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Issue 6, Volume 17 | June 2020

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Issue 210, spring 2020

New Spring Issue

Featuring Open Season Award winners Joshua Whitehead (creative nonfiction, "Who Names the Rez Dog Rez?"), Ajith Thangavelautham (fiction, "Moonbird"), and Patrick Grace (poetry, "A Violence"), as well as poetry by Manahil Bandukwala, Tania De Rozario, Ayaz Pirani, Christine Wu, Hollie Adams, Bradley Peters, Kevin Shaw, Rob Taylor, Judy LeBlanc, Melissa Spohr Weiss, Joseph Dandurand, Zhu Jian (translated by Yi Zhe), Zuo You (translated by Yi Zhe), Edward Carson, and Matthew Gwathmey; fiction by Emi Kodama, Emma Wunsch, and Rachel Jansen; creative nonfiction by Glen Downie and  Stephanie Harrington; reviews of books by Roy Miki, Sonnet L'Abbé, Armand Garnet Ruffo, Jan Zwicky, and more! "Hanging Moon" cover image by Jennilee Marigomen.

Buy now!

Winter Issue
Book Review

Synapses

Everyday moments that feel familiar are juxtaposed with the reality of someone you can never truly know, and everything in turn is uplifted with the occasional passage of existential thought or lyrical strength. Through the “literary snapshots” form of this book, the banal or boring details that make up life are interspersed with more exciting ones[.] The mind searches for and finds pleasing dialogic connections between the snapshots.

Read the full review by Ian MacLean on our website.


CanLit for Your Reading List

New and Noteworthy


Review space may be limited in our quarterly magazine, but we’re delighted to share this list of new Canadian books.

Read the full list of new and noteworthy Canadian titles.

CNF Contest Now Open!

Constance Rooke Creative Nonfiction Prize

Send us your personal essays, memoirs, narrative nonfiction, social commentary, travel writing, historical accounts, biography, and more! Deadline is August 1, 2020 at 11:59pm PDT. One winner will take home the $1000 (CAD) prize.

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 $15 CAD from anywhere, no limit!

This year's judge is Rowan McCandless. Read an interview with her below!

Full contest guidelines available on TMR's website.

Interview with Constance Rooke CNF Prize Judge, Rowan McCandless

Rowan McCandlessMalahat Review volunteer  Emma Skagen talks with the 2020 Constance Rooke CNF Prize contest judge about what she’s looking for in a winning piece, trusting the reader, and using a contest deadline as motivation.


ES: What do you hope to find in a winning piece of creative nonfiction? In your view, are there particular features that can make (or break) a CNF piece?

RM:  I’m trying not to go in with expectations. I can say that I’m drawn to writing that grabs me from the first sentence and doesn’t let go until the very end. I appreciate innovation whether it be in form or content. It’s not about a specific subject matter, but work that is compelling.

Particular features that can make a CNF piece: the attention given to language, and to form as well as content.

For me, what can break a CNF piece is overwriting—not trusting the reader to make connections and to find meaning in a piece. 

Read the rest of Rowan's interview on TMR's website.

Spring Issue Interview with Manahil Bandukwala on Poetry

Manahil BandukwalaMalahat Review poetry board member Jay Ruzesky talks with the issue #210 contributor about recognition, fighting against self-censoring, and the personal experience that inspired her poem. Read "To ride an art horse" in our spring issue #210.


JR: “To ride an art horse” is the first poem in The Malahat Review’s issue 210 and I think we’re lucky to have it. The poem was longlisted for the 2019 CBC Poetry Prize. Could you say something about what “recognition” means to you as a poet—is it important to be on that prize list or to publish poems in magazines you care about?

MB: Recognition is an interesting word to consider. I definitely feel as though I’ve gotten more attention since being on the CBC Poetry Prize longlist. For example, CBC featured my online reading for rob mclennan’s periodicities journal as part of their digital readings during Covid series. But that was also the first (and so far, only) prize I’ve paid to enter. While being on that prize list can help, getting on multiple prize lists can be somewhat inaccessible. But for magazines, charging entry fees for prizes is a way to generate subscriptions. Working behind the scenes on contests for both Arc Poetry Magazine and Canthius has shown how important those subscriptions are for a magazine’s survival.

This past year, I’ve gotten more work published in “dream” magazines, including The Malahat Review! Those recognitions have been super meaningful to me—seeing magazines that I really admire receive my work with so much enthusiasm is wonderful. I still have quite a bit of imposter syndrome when it comes to my writing, so that validation and recognition is a nice surprise to me.

Read the rest of Manahil's interview on TMR's website.

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