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Magazine Stand :: The Fiddlehead – Spring 2026

The Fiddlehead Spring 2026 literary magazine cover image

The Fiddlehead Issue 307 (Spring 2026) features poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, and reviews written by some of the best new and established writers. The issue includes Melanie Power’s winning poem of The Fiddlehead‘s 35th annual Ralph Gustafson Prize For Best Poem, new work from Liz Howard and Abhimanyu Acharya, and a new essay co-authored by Summer Schenk Andrus and Nicole Breit. Visit The Fiddlehead website to see a full list of contributors, read excerpts from selected works, and order a copy of Issue 307 or subscribe for home delivery. The cover art is Lilas, 2023 by Raymond Martin.

Magazine Stand :: The Fiddlehead – Winter 2026

The Fiddlehead Winter 2026 literary magazine cover image

The Fiddlehead Issue 306 (Winter 2026) features poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, and reviews written by some of the best new and established writers. This issue includes new work from Carl Phillips, José Teodoro, Susan Robertson, and Ariadne Asho, winner of The Fiddlehead 35th annual Fiction Contest as selected by Anuja Varghese, an interview with Mary Dalton, and much more! Visit The Fiddlehead website to see a full list of contributors, read excerpts from selected works, and order your copy of Issue 306. Cover art: Silent Night, 2023, Digital Photography by Kirsten Stackhouse.

Magazine Stand :: The Fiddlehead – Summer 2025

The Fiddlehead Summer 2024 literary magazine cover image

Welcome to The Fiddlehead’s Summer Creative Nonfiction issue!

Summer is a time to enjoy the great outdoors, but make some time in your schedule to enjoy an extra large helping of the best creative nonfiction The Fiddlehead could find! Inside this collection of 23 pieces, readers will find a diverse series of forms, including flash, hermit crab, lyric, collage, and diptych essays, along with personal narratives, a conversation between two nonfiction writers, and more traditional forms.

The issue features the winner of the Creative Nonfiction Collective’s 2025 contest, Karen E. Moore’s “Our Reflection in Flames.” The contest judge Danny Ramadan describes this piece as “a genre-bending essay on loss, grief, sorrow, and the aftermath of an intense trauma.” Other writers featured include Brian Braganza, Harper Hugo-Darling, Line Dufour, Ariel Gordon, Kevin Kellman, Frances Peck, and many more!

Stay tuned to The Fiddlehead website for details about a hybrid launch in September, as they continue to celebrate 80 years of publication!

Cover art: S’more Please by Terry Price.

Magazine Stand :: The Fiddlehead – Autumn 2023

The Fiddlehead issue 297 cover image

The Fiddlehead No. 297 (Autumn 2023) features poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, and reviews written by some of the best new and established writers. Contributors include Anne Marie Todkill — winner of our 2023 Creative Nonfiction contest — Jack Wang, David Ly, Annick MacAskill, Bryn Harris, and many more. Visit The Fiddlehead website to see a full list of contributors, read excerpts from selected works, and order a copy of No. 297. Cover art is Fall Canoe Route by Réjean Roy.

Discover loads more great lit mags with our Guide to Literary Magazines, Big List of Literary Magazines, and Big List of Alternative Magazines. If you are a publication looking to be listed in our monthly roundup or featured on our blog and social media, please contact us.

Magazine Stand :: The Fiddlehead – Summer 2023

The Fiddlehead Summer 2023

The Fiddlehead No. 296 (Summer Poetry 2023) is the publication’s triennial summer poetry extravaganza! This issue features poetry from over 50 contributors, including Kim Addonizio, Derek Austin, Ali Blythe, John Barton, Sadiqa de Meijer, Boris Dralyuk, Leontia Flynn, Jim Johnstone, Meghan Kemp-Gee, Dan O’Brien, Douglas Walbourne-Gough, Lisa Russ Spaar, Karen Solie, and many more. A special feature of this issue is a folio of Acadian poetry in translation. Visit The Fiddlehead website to see a full list of contributors, read excerpts from selected works, and order your copy of No. 296 or subscribe for home delivery. Cover art is by Ben von Jagow.

