a Toronto-based literary journal publishing poetry, fiction, nonfiction, visual art, and those strange beings in between
Wow! Wow! Wow! Submissions are officially closed and we could not be more impressed with how many submissions we received–the most EVER! We have over 1000 pieces to dig into in the coming weeks and we can’t wait! Thank you to everyone who sent us their work! We will be making our decisions by late August so stay tuned!
Today in the PCRS is Meaghan Hackinen reading her CNF piece “Highway to Neverland” from untethered Vol. 2.1 and her poem “Bout Day” from Vol. 4.1
Meaghan Marie Hackinen is a writer and cyclist from Vancouver, BC. Her two-wheeled adventures have taken her from Haida Gwaii to Mexico’s high plateaus, across Canada and the United States, and, most recently, from North Cape to Tarifa along some of Europe’s highest paved roads. Her writing explores relationships, experiences on the road, and encounters with wild places. Meaghan is the author of South Away: The Pacific Coast on Two Wheels (NeWest Press, 2019). She has an MFA in Writing from the University of Saskatchewan and currently resides in Kelowna, BC. @meaghanhackinen
You can purchase a copy of Meaghan’s excellent book South Away: The Pacific Coast on Two Wheels (one of my favourite reads this past winter) on the NeWest Press site here.
The next installment of our Past Contributor Reading Series will begin next week so stay tuned and subscribe to our site or follow us on social media for all the latest things untethered.
Next up in the PCRS: Michael Russell reading “Ode to Grindr” originally published in untethered Vol. 4.2 and read from his debut chapbook Grindr Opera!
Michael Russell is a queer poet with BPD, Bipolar Disorder and massive jolts of anxiety. His first chapbook Grindr Opera was recently published by Frog Hollow Press in their Dis / Ability series. He lives in Toronto. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Arc Poetry Magazine, Heavy Feather Review, Homology Lit, Plentitude among other places. He thinks you’re fantabulous. @michael.russell.poet
For more from Michael, grab the chapbook Grindr Opera, it’s available at the Frog Hollow Press online store here!
We also published Michael’s poem “Forbidden” in untethered Vol. 2.2 which has SOLD OUT!
Next up in our PCRS is Christine H. Tran reading excerpts from the poem “23 Smexy Reasons Why Listicles Are the Apotheosis of Literary Criticism” from untethered Vol. 4.2.
Christine H. Tran (19??-????) is an aspirational swamp banshee and vocational PhD student at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Information. In addition to untethered, Christine’s work has been published or is upcoming in FEEL WAYS, Half a Grapefruit, Release Any Words Stuck Inside You ll, The Temz Review and other places. Christine writes about girls, games, guitars, and the gunk between them. More cringe to be tweeted at @thechristinet
First up in our PCRS Rozina Jessa reading “Little Brown Boy From Nelson” published in our most recent issue, untethered Vol. 5.1 (you can read the poem in our excerpts pages here too!)
Rozina Jessa is an Indo-Canadian writer from Vancouver, B.C. She studied Theatre Acting & Creative Writing at the University of British Columbia. Her poetry has been published in The Anti-Langourous Project, Rigorous Magazine, untethered Magazine, Carte Blanche Magazine & In/Words Magazine. She has also written essays for Uncomfortable Revolution and Understorey Magazine. When she isn’t writing under her pen name, she also loves to act in local theatre and short films. More of her work can be found on her Instagram page: @rozinajessapoetry
We miss attending literary events and seeing all of your lovely faces! In an attempt to remedy that at least in part we’ve started a virtual reading series. In installment No. 1 this week we are featuring four readings from fantastic past contributors Rozina Jessa, Christine H. Tran, Michael Russell, and Meaghan Hackinen.
You can keep up to date with all things untethered including the reading series by following us on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook (links on the left).
We hope you enjoy! If you missed any of these issues you can still buy a copy here!
Have you been published in our past pages? Do you want to share your reading with our followers? Send us an email with “Virtual Reading Series” in the subject line and we’ll get you involved for a future installment!
Hey folks! We have been so excited watching the submissions pour in these last few weeks and we can’t wait to dig in and get reading! But in the meantime, we created a new logo and wanted to share it with you because we love it so much!
Let us know what you think!
Hope you are all staying well, and remember our submission period is open for another two weeks! Send us your work by July 12th to be considered for publication in our upcoming TENTH issue!
Our submissions are now OPEN! Send us your poetry, fiction, non-fiction, visual art and those strange beings in between by July 12th to have your work considered for publication in our upcoming issue!
See our submission guidelines here.
We’re five now! Join us TONIGHT at 7pm at the Monarch Tavern (12 Clinton St.) to celebrate the launch of our ninth issue!
