Nestlings, Fledglings, Eggshells

Grain Volume 47, No. 1, Fall 2019.

Contributors: Chris Casuccio, Chelsea Comeau, Katherine DeCoste, Nina Dunic, Paola Ferrante, Matthew Gigg, Yolande House, syan jay, Rachel Jansen, Landa wo, Allison LaSorda, Grace Lau, Amy LeBlanc, Deirdre Maultsaid, Anastasia McEwen, Susan Olding, Jim Reil, Mary H Auerbach Rykov, Glen Sorestad, Kevin Spenst, Anne Swannell, Sarah Yi-Mei Tsiang, Calvin White.

Short Grain Winners: Bert Almon, Shandell Houlden, Roni Muench, Sarah Pelletier, Bradley Peters, Cora Siré.

Cover Image: Sam Montalbetti, Playtime #8, 2019 (Archival Inkjet Print, 38” x 48”)

Editor: Nicole Haldoupis
Art Editor / Designer: Dustin Gill
Associate Fiction and Nonfiction Editor: Terry Jordan
Associate Poetry Editor: dee Hobsbawn-Smith

Indigenous Writers and Storytellers

Grain Volume 46, No. 5.

Contributors: Karrie Auger, Tawahum Bige, Danielle Boissoneau, Rita Bouvier, Michelle Poirier Brown, Warren Cariou, Michela Carrière, Killa Ch’aska, Francine Cunningham, Jenny Ferguson, Louise Bernice Halfe, Ashley Hynd, Jessica Johns, Katłįà, Conor Kerr, Kung Jaadee, Mika Lafond, Alicia Marie Lawrence, Dexter Lee, D.A. Lockhart, Randy Lundy, John McDonald, Daniel David Moses, Doreen Pasapa, Amanda Peters, Daniel Poitras, Michelle Porter, Sita Rani, Janet Rogers, jaye simpson, Cooper Skjeie, waaseyaa’sin Christine Sy, Joshua Whitehead.

Cover Image: Joi T. Arcand, Northern Pawn, South Vietnam, 2009

Editor: Nicole Haldoupis
Guest Fiction and Nonfiction Editor: Lisa Bird-Wilson
Guest Poetry Editor: Tenille K Campbell
Designer: Chris Tyrone Ross

Grain is grateful to the Government of Canada for its financial support of this issue.

lookin’ for joy

Grain Volume 46, No. 4, Summer 2019.

Contributors: Sheri Benning, Linda Biasotto, Kimberley Bielert, Virginia Boudreau, Jenny Boychuk, Holly Day, Kieran Egan, Joel Robert Ferguson, Beth Goobie, Susan Andrews Grace, Susan Haldane, Crystal Hurdle, Mark Anthony Jarman, Ryanne Kap, Fiona Tinwei Lam, Austen Lee, Christopher Linforth, Randy Lundy, Sharon Overend, Carmen Pintea, Stephanie Sauer, Traci Skuce, Steven Ross Smith, Erin Emily Ann Vance.

Cover Image: Steve Mennie, Untitled, 2018 (acrylic and mixed media on board, 36” x 48”)

Editor: Nicole Haldoupis
Art Editor / Designer: Stephanie Campbell
Associate Fiction and Nonfiction Editor: Terry Jordan
Associate Poetry Editor: dee Hobsbawn-Smith

of memory

Grain Volume 45, No. 4, Summer 2018.

Contributors: Charmaine Cadeau, Michelle Contant, Ruth Corkill, John Donlan, Griffin Epstein, Susan Haldane, hannah harris-sutro, Alan Hill, Cynthia Holz, Andrew Kreuter, Evelyn Lau, Maryann Martin, Sabyasachi Nag, Bradley Peters, Rebecca Givens Rolland, Melanie Schnell, Judy Smith, Glen Sorestad, Leona Theis, Meg Todd, Petryna Venuta, Yilin Wang, Elana Wolff, and Jenny Wong.

Editor: Nicole Haldoupis
Art Editor / Designer: Stephanie Campbell
Associate Fiction and Nonfiction Editor: Terry Jordan
Associate Poetry Editor: dee Hobsbawn-Smith

Cover Image: Tim Moore, Detail: Custom, 2010 (mixed media, collage, and found objects, 10” x 11”)

Adaptation

Grain Volume 45, No. 2, Winter 2018.

