Stone known for her unique brand of teaching

David Lipson
Senior Reporter

Kyle Stone, a 47-year-old Humber magazine instructor, freelance journalist, and filmmaker, died on June 8 from Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, a rare brain disorder.
Stone was known among students for her approachability and stream of consciousness lectures.
“It was a bit all over the place, and I mean that in a nice way,” said former student Ryan Glassman.  “She would teach everything she could.”
Tony Esteves, Stone’s partner of 24 years, said she was an “old-school” investigative journalist who “believed that if you told the truth about something, you could change things.”
Stone encouraged her students to go out, explore, and uncover issues.
Esteves described her teaching style as “hardcore”; she demanded full attention from her students.  
Glassman remembers her kicking a student out of class for being on Facebook.  She was also known to lock the door on late stragglers.
“She was really something,” said Mike Karapita, accelerated journalism program coordinator.  “She had a unique perspective on life in Canada because she wasn’t born here.”
Stone humourously explored her affluent Westchester, NY childhood in Neighbours, a 2002 article published in GRANTA magazine.
“Bedord Hills,” she wrote.  “A town of golf courses so green they looked fertilized by dollar bills is where my doting father used to take me so I could get on horses and fall off.”
But for the remainder of her life, she grinded it out as freelance journalist, contributing to Harper’s Magazine, Toronto Life, and Eye Weekly.
“What she got, she did herself,” said Esteves, who met Stone while they attended the University of Toronto in the early ‘80s.   “She knew what life was like from the bottom up, she knew how difficult life was for people, and she always tried to stick up for the underdog.”
Stone focused on filmmaking for the last years of her life.  She was completing a documentary on Ethiopian music when she passed away.
She called her CJD diagnosis a “bad script.”
“She was funny to the last”, said Esteves.  “Even if it was just one word when people were visiting, it would be the right word.  And sometime she would be too hip for the room.”