Is this email not displaying correctly? View it in your browser.

Issue 1, Volume 20 | January 2023

Facebook
Twitter
Instagram
Issue 221, winter 2022

upcoming winter issue

Featuring Constance Rooke Creative Nonfiction Prize winner Andréa Ledding.

Cover art by Bracken Hanuse Corlett.

Poetry
by Ashleigh A. Allen, Elizabeth Bachinsky, Laura Carter, Patrick Grace, Danielle Hubbard, Ashley Kunsa, Y. S. Lee, Steve McOrmond, Khashayar "Kess" Mohammadi, Peter O'Donovan, Ana Pedraja (translated by Travis Price and Leroy Gutiérrez), Bradley Peters, Catherine St. Denis, and Owen Torrey.

Fiction by Richard Downing, Anita Harag (translated by Walter Burgess and Marietta Morry), Joanne John, Oscar Martens, Corinne Stikeman, and Barbara Tran.

Creative nonfiction
by Byron Armstrong and Emily McKibbon.

Buy now.

Only 2 weeks left to submit!

Long Poem Prize contest banner

Our biennial contest is back! Send us your cycle of poems, your muti-part poems, and your too-long-to-submit-anywhere-else poems. Deadline is February 1, 2023.

This year's judges:
Bertrand Bickersteth
Jennifer Lynn Still (read an interview with her here)

Entry fee (includes a 1-yr print sub):
$35 CAD for each entry from Canada
$45 CAD for each entry from elsewhere
$15 CAD for each additional entry, no limit

Full contest guidelines on our website.

Joanne John, issue #221 fiction contributor

Joanne JohnPrevious contributor Rachel Lachmansingh talks with the winter issue #221 contributor about building on an opening idea, stopping when you feel a piece is done, and exploring the mother/daughter dynamic in her story, "Tasting Colour."

 

RL: What was your inspiration behind writing about pica?

JJ: First off, I wanted to write a story about a woman who’s labeled as “crazy” partly because she sees the world through her unique prism, one full of colours. Also, I had learned about pica during one of my pregnancies, how it drove some people, pregnant women included, to eat things not usually seen as food. I decided to incorporate the disorder into the story as the Mother’s way of internalizing colour, by eating chalk.

RL: The relationship between mother and child in your story is especially poignant. What was your experience writing this dynamic?

JJ: I’m always fascinated by different experiences of the mother/daughter dynamic. I wanted this story to explore how our mothers, however flawed they might have been, can leave us with powerful memories and feelings of connection.

RL: “Tasting Colour” is an impressively compact piece. How do you approach writing such short fiction?

JJ: I suppose I approach all writing with an opening idea or concept, whether poetry, plays or short fiction, then I build on it as I write hoping it all gels together. In this case, I wrote the first sentence a couple of years ago then sat down one evening and started writing until I was finished the first draft. Of course, I went back at it a few times afterwards until I had a draft I felt was done.

Read the rest of Joanne John's interview as well as a short excerpt.


To unsubscribe from our mailing list, CLICK HERE, scroll to the bottom of the page, and type in your email address beside the box labelled "Unsubscribe or edit options."