Curtain Call

Nour Abi-Nakhoul is a writer based in Montreal. Her debut novel, Supplication, was published on Penguin Random House’s Strange Light imprint in 2024.

 

Brittany Amos is a writer with a passion for the dark and absurd. She’s written short films that have screened at multiple film festivals, including Sandwich Crazy and Gun Shy, and is the author of Hairstyles for the Apocalypse.

 

Nicole Boyce has published stories in The Dalhousie Review, EVENT, The Fiddlehead, Grain, Joyland, The Malahat Review, and more. Her work has also been anthologized in Best Canadian Essays and Not That Bad: Dispatches from Rape Culture, a NYT bestseller.

 

Alice Burdick is a poet living in Lunenburg/E’se’katik. She is the author of six books of poetry. Her most recent book is Ox Lost, Snow Deep (Fall 2024).

 

Kat Cameron (she/her) is a poet and short story writer. Her second poetry collection, Ghosts Still Linger, won the High Plains Book Award for poetry in 2021.

 

Sandra Campbell is a writer whose novel Getting to Normal was published in 2001 and her PLR payments tell her it’s still in national circulation. The Movable Airport (1973, non-fiction) was a nominee for the first annual Toronto Book Award.

 

Patrick Cunningham is a doctoral candidate in English literature at Queen’s University, Kingston. His fiction is interested in new modes of queer story-telling and Canadiana.

 

Preeti Kaur Dhaliwal (she/her) is a writer, facilitator and former lawyer with an MFA from the University of Guelph. Her debut poetry collection is forthcoming with Brick Books (2027). Learn more: www.preetid-haliwal.com.

 

Susan Glickman is the author of 8 books of poetry, most recently Cathedral/Grove (1983), 4 novels for adults, 4 novels for kids, a selection of essays and a work of literary history.

 

Veronika Gorlova is a queer, autistic, Jewish poet and writer living on the unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh people, also known as Vancouver.

 

Jennifer Falkner is the author of Susanna Hall: Her Book (Ottawa Book Award finalist) and the short story collection Above Discovery. She lives in Ottawa.

 

Sierra Jain-Lalande is an emerging writer of essays, poetry, and short fiction. This issue marks her first publication. She is currently studying at Humber Polytechnic, looking forward to what comes next with enthusiastic uncertainty.

 

Calvin Lantz is originally from a farming community near Stratford, Ontario. He now lives with his wife on the Niagara Escarpment with their cat, Stormy.

 

Elfermin Mallari is an LGBTQIA2S Filipino immi-grant currently based in Toronto.

 

Paul McKeague lives in Ottawa. He is working on a collection of linked short stories, one of which, “Downtown”, appears in this issue.

 

Susan Mockler lives in Kingston, Ontario. Her mem-oir Fractured, detailing her experiences with acquired disability following a car accident which left her with a spinal cord injury, was published by Second Story Press in 2022.

 

Lynda Monahan is the author of five collections of poetry, most recently, The Door at the End of Everything (Shadow Paw Press 2024).

 

John Morris is a 69-year-old writer based in Ottawa, Ontario. He has been a lifelong poetry lover and in 2021, was awarded first and third prizes for poetry in the National Capital Writer’s Contest.

 

Tiffany Morris is a L’nu’skw writer from Mi’kma’ki. Her work includes the horror poetry collection Elegies of Rotting Stars and has appeared in ROOM, Prairie Fire, and Augur Magazine, among others.

 

Brandon Nadeau (he/him) is a Canadian author and Afghanistan War Veteran. His short stories have appeared in various literary magazines. Brandon is the Executive Editor of MoonLit Getaway. He lives in Edmonton, Alberta.

 

Deborah Ostrovsky is a Montreal literary translator, editor, and writer. This is the first time her work has appeared in TNQ.

 

Scott Randall is a writer whose third story collection, And to Say Hello (DC Books, 2015), won the Ottawa Book Award, and his most recent work is the novel An Unruly Little Animal (DC Books, 2023).

 

Ian Roy is the author of six books, including a re-cent collection of stories called Astrid, Aghast. He lives in Canada.

 

Ziyad Saadi is a Palestinian Canadian writer and film-maker. His novel Three Parties was released by Penguin Canada in 2025. He is a finalist for the Dayne Ogilvie Prize and winner of the MPAC Hollywood Bureau pilot writing competition.

 

Leona Theis is a writer whose most recent novel is If Sylvie Had Nine Lives, and her memoir Chance after Chance is forthcoming with Thistledown in 2027. She lives on Treaty 6 territory in Saskatoon.

 

Ryan Turner’s stories have appeared in Prairie Fire and Best Canadian Stories. His collection, Half-Sisters, was shortlisted for the 2020 ReLit Award. He lives in Halifax.

 

Denise Unrau (she/her) is a teacher and writer with Prairie roots for whom the question of how change happens is the impetus for her stories and essays.

 

Rhema Sara Varkey is a writer with a Master’s degree in English from Memorial University. Originally from Kerala, India and currently based in Newfoundland, her stories are inspired by her diverse cultural experiences.

 

Angela Waldie lives in Treaty 7 Territory, in Calgary, Alberta. Her debut poetry collection, A Single Syllable of Wild, will be published by Frontenac House in April 2026.