Moth fought his last fight in the basement of a church forty miles out of town. The crowd was polite and applauded after every round, but made hardly a sound while the punches were being thrown. None of the overhead lights were extinguished and there

pictures of my father slick-haired & sideburned my uncles had all his albums older cousins played the hawaii concert whenever I was over

sat behind the trailers with julie eatingthe peanut butter sandwiches peter’swife made that morning by the park sink

Excerpt from Michelle Elrick's Then/Again.

That’s what matters to me, these stories, you kick them up in the dust and they get inside you.

“Sanaaq! Qumaq’s blood is too weak and the same is true for Aanikallak’s. They’ll both have to go to hospital!” From Sanaaq by Mitiarjuk Nappaaluk, the first ever Inuit novel.

From Lemon Hound, a poetry collection published by Coach House books in 2006.

Ten thousand bombs had fallen and I was waiting for death to come and scoop its daily share from a bowl of limbs and blood. I walked down the street under the falling bombs. The streets were empty. I walked above humans hid

My old pal Chuck asked me and my sister Stella to drive down east with him. We weren’t doing anything else at the time and so we jumped at the chance.

Go to bed. Lock the door. Don’t open it for anyone.

When I overhear my parents talkabout the death of Dorothy Stratten,the Playboy playmate first discoveredin a Vancouver Dairy Queen,I somehow confuse her with the womanwho sold my family our tent trailer.

"The chance to put my Credit and Collections Management experience to work for your company is something I am willing to die for."

Leonard Cohen, a troupe of French-Canadian clowns, a person with an antiquated profession, an unusually tall municipal bureaucrat, Gordie Howe and others coalesce in these randomly generated CanLit premises.

Being a warrior princess is a lot like being an archetype of human potential.

Runner-up in the 2nd Annual Geist Literal Literary Postcard Story Contest.

You're the kind of creature who comes to events like these and sits in the corner writing confessional poetry.

it’s easy: you pour a mug of beer & then a shot of bourbon. you light a match

In his hotel room the director took a mouthful of Scotch, swallowed a Viagra and then headed off to the gala.

Three poems from Tanja Bartel: Dream Job, Unkempt, Inept.

For a man who’d once picked a shard of glass from his cheek while laughing, Dave sure could write a pretty melody.

I began to run across 42nd Street, a trail of beer nuts behind me, making my way to TimesSquare, because I thought I should see The Lion King or smoke crack before I die, but could afford neither.

She lives in Prince George. in plastic bags on tuesday nights we load frozen corpses from industrial-sized freezers into the back of the suzuki.

You are clearly preoccupied with love. See the way you siftthrough the lint from your purse, searching for the backing ofan earring. See the runway of broken leaves and bread crumbscollecting under the emergency brake in your car. Messy, messy.

I have never been a success at anything in particular.