Bänoo Zan’s second book of poetry, Letters to My Father, opens with her rationale for seeking refuge in poetry, and fleeing from stories. Bänoo Zan’s second book of poetry, Letters to My Father, opens with her rationale for seeking refuge in poetry, and fleeing from...
Children Shouldn’t Use Knives and Other Tales shreds the yellow ribbons of childhood sentimentality and, instead, offers an exploration of what it feels like to be small and vulnerable in a stormy world. I’m not nostalgic for childhood. Childhood was terrifying—the...
When Room decided to launch a Short Forms Contest a few years ago, we wanted to create an avenue for writers who write flash fiction, non-fiction, and/or prose poems—and perhaps writers who experiment with blending and bending genres—to submit their work. (Contest...
Who can resist the chance to climb into another skin? Into myth-spit caricature? A sideshow mockery in felt-dripped-fringe? Who can resist the chance to climb into another skin? Into myth-spit caricature? A sideshow mockery in felt-dripped-fringe? A technicolor...
“They Comes On the Ice” is the honourable mention of Room’s Poetry and Fiction Contest 2018 as selected by judge Zoe Whittall. The day I arrived on Fogo Island there was a polar bear loose in Joe Batt’s Arm. I had driven from St. Johns to Gander, caught the ferry from...
“A ballad for messy brown girls” is the honourable mention of Room’s Poetry and Fiction Contest 2018 as selected by judge Vivek Shraya. Brown girls with combed out curls that frizz and fly and fuzz, Baby hair halos, - angels - of the 43 Kennedy bus.i Shorts that...
We are thrilled to finally share the results of our 2018 Poetry & Fiction Contest! Here's our heartiest of congratulations to the following six writers. Room’s 2018 Poetry & Fiction Contest WinnersWe are thrilled to finally share the results of our 2018 Poetry...
Aunt: f. from the Latin amita 1. small creatures that can carry more than their share 1.2 stand-in mothers (who can’t hold seventeen hours of labour over you) 2. photo filler used for major childhood moments: christenings, communions, etc. 3. antonym ex-aunts: members...
After much deliberation, our poetry and fiction judges, Vivek Shraya and Zoe Whittall, have determined the shortlists of our 2018 Poetry and Fiction Contest! Congrats to the following thirteen writers whose work—or works—have been chosen. After much deliberation, our...
Everything’s late this year.
Nothing’s dissolved since my last visit to Waterloo—
an evening at the park staring at geese
and we took turns
pushing each other on swings,
pretending we were children.
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ROOM 49.3 NO CANADA
In the new era of CanCon, as feminists and writers it is our task to reject this Canadian exceptionalism, this too-comfortable back-patting. How can we begin to imagine alternative arts economies, Indigenous economies around art, that start with treaty, that align with BDS? What art, what literature, would such a system free us to create?
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ROOM 49.2 Science
Welcome to the Science issue of Room Magazine, where we privilege questions: questions about how to construct better worlds; questions about how to destroy hyper-capitalistic, necropolitical systems; questions that beget questions and new questions.
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