PRISM 51.3: The Creative Non-fiction Issue

Posted on April 22, 2013 by

big thumbnail 513What do Tokyo, Tampa, Namibia and a horse camp have in common? They’re all locations from pieces in PRISM‘s Spring issue!

Come, travel the world with us, take in the sights and the sounds. Our creative non-fiction winner, JonArno Lawson brings us to summer camp, while runners-up Carolyn White and Jean McNeil describe stories in San Francisco and Namibia, and contest judge Andreas Schroeder issues CNF writers a challenge: will you take it on?

Explore Japan, small town Canada, and the mysterious ‘L—, Ontario’ in fiction by Jonathan Mendelsohn, Joel McCarthy, and Pasha Malla.  Join our poets, Jessie Jones, Tammy Armstrong, David Clink, Julia Herperger, Jeff Musgrave, Elena E. Johnson, Jim Johnstone, Caroline Wong, Michael Patrick Jessome, and matt robinson in far-flung corners of the world: from Tribeca to New Mexico to Redberry Lake.

But we know what you’re really thinking: is that doll-like kid on the cover for real? She’s very real and kind of a big deal in Japan: ‘Miraichan,’ photographed by Kotori Kawashima.

Check out all this and so much more. Get your issue here, while supplies last!

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Review: “Clear Skies, No Wind, 100% Visibility” by Théodora Armstrong

Posted on May 14, 2013 by

9781770891029_HRClear Skies, No Wind, 100% Visibility by Théodora Armstrong
House of Anansi Press (2013)

Review by Jane Campbell

In Clear Skies, No Wind, 100% Visibility, Théodora Armstrong’s vivid and engrossing debut short story collection, the breathtaking and otherworldly landscapes of British Columbia serve as backdrop for an array of human dramas that feel no less fresh and startling for being eminently relatable. A harried father makes clumsy attempts to bond with his moody teenage daughters on a weekend trip to the Gulf Islands. A young woman escapes the stress of her impending wedding to visit her aimless younger sister in the Okanagan valley. In the verdant canyons of North Vancouver, a teenage girl pines for her childhood best friend as her own innocence slips away bit by bit.

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An interview with Billie Livingston

Posted on May 9, 2013 by
Photo by Braden Haggerty

Photo by Braden Haggerty

By Kim McCullough

One Good Hustle, your latest novel, burst out of the gates and blew away the barriers between genres; it was long-listed for the Giller, as well as short-listed for the prestigious CLA award for Young Adult Book of the Year. What do you think it is about One Good Hustle that has such a cross-generational appeal?

These nods from juries have been a big surprise for me. I don’t gravitate toward the sort of “Big Themes” that juries tend to enjoy. The wars I write about take place in the living room. They involve people close to home because that’s where I find my sense of immediacy.

Telling this story in a 16-year-old’s voice was something of a leap of faith. It felt natural and visceral, but I wondered if somehow that voice would place the whole thing in a kind of neither/nor place and find no readers whatsoever. It’s surprising to me that teenagers are interested. The YA books I hear about usually involve witches and vampires —or at least a dystopian future.

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Let’s Talk about Sex (Scenes)

Posted on May 9, 2013 by

(W)e wouldn’t have many books at all, would we, if writers stopped every time they asked themselves that question. Who’s going to listen to me? Who’s going to care? I face that question every day when I sit down at my computer, and still the words come. Slowly. Still I find myself writing dark things, magical things, and sometimes even sexy things. At some point, who’s going to listen to me gets answered with I want to tell this story anyway.

At The National Post this week, writer Amanda Leduc talks about the difficulty of writing about sex in the era of Fifty Shades of Grey. Her first novel, The Miracles of Ordinary Men, is out now from ECW Press. Read the full article here.

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Review: “One Good Hustle” by Billie Livingston

Posted on May 6, 2013 by

One Good Hustle, by Billie LivingstonOne Good Hustle
Random House Canada (2012)

Review by Kim McCullough

Sixteen-year-old Sammie is a street-smart, take-no-crap young woman. Her parents are con-artists; her father lit out for the east a long time ago, leaving Sammie and her mom on their own. Lately, Sammie’s alcoholic mother, Marlene, has slipped into a suicidal depression, leaving Sammie to try and hold the edges of their tattered home life together.

Unable to take any more of her mother’s suicidal meltdowns, Sammie leaves the chaos at home and goes to stay with her friend Jill’s family. Sammie’s judgments about Jill, and Jill’s more traditional parents, Ruby and Leo, are at once harsh and hilariously honest. It soon becomes obvious that no one can escape Sammie’s skewering wit: not her teachers, not her friends, and certainly not Drew, the boy she likes. But before long, Sammie’s carefully constructed tough-girl facade starts to crack, and the reader catches glimpses of a lost girl in need of direction.

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Props to PRISM international!

Posted on May 2, 2013 by

May 1st brought many honours to PRISM international’s staff and contributors. Please join us in congratulating them!

National Magazine Awards:

Screen Shot 2013-05-02 at 9.45.39 AM

Jean McNeil’s “Ice Diaries” (published in PRISM 50.3) is a finalist in the category of Personal Journalism.

PRISM’s Executive Editor Sierra Skye Gemma  is a finalist in the category of Best New Magazine Writer.

PRISM’s Designer andrea bennett  is a finalist in the category of Politics & Public Interest.

Western Magazine Awards:

31st Western Magazine Awards

Yasuko Thanh’s  “Hustler” (published in PRISM 50.3)  is a finalist in the category of Fiction.

Sherry Wong’s “Dandelion” (published in PRISM 51.1)  is a finalist in the category of New Writer.

PRISM’s Editorial Board Member Rosemary Anderson  is a finalist in the category of New Writer.

House of Anansi Broken Social Scene Contest:

House of AnansiPRISM’s Executive Editor Sierra Skye Gemma has been long-listed under song 6. Pacific Theme.

PRISM’s Designer andrea bennett has been long-listed under song 5. Looks Just Like the Sun.

PRISM’s Contest Reader Leah Mol has been long-listed under under song 11. Lover’s Spit.

PRISM’s Editorial Assistant Christopher Evans has been long-listed under song 3. Stars and Sons.

Congratulations to all our finalists! We are wishing you luck!

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Jean McNeil’s “Skeleton Coast” in Pictures

Posted on April 30, 2013 by

In “The Skeleton Coast,” writer Jean McNeil takes us on a weeklong, 150-kilometer hike through the desert of Namibia, a region known as “The Land God Made in Anger.” McNeil shared some photos from the experience that capture the austere beauty of the landscape—along with one of the lethal residents that call it home.

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Read “The Skeleton Coast” in the current issue of PRISM, and find out more about the author at her website.

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