Can you believe it’s been only months since PRISM last spoke to Billy-Ray Belcourt? A lot has happened since then (*cough* Griffin Poetry Prize Winner *cough* no big deal), and we couldn’t be more thrilled that the beauty of...
Interview by Jennifer Amos Photo Credit Richard Lautens, Toronto Star Joe Fiorito recently launched his first collection of poetry, City Poems. His ability to zero in on the heart of a story and his compassion are some of the hallmarks of his fiction and non-fiction writing, which continue to shine...
We’re so excited to introduce you to our Jacob Zilber prize winners, whose pieces you can read in our Summer issue, 56.4. The characters in these stories transport a dead body along a bourbon-hued river in the Philippines, hunt for the perfect pig-feet in Seoul and come to understand their pasts in the woven strands of carpets. Let’s get to know the minds behind these complex worlds.
Continue reading Get to Know: Our Jacob Zilber Prize Winners
Praised by Zoe Whittall, Djamila Ibrahim’s debut collection of short stories, Things Are Good Now, is a thoughtful exploration of immigrant experiences and universal themes that concern us all – identity, memory, resilience, and the complicated, and often sticky, web of human relationships. Continue reading Things Are Good Now: In Conversation with Djamila Ibrahim
Interview and portrait by Mia Funk
“There is a clear-cut: old life, that’s old country, and here’s there’s new life, new country. It is an advantage. You are looking at life through an old pair of eyes and a new pair of eyes. And there’s always that ambivalence––Where do you belong? And how do you belong? And I do think these are advantages of immigrant writers or writers with two languages or who have two worlds.”
–YIYUN LI
Interview by Doyali Islam Heartfelt congratulations on your debut poetry book, Still Point! Immediately, from the first few lines of the first poem, the voice of the poet-speaker pulls me in. How long did this collection take to write...
Olga Holin sat down with our PRISM international Creative Non-fiction Contest judge Jonathan Kemp and spoke to him about his writings and what he is looking for amongst the entries.
Interview by Jessica Johns
Hello friends! Meet Casey Plett, author of Little Fish and A Safe Girl to Love and co-editor of the anthology Meanwhile, Elsewhere: Science Fiction and Fantasy from Transgender Writers. She is the winner of the Lambda Literary Award for Best Transgender Fiction and received an Honour of Distinction from The Writers’ Trust of Canada’s Dayne Ogilvie Prize for LGBTQ Emerging Writers.
During my volunteer role at Room Magazine’s 2018 Growing Room Literary Festival, I had the great pleasure of hearing Casey read from Little Fish and getting to know her in-between events. In addition to admiring her work and discussion during the panels, Casey’s behind-the-scenes demeanor was something that has stayed with me. She offered a kind of warmth, humorous levity, and generosity to the volunteers and audience members that I think goes above and beyond the expectations of writers at events, especially during a time where authors and volunteers alike are stressed, exhausted, and usually running on fumes. It is something that usually flies under the radar to the comparatively large-scale attention given to readings and panels, but one I think is important. Yesterday, I started reading Little Fish. And already the humour, care, and depth that I saw during that weekend, I’m finding everywhere in her storytelling. If you get the opportunity, get this book and go hear her read. It’s so damn worth it.
Casey’s debut novel Little Fish is out now with Arsenal Pulp Press and you can find her on Twitter at @caseyplett and at her website, https://caseyplett.wordpress.com/.
Casey will be reading at the Vancouver Public Library for Incite: Celebrating Arsenal Pulp Press Amber Dawn, Casey Plett, and Joshua Whitehead on May 23 at 7:30 pm. Do not miss it!
Former PRISM poetry editor Rob Taylor sat down with poet, author and former journey carpenter Kate Braid to discuss her newly released poetry collection “Elemental” (Caitlin Press, 2018).
I spoke with you briefly for PRISM international back in 2014, and at that point you noted: “Looking over my recent poems, I’m a bit alarmed to find I’m writing more personally, neither behind the mask of another or out of my experience as a carpenter – which also became a sort of persona.” True to that statement, Elemental, though certainly structured around “elemental” themes, feels in other ways like your first “general” collection (your past collections having channeled Glenn Gould and Emily Carr, among others). In that sense it feels almost like you’re living the traditional poet’s trajectory in reverse (the early, more personal/general collection, followed by themed “projects”).
Do you think of this book in those terms (“general” and personal), and do you think it represents a larger shift in your preoccupations/energies as a writer? Did “removing the masks” allow you to access some more “elemental” part of yourself?
Continue reading I Keep Coming Back to What Gives Me Courage: An Interview with Kate Braid