''Room'' (formerly ''Room of One's Own'') is a Canadian quarterly literary journal that features the work of emerging and established women and genderqueer writers and artists. Launched in
Vancouver
Vancouver is a major city in Western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the cit ...
in 1975 by the West Coast Feminist Literary Magazine Society, or the Growing Room Collective, the journal has published an estimated 3,000 women, serving as an important launching pad for emerging writers. ''Room'' publishes short fiction, creative non-fiction, poetry, art, feature interviews, and features that promote dialogue between readers, writers and the collective, including "Roommate" (a profile of a ''Room'' reader or collective member) and "The Back Room" (back page interviews on feminist topics of interest). Collective members are regular participants in literary and arts festivals in
Greater Vancouver
Greater Vancouver, also known as Metro Vancouver, is the metropolitan area with its major urban centre being the city of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The term ''Greater Vancouver'' describes an area that is roughly coterminous with the r ...
and
Toronto
Toronto ( , locally pronounced or ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, most populous city in Canada. It is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Ontario. With a p ...
.
History
The journal's original title (1975-2006) ''Room of One's Own'' came from Virginia Woolf's essay '' A Room of One's Own''. In 2007, the collective relaunched the magazine as ''Room'', reflecting a more outward-facing, conversational editorial mandate; however, the original name and its inspiration is reflected in a quote from the Woolf essay that always appears on the back cover of the magazine.
''Room'' magazine has always been operated by an editorial collective. Former collective members include author Gayla Reid, CBC broadcaster Eleanor Wachtel,
University of British Columbia Press
The University of British Columbia Press (UBC Press) is a university press that is part of the University of British Columbia. It is a mid-sized scholarly publisher, and the largest in Western Canada.
The press is based in Vancouver, British Col ...
editor Jean Wilson, and ''
Geist
''Geist'' () is a German noun with a significant degree of importance in German philosophy. ''Geist'' can be roughly translated into three English meanings: ghost (as in the supernatural entity), spirit (as in the Holy Spirit), and mind or int ...
'' senior editor Mary Schendlinger.
Works that originally appeared in ''Room'' have been anthologized the ''Journey Prize Anthology'', ''Best Canadian Poetry'', ''Best Canadian Essays'', and ''Best Canadian Stories'', and have been nominated for National Magazine Awards.
Approximately 90% of the content ''Room'' publishes comes from unsolicited submissions.
Notable contributors
Past contributors to ''Room'' include Marian Engel,
Carol Shields
Carol Ann Shields (née Warner; June 2, 1935 – July 16, 2003) was an American-born Canadian novelist and short story writer. She is best known for her 1993 novel ''The Stone Diaries'', which won the U.S. Pulitzer Prize for Fiction as well as t ...
Nalo Hopkinson
Nalo Hopkinson (born 20 December 1960) is a Jamaican-born Canadian speculative fiction writer and editor. Her novels – ''Brown Girl in the Ring (novel), Brown Girl in the Ring'' (1998), ''Midnight Robber'' (2000), ''The Salt Roads'' (2003), ' ...
Susan Musgrave
Susan Musgrave (born March 12, 1951) is a Canadian poet and children's writer. She was born in Santa Cruz, California, to Canadian parents, and lives in British Columbia, dividing her time between Sidney and Haida Gwaii. She has been nominated ...
,
Shani Mootoo
Shani Mootoo is a Trinidadian-Canadian writer, visual artist and video maker. She was born in Dublin, Ireland, in 1957 to Trinidad and Tobago, Trinidadian parents. She grew up in Trinidad and relocated at the age of 19 to Vancouver, British Colu ...
Erín Moure
Erín Moure (born 1955 in Calgary, Alberta) is a Canadian poet and translator with 18 books of poetry, a coauthored book of poetry, a volume of essays, a book of articles on translation, a poetics, and two memoirs.
She has translated or co-tran ...
Nancy Richler
Nancy Richler (May 16, 1957 – January 18, 2018) was a Canadian novelist. Her novels won two international awards and were shortlisted for three others; Richler was also shortlisted for the Canadian Booksellers Association Author of the Year awa ...
Ursula K. Le Guin
Ursula Kroeber Le Guin ( ; Kroeber; October 21, 1929 – January 22, 2018) was an American author. She is best known for her works of speculative fiction, including science fiction works set in her Hainish universe, and the ''Earthsea'' fantas ...
,
Miriam Toews
Miriam Toews (; born 1964) is a Canadian writer and author of nine books, including '' A Complicated Kindness'' (2004), '' All My Puny Sorrows'' (2014), and '' Women Talking'' (2018). She has won a number of literary prizes including the Governo ...
,
Joy Kogawa
Joy Nozomi Kogawa (born June 6, 1935) is a Canadian poet and novelist of Japanese descent.
Life
Kogawa was born Joy Nozomi Nakayama on June 6, 1935, in Vancouver, British Columbia, to first-generation Japanese Canadians Lois Yao Nakayama a ...
Jillian Tamaki
Jillian Tamaki (born April 17, 1980) is a Canadian American illustrator and comic artist known for her work in ''The New York Times'' and ''The New Yorker'' in addition to the graphic novels ''Boundless'', as well as ''Skim (comics), Skim'', ''T ...
