Short Stories

[November UPDATE: You can read my latest short story, “Obsolete,” online in The Prairie Journal. Click on my name in the list on the Story page.)]

I’m thrilled to have a short story in the latest issue of The Dalhousie Review — my first one in its pages. The magazine was founded in 1921 and is still in print after 100 years. Amazing.

My story, “Down the Drain,” is about a writer on the brink of madness. (Over the brink by the story’s end.) It’s a piece I’ve read at two regional writers’ meetings to warm reception and assurances that the story is both funny and full of pain. Like life. Like the writing life, certainly.

I’d link to it here, but The Dalhousie Review is a print journal, and you need a subscription to read it. (So subscribe!)

I love a print journal. I switch my subscriptions regularly to support as many as I can. I don’t fully read all that I subscribe to, for lack of time. And I don’t have enough bookshelf space to keep them all so I pass them on to other writers. But I love them anyway. It’s nice to hold a literary journal in your hands.

I love an online journal, too. I’m used to easy access to free stuff and I like the act of clicking almost as much as turning pages. So I’m thrilled to have another story coming out this season in Carousel, another longstanding Canadian literary magazine (since the 1980s), and one that became exclusively online in 2020.

I’ll keep you posted when that story — “Sadistic Romance Writers” — comes out. [UPDATE: You can read the story here.] It’s another one directed at writers, a comedic piece about boredom and the search for new stories at any cost.

I still write for young people. I’m writing a story for Blue Met right now, on the theme of numbers — I’ll link to that when it’s out this winter.

In the meantime, if you’re looking for a litmag to publish your work, there are dozens of great ones out there, both print and online. I used to keep a list here on my website, but the best, most comprehensive and regularly updated list I’ve found is this one:

The CBC’s “Guide to Canadian Litmags”

(The CBC’s “Guide to Young Writers’ Contests” is also fab.)

So check those out. Write. Submit. Repeat. Good luck!