Online Exclusives
Natalie Southworth’s Writing Space
I write in my home office that doubles as a guest room (thank goodness we don’t have many guests), a TV room and a place to dump the laundry. The room contains a desk with a computer, a low chair (I cut down the legs of the desk to deal with this), two windows, a […]
What is Natalie Southworth Reading?
Lately I’ve been reading Offshore by Penelope Fitzgerald. The novel is based on a particular time in Fitzgerald’s life when she was raising two independent, slightly feral girls alone on a sinking houseboat on the Thames. Nenna, the heroine, is unsentimental and hard-scrabble and her reflections on her dying marriage are packed with the richest kind of […]
Finding the Form with Tanis MacDonald
I came to nonfiction via a route that made sense to me, though many find it a bit mysterious: from poetry to scholarly writing and then to creative nonfiction. This path is not unheard-of, but I’m aware that more people bounce back and forth between fiction and nonfiction, working both sides of the prose street, […]
Richard A. Johnson’s Writing Space
It’s daybreak in Victoria, mid-spring, which means the dawn light creeps through the gaps in the window shade at 5 a.m. and by 5:30 I’m sitting at my desk next to a steaming cup of black coffee. With any luck, our 22-month-old son has slept solidly through the night and won’t be jumping in his […]
Marilo Nunez’s Writing Space
I read Virginia Wolff’s A Room of One’s Own while in university (my first degree was in theatre and I was twenty years old) and it changed my life. I longed for a room like the one she describes in her book, a place just for me, a space that contains all of my creative […]
What’s Margaret Nowaczyk Reading?
A month ago, I travelled to Iceland for the Iceland Writers Retreat and for weeks ahead, I boned up on Icelandic literature: Nobel prize winners, twenty-first century darlings, and a few thrillers. No sagas. In doing so, I was delighted to discover Sjón, a multi-talented poet, novelist and lyricist (he has written lyrics for Björk) […]
David Waltner-Toews’ Writing Space
Every writer, I think, needs a space. This need not be a room, as Virginia Woolf imagined. When I was trying to fairly contribute money and labour into raising children, paying mortgages and cars, maintaining a household and a couple relationship, writing at home was not possible. I wrote poetry in hotel rooms in Kathmandu […]
What’s Jennifer Lynn Dunlop Reading?
My favourite poet, Mary Oliver (Sept 10, 1935 – Jan 17, 2019) passed away recently, and I have been re-reading her work. I am captivated by her images of nature, the way her words depict scenes vividly and imaginatively, such as ‘the eyelash of lightning’ (Where Does the Dance Begin, Where Does it End?). Doesn’t […]
Finding the Form with Callista Markotich
Welcome to the latest installation of “Finding the Form.” In this new series, contributors share how they found and developed the creative form for their recent work in The New Quarterly. You can find Callista Markotich’s “The Bed-Making” in Issue 150. It had to be a Poem. Try to convey in prose, the feeling of being […]