Contributors: Hugh Anderson, Rhonda Batchelor, Mary Lee Bragg, Robert Colman, Naomi Crummey, Klara du Plessis, Julie Eliopoulos, Jean Eng, Katherine Fawcett, Pamela Rhae Ferguson, Cellan Jay, Bruce Lader, Brenda Leifso, D.A. Lockhart, Claire Matthews, Wendy McGrath, Pamela Medland, Karen Quevillon, Bruce Rice, Marjorie Robertson, Angeline Schellenberg, Steven Ross Smith, and Russell Thornton.

Unrooted

Grain Volume 44, No. 4, Summer 2017.

"If you pull a hair out of your head by the root, your eyes might tear up and burn, or you might remain calm and unfazed. If you pull a plant out by the roots, it might die, or it might make like a succulent clipping in the sun and grow anyway. If a person is pulled out of a situation or location, what happens then? The pieces in this issue uncover themes of being rooted in place, becoming unrooted, and attempting to get back to roots after losing touch.

Lorna Crozier’s first published poem, “Old Man with a Cane,” appeared in Grain over forty years ago, and in this issue you’ll find her first published story—“The Door”—about parents trying to connect with their daughter, her partner, and each other on a family vacation where nothing separates the two couples but a door that locks from both sides.

I hope you can unroot yourself for a while with us to enjoy the work inside this issue of Grain."

— From the Editor's Note

Who's Knocking?

Grain Volume 43 No. 1, Fall 2015

For some people, home is a specific place: a town, a city, a village, a house, a shack, a camper, a gymnasium. For others, it's a state of mind: we're at home wherever we're comfortable.

Some of us - more than there should be - don't have a home, either physically or emotionally. We don't know comfort, and are suspicious of every place we go, as though the lights could scorch us and the walls could swallow us.

The authors in this issue explore the concept of home. They dig inside our collective discomfort and, by helping us understand it, help assuage our fears.

Art by Lora Northway; new fiction by Carrie Mac; new poetry by Dani Couture and Peter Richardson.

Passed Signs / New Fields

Grain Volume 42 No. 4, Spring 2015

It's all about motion. New horizons, new fields, new places, new food, new friends, new enemies. We learn from our mistakes, and keep moving. Such is the human condition, to keep moving even in the midst of fear or pain or happiness. The stories and poems in this issue explore how we stay in motion... and in a few cases, how and why we stop.

Art by Tara Krebs; new fiction by John Saul; new poetry by Katherine Lawrence and Elise Marcella Godfrey.

The Maps We Make

Grain Volume 42 No. 3, Spring 2015

This issue's title arises from Alexander McCall Smith's novel Love Over Scotland: "Regular maps have few surprises: their contour lines reveal where the Andes are, and are reasonably clear. More precious, though, are the unpublished maps we make ourselves, of our city, our place, our daily world, our life...." The Maps We Make is about how we create our own paths, how we navigate the surprising and sometimes dangerous topography of relationships, thoughts, emotions, and impulses. Sometimes we settle into those landscapes, furnishing little hobbit-holes for ourselves and finding peace; other times, we find the landscapes hostile, and either escape, or crash and burn.

Art by Sean William Randall; new fiction by Joe Davies; new poetry by Nathan Mader and Marlene Grand Maitre.

Hearing Voices

Grain Volume 42 No. 1, Fall 2014

This issue highlights the importance of voice - not only when writing, but in general. We express ourselves in infinite ways, through writing, speaking, painting, filming, lecturing, drumming, flashing lights, strumming guitars, and signing with our hands. The ways we receive those expressions are identically infinite. Hearing Voices draws attention to the influence of voice and, ultimately, how we come to understand (and misunderstand) each other through our own interpretations.

Art by Belinda Harrow; new nonfiction by dee Hobsbawn-Smith; new poetry by Jennifer Zilm and John Reibetanz.

Guest Editor: Kathleen Wall
Art Editor / Designer: Corey Wilkinson
Associate Fiction Editor: Cassidy McFadzean
Associate Poetry Editor: Adam Pottle

Cover Image: Belinda Harrow, Cool Light.

