interviews

Editorial Assistant Miriam Richer Interviews Petra Chambers whose three poems appear in Issue 301 (Autumn 2024)

Miriam Richer: All three of your poems, in one sense or another, are about the speaker’s relationship to the past—revisiting a childhood home, reminiscing about adolescence, identifying with a rescue animal’s inscrutable history. How does the passage of time figure into your poetry? 

Editorial Assistant Laura Broadbent Interviews Nancy Huggett whose story "I am a good mother. I am a bad mother. I am no mother at all." won our 2024 Creative Nonfiction Contest and was published in Issue 301 (Autumn 2024)

Laura Broadbent: On the liberating constraint of genre: What constraints does creative nonfiction afford you to speak in ways you otherwise couldn’t?  

Editorial Assistant Miriam Richer Interviews Margaret Watson whose story "The Returning Wife" appeared in Issue 301 (Autumn 2024)

Miriam Richer: “The Returning Wife” is such a psychologically complex story. I can’t imagine the narrative without a character like Rosemary at its centre, and yet the plot is—at least according to your taxi driver—all too common. Which came to you first: the protagonist, or the scenario?

Editorial Assistant Jamie Kitt's Interview with Clea Young whose story "In Loco Parentis" was published in Issue 299 (Spring 2024)

— Clea Young’s stories have appeared in three volumes of The Journey Prize Stories, and she has twice been shortlisted for the award. Her first collection, Teardown, was published in 2016 with Freehand Books. Her second collection, Welcome to the Neighbourhood, is forthcoming with House of Anansi Press in 2025.

Editorial Assistant Anastasios Mihalopoulos' Interview with Adèle Barclay, previous winner of The Fiddlehead 2022 Fiction Contest, whose Creative Nonfiction Story "Cobra Blue Mustang Strat" was published in Issue 298 (Winter 2024) on art as a way to survive, fallibility of human memory, and how her poetry has served in her creative nonfiction practice. 

Editorial Assistant Jamie Kitts' Interview with Jaeyun Yoo whose poem "have you seen my father" won our 2023 Ralph Gustafson Poetry Prize and was published in Issue 299 (Spring 2024)

Jaeyun Yoo is a Korean-Canadian poet, psychiatrist, and graduate of Simon Fraser University’s The Writer’s Studio. A Best of the Net nominee, her poems have appeared in Room, Canthius, CV2, and elsewhere. She published a collaborative chapbook, Brine, with Harbour Centre 5, a collective of emerging poets.

Editorial Assistant Rosie Leggott's Interview with Blair Trewartha whose poems "Sifto" and "Equal Temperament" were published in Issue 298 (Winter 2024)

Blair Trewartha’s first collection of poetry, Easy Fix (Palimpsest, 2014) was shortlisted for the Relit Award. He is the author of three chapbooks: Break In (Cactus Press, 2010), Porcupine Burning (Baseline Press, 2012), and human energy (Anstruther Press, 2022). His poetry has appeared in several journals.

Editorial Assistant Rosie Leggot's Interview with Shirley Harshenin whose story "Readiness Quiz" was published in Issue 298 (Winter 2024)

Rosie Leggot: As a person who answered a majority of B answers and has a love-hate relationship with everything I write, I sincerely appreciated the honesty in this piece. I could not help but be reminded of the continual projects assigned as exposure therapy. 

Editorial Assistant Anastasios Mihalopoulos' Interview with 2023 Fiction Prize Winner Melissa DaCosta Brown whose story "Husbands" was published in Issue 298 (Winter 2024)

Anastasios Mihalopoulos: The opening of your story references Crystal Lake from Friday the 13th stating that this place was horrifying “but not in that way.” Do you see this story interacting with the horror genre or our general definition of ‘horror’ in a particular way?