Looking to prepare for your interview or brush up on some do’s and don’ts when interviewing? PRISM editorial assistant, Derrick Gravener, interviews poetry editor, Shazia Hafiz Ramji, to chat about the interview process. Shazia has interviewed authors such as André Alexis, Jonina Kirton, Thalia Field, and Jay Gamble, and shares steps for starting interviews as well as tried-and-true pro-tips.
Interview by Jessica Johns and Claudia Wilde
In addition to providing resources for emerging writers on our website, PRISM is dedicated to featuring spaces and organizations that exist at the intersection of writing and community. Spaces that are essential to bridging the gap between what is uncertain and what is possible. Naturally, our attention turned to Massy Books, a 100% Indigenous-owned and operated bookstore. Currently, the store is located at 2206 Main Street, Vancouver, but will be moving to their new location of 229 E. Georgia St at the end of February. Though the new location will have a different layout, it will preserve its secret bookshelf door (built by carpenter Sam Grzesik, owner of S.G. Contracting and who also worked on the set of Harry Potter!). Other features include 14 ft high pipe shelving with semi-rolling ladders and a 500 sq. ft art gallery space upstairs.
Our newest issue 56.2 is hot off the press and full of amazing content! Get your own issue now! Contents Judge’s essay: Alicia Elliott – Strength in Survival Non-Fiction Grand Prize Winner Gwen Benaway – Between a Rock and a Hard Place Non-Fiction...
Stubble Burn David Ly Anstruther Press Review by Kai Cheng Thom The gay male body is razor wit and iridescent verse in David Ly’s Stubble Burn, the debut chapbook of an exciting and necessary voice in Canadian literature. Rooted...
Demi-Gods
Eliza Robertson
Penguin Random House, 2017
Review by Kyle Schoenfeld
Eliza Robertson’s debut novel Demi-Gods is the story of Willa, a girl growing up in British Columbia in the 1950s and ‘60s. In luminous prose, Robertson shows her protagonist’s formation in a world set on teaching her about others’ power to shape her. Willa finds this restrictive power crystallized in Patrick, the son of her mother’s boyfriend and a monstrous presence who slinks into rooms and haunts the summers of the narrator’s childhood. As a parable of the oppressive weight of other people’s desire, Demi-Gods is lush and compelling, however unsettling it may be to read.
Continue reading Mirrored Bodies: Reflecting on Eliza Robertson’s Demi-Gods
Project Compass
Lizzie Derksen, Matthew Stepanic, Kristina Vyskocil, Robert Strong
Monto Books, 2017
Review by Peter Takach
What do you get when you take four emerging Edmonton writers and give them each a quadrant of their city to explore? In Project Compass, publisher and editor Jason Lee Norman has assembled a crack crew to take readers on an odyssey through a city that, despite producing its fair share of writers, is rarely the explicit setting of their stories. The result is an engaging and emotionally-arresting collection of four concurrent novellas that all unwind on June 21, 2016. Starting from the north, south, east, and west, we follow four Edmontonians as they wander their way through the longest day of the year and reflect on the paths they have taken.
Continue reading Despite the Odds: a Review of Project Compass
Cover of Our Lady of Perpetual Realness, Cason Sharpe’s début story collection. Metatron, 2017. Interview by Kyla Jamieson Get to Know is an interview series designed to introduce you to our favourite writers and contributors by way of questions that...
We received so many amazing poems for this year’s contest. We’re excited and honoured to announce the winners of this year’s Pacific Spirit Poetry Prize, as selected by Aisha Sasha John! You can read all three pieces in our Spring issue 56.3, so make sure to order a copy!
This new year will be full of amazing things, and one of them is an extension to the Jacob Zilber Prize for Short Fiction Contest! The new extended deadline is January 31, 2018, so read up on what our...
