Room (formerly Room of One's Own) is a Canadian quarterly literary journal that features the work of emerging and established women and genderqueer writers and artists.[2] Launched in Vancouver in 1975[3] by the West Coast Feminist Literary Magazine Society, or the Growing Room Collective, the journal has published an estimated 3,000 women, serving as an important launching pad for emerging writers.[4]Room publishes short fiction, creative non-fiction, poetry, art, feature interviews, and features that promote dialogue between readers, writers and the collective, including "Roommate" (a profile of a Room reader or collective member) and "The Back Room" (back page interviews on feminist topics of interest). Collective members are regular participants in literary and arts festivals in Greater Vancouver[5] and Toronto.[6]
History
The journal's original title (1975-2006) Room of One's Own came from Virginia Woolf's essay A Room of One's Own. In 2007, the collective relaunched the magazine as Room,[7] reflecting a more outward-facing, conversational editorial mandate; however, the original name and its inspiration is reflected in a quote from the Woolf essay that always appears on the back cover of the magazine.
Works that originally appeared in Room have been anthologized the Journey Prize Anthology, Best Canadian Poetry,[9]Best Canadian Essays, and Best Canadian Stories, and have been nominated for National Magazine Awards.[10]
Approximately 90% of the content Room publishes comes from unsolicited submissions.[11]
Room currently offers four writing contests, which are open to both Canadian and international writers who identify as women or genderqueer. The deadline for the fiction and poetry contests is in mid-July, while the deadline for the creative non-fiction contest is currently on 8 March, which is also International Women's Day. The creative non-fiction contest was originally added to the other two genres in 2008, and moved to the March deadline starting in 2015.[12]
In 2016, Room launched their first Short Forms Contest, a multi-genre / genre-blending contest for flash fiction, flash CNF, and prose poetry of 500 words and under, with an inaugural deadline of 15 January 2017.[13]
In addition to offering contests, Room presents one contributor each year with a $500 Emerging Writer Award.[14]
Cover art contest
In 2015, Room introduced a cover art contest with a deadline of 30 November.[15]
Making Room: Forty Years of Room Magazine
In 2017, Room published the anthology, Making Room: Forty Years of Room Magazine. The anthology contains a selection of works featured in Room between 1975 and 2016.[16][17] The anthology is broken up chronologically and follows Canadian feminist writing throughout different eras of feminism.[18] 80 pieces are featured in Making Room.[19] The Making Room project was coordinated by Meghan Bell.[20]
Room launched Growing Room: A Feminist Literary Festival in 2017.[21] The first festival was planned to celebrate both Room's 40th anniversary and International Women's Day and ran from 8 to 12 March in Vancouver, British Columbia.[22] Growing Room features panels and from female and genderqueer Canadian writers as well as dancing and music.[23]
The 2018 iteration of Growing Room was held from 1 to 4 March of that year.[24] The 2019 festival was held from 8 to 17 March and featured approximately 100 writers and over 50 events.[23] Growing Room 2020 was cancelled due to COVID-19.[25]
