The results are finally here! Here are the winning entries to our Creative Non-Fiction Contest as selected by our esteemed judge, Dr. Njoki Wane. A major congrats to these three writers! Here are what our judge has to say about the winning submissions: First Place:...
The 2021 Creative Non-Fiction Contest judge is award-winning educator, researcher, and writer, Dr. Njoki Wane. Dr. Wane has consistently used her positions in academia and policy-making to advance an agenda of equity and an intersectional approach. She is also the...
Here's some good news in during a brisk February day - the winners of the 2020 Short Forms contest are finally here! A big thank you goes out to our wonderful judge, Lisa Bird-Wilson, for the time and effort that went into choosing these pieces, and of course, to...
It's here - the longlist for our 2020 Short Forms contest! A big thank you to all the writers who shared their short form pieces with us and our esteemed judge, Lisa Bird-Wilson, especially during such a strange, tumultuous year. Here are the seven longlisted...
We're so thrilled to announce Room's new marketing and contest coordinator, Ruchika Gothoskar! Ruchika is an editor, writer, reader, and settler, currently living on the territory of the Anishinabek, Huron-Wendat, Haudenosaunee and Ojibway/Chippewa peoples, in...
“Baby Shark” is the honourable mention for Room’s Short Forms Contest 2019. Many years ago, when I was four, I made a bargain with dida. If she took me for a movie in the evening, I would eat my lunch without fuss, like a bhalo meye. “Okay,” she said, “It has to be a...
“The calm lunatic—now that is something to aspire to.”—Mary Ruefle, “On Fear” I learned to skip this year. I use a heavy, knotted rope that thwacks the ground and burns my shoulders and whips my bare toes raw when I stumble. In the early days I’d walk around with...
Our 2015 CNF Contest Honourable Mention. It’s my job to iron the napkins. There’s hundreds of them, enough to do two back-to-back weddings in a single weekend, or a three-day golf tournament without re-washing. I don’t mind. It’s quiet down here in the basement...
Read the Honourable-Mention Winning Entry From Our 2015 CNF Contest “Let’s blow this joint!” Dad said, and stuck the key into the Oldsmobile’s ignition. Mom rode shotgun; my brothers and I had all crammed into the back. Popcorn, our shih tzu, panted nervously at my...
The honourable mention entry in Room's 2014 Contest Creative Non-Fiction category. Sitting on the edge of the tub I look at the large, red sore on my stump—the edges of its oval shape roughen in the heat of the shower, small bumps push to the surface. “What do you...