Contributors: Michael John Wheeler, John Reibetanz, A.R. Friesen, dee Hobsbawn-Smith, James Farrington, Emily Davidson, Mike Donaldson, Laurie Smith, Patrick Roscoe, Bill Underwood, Diana Manole, Brent Cassan, Shane Joaquin Jimenez, Tim L. Murphy, Jennifer Zilm, Rob Thomas, Josh Stewart, Souvankham Thammavongsa, Michael Biehl, Salvatore Difalco, Bronwyn Lawrie, Michelle Kaeser, Richard Dokey, Claire Millikin, Tom Wayman.

Survivor

Grain Volume 41 No 3, Spring 2014

In her seminal study of Canadian literature, Margaret Atwood writes that, within Canadian stories, one is either a survivor or a victim. This issue both explores and complicates that statement; after all, what lies between survival and victimhood? Life, of course. As guest editor Kim Aubrey states, "Survivors are often defined by their relationships with those who have not been so lucky." The people in this issue find different ways to live, survive, and process victimhood: a bride trashes her dress by plowing into a sandcastle and "cannon-balling into a pool filled with blue Gatorade"; a diligent reader intimately describes how she enters a book's world; a tortoise named Starsky somehow keeps on breathing. The range of material in this issue muddies Atwood's binary with its diverse perspectives: whether you're a survivor or a victim, it's all part of life. 

Art by Sean Caulfield; new fiction by Zoey Leigh Peterson; new poetry by Tanja Bartel and Catriona Wright.

Editor: Kim Aubrey
Art Editor / Designer: Betsy Rosenwald
Associate Fiction & Nonfiction Editor: Kim Aubrey
Associate Poetry Editor: Adam Pottle
Business Administrator: Susan McKenzie

Cover Image: Sean Caulfield, Diagram for the Empire (Detail), ink/acrylic on drafting film, 35.75 x 57.75, 2012.

Contributors: Kayleigh Cline, Zoey Leigh Peterson, Howard Wright, Merrill Edlund, Julie Paul, Jann Everard, Vivian Demuth, Jane Campbell, Jessica Greenbaum, Willow Ververk, Tanja Bartel, Madeline Sonik, Catriona Wright, Mike Cuglietta, Moez Surani, John Gosslee.

Home-Myths

Grain Volume 41 No 1, Fall 2013

Where did you grow up? It’s almost a joke of a question to those of us who move from city to city, country to country. “Home-Myths” pries the roof off your childhood home and takes a look at what’s inside. From drifters to homemakers, our characters struggle to reimagine and recreate whatever that feeling is that makes a building more than a place where you keep yourself, a romance more than a relationship in which you share yourself—to recapture those childhood myths of home. Art by Eliza Griffiths; new fiction by Kristyn Dunnion and Leona Theis; new poetry by Mark Lavorato.

Editor: Rilla Friesen
Art Editor / Designer: Betsy Rosenwald
Associate Fiction & Nonfiction Editor: Kim Aubrey
Associate Poetry Editor: Adam Pottle
Proofreader: Jon Martin Watts
Business Administrator: Sarah Taggart

Cover Image: Eliza Griffiths, Love Story / Fear Eats the Soul (after RWF) (front); Love Story / Fear Eats the Soul (DETAIL) (2013) (back), oil on canvas

Contributors: Jessica Bebenek, Tanya Bellehumeur-Allatt, John Creary, Anita Dolman, Kristyn Dunnion, Christopher Evans, dee Hobsbawn-Smith, Barbara Lorraine Laing, Mark Lavorato, Molly Lynch, Michael Prior, Matt Rader, John Slater, Hendrik Slegtenhorst, Catherine J. Stewart, Leona Theis, Carl Watts, andJeremy Whiston.

Making It: 40th Anniversary

Grain Volume 40 No 4, Summer 2013

"Making It: 40th Anniversary” (40.4) is a celebration of Grain’s longevity and forty years of publishing exceptional work. Featuring poetry and prose from Canadian greats including Tim Bowling, Lorna Crozier, Dorothy Field, Patrick Lane, Jeanette Lynes, and rob mclennan, “Making It: 40th Anniversary” highlights the struggles we undertake to make it, whether it be in love, family, or careers. What are you willing to do to succeed? What’s worth fighting for? Artwork that will stick with you by Kyle Beal; new poetry by Jonathan Ball and Adrienne Gruber; new fiction by David Carpenter.