, Janie Chang, and
Mariko Tamaki
Mariko Tamaki (born 1975) is a Canadian artist and writer. She is known for her graphic novels '' Skim'', ''Emiko Superstar,'' and '' This One Summer''."Mariko Tamaki". CBC Radio, '' The Next Chapter'', 12 November 2012. In 2016 she began writing ...
.
Writing contests
''Room'' currently offers four writing contests, which are open to both Canadian and international writers who identify as women or genderqueer. The deadline for the fiction and poetry contests is in mid-July, while the deadline for the creative non-fiction contest is currently on 8 March, which is also
International Women's Day
International Women's Day (IWD) is celebrated on 8 March, commemorating women's fight for equality and liberation along with the women's rights movement. International Women's Day gives focus to issues such as gender equality, reproductive righ ...
. The creative non-fiction contest was originally added to the other two genres in 2008, and moved to the March deadline starting in 2015.
In 2016, ''Room'' launched their first Short Forms Contest, a multi-genre / genre-blending contest for flash fiction, flash CNF, and prose poetry of 500 words and under, with an inaugural deadline of 15 January 2017.
In addition to offering contests, ''Room'' presents one contributor each year with a $500 Emerging Writer Award.
Cover art contest
In 2015, ''Room'' introduced a cover art contest with a deadline of 30 November.
''Making Room: Forty Years of Room Magazine''
In 2017, ''Room'' published the anthology, ''Making Room: Forty Years of Room Magazine''. The anthology contains a selection of works featured in ''Room'' between 1975 and 2016. The anthology is broken up chronologically and follows Canadian feminist writing throughout different eras of feminism. 80 pieces are featured in ''Making Room''. The ''Making Room'' project was coordinated by Meghan Bell.
Nicole Brossard
Nicole Brossard (born November 27, 1943) is a French-Canadian formalist poet and novelist. Her work is known for exploration of feminist themes and for challenging masculine-oriented language and points of view in French literature.
She lives i ...
* Cyndia Cole
* Ivan Coyote
* Lucas Crawford
* Su Croll
*
Lynn Crosbie
Lynn Crosbie (born 7 August 1963) is a Canadian poet and novelist. She teaches at the University of Toronto.
Life and career
Crosbie was born in Montreal, Quebec, and now lives in Toronto, Ontario.
She received her PhD in English from the Uni ...
Tracey Lindberg
Tracey Lindberg is a writer, scholar, lawyer and Indigenous Rights activist from the Kelly Lake Cree Nation in British Columbia. She is Cree-Métis and a member of the As'in'i'wa'chi Ni'yaw Nation Rocky Mountain Cree.
She won the Governor General ...
*
Dorothy Livesay
Dorothy Kathleen May Livesay, (October 12, 1909 – December 29, 1996) was a Canadian poet who twice won the Governor General's Award in the 1940s, and was "senior woman writer in Canada" during the 1970s and 1980s.Mathews, R.D.. "Dorothy L ...
*
Annabel Lyon
Annabel Lyon (born 1971) is a Canadian novelist and short-story writer. She has published two collections of short fiction, two young adult novels, and two adult historical novels, ''The Golden Mean'' and its sequel, ''The Sweet Girl''.
Life and ...
Erín Moure
Erín Moure (born 1955 in Calgary, Alberta) is a Canadian poet and translator with 18 books of poetry, a coauthored book of poetry, a volume of essays, a book of articles on translation, a poetics, and two memoirs.
She has translated or co-tran ...
*
Susan Musgrave
Susan Musgrave (born March 12, 1951) is a Canadian poet and children's writer. She was born in Santa Cruz, California, to Canadian parents, and lives in British Columbia, dividing her time between Sidney and Haida Gwaii. She has been nominated ...
Carol Shields
Carol Ann Shields (née Warner; June 2, 1935 – July 16, 2003) was an American-born Canadian novelist and short story writer. She is best known for her 1993 novel ''The Stone Diaries'', which won the U.S. Pulitzer Prize for Fiction as well as t ...
''Room'' launched Growing Room: A Feminist Literary Festival in 2017. The first festival was planned to celebrate both ''Room'''s 40th anniversary and
International Women's Day
International Women's Day (IWD) is celebrated on 8 March, commemorating women's fight for equality and liberation along with the women's rights movement. International Women's Day gives focus to issues such as gender equality, reproductive righ ...
and ran from 8 to 12 March in
Vancouver
Vancouver is a major city in Western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the cit ...
,
British Columbia
British Columbia is the westernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Situated in the Pacific Northwest between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains, the province has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that ...
. Growing Room features panels and from female and genderqueer Canadian writers as well as dancing and music.
The 2018 iteration of Growing Room was held from 1 to 4 March of that year. The 2019 festival was held from 8 to 17 March and featured approximately 100 writers and over 50 events. Growing Room 2020 was cancelled due to
COVID-19
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2. In January 2020, the disease spread worldwide, resulting in the COVID-19 pandemic.
The symptoms of COVID‑19 can vary but often include fever ...
.
See also
*
List of literary magazines
Below is a list of literary magazines and journals: periodicals devoted to book reviews, creative nonfiction, essays, poems, short fiction, and similar literary endeavors.
*Because the majority are from the United States, the country of origin ...