Three Weeks Left to Enter the Long Poem Contest!
Last chance! Send us your best long poetry (10-20 pages; one poem or a cycle of poems) and take part in one of Canada's most unique writing contests. Two winners will win cash prizes, will be interviewed, and selected pieces will be published in the Summer 2015 issue of The Malahat Review.
Full contest guidelines available on the Malahat website.
In collaboration with the Creative Nonfiction Collective Society and the Greater Victoria Public Library, we've just launched a Twitter Memoir Contest! Capture a fleeting moment in your life—comic or disturbing, bathetic or inspiring—in 140 characters or less, then tweet it to #140memoir.
The scribes of the best memoir snippets will win books by emerging and established creative nonfiction writers from across Canada—all donated by the authors or their publishers.
Enter as often as you like (it's free!)—and retweet, favourite, mention, and of course, pour your heart out most succinctly. One winner will be chosen every two weeks.
Click here for full contest details, including submission dates.
Upcoming Winter Issue Preview: New Short Fiction by Jason Markowsky
 Malahat volunteer Katie Weaver recently spoke with Jason Markowsky on his fiction piece, "Pomelos Are Out of Season," set to appear in the upcoming Winter issue.
KW: The setting is so remote and exotic. What drew you to this location (Vietnam), and how were you able to give such a sensory experience, providing details such as the fresh sugar cane juice?
JM: I’ve been teaching English as a Second Language for a number of years and it’s taken me to some far-flung places. Vietnam was the first country I’d lived in in Asia, so everything new and different fascinated me. I took notes, realizing I’d want to set a short story there one day. One advantage I’ve discovered about writing in a foreign country is that the cultural details are fresh and easily observable because I’m not used to them. They might be mundane to the locals, but not to me, and so hopefully not to Western readers. A character drinking fresh sugar cane juice in Ho Chi Minh City is no different from one drinking a Tim Horton’s coffee in Toronto.
Read the rest of Jason's interview on the Malahat website.
Translation Issue Interview: Thoraya El-Rayyes on Arabian Fiction
 Malahat editor John Barton talks with Thoraya El-Rayyes on her translation from Arabic of Hisham Bustani's flash fiction piece, "Mirror Mirror," in Issue 188: At Home in Translation.
JB: Can you provide a thumbnail sketch of Hisham Bustani’s career, his writing, and his place in Jordanian literary community?
TER: I wouldn’t say there is a Jordanian literary community as such. Partly because Jordan is a very small country (with a smaller population than New Jersey!), but also because—to a great extent—the Arabic literary community transcends national borders. Writers in Arab countries not only share the same language but also have a shared history. Hundreds of years under the rule of the Ottoman and European empires left behind many common traces in these countries, and there have been various pan-nationalist and religious movements that have connected people across the region.
Read the rest of Thoraya's interview on the Malahat website.
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