fiction

Sandra Nicholls is the author of two books of poetry, The Untidy Bride and Woman of Sticks, Woman of Stones, and a novel, And the Seas Shall Turn to Lemonade. She also wrote the libretto for a chamber opera about a homeless man, with her husband, guitarist Roddy Ellias. Sleeping Rough was performed at Ottawa’s Music and Beyond Festival, and is available as a DVD. New projects include a second novel, The Ornamental Man, and a suite of songs about the pandemic, Not This Room. Her story, "From A Distance", is featured in the new Spring issue of The Fiddlehead. 

Simon Turner’s poetry has been published by Plenitude Magazine and bird, buried press. They participated in Arc Poetry Magazine’s 2020/21 poet-in-residence mentorship program, have had four plays staged in Peterborough, and a short story in We Shall Be Monsters (Renaissance Press). They live in Ottawa, masquerading as a PhD student. Simon's poem "It’s Almost Like a Fishy Mammal" is featured in the Spring 2022 issue of The Fiddlehead. Order your copy today!

Cindy King was born in Cleveland and grew up swimming in the shadows of hyperboloid cooling towers on the shores of Lake Erie. She currently lives in Southern Utah, where she don't know a butte from a bluff. She is an Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at Dixie State University. Cindy's poetry is featured in the new Spring 2022 issue of The Fiddlehead. Order your copy today!

Anuja Varghese is a QWOC Pushcart-nominated writer based in Hamilton, ON. Her work appears in Hobart, The Malahat Review, Humber Literary Review, Plenitude Magazine, and others. She recently completed a collection of short stories and is working on a debut novel. Find her on Twitter, Instagram, or on the web. Her story "Stories in the Language of the Fist" was published in the The Fiddlehead BIPOC Solidarities issue. Order your copy today!

Melinda Burns is a writer and a psychotherapist in Guelph, Ontario. She is the daughter of a Mohawk mother and an English father. Her fiction won first prize in the 2001 Toronto Star Short Story contest. She has published writing in Canadian Notes & Queries, The New Quarterly, and Grain. Her creative nonfiction piece "Deathly Afraid" appeared in the BIPOC Solidarities issue of The Fiddlehead. Order your copy today!

James X. Wang is a writer and physician who began writing in earnest in 2019. He is a Chinese-Canadian settler on the unceded homeland of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh peoples, later known as Vancouver. He belongs to the writing group Harbour Centre Five. His work has appeared in Arc and his poem "Fossils" is featured in the BIPOC Solidarities issue of The Fiddlehead. Order your copy today!

We're excited to announce that Anne Marie Todkill is the winner of our 2021 Fiction Contest and $2000 prize! Her story The Makeweight Piece is featured in our Spring issue no. 291, which is available for pre-order now! 

Anne Marie Todkill has published poetry, short fiction, and creative non-fiction in various Canadian literary magazines. Her winning entry in The Malahat Review 2016 Novella Contest was anthologized in Best Canadian Stories 2017. Her first poetry collection, Orion Sweeping (Brick Books), will appear this spring.

Thank you to all who entered the fiction contest and congratulations to the fifteen finalists. And thanks again to our judge Yasuko Thanh!