Prairie Fire Press & McNally Robinson Booksellers 2012 Writing Contests

Wednesday, Sep 26, 2012 at 9:42am

Three contests, $6,000 in cash prizes!

Bliss Carman Poetry Award
The poetry first prize is in part donated by the Banff Centre for the Arts, who will also award a jeweller-cast replica of poet Bliss Carman's silver and turquoise ring to the first-prize winner. (1-3 poems per entry, maximum 150 lines per entry)
Judge: Anne Simpson

Short Fiction
(one story per entry, maximum 10,000 words)
Judge: Marina Endicott

Creative Non-Fiction
(one article per entry, maximum 5,000 words)
Judge: Jake MacDonald

Contest Rules

Entry fee is $32 (per category). This entitles you or your designate to a one-year (4 issues) subscription to Prairie Fire. Make cheque or money order payable to Prairie Fire and enclose with your entry. You may also use all major credit cards.

Deadline for all contest entries: Postmarked November 30, 2012.

Do not identify yourself on your entry. Please enclose a cover letter with your name, address, telephone number and/or e-mail address, the title(s) of your piece(s), and word count (prose), or line count (poetry) along with your entry fee.

No faxed or e-mailed submissions, please.

Your entry must be typed on 8 1/2 x 11-inch white paper and the pages clipped, not stapled. Prose must be double-spaced.

Entries will not be returned. If you want to be informed of results, include a stamped, self-addressed envelope, or check our website at www.prairiefire.ca.

Each piece must be original, unpublished, not submitted elsewhere for publication or broadcast, nor entered simultaneously in any other contest or competition.

You may enter as often as you like; only your first entry in each category will be eligible for a subscription.

Winning pieces will be published in Prairie Fire magazine, with authors paid for publication. First prize is $1,250, Second prize is $500, Third prize is $250, in all categories.

Send entries to:
Prairie Fire Press
423-100 Arthur Street
Winnipeg, MB
R3B 1H3
For more information check out our website at www.prairiefire.ca, call (204) 943-9066, or e-mail us at [email protected].

Categories: buzz, Winnipeg, Contests and Giveaways

Boom Times for Manitoba Fiction

Saturday, Sep 08, 2012 at 5:09pm

Fall 2012 is a banner season for Manitoba fiction across all genres and forms.

Méira Cook, an award-winning poet, novelist and literary critic, taps her South African roots in her second novel, The House on Sugarbush Road. Set in post-apartheid Johannesburg shortly after the 1994 election of Nelson Mandela, The House on Sugarbush Road is the story of the intertwining lives of a once prominent liberal Afrikaner family and Beauty Mapule, their domestic servant of more than thirty years. Cook's intimately interconnected and finely drawn characters are white, black, rich, poor, beautiful, ugly, old and young; they are also hustlers, do-gooders, petty criminals and sensualists, heading towards dramatic explosions both inevitable and unexpected.

Categories: buzz, Saskatoon, Winnipeg

Read More...

In Other Worlds - Manitoba Writers Tackle the Fantastic

Wednesday, Aug 22, 2012 at 3:34pm

Chadwick Ginther
Ginther's first published story, First Light, appeared in the Summer 2011 issue of On Spec, the premier Canadian magazine of speculative fiction. More recently, his story Back in Black has been anthologized in Tesseracts Sixteen, which came out in August. He is also a regular reviewer for Quill and Quire, Prairie Books NOW and The Winnipeg Review. But more to the point, he's been a stalwart and enthusiastic bookseller at McNally Robinson Booksellers' Grant Park store for over ten years, and we're all delighted to be able to get our hands on his first novel, Thunder Road, which is also the first book in his fantasy series featuring Ted Callan.

It turns out Manitoba is a magical land full of Norse gods and supernatural beings. When three stout men assault Ted in his Osborne Street hotel room, he doesn't like his chances of getting out alive. But when he comes to, he discovers he's more than alive. His body is covered in an elaborate Norse tattoo that gives him the power of the Gods. And he's going to need every ounce of that power as he sets off on a journey that leads him from Winnipeg to Gimli and finally to Flin Flon for a showdown of mythological proportions.

Karen Dudley
The author of four environmental mysteries featuring research scientist and amateur sleuth Robyn Devara (Hoot to Kill, Shortlisted for an Arthur Ellis Award for Best First Crime Novel; Red Heron; Macaws of Death; Ptarmageddon), delivers a mystery set in the nasty world of Greek mythology entitled Food for the Gods. Pelops' troubles begin when his father chops him into stewing meat and serves him to the gods for tea. Although he's remade and given a talent for the culinary arts, he's not his old self. But things go from bad to worse when a courtesan drowns in a vat of his olive oil and his clients begin to stay away in droves. Pelops asks the gods for help, but when they turn him down, he realizes he alone must find the woman's killer to salvage his reputation.

David Annandale
David Annandale is the author of three thrillers featuring rogue warrior Jen Blaylock: Crown Fire, Kornukopia, and The Valedictorians, but he has a hankering for the kind of dark tales that make your skin crawl. His horror fiction has appeared in numerous anthologies and he has a novel from Black Library coming in 2013. Enjoy Annandale's unique brand of horror in his new novel Gethsemane Hall, which has just hit the shelves. Richard Gray, grieving over the loss of his wife and daughter, learns that his ancestral home, Gethsemane Hall, holds the secret of what lies beyond the grave. The skeptics think they know what's going on at Gethsemane. So do the religious. So do the spiritualists. So Gray lets them all in, these people who think they're coming for the truth. What they don't know is that the truth is coming for them.

Categories: buzz, SciFi & Fantasy, Winnipeg, New Releases, Horror

Adam McOmber on The White Forest

Thursday, Aug 23, 2012 at 5:11pm

Author Adam McOmber discusses his forthcoming book The White Forest, coming in September.

Categories: buzz, Saskatoon, Winnipeg, New Releases