There’s an unusual book launch happening in conjunction with the Toronto Comic Arts Festival this week — and it centres around competitive pillow fighting.
Stephanie Cooke is the author of recently published Pillow Talk, a young adult novel inspired by Toronto’s now defunct underground Pillow Fight League (PFL) which Cooke tried out for in 2016. To celebrate her book launch, Cooke is teaming up with one of the league’s former presidents to host a free Pillow Fight Showdown for one night only, on Thursday at Division 88.
Cookie and former PFL president Bee Dawley put out a call-out for participants and held info sessions with pillow fighters and referees ahead of the event, in order to ensure safety. While most of the fighters will be pillow fighting for the first time, the competition will also see the return of experienced competitors.
“We want to make sure the matches are fair and fun and really showcase what this league was all about,” says Cooke. “It’s exciting because it gives women a way to reclaim the pillow fight, while changing the stereotypes around it. [The PFL] made this whole new combat sport out of something that was supposed to be cutesy and girly.”
PFL was a Toronto-based semi-professional sports league founded in the mid-2000s. The sport saw two women face off in a fighting arena, using pillows to hit, tackle and pin each other to the ground. Anything went so long as the pillow was the point of contact, so it often resulted in minor injuries like bruises and bloody noses. It formally launched at a downtown goth bar called The Vatikan, and went on hiatus in 2010/2011 before returning for a resurgence in 2015 and disappearing again before the pandemic.
At the time, Cooke’s friend Dawley had stepped into a role as the league’s president and was recruiting women to try out in order to get it ramped up again.
“It was so much more extreme than I thought it was going to be,” says Cooke. “When I arrived, I watched one of the hosts do a demo match with the reigning champion — a petite, punk looking person, and I watched her take down a man that was much bigger than her with a pillow. She got him to the ground, straddled him and put him in a chokehold with the pillow until he tapped out.”
Cooke participated in two matches of her own that day, and rolled her ankle as she attempted to dodge the onslaught of an aggressive competitor, leading to an ER visit to ensure her ankle wasn’t broken.
“I still ultimately had a really fun time and I thought the whole thing was incredibly empowering,” she says. Though she was invited to join the league, she ultimately decided to focus her efforts elsewhere — like writing comic scripts for kids and young adults.
Cooke has successfully published four graphic novels since, mostly for lower and middle elementary school ages, making Pillow Talk her young adult debut. The graphic novel follows the narrative of Grace Mendes a.k.a. Cinderhella, who overcame her self criticism by competing in the Pillow Fight Federation’ (PFF), a creative reimagining of the original PFL, which in its new form is part-roller derby, part-professional wrestling. The illustrations were done by artist Mel Valentine Vargas.
“I couldn’t get the [PFL] out of my head at the time and I wound up thinking, what if this was a story about someone who was struggling with self confidence and trying to find who they were as a person? And what if they used this league as a way to create an alter ego and work on themselves?” explains Cooke.
The book launch party/Pillow Fight Federation Showdown is a free event, and will take place at 225 Geary Ave. at 7 p.m. on March 9. There will be a round robin-style pillow fighting tournament followed by snacks, drinks and a book talk with author Stephanie Cooke and illustrator Mel Valentine Vargas. The event is not affiliated with the previous iteration of the Pillow Fight League.
While there is not presently a pillow fighting league in Toronto, the sports has grown in popularity.
Cooke and Vargas will also be featured guests at the Toronto Comic Arts Festival from May 11-12 at the Toronto Reference Library.