Art-making, including the vulgar business of writing novels, is not a contest. That should be a banal statement, but in a country where most book reviews are lightly disguised puff pieces and literary reputations can be entirely built on a single prize, readers are damned to irrelevance. Not here.
Yes, many of our reviewers like the books they’re assigned, although not I hope in the facile manner of Facebook or so much current newspaper reviewing. Sometimes TWR reviewers dislike books with an intensity and logic not everyone will share, which is fine: people have feelings about books, not so much about press releases and contests.
TWR is already Canada’s first literary review to be published entirely on-line (thank you to Morley Walker at the Winnipeg Free Press for noting that TWR was the pioneer, not the newly launched Hazlitt). We also pioneered a mobile-friendly site—you can read us on your shiny skinny new iPhone 5 when it’s released later this month or right now on that obsolete 4.
This fall TWR will reach out to readers in two new ways. First we’ll run a short fiction contest, complete with cash prize, with details TBA. Stay tuned, and we do revel in self-contradiction, much like that champion marathon runner Paul Ryan. Second, we want to hear from regular TWR readers about what we’re doing right and where we’re just navel-gazing or yawping barbarically. The subjectively-judged most interesting responses will win prizes—some amazing Roald Dahl stamps from the UK, and recent Canadian fiction from publishers across the country. Details again will follow.
Maurice Mierau
Editor, The Winnipeg Review
It’s Not a Contest Except When It Is
Articles
Art-making, including the vulgar business of writing novels, is not a contest. That should be a banal statement, but in a country where most book reviews are lightly disguised puff pieces and literary reputations can be entirely built on a single prize, readers are damned to irrelevance. Not here.
Yes, many of our reviewers like the books they’re assigned, although not I hope in the facile manner of Facebook or so much current newspaper reviewing. Sometimes TWR reviewers dislike books with an intensity and logic not everyone will share, which is fine: people have feelings about books, not so much about press releases and contests.
TWR is already Canada’s first literary review to be published entirely on-line (thank you to Morley Walker at the Winnipeg Free Press for noting that TWR was the pioneer, not the newly launched Hazlitt). We also pioneered a mobile-friendly site—you can read us on your shiny skinny new iPhone 5 when it’s released later this month or right now on that obsolete 4.
This fall TWR will reach out to readers in two new ways. First we’ll run a short fiction contest, complete with cash prize, with details TBA. Stay tuned, and we do revel in self-contradiction, much like that champion marathon runner Paul Ryan. Second, we want to hear from regular TWR readers about what we’re doing right and where we’re just navel-gazing or yawping barbarically. The subjectively-judged most interesting responses will win prizes—some amazing Roald Dahl stamps from the UK, and recent Canadian fiction from publishers across the country. Details again will follow.
Maurice Mierau
Editor, The Winnipeg Review