Reading Room

No Comment

No Comment

I’ve heard there is a room where hooded women enter, writing dates on the wall with the torn edge of their finger. I’ve heard you can cipher the numbers to bodies, to the graceless edge of some men’s beds. Is I’ve heard there is a room where hooded women enter,...

White house, where some family lived upstairs

White house, where some family lived upstairs

Fear the caging of birds. Strangled and brown. Moving here was like crossing a river, debriefings, scaling back. Clay pots clogged, awkward like an ingrown hair, browning down in the sun. Staring at walls draws a crowd, like a hardened nipple, a tear-streaked thigh....

The Theory of Light at Midnight

The Theory of Light at Midnight

Elizabeth Ukrainetz’s writing shows brief glimpses of life on the other side of a window painted with vivid colours and designs. Language in her work is at the forefront. In The Theory of Light at Midnight, the poetic prose draws the reader’s attention more than the...

Bearskin Diary

Bearskin Diary

Bearskin Diary is a humane, unflinching portrayal of a woman asserting her voice and claiming space in an often hostile nation. From the 1960s to the late ’80s, the Canadian government forcibly removed over twenty thousand Indigenous children from their families,...

Falling in Love with Hominids

Falling in Love with Hominids

Falling in Love with Hominids is a collection of fantastical short stories filled with an innovatory mix of characters grappling with existential and everyday questions—what’s for breakfast? should I bring a child into the world? how did that elephant land in my...

Garbage Girl

Garbage Girl

I’d been hoping for a kitchen full of balloons, a bouquet of flowers, all my favourite food. A hand-drawn banner: Welcome Home Tasha. Maybe even a Happy 14th Birthday, though my birthday wasn’t until tomorrow. I’d been away from my family all summer. I’d been hoping...

Boreal Selkie

Boreal Selkie

I shed my pelt on the shoreline, leaving the warmth of the glossy grey coat to shiver and head for land. I shed my pelt on the shoreline, leaving the warmth of the glossy grey coat to shiver and head for land. I am careful to walk where the water will erase my steps,...

This Will Be Good

This Will Be Good

My mother in a rental van idling in the Phoenix Airport parkade. She does a word search, finds “tongue” “bitter” “cochlea” lets a ballpoint pen tell her of her own body. I tap the van window, see her face for the first time in months. It’s been too hot, My mother in a...

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