Tuning in to Spring Theme

February 2020

“During the past few weeks on Open Line, we have discussed the hellholes in the Middle East, victims of sexual abuse, teenage abortions, the inadequacies of the justice system, a hundred facets of politics, and the sex of God. I talk to forty or fifty callers a morning, and those conversations are at least as intelligent as most I have heard in the legislature or the law courts… How accurately does it reflect public opinion? Over a period of time, it is accurate. For instance, even before government polls were released, we knew here from our calls 75 percent of people wanted the denominational education system to end.”
– From Is That You Bill?, by Bill Rowe (Jesperson Press, 1989)

Ginok Song: Fragments

BY NQ

Fragments, Ginok Song’s inaugural solo exhibition at the Christina Parker Gallery, is a new series of oil and canvas paintings. NQ joined the artist to discuss her latest body of…

NORTHERN DETACHMENT

BY Clancy Margaret

The wind was still, but the cold was biting all the same. Stepping outside made her sinuses burn and her eyes water. She brushed the snow off the seat of her snowmobile—a mid-nineties Ski-Doo, always giving her trouble. She surveyed the town as she waited for the engine to warm up. It’s squat vinyl sided homes glowed amidst the dim winter daytime. Snowmobile tracks crisscrossed on the road but not a person was in sight. She checked her handheld GPS. The coordinates lined up with somewhere northwest, about a forty-five minute ride under the blanket of dark. There were no stars today. It was always cloudy.

Q&A with Michelle Porter

BY NQ

You write both poetry and creative non-fiction. What are the challenges and rewards of each genre? I always tell people that poetry and non-fiction have the same root. For most…