Wednesday, March 9th, 2011
Hardworking Melissa Krone of The New Quarterly must have thought I was the rudest writer on their rosters; she kept sending emails asking to interview me and I kept “ignoring” her. The culprit was my spam filter. But at last we connected, and she’s posted an interview we did at The Literary Type and on The New Quarterly’s website. Thanks, Melissa, for your thought-provoking questions and for the opportunity to share my thoughts.
There’s still time to enter The New Quarterly’s annual contests: details on their site.
Tags: Contests, Essays, Interviews
Posted in Awards, Calls for Submissions, Contests, Creative Nonfiction, Essays, Interviews | No Comments »
Tuesday, March 1st, 2011
I’m delighted to say that an excerpt of my essay “Library Haunting” appears in the March/April edition of The Utne Reader. It appeared originally in The New Quarterly, where it won second place in the Edna Staebler Contest for the Personal Essay last year. Which reminds me: Enter soon! Details are available on The New Quarterly’s website; the deadline is March 28th.
The editors at The Utne Reader were wonderful to work with. Brad Zellar’s sensitive and respectful incisions are hardly noticeable. It’s an honour (or should I say honor?) to appear in this publication, which prides itself on selecting the best from the alternative presses.
They also picked up a piece by Laurie Block that originally appeared in Prairie Fire. Hooray for Canada’s “little” magazines.
Tags: Contests, Essays, Literary Journals
Posted in Awards, Calls for Submissions, Contests, Literary Journals | 3 Comments »
Thursday, April 22nd, 2010
See The New Quarterly editor Kim Jernigan’s smart and articulate take on this, here.
“First, what a personal essay is not: it’s not journalism. It can be about anything (religion, politics, natural history, art, music, literature, science, food, travel, play, you name it, and the tone can be equally disparate), but it is not written on assignment. It comes instead from the writer’s own fund of interests and obsessions, questions to be raised or answered, observations, fantasies, regrets, uncertainties, delight. It evolves from a desire to know or to understand, to make connections. It is often triggered by some sort of experience in the world. It will sometimes lead to research, always to reflection. Above all, it is engaged.”
Note that there’s still time to enter TNQ’s Edna Staebler Contest for the personal essay. Details here.
Tags: Blogs, Contests, Essays
Posted in Blogs, Calls for Submissions, Essays | No Comments »
