Issues

No. 221 Winter 2022

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Cover · Contents · Book Reviews · Contributor Notes

Issue 221 cover art by Bracken Hanuse Corlett

Contents:

Winner:
2022
Constance Rooke Creative Nonfiction Prize

  • Andréa Ledding, "Define Intervention"
Poetry
  • Ashleigh A. Allen, "We all have moments"
  • Patrick Grace, "The Calling," "fullblown," and "soft stalker"
  • Catherine St. Denis, "Five Years after Joe Overdosed on Fentanyl" and "A Mnemonic for Desire"
  • Laura Carter, "How (a) Word Feels" and "After (the) great sex begins"
  • Ashley Kunsa, "Purple Loosestrife"
  • Peter O'Donovan, "Spiral"
  • Ana Pedraja, "Suburban School"
    translated by Travis Price and Leroy Gutiérrez
  • Khashayar "Kess" Mohammadi, "psychotic notebook 9" and "psychotic notebook 20"
  • Read an interview with them on their poems.
  • Bradley Peters, "Postcards from Inside the Machine"
  • Owen Torrey, "CV"
  • Steve McOrmond, "Bungalows," "Balcony," and "Construction Workers"
  • Elizabeth Bachinsky, "Paperclip" and "The Tayberry"
  • Y. S. Lee, "Kueh Bangket"
  • Danielle Hubbard, "Minus twenty"
Fiction
Creative Nonfiction
  • Emily McKibbon, "Light and Shadow: One Painting, Two Lives"
  • Byron Armstrong, "Seat at the Table"
Reviews
  • Poetry

  • Anneharte, Miskwagoode
    (Vancouver: New Star, 2022)
    (Reviewed by Shannon Webb-Campbell)

    Gillian Jerome, Nevertheless: Walking Poems
    (Gibsons: Nightwood, 2022)
    (Reviewed by Michael Kenyon)

    Beth Goobie, Lookin' for Joy
    (Holstein, ON: Exile Editions, 2022)
    (Reviewed by Laura Stephenson)

    Fiction

  • Dan K. Woo, Taobao
    (Hamilton: Wolsak and Wynn, 2022)
    (Reviewed by Susan Sanford Blades)

  • Douglas Coupland, Binge
    (Toronto: Random House, 2021)
    (Reviewed by Eli K. P. William)

  • Jocelyne Saucier, And Miles to Go Before I Sleep, translated by Rhonda Mullins
    (Toronto: Coach House, 2021)
    (Reviewed by Kate Kennedy)

  • Anne Lardeux, The Second Substance, translated by Pablo Strauss
    (Toronto: Coach House, 2022)
    (Reviewed by Marisa Grizenko)

  • Mentionables

  • Nicole Yunger Halpern, Quantum Steampunk
    (Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2022)

    Ken Norris and Bruce Whiteman, Reading Wide and Deep: The Canadian Long Poem (A Conversation)
    (Peterborough: Poets & Painters Press, 2022)

    Maleea Acker, Hesitating Once to Feel Glory
    (Gibsons: Nightwood, 2022)

    Mark Anthony Jarman, Touch Anywhere to Begin
    (Fredericton: Goose Lane, 2022)

    River Halen, Dream Rooms
    (Toronto: Book*hug, 2022)

    (All reviewed by Book Reviews Editor Jay Ruzesky)

Cover
  • Bracken Hanuse Corlett, The Drop, 2022
    Digital drawing
  • Collection of the artist
Contributor Notes
    ASHLEIGH A. ALLEN is a poet, writer, researcher, and educator in Tkaronto. She is currently a doctoral candidate in Curriculum and Pedagogy at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education. Her poetry has recently appeared in The Dalhousie Review, Fourteen Hills, and PRISM international.

    BYRON ARMSTRONG is a Toronto‐based freelance journalist and emerging writer whose literary work has also been published in Heavy Feather Review. The recipient of a Toronto Arts Council grant, he is working on his first novel.

    ELIZABETH BACHINSKY is the author of five books of poetry, including Home of Sudden Service (2006), nominated for a Governor Generalʹs Award. She lives and works on the unceded lands of the Coast Salish Peoples, in cluding the íə (Katzie), qʼʷa:ƛʼən̓ (Kwantlen), kʷikʷəəm (Kwikwetlem), xʷməθkʷəəm (Musqueam), and qiq éyt (Qayqayt) First Nations. She teaches creative writing at Douglas College. Her next book of poems is forthcoming with Nightwood Editions.

