in the Department of English at York University. Her writing has appeared in Artforum, The Nation, The New York Review of Books, The New York Times, The Paris Review, and in many other publications. She lives in Toronto.
Molly Kleiman is one of the founding editors and the current director of Triple Canopy, a multimedia magazine that collaborates with contributors on artworks, essays, fictions, conversations, performances, and books (among other media) from conception to realization, navigating the digital and physical realms where ideas and audiences take shape. She cofounded Common Practice New York and the Coalition of Small Arts New York, advocacy groups for small-scale arts organizations, and has taught courses at NYU and RISD.
Dr. Kemi Adeyemi is Associate Professor of Gender, Women and Sexuality Studies at the University of Washington. She is the author of Feels Right: Black Queer Women & the Politics of Partying in Chicago (2022) and co-editor of the volume Queer Nightlife (2021). Her academic essays on black queer life have been published in GLQ, Women & Performance, and QED. Her forthcoming manual, Writing About Black Art, is a 2023 recipient of the Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant. Kemi founded and directs The Black Embodiments Studio, an arts writing incubator, public programming initiative, and publishing platform dedicated to building discourse around contemporary Black art.
Sky Goodden is the founding publisher of Momus, an online platform for art writing and criticism; and co-host of Momus: The Podcast. Goodden has published in numerous catalogues, art books, and publications including Momus, Frieze, Art in America, C Magazine, and Art21, among others. She is based in Montreal.