Deadline: November 1, 2014 (postmarked)
Prize: $3,000 over three categories (poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction)
Entry fee:
$35 CAD for Canadian entries
$40 USD for entries from the USA
$45 USD for entries from elsewhere
Additional entries are $15 CAD (from anywhere).
The Open Season contest is in full swing! Send us your best poetry, fiction, and/or creative nonfiction by November 1. With $3,000 in prizes, it's no wonder this is our most popular contest all year!
Did you know you can submit entries online?
Read full contest guidelines on the Malahat website.
Jan Conn, Poetry Judge
Malahat books reviewer Phoebe Wang talks with Jan Conn, poetry judge for the 2015 Open Season Awards, about creativity, translation, and the ties between art and science (yes, it exists!).
PW: In a recent interview with Canadian Literature, you spoke about being on the road to the edges of knowledge in your poetry. And in your poem, “A Life Unlived Any Other Way,” you write, “At the edge of the edge I pause. // The Renaissance did not reach/every corner of the globe.” It’s easy for young people to feel like everything has already been explored or discovered. How might younger poets explore new roads and to be astonished?
JC: Creativity and discovery can go in any direction, but I think a valuable thing to do is to get off a path/road/edge altogether, and explore what feels fresh, unusual, new. It’s not really possible to be proscriptive. What I do is keep my eyes open, focused on my immediate environment and on the present as much as possible, read and read poetry and lots of other things that fascinate or excite me, look hard at stimulating art, travel, and ask questions. I’m very curious.
Read the rest of this interview on the Malahat website.
Cynthia Flood, Fiction Judge
Malahat volunteer and past contributor Cody Klippenstein talks with Cynthia Flood, fiction judge for the 2015 Open Season Awards. Flood discusses literary influences, the do's and dont's of fiction, and the need to be fearless when writing.
CK: In one of your past interviews about your latest story collection, Red Girl, Rat Boy, you mentioned that your ideal reader prefers to work themselves between the lines rather than being handed the literary equivalent of a grocery list. I like that. As a reader, then, what do you look for in a great piece of fiction? What makes a story sing for you?
CF: Suppose that in the early paragraphs fig-tree and spoil and gave the alarm turn up. When bloom rotting deafened appear, later on, patterns start to form, like those in a piece of weaving on the loom. Some readers will now stay alert for related words and phrases, to enjoy how they amplify the pattern, but even readers who don’t consciously pick up on such elements can experience something of the design’s quality.
Read the rest of this interview on the Malahat website.
David Carpenter, Creative Nonfiction Judge
Malahat volunteer Heike Lettrari talks with David Carpenter, creative nonfiction judge for the 2015 Open Season Awards, about the writing life and what he's looking for in submissions for this year's contest.
HL: What’s your take on writing contests, their value, their ubiquity today? We’ve certainly seen many emerging writers comment on how important contests have been for launching their careers; what are your thoughts, given your unique, longer-term perspective on writing in Canada?
DC: For me, writing almost every day in my study is an enormous gift. Even on bad days I love it. Anything that can help writers out, any form of encouragement from out there, from people who aren't their spouses or their mothers, is to be cherished. Contests are a way of getting your work read by complete strangers who, much of the time, are seasoned professionals. The contests challenge you to extend yourself.
Read the rest of this interview on the Malahat website.
This summer, Malahat poetry board member Jay Ruzesky was able to commandeer the Prime Minister's office in the parliament buildings in Ottawa for an afternoon. There, by a roaring fire to keep out the summer chill, he sat down with this year's Far Horizons Poetry Award Winner, Laura Ritland.
JR: Let's pretend you just won the Rogers Open instead of the Malahat Review's Far Horizons Award for Poetry. How are you feeling about the win and what was it about your competitiveness that got you through the semi-finals to triumph in the championship?
LR: After finding out about the news, I was in dead shock for the first 15 minutes, wildly ecstatic for 30 minutes, desperately nervous for several weeks, and now mostly thankful and happy. Competitiveness…hmm. This is the first magazine prize I’ve entered and for a while I was trying to talk myself out of entering it! I have a thing with rejection.
Read the rest of this interview on the Malahat website.
