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Issue 9, Volume 16 | September 2019

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Issue 207, Summer 2019

New Summer Issue

Featuring Long Poem Prize contest winners "Weight" by Erin Soros and "Cold Dying Black Wet Cold Early Thing" by John Elizabeth Stintzi, as well as other poetry by Ugonna-Ora Owoh, Shannon Quinn, Geneviève Paiement, Graeme Bezanson, Hamish Ballantyne, Matt Robinson, Shen Haobo & Liang Yujing, Mandy Gutmann-Gonzalez, Grzegorz Wróblewski & Piotr Gwiazda, and Linda Ann Strang; fiction by Sasha Penn & Joanne Rixon and Liz Harmer; creative nonfiction by Darrel J. McLeod, Danny Jacobs, and Matthew Porges.

Buy now from TMR's site


Last Chance for Summer Sale!

Summer Subscription Sale


Looking for something to read on your summer travels or in your backyard? Treat your friends, family, or yourself to a $15 one-year print subscription to The Malahat Review! This offer expires on the last day of summer—September 23.

Buy a $15 subscription today on our store website.


Kai Conradi Shortlisted for Journey Prize

Kai Conradi


Congratulations to Kai Conradi, one of three finalists for the 2019 Journey Prize! Kai's story, "Every True Artist," appeared in our Issue #204.

Read more about the Journey Prize finalists on the Writers' Trust website.


Our Back Pages Issue 192

Issue 192


Malahat Review
volunteer and past editor Jay Ruzeskysummarizes 2015's Autumn issue, which features work by Mark Rogers, Sina Queyras, J.R. McConvey, Jan Conn, Bardia Sinaee, Magie Dominic, and more.

Read more and buy Issue #192 here.

Now Accepting Entries!

Open Season Awards 2020

Entry fee (comes with a one-year print subscription):
$35 CAD for Canadian entries
$40 USD for entries from the USA
$45 USD for entries from elsewhere

Additional entries cost just $10 CAD each, no limit!

Do whatever it takes to win this year's BIG prize: three awards of $2000! Our annual Open Season Contest is underway, and writers of all levels are invited to enter poetry, fiction, and/or creative nonfiction. There's no theme or specific criteria for this contest, so simply send us your best work.

Final judges are A. Light Zachary (poetry), Francesca Ekwuyasi (fiction), and Tess Liem (creative nonfiction).

Read interviews with all three judges below!

Full contest guidelines available on our website.

 

Open Season Awards: Interviews with the Judges

A. Light Zachary - Poetry Judge

A. Light ZacharyMalahat Review volunteer Lauren Korn talks with the Open Season Awards poetry judge about their editorial work, writing a poem vs. an essay, and the value of simple truths expressed in new ways.

LK: As a judge, what will you be looking for in the contest’s prize-winning poetry? As a reader, what makes you cringe?

ALZ: I feel exhausted by poems which presume to know a great deal about the world and speak in sweeping generalities upon The State Of Things, or which otherwise appear to be written from a perspective of intellectual superiority. I am most drawn to new ways in which simple truths can be expressed.

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

 

Francesca Ekwuyasi - Fiction Judge

Francesca EkwuyasiMalahat Review volunteer Paul Monfette talks with the Open Season Awards fiction judge about stories that linger in your psyche, using themes as writing prompts, and prioritizing reading the works of Black Femmes.

PM: Sometimes I gear my writing toward a particular contest I am entering. Do you ever write with a specific contest in mind that you may be entering? What are you looking for in a winning entry for this contest?

FE: I tend to gear my writing more towards particular themes from lit journals rather than contests. I do this because themes can work as pretty brilliant writing prompts, and I love a good prompt. Whenever there's a contest I'm interested in, my main goal is to try and stay within the word limit as I tend to be a bit longwinded with my short stories!

For this contest, I'm looking to be moved. I want to feel something. I want to read alive sentences and feel viscerally immersed in the story. I'm interested in being haunted, not necessarily in a frightening way, but in the sense that the story lingers in my psyche long after I've finished reading.

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

 

Tess Liem - CNF Judge

Tess LiemMalahat Review volunteer Brandon Teigland talks with the Open Season Awards creative nonfiction judge about restraint, trusting your reader, and exploring different modes of writing.

BT: What would you say your best attribute is as a writer? Will this attribute be what you’re looking for from the winning entry in your respective category?

TL: Without certainty, I would say I exercise a lot of restraint. This, of course, can be a shortcoming too because I delete a lot, or sometimes don’t even give a thought the chance to be expressed in writing. But I do think it is helpful, when you have to edit your own work, to be comfortable letting things go unsaid—to trust your reader and the words you keep in the final draft—or  to be able to say I love this sentence or element, but it belongs in another piece. What I’ll be looking for is someone being themself, exploring a topic through a frame that belongs to them, because something like restraint or any other attribute that I might deem good can read so many different ways depending on the writer.

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

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