Editor: Rilla Friesen 
Art Editor / Designer: Betsy Rosenwald
Associate Fiction & Nonfiction Editor: Kim Aubrey
Associate Poetry Editor: Adam Pottle
Proofreader: Jon Martin Watts
Proofreader (Spanish): Yolande Cole
Business Administrator: Sarah Taggart

Cover Image: Kyle Beal, 1-800-INSPIRE (front); Making It (2013) (back), charcoal, ink and watercolour on paper

Contributors: Susan Alexander, Dr. Jonathan Ball, Tim Bowling, Jane Byers, David Carpenter, Lorna Crozier, Dorothy Field, Jesse Patrick Ferguson, Adrienne Gruber, Patrick Lane, Kari Lund-Teigen, Jeanette Lynes, John Mavin, rob mcclennan, Michael McGlade, Maurice Mierau, Andrew Reid, Susan Sanford Blades, Patricia Young.

Gifted

Grain Volume 40 No 2, Winter 2013

“Gifted” (40.2) asks what’s the difference between good literature and exceptional literature. What is the difference between the mundane and the mystical? In content and form, the work in “Gifted” looks beyond the norms and stretches into the mythical. Writers in this issue dare to experiment with form, dare to raise the dead, create life, give birth. Featuring the winners of the 2012 Short Grain contest, judged by Lawrence Hill and rob mclennan, and artwork from the whimsical Tamara Bond. New writing by Andrea MacPherson, Laisha Rosnau, and Anne Pierson Wiese.

poetry judge: rob mclennan
1st Prize—“something like being” (five flights for rafi) Sean Howard
2nd Prize—“injun” Jordan Abel
3rd Prize—“Gullywash” Kate Marshall Flaherty

fiction judge: Lawrence Hill
1st Prize—“The Valley” Susan Mersereau
2nd Prize—“The Boy Who Flew” Madeline Sonik
3rd Prize—“Giraffe; Iguana; Bird; Human” Alexandra Sadinoff

Editor: Rilla Friesen 
Art Editor / Designer: Betsy Rosenwald
Associate Fiction & Nonfiction Editor: Kim Aubrey
Associate Poetry Editor: Adam Pottle
Proofreader: Jon Martin Watts
Business Administrator: Robin Mowat

Cover Image: Tamara Bond, I Found You In the Middle of Nowhere (2009), mixed media drawing

Contributors: André Babyn, Chase Baird, Jonathan Ball, Emily Carr, Chris Donahoe, Matthew Gwathmey, Bill Howell, Doretta Lau, Joanna Lilley, Susan Lorimer, Sandra Ridley, Steven Ray Smith, J. J. Steinfeld.

Burls and Blossoms

Grain Volume 39 No 3, 2012

Wounds that turn to scars, growing pains, and bittersweet love: these are just a few of the themes that take root throughout “burls and blossoms” (39.3). Grain’s spring issue is an organic collection of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, all punctuated by the earthy art of Tamara Rusnak whose fieldnotes grace the pages—an ever-present reminder that beauty can be found in decay. Featuring new poetry by Robert Currie and Roger Nash, and new fiction by Steven Benstead and Laura Legge.

Editor: Rilla Friesen
Designer: Betsy Rosenwald
Associate Fiction Editor: Kim Aubrey
Associate Poetry Editor: Adam Pottle
Business Administrator: Michael Thompson
Interim Administrator: Elise Godfrey

Cover Image: Tamara Rusnak, The shadow's incubation chamber, (2010)

Contributors: Jonathan Ball, Steven Benstead, Linda Biasotto, Justin Joschko, Roger Nash, Laura Legge, Bill Underwood, Natalie Southworth, Richard Capling, Julie Mahfood, Irina Kovalyova, Robert Currie, Dylan Riley, Nathan Andrew Wilson

