“maskihkîwiwat” is the Third Place Winner of Room’s 2023 Short Forms Contest, as judged by Tsering Yangzom Lama. You can find the full list of winners, and what Tsering had to say about each winning piece, here. maskihkîwiwat My cousins made me promise that I’d spend more time at the water. That I’d make time to remember the land and to let it heal me. They packed me up with medicines on my last visit, giving me a filled Ziploc bag and some red cloth.  An urban maskihkîwiwat to carry around as a reminder that I’m more than what the city lets me be. The best I’d been able to do since I cam ..read more

We are thrilled to announce the winners of our 2023 Short Forms Contest. A huge congratulations to the following three authors whose brief and beautiful works were handpicked by esteemed judge, Tsering Yangzom Lama. We won’t keep you waiting any longer: here they are! — FIRST PLACE: Zigsa Tells Her Story,by Rimi B Chatterjee Rimi B. Chatterjee is a screenwriter, novelist and academic from Kolkata, India. Since 2005 she has been working on the Antisense Universe, a storyworld focused on climate action and civilisational redesign. This story is set in the Antisense Universe. The dry horror ..read more

We are so excited to announce the 2023 Short Forms Contest shortlist! Many thanks, again, to all those who entered, and to our wonderful judge, Tsering Yangzom Lama, for reviewing the longlisted works with such careful consideration. A big congratulations to these six writers! —- Room Magazine’s 2023 Short Forms Contest: The Shortlist Nowshera Pink, by Isra Siddiqui Meat Draw, by EC Dorgan Intermittent, by Qurat Dar Zigsa Tells Her Story, by Rimi Chatterjee Godhead, by Aldona Dziedziejko maskihkîwiwat, by Jennifer Adese —- The list of winners will be coming your way shortly, so keep your eyes ..read more

Two friends—in verse and in life—sit down to chat about the release of Ellen Chang-Richardson’s much anticipated collection Blood Belies out now with Wolsak & Wynn. ~ Margo LaPierre: Congratulations on the brand-new release of Blood Belies! How was your first day with your debut poetry collection out in the world? What does one eat for dinner on such a momentous occasion? Ellen Chang-Richardson: Thank you so much. Truthfully, my day was exceedingly busy and a bit of a haze. I haven’t even unboxed my books yet! They arrived on my front porch by way of a very friendly mailman around midday ..read more

It’s finally here! We are so excited to announce the longlist for our 2023 Short Forms Contest! A big thank you to our Room collective members for carefully selecting this longlist, and a big congratulations to these talented poets. — Room Magazine’s 2023 Short Forms Contest Longlist a visit to the places we are/from, by Ashton Diduck Her Own Good, by Kate Gies  Famous Women Who Died in their 30s or How I Know My Sister is in Good Company, by Adele Barclay  The Shape of Memory, by Kate O’Gorman Tiny Thieves, by Shelley White We are about to enter a poem together in the middle of the ..read more

Photo: cover art of Room 35.3 Duality Looking for inspiration before submitting to our 2024 Fiction Contest? Check out this fiction piece by our judge Sarah Bernstein, “Vanishing Point,” from Room 35.3 Duality. ———   Over coffee, she observes the way the October light idles on the kitchen table. As the bare, black branches of the elm just outside tick against the windowpane to her left, she presses the back of her hand to her cheek and looks onto the street, to the café on the corner, just now beginning to bustle. A man sits at a sidewalk table in his shirtsleeves, reading the newspaper i ..read more

Room Magazine invites unpublished writing and art on any theme for our open issue 47.4, edited by Shristi Uprety, Rose Morris, Melissa Barrientos, and Kailee Wakeman. Before submitting, please read our About section to see if your work fits within Room’s mandate, then refer to the Submission Guidelines on how to format your work. We are an international feminist magazine, and encourage writing and art submitted to us from all over the world. Underrepresented writers—including but not exclusive to women (cis and trans), trans men, Two Spirit and non-binary writers ..read more

Photo credit: Alice Meikle Sarah Bernstein is a Canadian writer who was born in Montreal and currently lives in Scotland. She has published three books, including a collection of prose poems titled Now Comes the Lightning (2015) and two novels, The Coming Bad Days (2021) and Study for Obedience (2023). She won the 2023 Giller Prize for Study for Obedience, which has been praised for its dark humour, sharp prose style, thoughtful exploration of power and prejudice, and innovative storytelling practices. Study for Obedience was also shortlisted for the 2023 Booker Prize. Sarah is the judge of th ..read more

Spring is here, and everything’s slowly blooming into life ⎯ we hope your creativity is creeping out of hibernation, too. Here’s a list of opportunities, calls for submissions and contests, grants, and more!   Calls for submission: Artists Filling Station | Art | Ongoing Event Magazine | Illustrations | Ongoing SAD Mag | Sub­mis­sions from painters, illus­tra­tors, pho­tog­ra­phers, video­g­ra­phers, and other artists who have lived or worked in Vancouver, Canada | Ongoing Maisonneuve | Comics (1-2 pages) | Ongoing Printed Matter, Inc | Artists books, zines, and print ephemera engagi ..read more

Room and Augur put together our Utopia issue in a world where dystopia is always happening somewhere, as Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki wrote for Uncanny in 2022. Rewriting the future is critical work. It also happens in the living rooms, public buses, bomb shelters, coffee shops, hospital parking lots, and libraries of the world we inhabit today, from the pens of writers living every flavour of dystopia. Utopia is not static: we build toward it every day. The through-line between our ravaged world and the liberatory utopias imagined by writerly visionaries is love. Longing for utopia is an act of ..read more