The Writer's Studio

Drag kings and sea monsters, switchblade travellers and teacup ghosts—these stories and poems are a mixture of the mundane and the bizarre. Here you’ll find true tales of a son’s death and a girl’s first heartbreak, stories that range from the minutely personal to the transcendently universal.

Words are only words until the writer, like an alchemist, blends them with sweat and self-reckoning to create something out of the ordinary. A community of 62 writers combine their words in emerge 17.

emerge 17 includes contributions from TWS students mentored by Kevin Chong (Fiction), Eileen Cook (YA/Speculative Fiction), Claudia Cornwall (Creative Non-Fiction), Hiromi Goto (Speculative Fiction), Stella Harvey (Fiction and Personal Narrative), JJ Lee (Creative Non-Fiction), Fiona Tinwei Lam (Poetry), Jen Sookfong Lee (Fiction), Betsy Warland (Poetry) and program director Wayde Compton.

CONTENTS

Gurjinder Basran — Foreword

SPECULATIVE and YA FICTION
T. M. Baldwin — Becoming Crow
Lis Jakobsen — The Golden Scarab of Bloor Street
S. L. Shields — Cedar
Tatiana Lee — Fisherman’s Friend
Thomas Onstott — Banshee’s Tale
Michael Zibauer — The Barmaid’s Adventure
Stephanie Gray — Lockhart and Teague
Robyn Drage — The Gift
Cynthia C. Huijgens — The Novice Collector
Samantha Balliet — Bridge World
Elecia Chrunik — How the Earth Went from Flat to Round
Shilpa Raju — Ties
Leslee Silverman — If It Weren’t For You Kids
Michelle Stack — Circle Time from Hell
Neda Tanha — Mother’s Day
Tanya Boteju — Naya in Costume

FICTION
Neha Puntambekar — Smoke Rings
Adriana Louis — Gilded
Lorna Carley — Love Again
Maureen Butler — The Dance
Kathryn Lee — Interval
Scott Lear — A First Year in High School
Patrick Lucas — Everything You Know Is Wrong
Christy Dunsmore — Rose to the Occasion
Leslie West — The Year of Other Men
Megan Abele — Art and Story
Chelene Knight — Junie
Josh Keefer — The Bus Stop Gentlemen
Sharon Miki — Night Shift
Alyssa Hanada — Matched Socks
Reese Kim Carrozzini — Two excerpts
Urith Hayley — Crocodiles and Crocuses
Gina-Lily D’Attilio — Swagger
Carlie Blume — Where the Lions Are

POETRY and LYRIC PROSE
Fatima Amarshi — Two poems
Sarah Amormino — Three poems
Leslie Jenneson — Four poems
Kurt Trzcinski — Five love poems
Cara Waterfall — Three poems
Natasha Sanders-Kay — The Pool
Stephen T. Berg — Three poems
Viola Prinz — Four poems
Graham McGarva — The Estrangers—1971
Junie Désil — Broken
Mak Berry — Five poems
Paolo Marcazzan — Two poems
Christine Leviczky Riek — Five poems from The Water Moth

NON-FICTION
Kimberley Phillips Boehm — Leaping into the Warm Air
Daniela Cohen — These Walls
Rebecca Fleck — A Shift in India
Crystal Dalman — Crossroads
Amanda Deitz — His Eyes. Her Eyes.
Jo Dworschak — Mitch and the Kid
Lynn Harrison — Meet the Abrasive Leader
Alissa Messner — The Spinster Cat Lady: An Anthropological Approach
Becky Block — Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places
Jennifer Heron — Hey, Bug Lady!
Diana Carter — Lights in the Rain
Tara McGuire — It’s Between Him and Me
Stephanie Candiago — Bonded by Smoke
Barry Truter — Underground All the Way
Thi Tran — Of Mom and Men

ISSN: 1925-8267

ISBN: 978-1-77287-021-3 (pbk)

ISBN: 978-1-77287-022-0 (e-book)

About the Author

The Writer's Studio is the creative writing certificate program at Simon Fraser University, mentored by Kevin Chong (Fiction), Eileen Cook (YA/Speculative Fiction), Claudia Cornwall (Creative Non-Fiction), Hiromi Goto (Speculative Fiction), Stella Harvey (Fiction and Personal Narrative), JJ Lee (Creative Non-Fiction), Fiona Tinwei Lam (Poetry), Jen Sookfong Lee (Fiction), Betsy Warland (Poetry) and program director Wayde Compton.