» #54/55

Vancouver's Literary Landscape Writers young and old, famous and infamous, here and gone who have left their literary imprint on the city. Profiles, remembrances, excerpts, interviews—on newsstands now!

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» featured Illustration for My Agreeable Illusion

My Agreeable Illusion

When I was house hunting in Vancouver a few years ago I had one spectacularly ridiculous condition. If I was going to buy a 33’ x 122’ footprint the deciding factor was going to be, obviously, “location, location, location,” but location didn’t mean proximity to a school or Starbucks, nor did it mean neighbourhood demographics, alleyway traffic or oil tanks hidden deep in the back yard.

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» Fiction

Maurice

Maurice and his family lived next door to us on the Island. They were all dwarves: the mother, the father, the two girls and Maurice. The old man worked on the coal boats and their house was chock-a-block full of miniature furniture.

Buildings Missing Like Teeth Knocked Loose

The shop had been there for fifty years, but the barber was not a very old man, only in his forties, his business inherited. The barber cut a man’s hair and you could see the man watching his hair being cut in the mirror.

Alvin Karpis & The Great White Zeppelin

I am thirteen years old and I’m sitting in my South Van bedroom spinning 45s on my RCA Victor mono record player—The Who, The Animals, The Stones, The Yardbirds, Them—‘Van the Man’ belting out “G-l-o-r-i-a” before anybody knew anything about the little brown-eyed girl “down in the hollow, playin’ a new game”, or who the hell Van Morrison was—and, of course, The Beatles.

Pretty on the Outside

I am the product of a rural upbringing. I remember party-line telephone rings, dairy truck deliveries, and burning our trash in an oil drum in the back yard. News from the world beyond the hay fields came in three forms: the Hamilton Spectator newspaper, from which I taught myself to read; the Sears catalogue, from which most of my wardrobe was ordered; and the Avon brochure, from which I learned all about the wonderful things a woman could put on her face.

Refinishing

Errol stands in front of a two-storey walk-up apartment building. He squints through the dusty plastic cover of the directory and scans handwritten names in faded pencil. Most are crossed out or erased. Near the end, he finds it: J. Timms – 204.

« strong voices »

By the Editors

New Issue, New Look

Our current issue, #54/55, is a big, fat, double-issue showcasing our new look, which is sleek and clean but still retains a bit of our edgy, dark little heart. The issue is 124 pages, our biggest issue to date, and focuses on Vancouver & Its Writers, past and present. We cover a lot of territory, but there is still much more to explore...and we intend to do that in future issues.

— Brian Kaufman 144 days ago

BLACKOUT AT THE CANDAHAR

During the sixteen days of the 2010 Winter Olympic Games, poet Elizabeth Bachinsky was working nightly at the Playwrights Theatre Centre on Granville Island with Vancouver writer Alex Leslie on a public art project called BLACKOUT AT THE CANDAHAR. Supported by Presentation House Gallery, subTerrain magazine, the City of Vancouver, and the 2010 Cultural Olympiad.

— Brian Kaufman 151 days ago

A Few Thoughts On subTerrain’s Origins and Intent.

subTerrain started out as a dream, an idea of literary rebellion, a shadow-self calling out to be born. It was 1988, the nascent days of desktop publishing, and truly a transitional period in the world of print. For the first time in the history of printing, the means of production were actually in the hands of the masses. Armed with only a Personal PC, a “typesetting” software program (not some expensive commercial typesetting equipment such as a Compugraphic machine) and a laser printer, virtually anyone could produce a professional looking publication.

— Brian Kaufman 165 days ago

Lush 2010 Awards

We are now accepting submissions for the 2010 Lush Triumphant Literary Awards Competition.

3 categories
3 cash prizes
one deadline

$3,000 in cash prizes, plus publication in our Spring 2011 issue.

— Brian Kaufman 169 days ago

Lush 2009 Winners!

We are pleased to announce the winning entries in the 2009 Lush Triumphant Literary Awards:

Fiction: Ray Tupach (Victoria, BC) for "Monster Hospital"

Creative Non-fiction: Madeline Sonik (Victoria, BC) for "The Construction of Frames"

Poetry: Shann Ray (Spokane, WA) for "The Suicide Elegies"

— Brian Kaufman 309 days ago