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Issue 5, Volume 14 | May 2017

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Issue 198, Spring 2017

New Spring Issue

Buy now from the Malahat site


Four National Magazine Award Nominations

NMA Nomination

The Malahat Review has received four nominations for this year's National Magazine Awards!

Congratulations to Alicia Elliott, Lindsay Nixon, Elyse Friedman, and George Elliott Clarke, four fantastic Malahat authors who made it onto the 2017 nomination list.

The winners from all nominated magazines and categories will be announced on May 26 at a special gala in Toronto.

Nomination details here


Upcoming Malahat Contests

CNF Prize

The Malahat's annual Creative Nonfiction Contest is now open for submissions! Send us your best truths for a chance at the $1,000 prize.

Contest details here


Spring Issue Book Review

Take Us to your Chief

It is a quality of Taylor’s work to leave you with not one lasting thought but three or four, and he brings a healthy dose of levity to this collection along with more solemn moments. Each of these stories addresses broad human experiences like loss and identity, topical issues like the importance of seeing First Nations people represented in all fields, while also having fun with robots and spaceships.

Read the full book review by Nora Decter

 

 

 

 

Call for Submissions: 50th Anniversary Victoria Issue

Victoria Issue

Victoria-area writers, send us your poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction for our 200th issue by May 15!

To mark The Malahat Review's 50 years in print, "Victoria Past, Victoria Present, Victoria Future" will celebrate writing roots from B.C.'s capital, where it is today, and where it may be heading.

Send us your Victoria issue submission today.

 

Interview with the 2017 Long Poem Prize Winners

John Wall Barger

John Wall BargerMalahat volunteer James Kendrick interviews Long Poem Prize winner John Wall Barger on how setting, political turmoil, and the Tao Te Ching all play a part in his winning poem, "Smog Mother," to be published in the Summer 2017 issue.

JK: I've read online that you've lived in and travelled to many different places. The judges for the Long Poem Prize also called "Smog Mother" a "lyrical travelogue." How has travel informed your writing, particularly "Smog Mother"?

JWB: I suppose you could call it a lyrical travelogue, but I don't really think of it that way myself. I think if a poem is good it's good on its own merits and not because of the subject matter. It's dangerous for artists to lean on their material. It's always what you do with it. For example, I've been living in Dharamsala in the Himalayas for a while and trying to write about it. But I think the reader can smell it in my poems if I think it's impressive or neat to be living in the Himalayas, including lots of quaint local words which I just googled and forced into the mix, to borrow some kind of exoticism.

Read the rest of John Wall Barger's interview on our site.


Délani Valin

Delani ValinMalahat volunteer Chloe Hogan-Weihmann interviews Long Poem Prize winner Délani Valin on how Métis identity, Canadian landscape, and cultural stereotypes all play a part in her winning poem, "No Buffalos," to be published in the Summer 2017 issue.

CHW: Tell me about the evolution of "No Buffalos." Did you always have a clear idea in your mind of what the finished product would be, or did it go through some different incarnations before you figured out the right form, or structure, or rhythm, etc.?

DV: My intention was to examine contemporary Métis identity by using my own experiences as a case study. I began with a sheet of paper and a list of topics I wanted to explore, including living in urban centres, vegetarianism, dance, history, and education. This list indicated that I would be leaping from topics in the realm of the personal, to the traditional, to family history, and to Canadian and pre-Canadian history.

Read the rest of Délani Valin's interview on our site.

 

Spring Issue Interview: Mehdi M. Kashani's Fiction

Mehdi KashaniIn "Dayi," which appears in The Malahat Review’s Spring 2017 issue, Mehdi M. Kashani tells the story of  Parveez, a businessman who, while packing to leave Iran in order to join his wife and children in Vancouver, spends his last evening in Tehran with Shireen, a young woman his daughter’s age with whom he’s been having an affair. Interview by Malahat editor John Barton.

JB: Parveez is a man split between two countries and two very different societies: Canada, where his wife and children have been living for several years and Iran, where he has status as a business man and entrepreneur, but is estranged from the warmth of family life. What motivates men like Parveez to decide such a compartmentalized life?

MMK: Unfortunately, the scenario you describe is a very common phenomenon in modern Iran. Many affluent families in Tehran and some of the other big cities will, given the chance, apply to immigrate to countries like Canada and Australia. That doesn't mean they necessarily intend to immigrate the moment they fill out the forms, but they want to keep that option open. When you live in a country that is always under the constant threat of war and economical sanction, this is not surprising.

Read the full interview with Mehdi M. Kashani on our site.

 

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