Bartelby, the Sessional
When the university he’d been poorly employed at for the past 12 years decided to eliminate three-year sessional teaching contracts, Jerris Johns started sleeping in the clothes he taught in. [...]
By Tim Bowling
Fiction
Fiction
The Constituency Map
On the day her mother cancelled chemo and deter-minedly pinned a new election map to the raised rose wallpaper of their dining room, Constance slammed her chair into the sideboard and took her [...]
Yellow
Three seniors today: Jennifer Chen, Megan Levitt and Shelby Roe. I hear Jennifer before she rounds the corner. “And then he sent me this!” Megan squeals. Shelby quips, “Is it supposed to be that [...]
By Kathy Pham
The Shave
After Pauls Funeral Amanda decided to shave off what was left of her pubic hair. Already some strands had greyed, some had gone brittle, bald patches had shown up. Enough. In his own way, David [...]
By Rona Altrows
The Big Man in Cargo Shorts
Leonard was the first to find him. The man was face down in the school’s outdoor learning space, next to a planter of basil. He was fat, his calves the size of a turkey dinner, his hair a gnarled [...]
By Ali Bryan
November
Kendall used to drive me really bloody crazy. The first time I saw him he was trimming his beard into the sink where I was supposed to be washing that morning’s dishes. I yelled at him: he [...]
Interview with Tim Ryan
AV: What was the inspiration for your story? The inspiration for this story was a cottage and dock that I used every summer when I was kid. I wanted to explore the thoughts that kids [...]
By AV Staff
The Sicilian Wife
Edmonton writer Caterina Edwards’s latest book is both an intriguing mystery and a sharp critique of how men often expect women to behave. As a mystery, The Sicilian Wife is a departure from [...]
No Small Thing
Baxter wakes in the cab of his truck, right there in the slaughterhouse parking lot. He swings both feet out the door right as his forehead splits open. Sweet Jesus. Baxter groans and vomit [...]
By Tom McMillan
MOST READ
MOST READ
The Lesson of Lougheed
For 100 years, between 1905 and 2005, Albertans changed their government only three times (1921, 1935, 1971). The last of these elections, the most portentous, happened 50 years ago this August. Alberta has now changed government twice in the past six years. The next election may see yet another new government—meaning ...
The Assault on Higher Education
The Kenney government proclaimed in fall 2019 that Alberta’s post-secondary institutions were “overly dependent” on government funding—which is an odd thing to say about a public good. Then it declared that the province’s grant to the schools should be reduced by 20 per cent by 2023. The rationale for this ...
Rediscovering a River
The Cree called it Kisiskâciwanisîpiy—the swiftly flowing river. For the Blackfoot, it was omaka-ty—the big river. It starts in the Columbia Icefield, at the toe of the Saskatchewan Glacier, and cuts the province in half as it flows through Banff and Jasper national parks, northeast to Edmonton, then east-by-southeast across the ...