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Recently, I interviewed Shani Mootoo (Giller-prize nominated author of Cereus Blooms at Night, Valmiki’s Daughter, and several other works) and Marcello Di Cintio (Shaughnessy Cohen Prize-winning author of Walls: Travels Along the Barricades and two other non-fiction books) for Briarpatch Magazine.

“I’m fascinated by people’s stories. Being a writer is like having a backstage pass into the lives of interesting people. Meeting them and hearing those stories is the engine that runs my work,” said Di Cintio.

“I always feel that art in its many forms slices through ideology and approaches truth better than any argument, probably because, in the end, art tries to find the heart of the matter rather than the brain of it,” said Mootoo.

Read the rest of the interview here

I’ve got a short story in this fall’s online issue of the Maple Tree Literary Supplement:

 

“You can see the light of Calgary for an hour before you see a single street lamp, a glow of orange like a grass fire. I press my face against the passenger side window and look up at the sky. My wedding ring blinks with the light of each passing car, but in the sky, not a single star.

At home, we’ve got a gas station, two churches and three restaurants, including the diner, but our town doesn’t have a hospital. So we have to come up here, where The Machine runs from six in the morning to twelve at night.”

To read the rest of the story and see the full issue, visit:

Writings / Fiction: Yutaka Dirks

For the 3rd year running, Briarpatch Magazine is looking for fiction and creative non-fiction that “brings to life issues of political, social, and environmental justice.”

It’s my second year coordinating the Writing in the Margins contest and I hope that I’ll get to read even more amazing stories than I did last year. The amazingly talented, Giller-Prize nominated Shani Mootoo (Cereus Blooms at Night, Valmiki’s Daughter) will judge short fiction entries, and Marcello Di Cintio – who won a ton of awards last year for Walls: Travels Along the Barricades, will judge creative non-fiction.

Check out our past winners and then write something yourself!

I’m feeling pretty great, because today I was long-listed for the CBC Creative Non-Fiction Prize. The nomination is for a piece I wrote exploring memory, migration and family history, called “Left and Leaving.”

Congratulations to all of the other writers who also made the long-list. The finalists will be announced on Monday, July 8th.