author:Lauren McKeon - This Magazine
Gone huntin’
Today’s super-local foodie knows how to can fruit, wear camouflage, and shoot a gun. How killing for meat became the latest eat-conscious trend It’s nearly sunrise, and Justin Stephenson is about 20 feet above the forest floor on a 32-square-foot tree stand. The November weather in Ontario cottage country is frigid. Stephenson’s bundled up in… More »
1st place, fiction: Shuffle Gods
The rules would save them, of that he was certain. Sixty percent certain, anyway. Parthi dipped a wooden spoon in the pot simmering on the stove. Nadia had asked for Indian, and though it wasn’t his favourite food—the smells reminded him of glittery childhood festivals—he wanted to please her. As he stood stirring the masoor… More »
Writing Mr. Wong
Susan Crean’s decision to write about her family servant and dear friend Mr. Wong takes her on a journey that reveals just as much about the ever-shifting nature of multiculturalism and identity in Canada as it does about Wong’s life It’s a brilliant Friday morning in August, 2011 just past nine o’clock, and the sidewalk… More »
Fare Well: 1st place, creative non-fiction
“Strip mine your memories,” said Jake, my writing teacher. So I did. And found that, even after forty-two years, the last sight of my mother’s face still haunts me. She lay, cocooned in pillows, dressed in a silk blouse and dark wool suit. Her cheeks glowed like marble, bloodless and cool. Her hair, combed and… More »
2nd place poetry: Opening the Door
You can’t draw your knife against the future, argue with a window that hasn’t shut, carve fault lines through a saint’s faint heart or stop walls with a can of paint. Tracing the outline of Catharina’s tired rim on the moon, you know colliding with a galaxy, a leaf, a feud will break the sea… More »
2nd place creative non-fiction: Unfelled: A Naxal Encounter
1. On a mountain road deep in the Indian jungle, a pair of tree trunks blocks the passage of a jeep. Inside, a wary driver and a terrified cameraman, both town dwellers hired by a local non-governmental organization to ferry us into the district of Kandhamal—the Kashmir of southern India, for its verdant highlands swathed… More »
2nd place fiction: Knock on Wood
Darby called me from the police station early in the morning. Her voice sounded tiny like a bird when she said Daddy I need you to come get me. Any father can tell you the way that feels when your child is in trouble and your blood gets hot. They say in emergency situations the… More »
3rd place creative non-fiction: State Controlled Paprika
“State controlled paprika.” I’m having a sarcastic moment with a tin, the colour of robin’s egg blue. I’m enamoured with this rectangular container, its edges rounded, its paint worn and its body slightly dented. I clutch the tin and feel something unexplainable. Under its smooth folk art exterior, outside of its practicality, and under its… More »
3rd place fiction: Man, Woman and Child
Kate liked to flirt with the letter carrier even though she suspected he was gay. She appreciated a challenge, craved variety. His portly build and short stature reminded her of Al Waxman from King of Kensington, only the new mailman was terminally shy. His trim beard and baby face conjured Maher Arar’s chubby younger brother…. More »
Not guilty
Why we should never feel bad about what we read “I keep telling myself that this winter I’m going to re-read In Search of Lost Time. I can’t believe how long it’s been.” “Oh. Yeah. Um. Me too, it’s been … way too long since … that.” “But you have read Proust, right?” “Proust? Have… More »