To find more great reading, visit the NewPages Guide to Literary Magazines, the NewPages Big List of Literary Magazines, the NewPages Big List of Alternative Magazines, and the NewPages Guide to Publications for Young Writers. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to stay up to date!

Magazine Stand :: The Fiddlehead – Spring 2023

Fiddlehead Spring 2023 cover image

The Fiddlehead No. 295 (Spring 2023) features poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, and reviews written by some of the best new and established writers. Contributors include Moni Brar—winner of The Fiddlehead 32nd annual Ralph Gustafson Prize For Best Poem, Adrienne Gruber, Chelsea Peters, Lis Sanchez, Kwai Shen, Kathleen Winter, and many more. Visit The Fiddlehead website to see a full list of contributors, read excerpts from selected works, listen to Moni Brar read her award-winning poem, and order a copy of No. 295 or subscribe for home delivery. Cover art, Peonies, by Stephen May.

To find more great reading, visit the NewPages Guide to Literary Magazines, the NewPages Big List of Literary Magazines, the NewPages Big List of Alternative Magazines, and the NewPages Guide to Publications for Young Writers. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to stay up to date!

The Fiddlehead YouTube Channel

screenshot of The Fiddlehead's YouTube channel

Do you love being able to see writers reading their work? Did you know that literary magazine The Fiddlehead has its own YouTube channel where it uploads authors reading their work?

They do! There you can watch readings by acclaimed up-and-coming and established Canadian writers. Their last featured reading is of Lee Maracle who shared two of her poems “Belly Bulging” and “Old Tapes.” Swing by the channel to see more readings with Nicole Breit, Barbara Pelman, Margo Wheaton, Susan Musgrave, and more.

In other news, their 2021 Fiction Contest just opened to submissions last month. Deadline to enter is September 1. This year’s judge is Yasuko Thanh.

Celebrate 75 Years with The Fiddlehead

The Fiddlehead is celebrating 75 years of publication. To celebrate, the literary magazine is hosting a series of free online readings throughout the rest of the year. These readings feature the writers found in the forthcoming anniversary issue. An ASL interpreter will be present to translate events in real time.

You can find dates for readings at The Fiddlehead‘s website, along with a list of the readers you can expect to hear on each date. The next event will be September 30.

The Fiddlehead – Summer 2018

The Fiddlehead is published four times a year, devoting its Summer 2018 issue to poetry and reviews of poetry collections. The out-going co-editor, Ross Leckie, in his editorial opener, lets readers know that the special summer issues are “larger than the regular issues,” and “have the feel of something like an annual anthology.” Divided into three thematic sections each presented with a line from one of the poems within as a title and a black and white copy of the cover art—Waning Summer Light, 2017 by Sonya Mahnic—the issue contains poems by thirty-four poets and is packed with memorable work to keep company with even in the coldest of winters.

Continue reading “The Fiddlehead – Summer 2018”

Fiddlehead 27th Annual Contest Winners

The Fiddlehead Spring 2018 features winners of their 27th Annual Literary Contest, both in print and online:

kate osana simonianThe Ralph Gustafson Prize for Best Poem Winner
Matthew Hollett, “The Day After the Best Before”
Judges: Jennifer Houle, Sonnet L’Abbé, Sachiko Murakami
Read an interview with Matthew Hollett here.

Poetry Honorable Mentions
Conyer Clayton, “Recurrent”
Conor Mc Donnell, “Qui vincit? (medicamina)”

Short Fiction Prize Winner
Kate Osana Simonian [pictured], “The Press”
Judge: Kerry Lee Powell
Read an interview with Simonian here.

