What Makes Prairie Fire Special?
Excellence
Prairie Fire’s editors are committed to publishing excellence and a range of diverse voices. Each issue features entertaining and transformative writing from established, award-winning authors and new cutting-edge work from emerging writers. We’re also committed to publishing content on relevant issues that affect us all.
Writers
We’ve been honoured to publish new work by brilliant and thoughtful writers such as David Bergen, Di Brandt, Duncan Mercredi, Méira Cook, John O’Neill, Garry Thomas Morse, George Bowering, Catherine Hunter, Marilyn Dumont, Sarah Yi-Mei Tsaing, Sue Goyette, Patrick Lane, Sylvia Legris, Daphne Marlatt, P.K. Page, Margaret Sweatman, Joan Thomas, Miriam Toews, Elana Wolff, Kerry Ryan, and Guy Vanderhaeghe, and many more.
Artists
We love to feature on our covers the work of our favourite artists and photographers, such as Heather Benning, Esther Warkov, Bryan Scott, Aganetha Dyck, Kent Monkman, Ivan Eyre, William Eakin, Diana Thorneycroft, Wanda Koop, Alix Reynolds and Janet Werner, just to name a few.
Special Issues
We periodically publish issues on a special theme, such as Living in a House on Fire, Why We Walk, For the Love of Animals and ndncountry (a partnership with CV2). We publish issues with special sections devoted to a single author, such as Sharon Butala and the late Birk Sproxton. Both the Butala and Sproxton issues included archival photos as well as essays and other texts by an international cast of scholars, friends and family.
Nifty Contests
Each year we hosts three writing contests. The first-prize winner of the Banff Centre Bliss Carman Poetry Award is usually brought to the Winnipeg International Writers Festival to accept the award, which includes a gorgeous replica of Bliss Carman’s ring. Check out our current contests here.
Community Service
We engage with our community through launches, events, nurturing new talent, providing workshops, the student practicum program and outreach work, which connects us with the broader community and allows us to share our talents and gifts in a way that makes a difference in the world.