Pulp’s Picks
We are delighted to announce our 2024 Pushcart Prize nominees! Over the last ten years, we’ve been honoured to publish so many talented authors and poets. And with all of these incredible stories and poems to choose from, the selection process is never easy.
This year, we’ve selected two poems, three short stories, and, for the first time, a graphic short. To give you a taste of the tops, we include below the opening lines to each nominated piece.
And the nominees are …
Renée Sarojini Saklikar with ‘Told Under the Linden Tree’, Issue 37, Winter 2023
‘Our story starts in a valley beneath the icefields of an ancient mountain, snow cap metres deep, stable for aeons, and now shrinking epoch to decade, decade to year, year to month, centimetre or inch — either way, a winter regime of snow-drought, dry as dust.’
Catherine Lewis with ‘Golden’, Issue 37, Winter 2023
‘A few times a year, like at Chinese New Year,
by our suburban kitchen table’s temporary altar of incense, by the trays
of oranges and lucky candies cobbled together the night before …’
Mitchell Toews with ‘All Our Swains Commend Her’, Issue 38, Spring 2023
‘Nestor and I called her Ginger. She was the kind that tingles and burns. She’d been cadging coins down by the Country Kitchen every morning since this time last year. Loud and theatrical, Ginger was bigger than life.’
Claire Humphrey with ‘The Drink We Spill Out on the Ground’, Issue 39, Summer 2023
‘The perfect day looks like this: I wake up in the spare room at my boyfriend’s family home. I tie my hair in a messy ponytail and stumble downstairs. Étienne plays his guitar by the window, sunlight filtering through the pine branches, a half cup of coffee on the sill.’
Matthew Nielsen with ‘Then & Now: an ASD Comic’, Issue 39, Summer 2023
Claire Lawrence with ‘octopus boy in winter’, Issue 40, Autumn 2023
‘ flakes
break
a funerary sky
dropping smothering snow
knots of threads
whirling split-plate bullet-rosettes dendritic spines …’
Thank you to all of our authors and poets for sharing your words and making 2023 a lovely literary year. And congratulations and best of luck to our 2024 Pushcart Prize nominees!
To read the nominated stories and poems — and discover all of our amazing authors, poets, and artists — visit the bookstore!
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Wow!Wow!Wow! Don’t know what to say–you receive so many wonderful stories! I am grateful and honored, sitting here outside the co-op in Beausejour thinking of writing and editors and stories and storytelling. I have a reading tonight in the Pinawa, MB library and maybe I’ll sneak in an excerpt from “All Our SWains” among the “Pinching Zwieback” pieces I’ll read. Thank you, PL, really meaningful to me!
Congrats to all nominees; with a big smile for Renée and Catherine, whom I have had the pleasure of meeting in person. Good luck to all.
Viva PULP Lit!