In 2007, I submitted a nonfiction piece about my time in the army called “You and What Army” to Event‘s Creative Nonfiction contest. I was a couple of months into my year at SFU’s Writer’s Studio, new to writing in English, and my teacher, Wayde Compton, encouraged me to submit. When I found out a few months later that I was one of three winners, I could hardly believe it. It was like a dream. It was the biggest thing that ever happened to me as a writer. I remember taking the prize money to my favourite store on Commercial Drive in East Vancouver, Banshee (which no longer…
Posts Tagged‘Event Magazine’
Unravel the Tangle
My piece, “Unravel the Tangle,” which I wrote about my father and his poetry, was published in Room Magazine this month. After the essay about my mom (“Yemeni Soup and Other Recipes,” published in Grain) garnered so much attention last month, I was pleased to see the tribute to my father finally in print. I had wanted to write about my father for years, but wasn’t sure how. It felt too big, too raw, too difficult, even thirty years after his death. The title of the piece, Unravel the Tangle, is a line from one of my father’s poems. My…