Tag: Creative Non-fiction

  • Online-only

    notes of joy from the margins

    by Syd   Mar 7, 2023   6 min read

    What does it mean to pass or not to pass as a trans person? I am, I am, I am. 

  • Magazine

    Cause of death

    by Mary Fairhurst Breen   Mar 1, 2023   5 min read

    Sophie didn’t mean to die. She had simply arrived at the point where she was prepared to try anything to feel better.

  • Three portraits are side-by-side. Rana Nazzal Hamadeh, a Palestinian woman, is standing in front of a blurred city landscape. She is wearing a black ribbed v-neck sweater and her long, black hair is tied back in a sleek ponytail. She has a small gold nose ring on her left nostril and she's wearing eyeliner, mascara, and red lipstick. Jessica Johns, a light-skinned Cree woman, stands in front of a blurred fall backdrop and is looking straight at the camera. She has shoulder-length, wavy, light brown hair and blue eyes. She is wearing a navy blue collared jumpsuit accessorized with a black leather bolo tie with silver embellishments. She has a silver, triangular septum piercing and colourful tattoos of plants on her left arm. Randy Lundy, a Cree man, is tilting his head to the right. He has short, black, recently buzzed hair, brown eyes, and a clean-shaven face. He is wearing a grey t-shirt. In the background is a clear blue sky, trees, and a wooden fence.
    Magazine

    “We inhabit a land; the land inhabits us”

    by Sophie Jin   Nov 1, 2022   12 min read

    An interview with the judges of Briarpatch’s 12th annual Writing In The Margins contest: Rana Nazzal Hamadeh, Jessica Johns, and Randy Lundy.

  • Magazine

    The Deep

    by Andrew W. Boyd   Mar 2, 2022   10 min read

    If you’re like me, your path out of this prison will follow the path of grief: denial, anger, negotiation, depression. But only acceptance and behavioural modification open the Big Locked Door. The staff say you are here to get better, but you are here to mourn your illusion of sanity.

  • Online-only

    That things can change

    by Barney McLeod   Mar 2, 2022   6 min read

    As far as being a good Indian, well, I don’t know. Some people look at me as good. Some people look at me as bad. It doesn’t bother me. I am what I am. And I’m proud of what I am.

  • Online-only

    Amber Dawn, jaye simpson, and Jeff Bierk on ethics, futures, and rejection in art

    by Saima Desai and Sophie Jin   Nov 5, 2021   7 min read

    An interview with the judges of Briarpatch’s 11th annual Writing In The Margins contest.

  • Online-only

    Clock me like one of your French girls

    by Paula Bogdan   Mar 1, 2021   9 min read

    I’ve never seen myself. I still don’t, only a peripheral glimpse: of potential, of hope, of becoming, of future.

  • Magazine

    We are the boat’s people

    by Vina Nguyen   Mar 1, 2021   10 min read

    Without the war, we would still be the boat’s people, Má. We try to find land, where the joyful people are, but we only surround ourselves with water. 

  • Magazine

    Art against colonialism

    by Saima Desai   Oct 28, 2020   14 min read

    An interview with the judges of Briarpatch’s 10th annual Writing In The Margins contest: Larissa Lai, Pat Kane, and Sonnet L’Abbé.

  • Magazine

    “To create other worlds inside this one”

    by Saima Desai   Oct 29, 2018   7 min read

    An interview with Writing in the Margins judges Gwen Benaway, Alicia Elliott, and Jalani Morgan

  • Magazine

    The McGill Experiments

    by Leonarda Carranza   Feb 26, 2018   10 min read

    “After his release, he cannot listen to loud noises, cannot sleep through the night; for a long while, he believes they will still come for him.” The creative nonfiction winner of our 2017 Writing in the Margins contest.

  • Magazine

    November Threads

    by Kathleen Yearwood   Feb 9, 2018   7 min read

    Honourable mention, creative non-fiction, of the 2017 Writing in the Margins contest!

  • Magazine

    Writing For These Times

    by Tanya Andrusieczko   Oct 23, 2017   7 min read

    An exclusive interview with this year’s Writing in the Margins contest judges, Janet Rogers and Fathima Cader.

  • Magazine

    Obsidian Stone Wiya

    by Joely BigEagle-Kequahtooway   Mar 1, 2017   9 min read

    Creative non-fiction winner of the 2016 Writing in the Margins contest.

  • Magazine

    Writing Across Borders

    by Tanya Andrusieczko   Oct 7, 2016   6 min read

    Briarpatch editor Tanya Andrusieczko caught up with our sixth annual writing contest judges to talk history, habits, politics, and writing.

  • Magazine

    Sometimes When I Think About Evan

    by Kathleen Yearwood   Feb 20, 2015   7 min read

    From the moment he could get his hands on anything – alcohol, Valium from mom’s stash, boiled nutmeg in coke, opium – Evan was out of his head.

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