Call to Short Story Writers: Four Weeks 'til Deadline!
The countdown is on! If you're an emerging short story writer who has yet to publish a first book (publication in literary magazines is acceptable), we want your submissions!
Send us your best short story, max. 3,500 words, for a chance at the $1,000 prize and publication. This contest only runs every other year, so start writing!
Contest entry fees are reduced to encourage new writers to submit: $25 Canadian ($30 US, $35 international) for one story, and all additional stories cost $15 each, no limit.
This year's contest judge is Steven Price.
Don't delay! Send in your best story before May 1.
Interview with Steven Price, Far Horizons Contest Judge
 Malahat publicity manager PJ Grace talks influence, fearlessness, and the dark places of writing with acclaimed poet and novelist Steven Price, judge for the 2017 Far Horizons Award for Short Fiction.
PG: The late American poet John Berryman said, "We must travel in the direction of our fear." As a professor of fiction and poetry, what has your experience been with emerging writers sticking to "safe" topics in their writing versus tackling the unknown, the strange, the luminous?
SP: Hm. What would a "safe" topic be? I think everything depends on the writer, which is to say, on how a thing is written. All excellent fiction leads into the unknown, the strange, the luminous - even if it appears to be about the most mundane, the most familiar aspects of a life. A story about a toothache could terrify. A story about a serial killer could bore a reader stiff. I do think emerging writers are often fearless. I suspect Berryman was acknowledging the uneasiness we feel when writing our way into a place we can't see the end of, when we realize what was solid has started to give way, and we can only trust to the dark.
Read the rest of Steven's interview on the Malahat website.
Annual Founders' Awards: Winners for 2017
 The Founders' Awards acknowledge the longstanding excellence of The Malahat Review's contributors. Given out annually for the best work of poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction to have been published in the magazine in the previous year, the Founders' Awards each honour a Victoria-based writer—Jack Hodgins, Charles Lillard, and P. K. Page—who has made, or continues to make, significant contributions in the genre or genres for which they are known locally, nationally, and internationally. The annual awards gift a $1,000 prize to each author.
In poetry: Billy-Ray Belcourt for "Love is a Moontime Teaching"
In fiction: Lisa Bird-Wilson for "Counselling"
In creative nonfiction: Kelly Bouchard for "Women and Children"
See the announcement pages for interviews and judges' comments on the winning selections.
Publishing Tip from
Tara Wohlberg
 April's Publishing Tip comes to you from Tara Wohlberg, founder of the online poetry journal, Cede Poetry. In this article, she discusses the difficulties of launching a new literary magazine in today's market, and the contradictory level of support from unknown audiences on the Canadian literary landscape.
I launched Cede Poetry, a new online poetry journal, in the spring of 2015.
Why?
Curiosity. I'm a Gemini. Also, a writer friend said I was nuts to try to launch a new model in these challenging times of poetic distribution. But I couldn't walk away from a triple-dog dare. Who isn't frustrated with the glacial timelines of so many established journals? In honouring various rules and regs, including non-simultaneous submissions, it can take Dear Writer a long time indeed to hear from Ms. Gatekeeper. Was there a better way of celebrating and disseminating poetry in 2015?
Read the full Publishing Tip on the Malahat website.
| 