Join us at the Monarch Tavern (12 Clinton St) on Thursday, January 9th at 7-9pm to hear these awesome writers share their work from our newest issue!
Simina Banu enjoys investigating the way meaning falls into the crevices—between people and across languages. She’s propelled by a fascination with pop music, consumerism, and advertising. She’s written two chapbooks: where art (words(on)pages press) and Tomorrow, adagio (above/ ground press). POP—her first full length collection of poetry—is forthcoming with Coach House Books. She lives in Montreal.
Elena Bentley lives in Saskatoon (on Treaty 6 Territory and the homeland of the Métis), and holds a master’s degree in English literature from the University of Toronto. When she isn’t reading, writing, or working, she’s probably singing. Elena is very grateful that her first published poems have found a home inside this issue of untethered.
Marshall Gu was born and raised from Toronto. After graduating from University of Toronto in 2013, he pursued an MBA at Ryerson and is now working in the financial district. In his spare time, he has published music criticism through websites such as Popmatters and Pretty Much Amazing and has had a short story published through The Dalhousie Review and poetry published in the Spadina Literary Review.
Hege Jakobsen Lepri is a Norwegian-Canadian translator and writer. She returned to writing in 2011 and had her first story published in English in J Journal in 2013. She has since been published widely in Canada and the US. Her most recent work is featured or forthcoming in The New Quarterly, Carve Literary Magazine, Hobart, Agnes and True, Journal of Compressed Arts, Gone Lawn, Belletrist, Crack the Spine, PRISM international, The Fiddlehead, and elsewhere. You can find her on Twitter @hegelincanada, Instagram @hege.a.j.lepri, and on her website hegeajlepri.ca.
Margaret Lynch is writing a memoir about life and love after cancer. Excerpts about her Camino pilgrimage have been broadcast on CBC Radio (The Sunday Edition and This Happened to Me), and her essay about life after cancer was published in the Toronto Star. She began writing her memoir in 2015, following a successful digital marketing career working with major brands in private sector and non-profit organizations. She holds a creative writing certificate from the School of Continuing Studies at the University of Toronto and is currently completing her creative non-fiction MFA at the University of King’s College in Halifax.
Tanis MacDonald’s fourth book of poetry, Mobile, was published by Book*hug in Fall 2019. She is the author of six books of poetry and essays, including Out of Line: Daring to Be an Artist Outside the Big City (Wolsak and Wynn 2018) and is a co-editor of GUSH: menstrual manifestos for our times (Frontenac Press 2018). Her work has appeared recently in The New Quarterly, FreeFall, CV2, Prairie Fire, and in the anthology Against Death (Anvil Press 2019). She lives in Waterloo, Ontario.
Diana Manole is a Romanian-Canadian scholar, literary translator, and award-winning author of nine books of poetry and drama in her native Romania. Her poetry in English has been published in magazines and anthologies in Europe, the UK, the US, Mexico, South Africa, and Canada, and in the English-Romanian book B&W (Tracus Arte 2015). Her second bilingual collection of poems will be published in Canada by Grey Borders Books in 2020.
Lori A. May is the author of several books, including The Write Crowd: Literary Citizenship & the Writing Life (Bloomsbury). She writes across the genres and her work may be found in publications including The Atlantic, Brevity, Midwestern Gothic, and Writer’s Digest. Lori teaches in the University of King’s College-Halifax creative non-fiction MFA program. At present, she is finalizing a collection of essays.
Victoria Mbabazi is a mental health major pursuing a double minor in creative writing and philosophy at the University of Toronto. Her poetry has been published or is forthcoming in CV2, Release Any Words Stuck Inside of You II, Feel Ways, and the Liminal Women Anthology. Her work has also been longlisted in Room’s Poetry Contest and shortlisted in Plenitude’s Flash Writing contest. She is currently working on a poetry collection.
Deborah Igbe Ocholi is a first generation Nigerian-Canadian raised in Calgary but currently residing in Toronto. She writes poetry, fiction, and creative non-fiction and makes sure to embed a little bit of home within each piece.
A. A. Parr is a Canadian artist, writer, and entrepreneur with a BFA from York University. Her debut poetry chapbook, What Lasts Beyond the Burning is forthcoming from Nightingale & Sparrow Press, December 2020. Her creative works have been seen on stages, in galleries, and in print throughout North America over the past two decades. Currently, she is working on her second literary fiction novel while writing a weekly online series of poetry about strangers entitled I Wrote You This Poem. In her work, she seeks to explore difficult themes in an attempt to shine a necessary light into our darkest crevices.