    WALTER BURGESS and MARIETTA MORRY live in Ottawa and translate fiction from Hungarian, including work by Gábor T. Szántó, Péter Moesko, Anita Harag, and Zsófia Czakó. Their translations have appeared in literary magazines in Canada and the United States.

    LAURA CARTER is a writer and teacher in Atlanta, GA, where she finished her MFA in 2007.

    RICHARD DOWNING has received awards/recognition from the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, New Delta Review, Boston Review, Gemini, Press 53, and Solstice. His work appears in Arts & Letters, Dire Elegies, and Prime Number. He is an activist concerned with preserving what’s left of our wild lands and fostering dogs.

    PATRICK GRACE’s poem, “fullblown,” in this issue, was a finalist for The Malahat Review’s Far Horizons Award for Poetry. New poems also appear in Pinhole Poetry, Columba, and Best Canadian Poetry, and his second chapbook is now out. He lives on unceded Coast Salish lands. Instagram: @marry.me.jtt

    MARISA GRIZENKO lives and works in Vancouver, on the unceded territory of the Squamish, Musqueam, and Tsleil‐Waututh Nations. She is the reviews editor for EVENT and writes Plain Pleasures, a monthly newsletter about books.

    BRACKEN HANUSE CORLETT is an interdisciplinary artist hailing from the Wuikinuxv and Klahoose Nations. His practice fuses painting and drawing with digital media, audio‐visual performance, animation, and narrative. He has exhibited, performed, and screened his work locally and internationally and received public art commissions in a handful of cities and territories. Instagram: @wuulhu

    ANITA HARAG was born in Budapest. She has an undergraduate degree in literature and ethnology and a graduate degree in India Studies. Her collection Rather Cool for the Time of Year, from which the story in this issue comes, won the 2020 Margó Prize, awarded to the best first‐time author.

    DANIELLE HUBBARD’s poetry has appeared in The Fiddlehead, Grain, Geist, and The Antigonish Review. She works as the Director of Public Services for the Okanagan Regional Library, based in Kelowna.

    JOANNE JOHN’s work ranges from playwriting to poetry. Her monologues have been performed at the AfriCanadian Playwrights Conference and the Harbourfront Festival. Her new play Puzzles, featured in the 2022 Ottawa Fringe Festival, has been nominated for four Prix Rideau Awards, including Best New Creation. She lives in Ottawa.

    KATE KENNEDY is a poet, editor, and reviewer. Originally from Lillooet, BC, she now lives in Victoria.

    MICHAEL KENYON is the author of several books of poetry and fiction. He lives in Victoria.

    ASHLEY KUNSA’s recent poetry appears or is forthcoming in Massachusetts Review, Bennington Review, Barrow Street, and Cream City Review. Originally from Pittsburgh, PA, she is Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at Rocky Mountain College in Billings, Montana, where she lives with her family.

    ANDRÉA LEDDING is a freelance photojournalist, poet, playwright, editor, communications specialist, and mother of seven adult kids. She resides in Saskatoon, homeland of the Métis and Treaty 6 Territory. Her play Dominion has been performed in Toronto (2014) and Saskatoon (2017). Her writing has previously been shortlisted for The Malahat Review’s Far Horizons Award for Poetry, a CBC Literary Prize, and other literary contests.

    Y. S. LEE is an emerging poet whose work appears or is forthcoming in Rattle, the Literary Review of Canada, EVENT, the Australian Book Review, and other journals. “Tek tek,” a lyric essay, was shortlisted for the 2022 CBC Nonfiction Prize. Her fiction includes the critically acclaimed YA mystery series The Agency, which has been translated into six languages.

    OSCAR MARTENS has been nominated many times for awards such as a National Magazine Award, a Western Magazine Award, and The Journey Prize. His publications include two collections of stories, The Girl with the Full Figure Is Your Daughter (2002) and No Call Too Small (2020).

    EMILY MCKIBBON is a Hamilton‐born, Toronto‐based writer and curator. Her writing has been published in Canadian Art, C Magazine, PRISM international, Room Magazine, The New Quarterly, and elsewhere. She is currently working on a project about childlessness in art and in the lives of artists. See also francesthomas.ca.

