A series in which Isabella is excited about everything that is happening at Growing Room 2019, so she sat down with some festival authors to hear about their work, and what events they are most excited to take part in. Learn more about the 2019 Growing Room festival by visiting our website, festival.roommagazine.com.
Katherena Vermette is a Métis writer from Winnipeg, Manitoba. Her collection of poetry, North End Love Songs, won the 2013 Governor General’s Award for Poetry, and her debut novel The Break has won numerous awards and was a Canada Reads 2017 finalist. Most recently, she won the 2017 Canadian Screen Award for her documentary This River.
Room Magazine is pleased to announce that the next managing editor of the esteemed feminist literary collective will be Jessica Johns. Jessica Johns is a nehiyaw aunty and member of Sucker Creek First Nation in Treaty 8 territory in Northern Alberta and is currently living and learning on the traditional territory of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh peoples.
Jessica Johns is perhaps the ultimate Kombucha mother, and she's here to explain exactly what Kombucha is, how her brewing practice creates community, and what it really means to live symbiotically. She also compares certain aspects of her booch-making practice to treaty-making in Canada and how treaties were (and are) meant to facilitate symbiotic relationships between Indigenous people and the Canadian government. Has that symbiosis been lost? Find out in the most recent episode of the FCF podcast!
Room’s mentor-in-residence program is a brand new program designed to pair established mentors with emerging writers. This year’s mentor, Alicia Elliott, will select between eight and twelve students to mentor (free of charge to the student) over the year of the residency, including manuscript feedback and career advice and support.
"These queer stories are already ingrained in the land, and I’m just trying to find them. Things are never forgotten, they’re just forgone."—Joshua Whitehead. In an in-depth interview, Room's Jessica Johns chats with Joshua Whitehead, an Oji-Cree Two-Spirit storyteller and academic from Peguis First Nation on Treaty 1 territory in Manitoba, and author of the novel Jonny Appleseed (Arsenal Pulp Press, 2018) and the poetry collection full-metal indigiqueer (TalonBooks, 2017).
Jessica Johns spoke with Arielle Spence, a queer, nonbinary aspiring writer and arts administrator originally from Coldstream, BC (unceded Okanagan Territory). They were the festival director of Growing Room 2017, Room’s inaugural feminist literary festival, one of the assistant editors of the forthcoming queer issue, and are currently editing Room's Magic issue. Here’s a sneak peak of the RoomMate interview.
Room Magazine and Massy Books have partnered to create Indigenous Brilliance, a quarterly reading series for First Nations, Métis, and Inuit writers to showcase their work. Hosted by Jessica Johns, jaye simpson, Patricia Massy, and Emily Dundas Oke, this series is dedicated to featuring emerging and established Indigenous women, Two-Spirit and Indigiqueer artists.
While the 41.2 editorial team was “taking a break” from sharing their aspirations for the upcoming issue with one another, they chatted about their favourite books and experiences working in the lit mags sphere. Submit your original essays, short stories, poems, and visual art to this open issue by Oct 31st, and you might be published alongside our commissioned author Katherena Vermette and a feature interview with Durga Chew-Bose.
After falling in love with This Accident of Being Lost this past summer, and then quickly devouring almost everything else she’s published, Jessica Johns jumped at the chance to chat with the award-winning writer prior to her trip to Vancouver for this year’s Writers Fest. Here, Leanne Simpson talks about interventions in writing, taking care for Indigenous audiences, and her advice to the community to lift up, listen to, and support Indigenous emerging writers, particularly the two-spirit queer and trans writers.
In this issue:
Selina Boan, Jenna Butler, Leonarda Carranza, Carolina Corcoran, Šari Dale, Marisol Diaz, Sarah Ens, Paola Ferrante, Katie Fewster-Yan, Hannah Hackney, Lori Hahnel, Natalie Homer, Liz Iversen, Jac Jenkins, Jaslyn Marshall, Laura McGavin, Emily McKibbon, Alessandra Naccarato, Ezi Odozor, Caitlin Prince, Rebecca Salazar, Ellie Sawatzky, Alysia Sawchyn, Farihah Aliyah Shah, Josephine Sloyan, Tanya R. Ward, jiaqing wilson-yang, Elana Wolff
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