Prairie Fire (magazine)
Prairie Fire is a Canadian literary magazine. Based in Winnipeg, Manitoba, the magazine publishes as a quarterly. Prairie Fire magazine was created in hopes to expand Canadians' knowledge and awareness of literary work rather than focusing on mainstream writings of our generation. Included in the magazine are poems, personal essays, stories and even interviews. The magazine has been constructed more so to feature physical characteristics in style of a book, as many writers inside the pages of the magazine have either award winning material, or have been recognized for their pieces. Having the magazine resemble a book emphasizes the literary work inside rather than giving any sense of mainstream material.
About The Editor
Andris Taskans (married to Katherine Bitney, one of three founding editors of Prairie Fire magazine) has been the editor of Prairie Fire for thirty-three years. He studied at the University of Winnipeg. Throughout his career (ongoing), Taskans has made a positive impression on the literary world, not only by editing Prairie Fire magazine; but in addition he supports up-and-coming writers, wrote literary pieces, has received multiple awards and is responsible for discovering many promising writers. Andris Taskans has also created an event a little over ten years ago, which encourages literary enthusiasts to join them at a literary festival named "WordFest". This is a local event which brings many literary writers into Winnipeg, Manitoba, each one reading their pieces to the public. And lastly, the numerous awards the magazine itself has received because of Andris Taskans' management.
- Andris Taskans is a founding member of the Manitoba Writers' Guild (established in 1981) which “provides professional and personal support to Manitoba writers throughout their writing lives”.
- He published Jukebox Junkie in 1987 by Turnstone Press (a poetry chapbook).
- In 1988 Andris Taskans helped start the Manitoba Magazine Publishers Association.
- Taskans accepted the Artists Award, sponsored by The Great-West Life Assurance Company in 2004.
- In 2008, Taskans received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Western Magazine Awards Foundation on their 26th annual Western Magazine Awards in Richmond, BC.
- He was awarded the "Making a Difference Award" from the Winnipeg Arts Council in 2009 at the Mayor's Luncheon for the Arts in Winnipeg, MB.
History
Prairie Fire began as a crudely produced magazine called Writers News Manitoba. At first it was published privately. From 1983 to 1989, it was published by the Manitoba Writers' Guild. Since then, it has been published by Prairie Fire Press, Inc., a charitable, not-for-profit organization. The first issue of WNM was published in July 1978. The name was changed to Prairie Fire in 1983 and it took on its present format the following year. WNM arose out of a group called the Winnipeg Writers Workshop (W3). The founding editors were Katherine Bitney, Elizabeth Carriere and Andris Taskans.
The local writing & publishing scene was not as developed in 1978 as it is today. The members of W3 felt isolated both from the established writers of the Canadian Authors Association and from the University of Manitoba crowd gathered at St. John's College. Writers News Manitoba was created with two goals in mind: to serve as a vehicle for the dissemination of information to the widely-scattered writers of this province and to promote the idea that we needed a province-wide writers' organization. After a few false starts, the Manitoba Writers' Guild was founded in 1981 and soon thereafter began publishing a newsletter. It was at this juncture that WNM was freed of its advocacy duties to become fully a literary magazine. Even then, however, it continued to hold as a priority the publishing of work by Manitoba writers. As one critic put it, Prairie Fire's job was to map the local literary landscape.
Awards and Honours
- In 2010 at the Western Magazine Awards Mary Horodyski received the Gold Award Best Article - Manitoba for her essay "The Geography of Ambiguity", published in 31.2.
- At the National Magazine Awards in 2009 many authors received awards and honourable mentions. Alex Leslie won the Gold Award in the Personal Journalism category for her essay "Prehistory", published in issue 29.2. Laura Trunkey received an honourable mention in the Personal Journalism category for “Pennies in My Pocket: Stories of My Brother”, published in issue 29.2. Furthermore Laura also received the Best Student Writer award in the Essays category. Sheri Benning received an honourable mention for "Watching Woman: The Marysburg Project”, published in issue 29.1. And in poetry Barry Dempster and Sylvia Legris were given honourable mentions for their work that was published in issue 28.4 and 29.3.
- In 2009 at the Western Magazine Awards, in the category for fiction Buffy Cram received an honourable mention for her story called “Loveseat” and Nadine McInnis for “Heart of Blue, Glowing”, both of these stories published issue 29.2.
- At the Gold Award for Best Article –Manitoba in 2009, both Sarah Klassen and Jake MacDonald received honourable mentions. Sarah received her honourable mention for “Tanya’s Dinner Party (1997)” and Jake received his honourable mention for “Do You Wish to Report a Nuisance Alligator?” both were published in 29.1.
Prairie Fire Followers
- Prairie Fire Magazine also has a group on Facebook, which advertises upcoming literary events in Winnipeg, and surrounding the local area.