Reading Room

Collective Dreaming: A BIPOC Community Writing Party

Microphones go off mute. Gazing upon the activity across the gallery of attendees on the screen feels like entering/participating in the facade of a window-paned high rise at night. Some panes are blacked-out or resemble still-photos while others catch the eye with...

Cover Art Contest 2020: The Winners

Cover Art Contest 2020: The Winners

The results are in. Major congrats to the three winners of our 2020 Cover Art Contest! First Place: MENTAL LOAD 02, by Masha Nova Masha Nova explores womanhood, feminism, and ongoing events in her latest collage work. Born in 1992 and raised in Russia (Siberia), as a...

Cover Art Contest 2020: Honourable Mention

Cover Art Contest 2020: Honourable Mention

Honourable Mention: My Father Catches Me Confronting Memory, by Tea Gerbeza During my adolescence, I often returned to photographs of my family during the Yugoslavian civil war, packed away in a shoebox. Memories stacked on each other. Even though I was barely a...

Texture, Illness, and Metaphor

Texture, Illness, and Metaphor

My introverted grandfather used a code to let my extraverted grandmother know when he was running out of steam at parties: fists by his side meant he had some energy; one fist in the air, spotted across the room, meant he was running on steam; both raised above his head meant he was finished and had no energy left for socialization.

Brown Girl in the Ring

Brown Girl in the Ring

Amidst all the swirling anxieties of the pandemic, I had almost forgotten I was brown. I had forgotten that the eyes looking out from above my mask were deep inky pools which so often failed to reflect familiarity and belonging.I had forgotten that, while my hands were gloved and hidden, my sepia arms betrayed my origins in a sun-washed and sun-dried land.

Notes on Abundance 

Notes on Abundance 

from LooseLeaf Magazine In 2015 I had a wild dream to start a publication for pan-Asian writers and artists, and that winter, in partnership with a bunch of equally naive and down-for-anything Asian creatives, LooseLeaf Magazine emerged. Like a lot of other grassroots...

Plasticnic and Plasticpoems by Fiona Tinwei Lam

Plasticnic and Plasticpoems by Fiona Tinwei Lam

Below are short, animated poems created by Fiona Tinwei Lam in collaboration with Vancouver animators Tisha Deb Pillai and Nhat Truong. These short, plastic-pollution-themed video poems were intended to be screened at the 2020 Growing Room Literary & Arts...

Pre-order our next issue

ROOM 48.1 WITS END
In times of crisis, we laugh to offer tenderness, to ward off despair— so we can be brave. Gather round ROOM 48.1 WITS END and let humour be a mirror held up to the state of the world as we continue to resist.

Currently on Newsstands

ROOM 47.4 FULL CIRCLE
Step back with Room into the past, to parents, to childhood homes, and to people once known and loved; dig into themes of grief and healing; and ultimately explore what it means to come full circle in literature.

Subscribe to our newsletter

Be the first to know about our contests, calls for submissions, and upcoming events.

* indicates required

Join us on Patreon

Become a RoomMate

Seeking members who love literature, events, merchandise, and supporting marginalized creators.


Visit our Store