Issues

No. 226 Spring 2024

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Cover · Contents · Book Reviews · Contributor Notes

Issue 226 cover art by Ibrahim Abusitta

Contents:

Cover
  • Ibrahim Abusitta
    Head Space 33, 2020
    Acrylic on panel
    12" x 9"
    Private collection, courtesy of the artist; photo by the artist

Winners:
2024
Open Season Awards

Poetry
  • Nicole Boyce, "Varsity"
  • Weyman Chan, "Dear Earth: Having One of You Just Isn't Enough" and "Bandwidth Parity between Earth & Kin"
  • Laurie D. Graham, "Heirlooms" and "Gossip"
  • Iqra Khan, "Redacted Ghazal"
  • S. A. Leger, "Skepticism as saviour"
  • Shane Neilson, from The Dialectical Behaviour Therapy Skills Workbook, "The unforgetting," "How to lose the audience," and "Miss Smooth Face"
  • Teresa Ott, "Still Life with White Toyota Corolla"
  • Meredith Quartermain, "Botanical Key," "A Miraculous Platter," and "Living Room"
  • Meghan Reyda-Molnar, "I Buried the Chickens in a Pit in My Backyard," "Blue, Blue, Blue," and "Eden"
    Read an interview with Meghan Reyda-Molnar on their poems.
  • Tazi Rodrigues, "family traditions" and "vermicomposting"
    Read an interview with Tazi Rodrigues on her poems.
  • Anya Smith, "Don Quixote Spits on the Theory of Relativity in a Luxury Spa Collider"
  • Misha Solomon, "Belongings," "Belongings III," and "ERNEST <3 KR(ubin)YSTYNA; or, A Whole Life"

Fiction
Creative Nonfiction
  • Daniel Allen Cox, "Unfixable"

Reviews
  • Poetry

  • Nasser Hussain, Love Language
    (Toronto: Coach House Books, 2023)
    (Reviewed by Jolene Loveday)

    Patrick James Errington, the swailing
    (Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2023)
    (Reviewed by Rebecca Rogerson)

    Maureen Hynes, Take the Compass
    (Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2023)
    (Reviewed by Rhea Tregebov)

    Hologram: Homage to P. K. Page, edited by Yvonne Blomer and DC Reid
    (Qualicum Beach: Caitlin Press, 2023)
    (Reviewed by Carol Matthews)

    Fiction

  • Chava Rosenfarb, In the Land of the Postscript: The Complete Short Stories of Chava Rosenfarb, translated by Goldie Morgentaler
    (Amherst, MA: White Goat Press, 2023)
    (Reviewed by Isa Milman)

  • Frances Peck, Uncontrolled Flight
    (Edmonton: NeWest Press, 2023)
    (Reviewed by Janet Pollock Millar)

  • Nonfiction

  • Nicholas Dawson, House within a House, translated by D. M. Bradford
    (Kingston: Brick Books, 2023)
    (Reviewed by L'Amour Lisik)

  • M. A. C. Farrant, Jigsaw: A Puzzle in Ninety-Three Pieces
    (Vancouver: Talonbooks, 2023)
    (Reviewed by Rhonda Batchelor)

  • Mentionables

  • Joshua Whitehead, Indigiqueerness: A Conversation about Storytelling
    (Athabaska: Athabaska UP, 2023)

    Sandra Ridley, Vixen
    (Toronto: Book*hug, 2023)

    (All reviewed by Book Reviews Editor Jay Ruzesky)

Contributor Notes
    IBRAHIM ABUSITTA, a Palestinian artist based in Toronto, studied Fine Art Photography at the Ontario College of Art & Design before transitioning to selftaught painting. His art weaves a tapestry of concepts, including colour, texture, memory, and time. www.ibrahimabusitta.com Instagram: @ibrahim.abusitta

    RHONDA BATCHELOR is the author of four collections of poetry, most recently Allow Me (2021). She was a long-time Assistant Editor and Reviews Editor at The Malahat Review before retirement. She lives in Victoria.

    DOMINIQUE BERNIER-CORMIER is a Québécois/Acadian poet. He has won The Fiddlehead’s Ralph Gustafson Prize and Arc Poetry’s Poem of the Year Award and been a finalist for a National Magazine Award. His second book, Entre Rive and Shore (2023), explores bilingualism and Acadian identity. Instagram: @dberniercormier Twitter/X: @DBernierCormier

    NICOLE BOYCE’s writing has appeared in CV2, EVENT, The Fiddlehead, Grain, Prairie Fire, Riddle Fence, Best Canadian Essays, and Not That Bad: Dispatches from Rape Culture. She received her MFA from UBC’s Creative Writing Program. nicoleboycewrites.com

    JODY CHAN, a writer, drummer, community organizer, and care worker based in Toronto/Tkaronto, is the author of sick (winner of the 2021 Trillium Award for Poetry) and impact statement (2024). www.jodychan.com Instagram: @jodyr.chan

    WEYMAN CHAN, winner of the 2021 Latner Poetry Prize, and finalist for the 2008 Governor General’s Award for his second book of poetry, Noise from the Laundry, is a settler on Treaty 7 territory in Mohkinstsis (Calgary), AB. His sixth book of poetry is Witness Back at Me: mis-mothering & transmigration (2022).

