The Literal – And Literary – Futures We Build

Briarpatch editor Saima Desai talks to two judges of our Writing in the Margins contest about Idle No More and MMIWG, ethical kinship, writing queer sex, and their forthcoming work.

- Saima Desai

We’re in the ninth year of Briarpatch’s Writing in the Margins contest, where we invite our community to bring to life issues of social and environmental justice through poetry, photography, and creative non-fiction. Winners are published in Briarpatch Magazine and receive $500 in prizes; runners-up are published on briarpatch magazine. com and receive $150.

This year’s creative non-fiction entries will be judged by Joshua Whitehead. Joshua is an Oji-nêhiyaw, Two-Spirit member of the Peguis First Nation (Treaty 1). He is the author of the novel Jonny Appleseed (Arsenal Pulp Press, 2018) and the poetry collection full-metal indigiqueer (Talonbooks, 2017). Jonny Appleseed won a Lambda Literary Award; was a finalist for the Governor General’s Literary Award for Fiction; and was long-listed for the Giller Prize. Joshua is currently working on a PhD in Indigenous literature and cultures in the University of Calgary’s English department (Treaty 7).

This year’s photography entries will be judged by Nadya Kwandibens. Nadya is Anishinaabe (Ojibwe) from the Animakee Wa Zhing #37 First Nation in northwestern Ontario. She is a self-taught portrait and events photographer. In 2008, she founded Red Works, a dynamic photography company empowering contemporary Indigenous lifestyles and cultures through photographic essays, features, and portraits. Nadya’s photography – which focuses on urban Indigenous identity and representing decolonial assertions of resistance and resurgence – has been exhibited in group and solo shows across Canada and the United States.