Deadline: November 1, 2013 (postmarked)
Prize: $1000 CAD in each of three categories
Entry fee:
$35 CAD for Canadian entries
$40 USD for entries from the USA
$45 USD for entries from elsewhere
(entry fee includes a one-year subscription to The Malahat Review)

Enter up to three poems (1oo lines each max.); one piece of short fiction (2500 words max.); OR one piece of creative nonfiction (2500 words max.)

Read full guidelines on our website.

In the Direction of the Unforeseen: PJ Grace in Conversation with Lisa Martin-DeMoor, winner of the 2013 Open Season Award for Poetry

PG: One year after winning The Malahat Review’s 2013 Open Season Award for Poetry, in what direction has your life taken you?

LMD: In the direction of the unforeseen. I'm back to teaching literature to university students for the first time since 2007. My daughter has just started kindergarten, and my two-year-old son is busy  discovering that words can be combined into declarations (also interrogations and exclamations) about himself and many other things. How to Expect What You're Not Expecting: Stories of Pregnancy, Parenthood, and Loss (the anthology I co-edited with Jessica Hiemstra) has just been released by Touchwood Editions. I'm working on a novel that deals with some of the same material (thematically) as “Believing is not the same as Being Saved,” the poem that won the Open Season Award. I'm blogging less frequently (at www.writerinresidence.ca). I'm still figuring out life as a person who is a mother and a writer—while standing, as we all do, on shifting ground.

Read the rest of Lisa's interview on our website.

The Landscape of Fiction: Stephanie Harrington in Conversation with Carmelinda Scian, winner of the 2013 Open Season Award for Fiction

SH: Judge Helen Humphreys had high praise for your winning entry last year, “The Butterfly First,” calling it a “poignant and memorable account of a young girl's encounter with the tragedy and hypocrisy of the adult world." How has winning this award affected your life and writing career?

CS: The prize has given me the confidence to seriously pursue my writing; it is an affirmation that what I have to say has some merit. Winning carried a double message for me: one, that others were interested in learning how a young girl processes the fear, pain, brutality, and hypocrisy she witnesses around her, prevalent in the dictatorship of Salazar. Secondly, that a highly successful author like Helen Humphreys and the much coveted Malahat Review found it so, was a most significant endorsement of my endeavours.

Read the rest of Carmelinda's interview on our website.

The Past Becomes Story: Karen Bannister in Conversation with Susan Buis, winner of the 2013 Open Season Award for Creative Nonfiction

KB: Your training as a poet has impacted your prose writing, and I can sense this when reading this story. In what ways might you say the reverse is true?

SB: Writing prose helps me combat the tendency to wordiness in my poetry, but one of the most effective and unexpected writing lessons came when I was assigned to teach business and technical writing—which I had no training in at all. So I read a few textbooks, stayed a few steps ahead of the students, and the lessons really improved the grammar and concision of my own writing, although for creative writing, the technical voice has to be reined in.

Read the rest of Susan's interview on our website.

Laura Legge's story, "It's Raining in Paris" was published in issue #181, Winter 2012, and was nominated for the 2013 Writers' Trust / McClelland & Stewart Journey Prize. Malahat volunteer Heike Lettrari interviewed Laura on her JP-nominated story.

HL: Thanks for agreeing to be interviewed again! It’s with excitement that I ask: How do you feel regarding your recent Journey Prize nomination, and what difference has this made for your writing life?

LL: You remember that scene in Back to the Future where Doc slowly reveals the DeLorean to Marty McFly, who stands with his mouth open while the beautiful car rolls back through the cloud of smoke? A bit like that. It’s awesome to have something like this to tell my family, who are very nurturing.

Read the rest of Laura's interview on our website.

Naben Ruthnum's story, "Cinema Rex" appeared in issue #179, Summer 2012 and won our 2012 Novella Prize. His story has been named a finalist for the 2013 Writers' Trust / McClelland & Stewart Journey Prize. Malahat volunteer and contributor Kris Bertin interviewed Naben on his JP-nominated story.

KB: First of all, allow me to say congratulations to you, sir. Not only did “Cinema Rex” (narrowly) beat out some of the greatest novellas ever written and win the prestigious Malahat Review Novella Contest, it has now been nominated for the Journey Prize. Is your family finally able to be proud of you, or will you need to achieve even greater triumphs for this to happen?

NR: My family wants to see me making a good living, and probably married, but they’ve enjoyed the whole writing thing quite a bit. The Ruthnum household was nice and bookish, and still is—I could usually locate any author I’d read a reference to somewhere on the parental shelves. They’ll be pleased to add Journey Prize Stories 25 to those shelves, even if my mother is now irritatingly Kindle-loyal.

Read the rest of Naben's interview on our website.