Grain – Autumn 2004

Grain has an inventive way of honoring its annual Short Grain contest winners without shortchanging the other contributors – a double issue with two front covers and no perfunctory rear. In the “regular” issue, Christine Lindsay’s “Last Words” is a potent dialog with a character from a poem by Jane Kenyon.

Grain has an inventive way of honoring its annual Short Grain contest winners without shortchanging the other contributors – a double issue with two front covers and no perfunctory rear. In the “regular” issue, Christine Lindsay’s “Last Words” is a potent dialog with a character from a poem by Jane Kenyon. Also in that issue, Emily Cavanaugh makes a fine fiction debut with “Pieces of His Girl,” in which two young lives face competing destinies. Among the Short Grain mix of oft-ignored forms (including postcard stories, prose poems, dramatic monologues), Patrick Tobin’s “141/2 Things to do in Stockholm in the Dead of Winter: A Travel Guide” is a charming riot of journal entries, slang, footnotes, onomatopoetic misfires and hilarious meanderings. Quieter, but more deadly, is “Wing” by Barbara Simler, a childhood moment in which strawberry jam with its “red streaks, bits of fleshy pulp and seed” becomes so much more. Grain – it’s sunny side down and scrumptious. [Grain, Box 67, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada, S7K 3K1. E-mail: [email protected]. Single issue $9.95 CAN. www.grainmagazine.ca] – LKB