    CORINNA CHONG lives, writes, and teaches on unceded Syilx/Okanagan territory (Kelowna, BC). She has published a collection of short stories, The Whole Animal (2023); her second novel, Bad Land, will be released in Fall 2024. corinnachong.com Instagram: @corinnaschong Twitter/X: @corinnaschong

    ALDYN CHWELOS is a writer/journalist living on Lək̓ʷəŋən territory in Victoria, BC. Their work has been published in Canadian Geographic and Hakai Magazine. Twitter/X: @AChwelos

    DYLAN CLARK was born in Victoria, BC on the unceded lands of the W̱SáNEć, T’Souke, Klallam, and Lək̓ʷəŋən Peoples. He studied writing and history at the University of Victoria and is currently studying community planning at UBC. Twitter: @Tytouras_Albast

    DANIEL ALLEN COX is the author of four novels and I Felt the End Before It Came: Memoirs of a Queer Ex-Jehovah’s Witness, shortlisted for the Grand Prix du livre de Montréal and named a Publishers Weekly Best Book of 2023. His essays have been recognized by the National Magazine Awards, Best Canadian Essays, and Best American Essays. danielallencox.net Instagram: @danielallencox

    BILL GASTON’s forthcoming collection of linked stories, Gavel Island, includes “Jack’s Christmas Dinner.” Also forthcoming is a third memoir, Spying on America from Heaven. He lives and waits with his partner, writer Dede Crane, on Gabriola Island.

    LAURIE D. GRAHAM grew up near amiskwaciwâskahikan and lives in Nogojiwanong. She is a poet, editor, and publisher of Brick magazine. Her most recent book, Fast Commute (2023), was nominated for Ontario’s Trillium Award for Poetry. lauriedgraham.ca Substack: lauriedgraham.substack.com

    IQRA KHAN, winner of the Frontier Global Poetry Prize 2022 and the 2024 Disquiet Prize in Poetry, is a Pushcart-nominated poet, activist, and lawyer. Her work is centred on collective nostalgia and the aspirations of her endangered community. Instagram: @iqrak_27 Twitter/X: @Iqra_K_

    S. A. LEGER is a Best of the Net and Pushcart Prize-nominated writer from Newfoundland. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in The Hopkins Review, Conduit, Storm Cellar, Fourteen Hills, and Dunes Review, among others. Instagram: @sa_leger Twitter/X: @SA_Leger

    L’AMOUR LISIK is a queer writer of Chinese Mauritian/Scottish settler descent who lives on the unceded territory of the Lək̓ʷəŋən Peoples. She works as Managing Editor for The Malahat Review and Associate Prose Editor for Plenitude Magazine.

    JOLENE LOVEDAY is a writer, educator, and MFA candidate at Antioch University in Los Angeles. She lives on the unceded, ancestral territory of the xʷməθkʷəəm (Musqueam), Sḵwwú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations.

    CAROL MATTHEWS has published a collection of short stories and five works of literary nonfiction. She lives in Nanaimo. caroljmatthews.wordpress.com

    ISA MILMAN is the author of three collections of poetry, each a winner of the Helen & Stan Vine Canadian Jewish Book Award. Afterlight: In Search of Poetry, History and Home (2021) was a finalist for memoir in the National Jewish Book Awards (New York). isamilman.com

    SHANE NEILSON is a poet, physician, and critic from New Brunswick. In 2025, he will publish The Reign, an epic poem about a deer and an intellectually disabled man. Instagram: @sneilsonwwh Twitter/X: @Sneilsonwwh

    TERESA OTT is an American-Canadian poet and the recipient of the 2023 Joyce Carol Oates Award in Poetry, the 2022 Poetry London Prize, and a 2021 Canada Council for the Arts grant. Her poems have appeared in many Canadian and US magazines.

    JANET POLLOCK MILLAR is a writer and educator living on Lək̓ʷəŋən territory in Victoria, BC. Her work has appeared in Herizons, Prairie Fire, This Magazine, Pangyrus, and The Malahat Review. She works in the Writing Centre at Camosun College. Linked In: Janet Pollock

    MEREDITH QUARTERMAIN’s poetry books include Lullabies in the Real World (2020), Vancouver Walking (winner of the 2006 Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize), Nightmarker (2008), Matter (2008), and Recipes from the Red Planet (2010).

    MEGHAN REYDA-MOLNAR is a queer settler living on Lək̓ʷəŋən land, though they were raised on Treaty Six territory (Saskatoon). They recently received their undergraduate degree in chemical oceanography from the University of Victoria. Instagram: @meghanmolnar

    TAZI RODRIGUES is a writer and biologist, and a second-generation settler from Winnipeg living on the unceded land of the Anishinabe Algonquin Nation. Her chapbook I Followed the Coasts appeared in 2021. tazirodrigues.carrd.co

    REBECCA ROGERSON is a poet and essayist. Born and raised in northern Alberta, she now resides on Lək̓ʷəŋən territory, in Victoria, BC.

    ANYA SMITH is a passionate reader and writer living in beautiful Squamish, BC.

    MISHA SOLOMON is a homosexual poet in and of Tiohtià:ke/Montréal and author of two chapbooks, FLORALS (2020) and Full Sentences (2022). He has work in Best Canadian Poetry 2024, Antigonish Review, The Fiddlehead, Grain, and PRISM International. Instagram: @mishasolomon

    RHEA TREGEBOV’s eighth collection of poetry, Talking to Strangers, has just been published. She lives and writes in Vancouver. rheatregebov.ca