Reading Room

My Brother’s Body

My brother lost his body bit by bit—a foot, a finger, a shin. The doctors strapped it to a bed, and the mouth screamed on its behalf: Help! Help! With the eyes, my brother spied me, standing in the body of someone who looked like his sister; and the mouth said Health!...

Death and the Canyon

Fifty years married, devoted to Jesus and family, Mom and Dad had remained your protectors in spite of your adult status and incessant lying, your manic highs and pitiful lows. January, 2010 Fifty years married, devoted to Jesus and family, Mom and Dad had remained...

Loving Benjamin

The honourable mention in Room's 2012 creative non-fiction contest, judged by Kathy Page. Part Five: Beginning His eyes are dark and warm, like hot chocolate, and his movements are punctuated and full of life, like a baby Charlie Chaplin. His new lips feel strangely...

Miles to Inches

The honourable mention for Room's 2012 poetry contest. At first it’s terrifying, then it’s scary, and finally, it doesn’t matter. But the space between terrifying and scary, well, it can be an inch or it can be miles, thousands and thousands of miles. And just because...

Lying in Bed in the Morning

The honourable mention in our 2012 poetry contest, judged by Miranda Pearson. There is the crosscutting of twigs, the bulge of red buds carving sky into fragments of grey waiting, molecules of paint melded by winter’s cold on a window frame that won’t open to spring’s...

Honest Work

Your husband has the car for the weekend. You need a car to visit your friend in the hospital tomorrow morning and Sunday morning. The hospital is eight kilometres away. Should you rent a car, call a taxi, take two buses, or walk? Your husband has the car for the...

First Girl

Fat flies line the bait box, brush and cling like scraps of cellophane, ragged magnets in the heat. You shuffle to band a lobster. In a heartbeat it’s caught your thumb with a crusher claw, the grip of an angry baby multiplied tenfold. Stupid for a moment, you can’t...

Announcing the Winners of Our 2012 Contest!

Room is excited to reveal the winners of our annual Fiction, Poetry, and Creative Non-Fiction Contest! First prize goes to Menaka Raman-Wilms for fiction, Kelly Cooper for poetry, and Alison Frost for creative non-fiction. Winners will be published in issue 36.2, on...

Letter to my daughter

I. Vows A hardscrabble climb up the hillside, I. Vows A hardscrabble climb up the hillside, the thin chorus of marmots raised by my footsteps. If your small brow rested on my back the good weight could hold me here, until the sun hangs just below the mountains, casts...

The Haunting of His Name

The man who loves you is nothing but a ghost. He walks through walls, his name on your mouth like prayer. —for my mothers The man who loves you is nothing but a ghost. He walks through walls, his name on your mouth like prayer. His name is what you tell yourself...

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ROOM 48.2 TRAVELLERS

In ROOM 48.2 TRAVELLERS we reflect, dream, manifest. Join us in these human ways of time-travelling, from infancy to the future, through relationships and into surreal realms.

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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.

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