The New Quarterly Secures Two Silvers

The New Quarterly won double silver in Poetry and Personal Journalism at this year’s 42nd National Magazine Awards, securing the best showing by a Canadian literary magazine and ninth best overall. The magazine’s success was announced on May 31, 2019 in Toronto after more than 185 Canadian print and digital magazines put forth submissions in both official languages. The New Quarterly garnered five nominations at this year’s National Magazine Awards, including two in Poetry, two in Personal Journalism, and one in Fiction.

Terence Young’s “The Bear” won silver in Poetry. Young—a retired teacher of English and Creative Writing at St. Michaels University School—is not new to receiving recognition; his poem was also a runner-up in The New Quarterly’s 2018 Nick Blatchford Occasional Verse Contest. “That Time of Year,” a story from his second collection of fiction, The End of the Ice Age, was selected for the annual Best Canadian Stories in 2012.

In Personal Journalism, Meaghan Rondeau’s “Half-Thing” won silver. The New Quarterly first celebrated her innovative essay by awarding it first place in the 2018 Edna Staebler Personal Essay Contest. Rondeau’s work is not limited to poetry and short fiction: her first play, Cassandra in the House, was produced at the Brave New Play Rites in Vancouver.

“The competition was fierce at this year’s NMAs—in Poetry, there were eight shortlisted, and in Personal Journalism, there were 11 shortlisted,” The New Quarterly Editor Pamela Mulloy said. “It’s always a surreal experience to attend the NMAs with all their razzle-dazzle, and to see The New Quarterly‘s name on the big screen makes me incredibly proud of all the work that goes into bringing these winning writers to this very big stage.”

In the 20 years that it has participated in the National Magazine Awards, The New Quarterly has won ten gold, nine silver, and had 43 honourable mentions.

About The New Quarterly

The New Quarterly (TNQ) is a non-profit Canadian literary magazine that has been publishing the best of Canadian writing—short fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction—since 1981. TNQ also holds three annual contests: the Nick Blatchford Occasional Verse Contest, the Peter Hinchcliffe Short Fiction Award, and the Edna Staebler Personal Essay Contest. The magazine hosts the Wild Writers Literary Festival and manages the Write on the French River Creative Writing Retreat. TNQ is housed at St. Jerome’s University at the University of Waterloo and acknowledges that its office is located on the traditional territory of the Neutral, Anishnawbe and Haudenosaunee peoples. The University of Waterloo is situated on the Haldimand Tract, the land promised to the Six Nations that includes six miles on each side of the Grand River.

For more information, please contact Pamela Mulloy at: pmulloy [at] newquarterly.net

Photos courtesy of the National Magazine Awards. For the latest award updates, follow them on Twitter at @MagAwards.