Leah Bobet

It’s close enough to the end of year to not turn, but reach threateningly for the Out of Office sign, so: This is what I published in 2023.

Short Fiction
“Sunday in the Park with Hank” in The Year’s Best Canadian Fantasy and Science Fiction, December 2023.

Poetry
“white squirrel season again” in Canthius, January 2023.
“Notable Escapes” in Strange Horizons, June 19, 2023.
“Sisyphus, Mid-Flight” in The Deadlands, October 2023.
“what Mama says” in Fire from the Heart 2023: Winners of the Muriel’s Journey Poetry Prize, December 2023.

Non-Fiction
“Arboreality”, CAROUSEL Magazine, May 10, 2023.
“The Animal in the Room”, CAROUSEL Magazine, May 17, 2023.
“The Ending Isn’t More Important than Any of the Moments Leading to It: A Narrative Review of Freebird Games’s To the Moon, Finding Paradise, and Impostor Factory”, CAROUSEL Magazine, May 24, 2023.

Happy holidays, and see you next year!

It’s publication day for the first volume of Ansible Press’s Year’s Best Canadian Fantasy and Science Fiction — including “Sunday in the Park With Hank”, the very much experimental 1920s New York ghost story I had in The Deadlands last July.

It’s available in most ebook formats in print through Kobo, Amazon Canada, Amazon US, or worldwide through other providers.

A new short poem has gone live for non-subscribers in this month’s issue of The Deadlands: “Sisyphus, Mid-Flight” is about the particular tyranny of second chances.

It’s ending the issue, which I think was a lovely touch on the editors’ parts.

A nice — and somewhat unconventional — professional milestone this week! Public space standard Spacing Magazine‘s new issue is dedicated to Toronto in literature, and Toronto horror writer and journalist David Nickle’s contributed an article on the city in speculative fiction.

I’ve been reading Spacing for ages, so being quoted in that piece is a really neat little moment. It’s alongside some great writers, and overall it’s a neat piece, exploring how we shape the geographic imaginary in a really accessible way.

The issue’s available on the website, or at most Ontario magazine retailers!

More good news for “Sunday in the Park With Hank”, the very much experimental 1920s New York ghost story I had in The Deadlands last July: it’ll be included in the first volume of Ansible Press’s Year’s Best Canadian Fantasy and Science Fiction this autumn.

I’m pretty unendingly proud of where this story takes itself, and looking forward to the rest of the table of contents!

The schedule is up for the Muriel’s Journey Poetry Prize award ceremony, and I’ll be reading as part of it!

It’s a virtual event this year, part of Word Vancouver, and the stream kicks off Saturday, September 9, 2023 at 2:30 PM PST / 5:30 PM EST. There’ll be an announcement of the winners and readings from the winning and honourably mentioned poets.

Hope to see you there!

Some lovely and unexpected news announced last week, while I was away at a writing workshop: one of my short poems, “what Mama says”, received an honourable mention in the 5th Annual Muriel’s Journey Poetry Prize.

The prize is in honour of social justice activist and poet Muriel Marjorie, and it’s an extra honour to be part of something built around putting good in the world.

The piece will be published alongside the winners and other honourable mentions in this year’s chapbook from Three Ocean Press, and there’s an event in the works for Word on the Street Vancouver.

A new short poem live this week at Strange Horizons: “Notable Escapes” is about Harry Houdini/good Rabbi’s son Ehrich Weisz and not being small for anyone, and I am terribly fond of it.

The title comes from a heading on Houdini’s Wikipedia entry. There was no way I could read that and not start doodling with words.

As promised! This month was my reviewing residency at CAROUSEL Magazine, and all three pieces are now up:

“Rebecca Campbell’s Arboreality”, CAROUSEL Magazine, May 10, 2023.

“Meghan Kemp-Gee’s The Animal in the Room”, CAROUSEL Magazine, May 17, 2023.

“The Ending Isn’t More Important than Any of the Moments Leading to It: A Narrative Review of Freebird Games’s To the Moon, Finding Paradise, and Impostor Factory”, CAROUSEL Magazine, May 24, 2023.

It’s a great mix of what I’m most interested in these days: climate fiction, different expressions of fabulism, poetry, literary video games, and the high-wire structural craft running through all of them. And it’s such a pleasure to write about work you really like: all three works could have supported whole essays by themselves.

I hope you enjoy, and keep a lookout for next month’s resident reviewer — and beyond! It’s going all year.

Event news: I’ll be reading at the online launch for Reckoning: Our Beautiful Reward, the special issue around bodily autonomy, on March 19th.

There are going to be draws, readings, book giveaways, and a few chances to not just talk about bodily autonomy, but organize around it. I’ll be reading “fertile week”, and the lineup of readers looks smart, thoughtful, and well worth hearing.

Straight-up: This is not going to be an emotionally easy evening for those of us affected by the past few years of this issue, but I think it’s going to be a fiercely rewarding one.