Fiction Honorable Mention
Samantha Jade Macpherson, “The Fish and the Dragons”

Fiddlehead 2017 Summer Fiction Issue

fiddleheadFiddlehead Fiction Editor Mark Anthony Jarman introduces this issue’s contents as a showcase of “great, sensuous stories from the east coast and west coast and around the world,” and adds that the issue also features a nonfiction work, “The Foxes of Prince Edward Island,” by Matthew Ferrence. “. . . it is our desire,” Jarman explains, “to include more creative nonfiction in future issues of The Fiddlehead.” Readers can find Jarman’s introduction and Eden Robinson’s story “Nanas I Have Loved” available to read online.

Fiddlehead 26th Annual Literary Contest Winners

The Fiddlehead No. 271 (Spring 2017) includes winners and honorable mentions from their 26th Annual Literary Contest:

dominiqueThe Ralph Gustafson Prize for Best Poem
Dominique Bernier-Cormier’s “Fabric”
[author pictured]
Read an interview Bernier-Cormier here.

Poetry Honorable Mentions
Tammy Armstrong’s “Blessing the Boats”
Kim Trainor’s “Bluegrass”

Short Fiction Prize
Kate Finegan’s “Blues Too Bright”
Read an interview with Finegan here.

Fiction Honorable Mentions
Steven Benstead’s “Will There Be Clowns?”
Ann Cavlovic’s “The Foundation”

Winning entries can be read on The Fiddlehead‘s website.

The Fiddlehead :: Norman Dubie

dubie normanThe Spring 2017 issue of The Fiddlehead: Atlantic Canada’s International Literary Journal includes a special feature on 2016 Griffin Prize international winner Norman Dubie. Editor Ross Leckie introduces the section of twenty-three poems, including five new ones, with “Norman Dubie: The Details of Winter That Upset Us.”

Leckie writes, “No poet I can think of writes as much about dreams as Dubie, and no poet ought to be able to, as dreams are so often adduced as the moment of epiphany, as the encoded truth that underlies all the banality that consumes our daily lives. In Dubie’s work, however, dreams seem as one room in the mind’s library, in which there is also an astonishing array of books and the lives of their authors, and details of plot and character that are not there, but could be. There are landscapes both from memory and from imagination, scenes of history in the grotesquerie of its filth and muck, and assorted friends and family who demand attention, or simply stop by for a chat.”

Fiddlehead Summer Poetry 2016 Issue

If you want a concentrated dose or a total immersion introduction to Canadian poetry, then The Fiddlehead Summer Poetry 2016 issue (#268) is for you. But, don’t think it’s all-Canada all the time, as Editor Ross Leckie writes, “A big part of what we do at The Fiddlehead is to place the best of Canadian writing in the context of international work, and that is the motivation for our retrospectives with new poems. We present this year Mary Jo Salter and Les Murray. We have also included our old friend Charles Wright and the magnificent poet Thylias Moss.” Mary Jo Salter offers 26 pages of poetry as well as her own introduction.

The Fiddlehead’s 25th Annual Literary Competition Winners

fiddlehead 267 spring 2016The Spring 2016 issue of The Fiddlehead features the winners of their 25th annual literary competition:

Ralph Gustafson Prize for Best Poem

Michael Eden Reynolds, “False Dichotomy or Monocot”

Honorable Mentions

Alison Goodwin, “Consumed”

Jeff Parent, “Made By Robots”

Short Fiction First Prize:

Brent van Staalduinen, “Skinks”

Honorable Mentions

Sarah L. Taggart, “The Way It Is In A Place Like This”

Cathy Kozak, “Dirty Girls of Paradise”

These works can be read on The Fiddlehead website along with commentary from Editor Ross Leckie on the winning entries.

