Photo by Dimitri Nasrallah Dimitri Nasrallah’s Hotline (Véhicule Press) transports readers to mid-eighties Montreal when weight-loss centres were a burgeoning industry, and “body image” and “health consciousness” were terms just entering the vocabulary of self-care. Muna Heddad, a French teacher by trade, takes a job as a hotline phone operator at meal delivery company Nutri-Fort […] More »

Jerry waited beneath the underpass for Tre, away from the streetlamp’s light. Not many people were about in that part of the city, but he could always take out his phone and pretend to chat if anyone got close. It was cold, really cold, and under any other circumstance, Jerry would have gone down to […] More »

There are bed bugs in my apartment building, so we have to flee, fucking posthaste. I pack my roommate’s cat up in her little crate and hop into my inheritance from old Auntie Doreen, a blue ‘98 Chevy Lumina. We barely make it out before they have the white and blue bubble wrap covering the […] More »

I always knew Elliott would leave. I was never under the impression I got to keep him forever. And besides—I’m not that kind of selfish. Sometimes, it almost felt like I should have chased him away early. Kept him from wasting his time on me. “But what do you get out of this,” I’d ask […] More »

I went over to the house the day after Ma told us her news. Vietnamese folk opera was playing in the background, familiar tales of love, betrayal, and misunderstandings. These lyrical tones and string instruments made up the soundtrack of my childhood. I pulled off my waterproof boots and hung up my puffy faux fur-lined […] More »

Sometimes Sam got words stuck in her head. Tonight she was repeating to herself the phrase, unwaxed thread—unwaxed thread—… The on-call room smelled like two decades of coffee breath. She slipped past its heavy door, her eyes protesting the quick adjustment from the bright fluorescent of the hospital corridor to the on-call room’s dim bulb, […] More »

Nookaa starts her new job in seventeen minutes and still decides to take some time deciding what androgynous items of clothing to wear, responds to a text from her partner to “talk” later that day, and also reminds White Boy #326 where the closest movie rental place is, right on Commercial Drive. In the cab […] More »

  The Graceville Motel stands thirty feet from the town’s main road. Its lime-green siding has faded. Swirls of dirt frame the white doors. I can see marks where someone attempted to wash them; whoever it was never bothered with the edges of the doors. It’s like they scrubbed down the middle and said, “Close […] More »

Meet This Magazine‘s new Poetry Editor, David Ly, and Fiction Editor, Jenny Ferguson. Jenny Ferguson is Métis, an activist, feminist, auntie, teacher, and accomplice with a PhD. She is the author of Border Markers (NeWest Press), a collection of linked flash fiction narratives. Jenny believes writing and teaching are political acts. David Ly is a […] More »

Je m’appelle Reynaud. My mother named me. She was French. Other than her, I have never met anyone else who was French. No one else in this city is French. I don’t recall ever meeting my father. I am alone in a dead city. There are no more people here. People do not live in […] More »

Aunt Hwie, (like we) was, I learned, aunt Hoei (like oui) was bibi Hoei to me and The Thian Hoei (like thé, tiens, oui) Father, took Joseph in English, is Sioe An (like Sue Ann), is bapak to me, & we spelled her name wrong repeatedly. Uncle, took Joseph in English too, is Sioe Siet […] More »