    STEVE MCORMOND is the author of four books of poetry, most recently Reckon (2018). Born in Nova Scotia and raised on Prince Edward Island, he lives in the Yonge and Eglinton Construction Hub in midtown Toronto. Twitter: @Steve_McOrmond

    KHASHAYAR “KESS” MOHAMMADI is an Iranian‐born, Toronto‐based writer, poet, and translator. Their new book of poetry WJD has just appeared in a double volume with their translation of Saeed Tavanaee Marvi’s The OceanDweller. Instagram: @dearkestrel

    PETER O’DONOVAN is a scientist and writer originally from Saskatchewan, now living in Seattle. He has a PhD in Computer Science and Graphic Design from the University of Toronto. He received the Southern Poetry Review’s 2022 Guy Owen Prize; his poetry has appeared in New Ohio Review, Atlanta Review, River Heron Review, and elsewhere.

    ANA PEDRAJA, born in Canelones, Uruguay, lives in Montevideo and studies at the Facultad de Bellas Artes. An Afro‐descendant and antiracist artist, performer, poet, educator, and activist, she is a member of the artists’ collectives 10 de cada 10 and Hermosa Intervención. Instagram: @pedrajaanalaura

    BRADLEY PETERS is an emerging writer from Mission, BC. His work has appeared in several magazines and been shortlisted for several awards. In 2019 he won the Short Grain Poetry Contest.

    TRAVIS PRICEis a fiction writer and translator whose work has appeared in Hobart, Massachusetts Review, Tupelo Quarterly, and pioneertown. After completing a Fulbright in Uruguay in 2018, he attended the Bread Loaf Translators’ Conference and has since translated the work of several Uruguayan authors. Instagram: @travis.s.price Twitter: @tsprice4

    SUSAN SANFORD BLADES lives on the traditional territory of the lək̓ʷəŋən‐speaking peoples, the Xwsepsum/Kosapsum and Songhees Nations. Her debut novel Fake It So Real won the 2021 ReLit Award in the novel category and was a finalist for the 2021 BC and Yukon Book Prizes’ Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize.

    CATHERINE ST. DENIS lives, writes, sings, teaches, and parents on the unceded territories of the Lekwungen‐speaking peoples. Her work has appeared in Rattle and the League of Canadian Poets’ chapbook, You are a Flower Growing off the Side of a Cliff. She was a finalist for PEN Canada’s 2022 New Voices Award.

    LAURA STEPHENSON is a Vancouver Island editor, poet, and independent researcher with a BA in Philosophy and Creative Writing. Her writing has appeared in Book X, Michigan Quarterly Review, and Allegory Ridge, among others.

    CORINNE STIKEMAN was born and raised in Toronto and currently lives in Los Angeles, where she is a writer for television. Corinne won a 2010 CBC Literary Award (Fiction) for “Birds That Streak the Sky,” since published in enRoute Magazine. Her work has appeared in PRISM international, The Fog Horn, and The Malahat Review. Twitter: @cocostikeman

    OWEN TORREY is a writer from Toronto. His poetry and nonfiction have recently appeared in Canadian Literature, CBC Books, the Literary Review of Canada, and the League of Canadian Poets (poets.ca). He has been longlisted for the CBC Poetry Prize and awarded the Roger Conant Hatch Prize for Lyric Poetry. Instagram: @owen.to Twitter: @oowentoorrey

    BARBARA TRAN’s writing has appeared in Conjunctions, Minola Review, and The Paris Review. She is a co‐writer of two short XR films: Madame Pirate, a selection of the Cannes Film Festival’s Marché du Film (2022), and a second episode (for 2023). She has a poetry collection forthcoming from Palimpsest Press in 2023. She gratefully acknowledges Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for essential support. Instagram: @staranise99

    SHANNON WEBB-CAMPBELL is a member of Qalipu Mi’kmaq First Nation. Her books include Still No Word (2015), I Am a Body of Land (2019), and Lunar Tides (2022). A doctoral candidate at the University of New Brunswick in the Department of English, and editor of Visual Arts News Magazine, she lives and works in Kjipuktuk/ Halifax, NS. Instagram: @swebbcampbell Twitter: @shannonwc

    ELI K. P. WILLIAM, novelist and Japanese literary translator, is the author of the Jubilee Cycle trilogy, set in a future Tokyo. The series includes Cash Crash Jubilee (2015), The Naked World (2017), and A Diamond Dream (forthcoming). His translation of Keiichiro Hirano’s novel A Man (2020) is a bestseller.