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Issue #186

Issue Date: April 2014
Editors: John Barton
Pages: 112
Number of contributors: 28

Buy Issue 186: Print Edition


Cover of issue #186

This issue features the 2014 Open Season Award Winners, with work by some vital writers in poetry, short fiction, and creative nonfiction, as well as works by established authors, each reminding us why we love literature that transports and transforms. Notably, the cover photo from Holly Pattison, House in Fairfield, Victoria, B.C., reflects the memory of Terence Young’s memoir, “Home Again.”

Joelle Barron’s “A Girl Like This Might Have Loved Glenn Gould” won in the Open Season poetry category, and is included in her current book, Ritual Lights (Icehouse, 2018), which earned a spot on the 2018-2019 Gerald Lampert Memorial Award longlist. Tajja Isen’s story, “The Anxiety of Influence,” wins a well-deserved Open Season fiction prize, revealing another aspect of a multi-talented artist and scholar. Currently an Editorial Fellow with the Walrus, her work also appears in journals and magazines across the country. “Ten Easy Steps,” the Open Season Award creative nonfiction winner by Kelly Cooper, organizes the process of grief with wit and compassion. She also recently won the 2019 Alice Kitts Memorial Award for Excellence in Children’s Writing, for her first children’s book, If a Horse Had Words.

The non-contest pieces are equally astounding, as they transport the reader through the layered emotional textures of each writer’s experience. Amy Jones’ “Die Young” preceded her award-winning 2016 novel We’re All In This Together, which won the  Northern Lit Award and was a finalist for the Leacock Medal for Humour. “Mercy Beatrice Wrestles the Noose,” by K’ari Fisher (her first published work), goes on to win the Jack Hodgins Founders’ award the following year, as well as a nomination for the 2015 Writers' Trust of Canada/McClelland & Stewart Journey Prize. This issue’s established poets are all going strong: Deanna Young has recently been named Ottawa’s Poet Laureate; the CBC and The Walrus named Michael Prior’s Model Disciple, published in 2016, one of the best books of the year; and A. F. Moritz, with over 20 published poetry books, has a new collection out now titled The Sparrow.

—Stephen Leckie