Two Malahat authors are finalists for the 38th-annual National Magazine Awards!

Kelly Cooper's creative nonfiction piece, "Ten Easy Steps," from Issue 186, Spring 2014 has been nominated in the Personal Journalism category. This essay won our 2014 Open Season Awards for best memoir.

Douglas Burnet Smith's poems, "Television," "Suppose there's a place we don't know of," and "Postcard" from Issue 187, Summer 2014 have all been nominated in the Poetry category.

See the full announcement page on our website. Winners will be revealed at a special gala ceremony in Toronto on June 5.

With Issue 190, Spring 2015 on its way to subscriber mailboxes around the world, Malahat volunteer L'Amour Lisik caught up with contributor Danny Jacobs to discuss industrialism and linguistic verve in his two upcoming poems.

LL: How important is it for a poem to have humour? Does humour come naturally into your poems or is it more of a vessel to carry larger, heavier messages?

DJ: The easy answer is that it depends on the poem and the poet. Humour is tricky. There’s laugh-out-loud humour (very rare in poetry; David McGimpsey comes to mind) and then there’s various modes of irony, wit, urbanity, etc (much more common in contemporary poetry). The latter tactic is probably a reaction to a certain earnestness and sentimentality that is now out of fashion.

Read the rest of Danny's interview on the Malahat website.

Gary Geddes

Malahat intern Matthew Thibeault talks with Gary Geddes about his Long Poem Prize winning piece, "The Resumption of Play," as well as his narrative process and the role of the writer.

MT: You’re known as a writer who takes on social and political issues. What prompted you to write "The Resumption of Play"?

GG: I’ve been working for several years on a book about Indigenous health issues, in particular the segregated Indian hospitals, their painful legacy and their links to the infamous residential schools. As I read widely and interviewed elders across the country, I kept hearing comments about the residential schools that troubled me and that would not likely find a place in my non-fiction work-in-progress. Gradually, these fragments coalesced and I found myself in verboten territory yet again, that place avoided by the angels, but so often trod by foolish poets.

Read the rest of Gary's interview on the Malahat website.

Genevieve Lehr

Malahat intern Matthew Thibeault talks with 2015 Long Poem Prize winner Genevieve Lehr about process, creative patience, and how her prize-winning poem "The latter half of the third quarter of the waning moon" found its space.

MT: The first line of your winning poem is 'Metamorphosis is everywhere.' Would you say that this statement is true of much of your work?

GL: Metamorphosis seems to capture something of my approach to writing and living. There's the sense that form, texture, physical appearance is never static, but in a process of change, growth, even dying. Within that realization, there are the eureka moments I try to tap into. 

Read the rest of Genevieve's interview on the Malahat website.