Margins
Room Magazine book cover
Room Magazine
Twine
2020
First Published
4.14
Average Rating
128
Number of Pages

In this issue, you will find poetry that contends with selfhood, prose that searches for home, and art that extends an open palm. These pages won’t always offer comfort, but I hope they will present an exploration of the ways in which we try to connect. Writer Nazanine Hozar posits in her interview with Isabella Wang that “languages open doors for you. Each one has its own music.” Twine, the object, is created by its own verb. While the threads running through this issue twist and twine together revealing the many notes of relationships, at its fibre is the love we hold and offer. In Leah Edwards’ short story, “Marion’s Holy Land Experience,” a young girl wrestles with her partner’s evasion of commitment while she contends with an unwelcome commitment of her own. Jenny Heijun Wills tenderly depicts the family we choose for ourselves in her nonfiction piece, “An Epilogue of BIPOC Love.” kitchen mckeown’s “Cancer Poem” paints a portrait of unflinching self-knowledge. Jasmine Sealy reignites the love of a place in her short story “Collapse.” And, in our extended BackRoom interview, Whitney French and Alannah Johnson unpack publishing relationships, and the notion of being “not just accountable, but really committed to the voices of community.” I was incredibly lucky through this process to have had two co-assistant editors: Isabella Wang and Molly Cross-Blanchard, who were so honest and creative with their ideas and input. I am grateful for the time and energy they supported me with. To you readers, I offer the threads that connect us to each other, ourselves, and the places we’ve been and of which we dream.

Avg Rating
4.14
Number of Ratings
7
5 STARS
57%
4 STARS
29%
3 STARS
0%
2 STARS
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1 STARS
14%
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Authors

Alisha Dukelow
Author · 1 books
Alisha Dukelow lives in Los Angeles, where she is a PhD candidate in English Literature at the University of Southern California. She is interested in the relationship between innovative modern and contemporary literature, the mind/body, time, and the environment. She received an MA in Creative Writing from Concordia in Montreal, and her poetry and fiction have been published in places such as The Malahat Review, PRISM international, and Room. Her chapbook of poems, Pareidolia (2020), is available through Anstruther Press.
Whitney French
Whitney French
Author · 1 books

Whitney French is a writer based in the Toronto area although she does most of her eating, sleeping and actual writing in her hide-out north of the city. Her writing interests include character-driven fiction, children’s literature, screenwriting, poetry, speculative fiction and essaying. She recently graduated from Concordia University for Creative Writing and Child Psychology and works as a freelance writer. But if you really want to know what Whitney is like… She loves anime She ties her shoes sitting down, always She talks smack on the basketball courts but she’s really no good She has an irrational fear of metal jewelry touching her skin She hates chocolate She taught herself how to play the guitar She writes in trees often

Jaclyn Desforges
Jaclyn Desforges
Author · 3 books
JACLYN DESFORGES is the author of a poetry collection, Danger Flower (Palimpsest Press, 2021) and a picture book, Why Are You So Quiet? (Annick Press, 2020). Jaclyn is a Pushcart-nominated writer and the winner of the 2018 RBC/PEN Canada New Voices award, the 2019 Hamilton Public Library Freda Waldon Award for Fiction, the 2019 Judy Marsales Real Estate Ltd. Award for Poetry, and a 2020 Hamilton Emerging Artist Award for Writing. Her first chapbook, Hello Nice Man, was published by Anstruther Press in 2019. Jaclyn’s writing has been featured in Room Magazine, THIS Magazine, The Puritan, The Fiddlehead, Contemporary Verse 2, Minola Review and others. She is an MFA candidate at the University of British Columbia’s School of Creative Writing and lives in Hamilton with her partner and daughter.
Annick MacAskill
Annick MacAskill
Author · 2 books
Annick MacAskill's third full-length poetry collection, Shadow Blight (Gaspereau Press, 2022), won the Governor General's Award for Poetry. Her two previous collections are Murmurations (Gaspereau Press, 2020) and No Meeting Without Body (Gaspereau Press, 2018), which was longlisted for the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award and shortlisted for the J.M. Abraham Award. She lives in Kjipuktuk (Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada) on the traditional and unceded territory of the Mi'kmaq.
Marisca Pichette
Marisca Pichette
Author · 7 books
Marisca Pichette is an award-winning author of speculative fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. Her debut collection of speculative verse, RIVERS IN YOUR SKIN, SIRENS IN YOUR HAIR, was nominated for the 2023 Bram Stoker and Elgin Awards. Their cli-fi novella, EVERY DARK CLOUD, is out now from Ghost Orchid Press. Marisca lives in Massachusetts.
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