Very excited to share that “One Route, Over and Over,” my essay about driving a restless baby to sleep, appears in Best Canadian Essays 2024! Thanks very much to editor Marcello Di Cintio and to publisher Biblioasis! And thanks to EVENT for originally publishing this piece as part of their nonfiction contest shortlist. I’ve enjoyed and admired Best Canadian Essays for a long time, and it’s very cool to be included in the series!
I’m so happy to announce that “One Route, Over and Over” won third place in the EVENT Non-Fiction Contest. Thank you so much to EVENT and to judge David A. Robertson! This is lovely news to receive at any time, and it’s particularly nice to receive it as I rock my second born to sleep. ”One Route, Over and Over” is about the sleepless nights with our first and the intense, emotional process of adjusting to new parenthood. Look for it in an upcoming issue of EVENT!
Big congrats to the other winners — can’t wait to read your pieces!
I have a piece on this year’s CBC Nonfiction Prize longlist! “One Route, Over and Over” is about my late start as a driver (I started driving in my thirties) and the many hours my husband and I spent driving our infant to sleep.
Thanks CBC, and congrats to all the other longlisted writers! I’m delighted to be in such talented company!
Not That Bad is out today! I’m so proud to be a part of this anthology. Thank you Roxane Gay for the opportunity, and thank you to my fellow contributors for your powerful and honest words. There are thirty pieces in this book, and all of them will stick with me.
You can get your copy of Not That Bad here.
Very pleased to announce that “Fallibility,” an essay from my collection on nostalgia, is shortlisted for EVENT’s 2017 Non-Fiction Contest! Thanks so much to the readers at EVENT! In “Fallibility,” I interview my high school boyfriend about our relationship, ten years after the fact. We talk about our memories—the places they overlap, the places they conflict, and the reasons two people can recall the same events so differently.
In the spirit of high school recollections, here’s a picture of high school me wearing my signature bra-strap choker.
I’m in great company on the shortlist — special congrats to my UBC classmate Jake Prins, whose powerful memoir piece “Meditations on Animal Death” is shortlisted too. Looking forward to hearing the results on September 8!
Remember that time I wrote an off-brand “choose your own adventure” story? That story—along with seven other Vancouver-inspired literary creations—is now part of an eBook published by the Vancouver Public Library! Check out Active Fiction: Literary Fiction & Public Space in Vancouver to read work by:
The stories are accompanied by rad photos to give you a sense of where each chunk of narrative was originally installed as part of the Active Fiction Project. Thanks to Jaspal Marwah of the Vancouver Public Space Network for all his work pulling that project—and this book—together. Interested readers can sign it out via the VPL website. An interactive meat raffle on Main Street is now just a download away!
I’m thrilled to announce some great news: my essay “The Old House” was selected as the winner of the 2016 Prairie Fire Non-Fiction contest! Thanks so much to judge Helen Humphreys, and to all the readers and folks at Prairie Fire. I’m honoured and pleasantly surprised—this is my first contest win and it feels as great as I’d always meekly hoped.
“The Old House” was written as part of my thesis: a collection of personal essays about nostalgia. Without giving too much away, the essay is about revisiting my childhood home and the memories housed there. Expect a Meredith Brooks reference, reflections on the narrowness of memory, and a paragraph about eating Babybel cheese in bed.
Thank you again, Prairie Fire! This means so much to me and I’m so excited.
Exciting news to share! “The Reminiscence Effect” has been shortlisted for EVENT’s 2016 Non-Fiction Contest. The piece is about aging, memory, and a non-fiction writer’s responsibility to the people they write about.
I’m pleased as can be, and can’t wait hear to hear the winners in the fall. Congrats to all the other shortlisted writers, including my UBC pals!
After three great years, I’m happy to announce that I graduated from UBC’s Creative Writing Program last week. It was a fun week of readings, celebrations with pals and mentors, and convocation wizardry.
Masters of the Dark Arts.
Huge thanks to all the folks who inspired and supported me throughout my MFA–faculty, staff, fellow students, friends, and family. I’m so lucky and grateful to have had this time at UBC. The program truly changed me and the way I write.
Plus, now I have this cool piece of paper for my wall.
Hurray!
So psyched to have two creative nonfiction pieces out this month in anthologies from Caitlin Press and Little Fiction | Big Truths! I’m in truly fine company in each (Nancy Lee! Stacey May Fowles! Sierra Skye Gemma! Many others!), and both publishers were a treat to work with. The anthologies are:
RE/CODED
Edited by Amanda Leduc and Troy Palmer
Little Fiction | Big Truths
“Sixteen diverse essays that explore how various forms of technology have impacted our lives, loves, families and futures.”
My piece, The Archive, asks whether the internet has changed the way we remember love.
Boobs: Women Explore What It Means to Have Breasts
Edited by Ruth Daniell
Caitlin Press
“A diverse collection of stories about the burdens, expectations and pleasures of having breasts. From the agony of puberty and angst of adolescence to the anxiety of aging, these stories and poems go beyond the usual images of breasts found in fashion magazines and movie posters, instead offering dynamic and honest portraits of desire, acceptance and the desire for acceptance.”
My piece, A Site of Potential, discusses breasts as ongoing sites of contemplation, expectation, and change.
Big thanks to the folks at Little Fiction | Big Truths and Caitlin Press!
Nicole Boyce 