About

Welcome to After Hours, a daily updated blog interested in policy and politics off the beaten track, criticism at the margins of the great conversation, furiously debating between “the first and third pint.”

Anyone is welcome to contribute to After Hours by emailing submissions. From there, our noble team of Contributing Editors will shine up your prose and post your musings out to the Cardus world, and beyond.

After Hours is more than a blog: it’s an event. Cardus staff, friends and pundits join together at the office at 4 PM and then over to the Cork Town pub every third Thursday of the month, for half-priced domestic pitchers. No attribution, no lengthy punditry – just good food, great beer and excellent conversation. Fetch the Staffers at 185 Young before you go!

Contributing Editors

Alissa Wilkinson is the associate editor for Comment magazine. She also is the editor of The Curator and teaches writing at The King’s College. Her work on pop culture and art has appeared in a number of publications, including Paste, Christianity Today, Patrol, WORLD, and Relevant, and she is a founding contributor at Filmwell. Alissa holds an M.A. in culture and media studies from New York University. She harbors a not-so-secret obsession with cooking, farmer’s markets, and food policy; drinks a lot of coffee; and watches movies with her husband in their tiny apartment high above the Brooklyn treetops. Find out more…


Milton Friesen is the Director of Operations at Cardus, a role that allows him to combine the theory and practice of designing more resilient and effective organizations and institutions (as well as fix bathroom fans, install whiteboards, and foil break-in artists). The idea side of his work is rooted in complexity theory (what some people have called the science of common sense) while the practice side comes from absorbing the project design sensibilities of places like IDEO where rapid prototyping allows teams to navigate the valuable edges of innovation. If such things strike your fancy, Milton has an experimental book project running that might be of interest.


Robert Joustra is a Researcher with Cardus, writing and researching on a variety of topics, including foreign policy, global economy and urbanism. He lectures in international politics and foreign policy at Redeemer University College and is currently pursuing a PhD in international politics at the University of Bath. He is astonishingly well-versed in Norse mythology, central Asian migrations from the 5th to 17th century and emergent science fiction series since the 1970′s. Find out more…


Christina Crook is a Vancouver-based freelance writer. She edits the Arts and Cultural Guide to British Columbia, is owner of The Word Studio, a boutique writing and editing company, and teaches communications at Langara College’s EASE program. She regularly publishes work on faith and culture in publications including Muse, Comment, Faith Today and catapult. She holds a B.A. in communication and women’s studies from Simon Fraser University.

Christina lives in Burnaby, British Columbia with her husband, Michael, and daughter, Madeleine, where they attend St. Alban’s Anglican Church. She is co-founder of the monthly Letter Writing Party, a typewriter enthusiast, and proud owner of a Remington. Her first love is poetry, oh, and mint chocolate cookie ice cream.