When we were kids, my twin sister and I loved playing with and inventing forms of communication that involved the imagination–the tin can on a string telephone, an ice cream bucket we passed between our bunks as a conveyor of notes (an email prototype). Having a twin, I never suffered for lack of a playmate, and almost always had someone to read my missives and reply. But while my twin sister is still a willing reader for my poems and drafts, even sisters have their limits. Writing is a solitary thing, nor am I the first to notice. But here’s the great thing: sometimes, just when those of us who continue to spend our adult lives hollering into tin cans or tucking notes into ice cream buckets on strings start to think there’s no one at the other end of them, someone hears us and hollers back, or a note shows up in the ice cream bucket (or inbox).

All that to say I’m thrilled and honoured that my poem “Believing is not the same as Being Saved” has won The Malahat Review‘s Open Season Award for Poetry. You can read the judge’s comments here, and an interview with me and Linda Rogers here.

The poem itself will appear in the Spring Issue, #182, next month.

If you pick up a copy and read the poem, maybe I’ll feel a tug at my end of the string.