Imposter

Grain Volume 39 No 1, 2012

IMPOSTER is a whimsical collection of poems and fiction that begs you to look at the truth of your identity. Are you who you think you are? Are your colleagues, your mentors, or your peers who you think they are? At what point do you shed the skin of your immaturity and grow into a fully-formed you? Just what is the you-ness of you, and if that has been stripped away by illness, enhanced by drugs, or manipulated into nothing, are you then an imposter of yourself? These are the questions posed by the talented contributors of Grain’s Fall 2011 issue. The poetry of Alissa Gordaneer opens the issue by laying it all on the table: She’s wearing my shoes and sleeping in my bed. When “Dad,” the cult leader in Andrew Torry’s “Our Last White Night,” says, I am the prophet of our generation, he manipulates a collective of disenfranchised, broken youth into believing in his vision—so much so that they become shadows of their former selves, enculted. This is offset by the religious fervour of the congregants of Grace Lutheran church in Laura Trunkey’s “Second Comings and Goings,” which playfully implies that traditional indoctrination is just as catching. The daring art of Cate Francis masks and unmasks this issue. Featuring images of animals wearing masks of other animals, and children wearing masks of predators, her works answer the questions posed by these contributors in a wholly exciting, completely perplexing way.

Editor: Rilla Friesen

Designer: Betsy Rosenwald

Cover Image: Cate Francis, Small Game Sentinals, 2010, serigraph with chine-colle.

Contributors: Jonathan Ball, Gerard Beirne, Nancy Jo Cullen, Cate Francis, Jeb Gaudet, Alisa Gordaneer, Brecken Hancock, Matthew Harris, David Milne, Monty Reid, John Reid, Eliza Robertson, Eric Schwerer, Andrew Torry, Laura Trunkey, and Mischa Willett.

Honeysuckle

Grain Volume 38 No 3, 2011

Editor:Sylvia Legris
Designer: Betsy Rosenwald
Cover Image: Chris Kuzma, Step 6, watercolour, ink, pencil on paper.

HONEYSUCKLE, Spring 2011. With a small nod to Pantone’s 2011 Color of the Year,HONEYSUCKLE touches on things design-related and marks the lengthening of days. Includes a dazzling collection of work replete with both creatures of nature and objects manufactured for living rooms (from Herman Miller chairs to American Pelicans!). Features brilliant artwork by Chris Kuzma, Jonathan Ball’s popular Haiku Horoscopes, and new writing by Trevor Corkum, Marilyn Bowering, Sara Heinonen, Michael Trussler, Ronna Bloom, Alpay Ulku, Corinna Chong, and more…

Congratulations to Marilyn Bowering whose poems "Starting School", "Connection", and "Fidelity" garnered a nomination in for the 35th National Magazine Awards.

Check out this flattering review of HONEYSUCKLE by Sarah Gorman at NewPages.com!

Contributors: Maggie Andersen, Jonathan Ball, Michelle Barker, andrea bennett, Ronna Bloom, Marilyn Bowering, Corinna Chong, Trevor Corkum, Claudia Coutu Radmore, John Creary, Antony Di Nardo, Sara Heinonen, Kevin Immanuel, Irina Kovalyova, Chris Kuzma, Andrew McEwan, Ben Rawluk, Paula Jane Remlinger, Hendrik Slegtenhorst, Michael Trussler, Alpay Ulku.

Arsenal

Grain Volume 38 No 2, 2011

Editor: Sylvia Legris
Designer: Betsy Rosenwald
Cover Image: Mary Kavanagh, Southbase, Wendover Air Force Base, Wendover, Utah, 2010. Photographs used in this issue were made by Mary Kavanagh during a 2010 Artist Residency at the Center for Land Use Interpretation (CLUI), Wendover, Utah.

ARSENAL, Winter 2011. Grain’s annual Contest Issue is a stockpile of shiny new writing, ideas, and images—spit and polished and ready for inspection! Rifle through these pages and the only cover you’ll want to take is inside the one that wraps this issue.ARSENAL includes a fantastic array of poetry, fiction, and non-fiction. Features spectacular artwork by Mary Kavanagh, and superb new writing by Louise Bak, Sarah Keevil, Doyali Farah Islam, and Rosa del Duca. PLUS Grain’s 2010 Short Grain contest winners!

Contributors: Rose Adams, Louise Bak, Jonathan Ball, Rosa del Duca, Bill Howell, Doyali Farah Islam, Christian Jordan, Mary Kavanagh, Sarah Keevil, John Pass, Sandra Ridley, Shawn Riopelle.

