The Story Behind “Instant Family” by Julie Paul

Please welcome Julie Paul with the story behind her short story “Instant Family,” which we published in our Spring 2014 issue.  I’ve been practicing a daily writing ritual for years now, with a few different writers from across Canada: we call this practice Writamins. It’s very simple; we send each other words via email, one per day, and…

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The Story Behind “Small Lives” by Aileen Hunt

Today’s post is written by Aileen Hunt; her piece “Small Lives” appears in our Spring 2014 issue. Why do some scenes burn their way into our consciousness while others barely register? When a fox walked down my street one snowy December morning, I did what most writers do: stood still and paid attention. Later, I sat down…

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An Interview with Poet Ian Duhig

Our thanks go out to Ian Duhig for taking the time to talk with us about his work. You can read three of his poems in our Spring 2014 issue. Ian Duhig is the author of six books of poetry, most recently Pandorama (Picador 2010). He has won the Forward Best Poem Prize, the National Poetry Competition twice,…

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The Story Behind “Pale Ale” by Mitchell Welch

Today’s post is by Mitchell Welch, whose short story “Pale Ale” appears in our Spring 2014 issue. ‘Pale Ale‘ is an experimental marriage of two different styles: surrealism and social realism. Readers will notice, of course, that the product of this experiment is nothing like the fiction of the ‘magical realist’ school, which blends these two forms…

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An Interview with Poet Ada Limón

You can read three of Ada Limón’s poems (“We Are Surprised,” “The Noisiness of Sleep,” and “Torn”) in our Fall 2013 issue. COMPOSE: Your poems “We Are Surprised” and “The Noisiness of Sleep” feel intimate and tender. How autobiographical are they? ADA LIMÓN: My confession: most of my poems are autobiographical. The strange, twisty narrative of the…

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Compose Journal’s Spring 2014 Contributor Lineup

Spring 2014

You’ll be pleased to know that we at Compose are working hard to publish our third issue by the end of April. Our editing phase is now complete, and we’re laying out the issue, uploading everything to our website, and preparing to send out galleys so we can make final corrections. If you haven’t already,…

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“to see if great minds really do think alike”: A Conversation between Grace Bauer and Laura Madeline Wiseman

Today we welcome poets Laura Madeline Wiseman (we published three of her poems in our Fall 2013 issue) and Grace Bauer. Grace Bauer’s newest book of poems is Nowhere All At Once, just out from Stephen F. Austin State University Press (February 2014). Her previous books include Retreats & Recognitions, Beholding Eye, and The Women at the…

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Want to Work for Us? Updates, Spring 2014

The reading period for our Spring 2014 issue is now over, and we’re completely honoured and humbled to say we’ve received nearly 700 submissions since last June! If you submitted work to us and have not yet received a response, we’ll keep your piece in the queue (unless you withdraw it from our submissions manager) to…

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The Story behind “Alma” and “Fritz,” by Elizabeth Switaj

Please welcome Elizabeth Kate Switaj, whose poetry we published in our Fall 2013 issue. The Story Behind “Alma” and “Fritz” by Elizabeth Kate Switaj “Alma” and “Fritz” belong to a longer project of mine that takes on the stories of Aktion T4, the Nazi “euthanasia” of disabled people that preceded—and in many ways laid the…

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