The Fiddlehead – Summer 2015

The Fiddlehead has been publishing for 70 years. That is no small feat. The extreme quality of this summer fiction issue exudes wisdom, diversity, and a sophistication that younger publishers need to experience to fully apprehend. All too often, literary journals feel slap-dab, thrown together, off-the cuff—the antithesis of Fiddlehead. As Editor Mark Anthony Jarman modestly states in his foreword: “No one else in Canada can touch what we are doing now.” Although I am not a fan of braggarts, I have to agree. This selection of 14 short stories takes the reader around the world; from a pearl shop in Tahiti to a bar in Barcelona. Continue reading “The Fiddlehead – Summer 2015”

The Fiddlehead Summer Fiction Issue

fiddlehead-summer-2015I couldn’t help but to share this snippet from Mark Jarman’s editorial remarks for the summer fiction issue of The Fiddlehead (n264):

I will be brief: this is an amazing collection, an astounding summer fiction issue. Look at the stories and writers from around the globe, writers new and proven: no one else in Canada can touch what we are doing right now.

There I’ve said it; the gods of the small mags can strike me down.

Rather than being struck down, I hope this encourages readers to take look (a couple can be read full text online) and judge for themselves!

The Fiddlehead Contest Winners

The Spring 2015 issue of The Filddlehead includes the winners of their 24th annual Tell It Slant literary contest:

fiddlehead-spring15Ralph Gustafson Poetry Prize
Sean Howard, “Cases (Unbound Poems, from Nova Scotia Reports)”

Honorable Mentions
Michael Prior, “The Hinny”
 Julie Cameron Gray, “Skinbyrds”

Short Fiction First Prize:
Lisa Alward, “Cocktail”

Honorable Mentions
David McLaren, “[nar-uh-gan-sits] a Rhode Island Thanksgiving”
Kari Lund-Teigen, “Something Like Joy”

These works can be read on The Fiddlehead website along with commentary from Editor Ross Leckie on the winning entries.

Fiddlehead Remembers Alistair MacLeod

The Autumn 2014 (No. 261) issue of Fiddlehead features “Remembering Alistair MacLeod.” Editorials by Ross Leckie (“Remembering Alistair MacLeod”), Mark Anthony Jarman (“A Master in the Heart of Cork”), Douglas Gibson (“A Great Writer and a Great Man”), and D.R. MacDonald (“Alistair MacLeod Tribute”). Immediately following this section is a work of fiction by Alistair MacLeod, “The Vastness of the Dark.”

The Fiddlehead – Winter 2014

The Winter 2014 issue of Fiddlehead turns on moments of awareness of awareness, capturing the instants we catch ourselves catching ourselves, revelations of self to self, to the reader, and to other characters. It’s charming, this subtle focus moving from piece to piece, from poem to prose to poem to poem, and the sequence suggests this international journal from the University of New Brunswick is edited with precision. Continue reading “The Fiddlehead – Winter 2014”

The FiddleHead’s 23rd Annual Literary Contest

The new (Spring 2014) issue of The Fiddlehead features the winners of its 23rd Annual Literary Contest:

Ralph Gustafson Poetry Prize:
Kayla Czaga, “That Great Burgundy-Upholstered Beacon of Dependability”

Poetry Honourable Mentions:
Kyeren Regehr, “Dorm Room 214”
Maureen Hynes, “Stone Sonnet”

Short Ficiton First Prize:
Myler Wilkinson, “The Blood of Slaves”

Fiction Honourable Mention:
Jill Widner, “When Stars Fell Like Salt Before the Revolution”
Wayde Compton, “The Front: A Selected Reverse-Chronological Annotated Bibliography of the Vancouver Art Movement Known as ‘Rentalism,’ 2011-1984”

Fiddlehead Contest Winners

The Fiddlehead‘s Spring 2013 issue includes the winners and pieces of their 22nd Annual Contest:
 
Ralph Gustafson Poetry Prize:
Kim Trainor, Cradle Song: Six Variations

Poetry Honourable Mention: Sue Chenette, Inscription
Poetry Honourable Mention: Samantha Bernstein, Eulogy for Finn

Short Ficiton First Prize:
Rhonda Collis, The Halter

Fiction Honourable Mention: Jennifer Manuel, Seilent E
Fiction Honourable Mention: Vin Fielding, All Bones Recovered