Featuring the winners of the 22nd Annual Short Grain (with Variations) Contest:

Fiction: judged by Lee Henderson
1st Prize — “Thomas and the Woman” by Jennifer Stone of Mineville, NS
2nd Prize —“The Central Zoo” by Tsering Lama of Surrey, BC
1st Runner-up —“The Stooker” by Jim Gerwing of Victoria, BC
2nd Runner-up —“Leaving” by Susi Lovell of Montreal, QC

Poetry: judged by Jennifer Still
1st Prize —“Happily Lost” by Hector Williamson of Calgary, AB
2nd Prize —“Still Life with White Roses” by Lisa Martin-DeMoor of Edmonton, AB 
1st Runner-up —“snow (stolen poems, for Orhan Pamuk)” by Sean Howard of Main-à-Dieu, NS
2nd Runner-up —“Learning to speak and not to speak” by Lisa Martin-DeMoor of Edmonton, AB

Unruly

Grain Volume 38 No 1, 2010

Editor: Sylvia Legris
Designer: Betsy Rosenwald
Cover Image: Adrian Norvid, Easy Peasy, 2006, 117 x 153 cm (photo: Alana Riley).

UNRULY, Fall 2010. Go rowdy! Go unruly! Think of the first sentence as if it were a mushroom spore, writes Irina Kovalyova in her essay "On Mushrooms." Grain's Fall issue, UNRULY, is a magnificent literary "mesh of living growth" that positively sporulates with provocative writing. Pieces by contributors Michael Goertzen, Kyeren Regehr, Shane Rhodes, Kellee Ngan, and Jim Johnstone branch unpredictably, impeccably, between genres, or stretch one’s more domesticated expectations of form and content. Included is our first installment of Jonathan Ball’s Haiku Horoscopes (wild divination whipped into 17 syllables!). UNRULY features the truly unruly, shrewdly brilliant (with undertones both lewd and rude!) artwork of Montreal artist Adrian Norvid.

Contributors:
Jonathan Ball, Brianna Brash-Nyberg, Michael Goertzen, Jason Heroux, Jim Johnstone, Irina Kovalyova, Doretta Lau, Alan McMonagle, Kellee Ngan, Adrian Norvid, Kyeren Regehr, Shane Rhodes, Royston Tester.

Trophy

Grain Volume 37 No 2, 2010

Editor: Sylvia Legris
Designer: Betsy Rosenwald
Cover Image: Lee Henderson, Coyote II (detail), photograph reproduced from Lee Henderson’s series Still Life with Thanatotic Animals (an edition of silver gelatin prints on fibre, each 28 x 35 inches).

Grain’s Winter 2010 issue, TROPHY, features the winners of Grain’s 21st Annual Writing Contest, judged by Tonja Gunvaldsen Klaassen (Poetry) and Elise Levine (Fiction). Includes 1st and 2nd Prize fiction and poetry winners Matthew Heiti, Marilyn Gear Pilling, Danny Jacob, and Medrie Purdham. TROPHY also features the provocative images of artist Lee Henderson, with new fiction by Segun Afolabi, and Zsuzsi Gartner, and new poetry by Ronna Bloom, Jonathan Ball, Concetta Principe, Paul William Zits.

Congratulations to Zsuzsi Gartner, whose short-story collection, Better Living Through Plastic Explosives, has made the 2011 Giller Prize short list! "Floating Like a Goat," one of the stories included in Better Living Through Plastic Explosives, was first published in TROPHY!

Contributors:
Segun Afolabi, Jonathan Ball, Ronna Bloom, Tamara Bond, Zsuzsi Gartner, Aaron Giovannone, Craig Harkema, Lee Henderson, David Martin, Concetta Principe, Caitlin Ward, Paul William Zits.

Featuring the winners of the 21st annual Short Grain (with variations) Writing Contest:

Fiction: judged by Elise Levine
1st Prize: "Snakeskin Boots" by Matthew Heiti
2nd Prize: "Head-doors" by Marilyn Gear Pilling
1st Runner-up: "Hands Like Birds" by Laura Trunkey
2nd Runner-up: "A Lioness Hath Whelped in the Streets" by Nicholas Eliot

Poetry: judged by Tonja Gunvaldsen Klaassen
1st Prize: "How to Shoot Skeet with My Grandfather's Lost Double Barrel" by Danny Jacobs
2nd Prize: "The Tilled Field, Joan Miro" by Medrie Purdham
1st Runner-up: "directions for sleep (variations from an insomniac)" by Andrea MacPherson