Online Exclusives
The 2023 Edna Staebler Personal Essay Contest Longlist
After thorough consideration, The New Quarterly is pleased to announce the longlisted submissions to the 2023 Edna Staebler Personal Essay Contest. The longlisted writers and their essays are as follows: The 2023 Edna Staebler Personal Essay Contest Longlist “Black Hammers Falling” by Christopher Banks “Every Possible Way” by Adèle Barclay “Staying Power” by Gayle Belsher […]
Benjamin Lefebvre’s Writing Space
I can sum up the state of my home office, the room in which most aspects of my writing life occur, in one word: piles. They are multiple, if not multitudinous—books and papers for the most part, as well as receipts, USB keys, pens, paperclips, electronic device chargers, and discarded teabag tags. My desk, so […]
John Vardon’s Writing Space
When I look through the dozens of other writing-space pieces, I am most impressed by, and slightly envious of, those writers fortunate enough to write from rooms overlooking gorgeous gardens or the shores of the “ramshackle sea,” to use a phrase by Richard Outram quoted in the blog post of Luke Hathaway. My writing and […]
Pride Month Reads
In honour of Pride Month, we’ve rounded up some works across our nonfiction, fiction, and poetry publications which centre 2SLGBTQIA+ characters, stories and authors. These reads will be accessible online regardless of subscription status until August. Nonfiction “Homebodies” by J.P. Letkemann One time, we were raking leaves at my father’s cottage, and Ben rushed toward […]
Finding the Form With John Vardon
The person who said that there is no such thing as a stupid question was obviously not an author, especially one enduring interviews on a book-promotion tour or answering questions at the end of a reading. Having attended many literary readings, I dread the usual questions about where authors get their ideas or those prefaced […]
Finding the Form with Fiona Tinwei Lam
The writing process for me has never been linear. I tend to circle around themes and subjects, revisiting them over the years, trying different approaches to go deeper, to attempt to plumb the symbolism and connections. It has surprised me how often that yet another poem will emerge about my mother’s prolonged struggle with early […]
What’s Morgan Dick Reading?
For many years, I considered myself allergic to poetry. Most of the poets I studied in school were eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Englishmen who wrote about beautiful women, so you can see why I thought the form silly and self-important. By my twenties, I’d done my best to avoid reading it. Beyond a few mopey verses […]
Meraj Zafar’s Writing Space
For me it’s as much about time as place. Time and context, maybe, which is a way of starting to explain why the woodshop’s workbench doubles as my favourite writing space. I have my desk at home too, where I write properly in my notebook, and edit OpenOffice docs on my cherished and ancient computer, […]
The 2023 Nick Blatchford Occasional Verse Contest Results
The New Quarterly is proud to announce the winners of the 2023 Nick Blatchford Occasional Verse Contest! Winner “Abecedarian with Sharpened Vision” by Dagne Forrest Runner-Up “Mondays with My Dad” by Linda Hatfield Second Runner-Up “Ah see it all wit’ mih own two eyes” Simon Peter Eggertsen Honourable Mentions “Year of the Tiger” by William Ross “The […]
Finding the Form with Alanna Marie Scott
Relevance snuck up on me. I wrote In the Bowers in 2018, sitting on a towel on my fourth floor balcony, looking out at a grid of parking lots and alleys, listening to Mystery of Love by Sufjan Stevens on repeat. It was spring, and unseasonably warm. At the time I was interested in acute […]