About Prairie Fire

Prairie Fire

Overview

Prairie Fire is a Canadian literary magazine published quarterly in Winnipeg, Manitoba, by Prairie Fire Press, Inc. Subtitled "a Canadian magazine of new writing," each issue is a fresh mix of fiction, poetry and creative non-fiction by celebrated Canadian writers and emerging voices, printed as a perfect-bound volume — a magazine, as the magazine itself puts it, that looks like a book. The press describes the journal as an award-winning magazine of innovative writing, and notes that it has been publishing for over forty-eight years, making it one of Canada's oldest literary magazines.

The current issue, Fall 2026 (Volume 47, No. 3), is a themed collection titled Lost & Found: Things Forgotten, Things Remembered, priced at $14.95, with fiction by Tim Carlson, Alison Frost, Jade Wallace and Terence Young, poetry by Lara Chamoun, Erin Noteboom, Anton Pooles, Cara Waterfall and others, creative non-fiction by J. Jill Robinson and Deborah Vail, and the famous Vancouver crow Canuck on its cover. It is the work of a small non-profit press operating from the Artspace building in Winnipeg's Exchange District, in Treaty One Territory.

History

Prairie Fire was founded in 1978 as Writers News Manitoba, a 'zine that arose out of the Winnipeg Writers Workshop (W3). Its founding editors were Katherine Bitney, Elizabeth Carriere and Andris Taskans. The publication completed its transition to a literary journal in 1983, when its name was changed to Prairie Fire; the Manitoba Writers' Guild published it from 1983 to 1989, and the current publisher, Prairie Fire Press, Inc., was established in 1989 as a non-profit organisation.

Andris Taskans, the founding editor, studied at the University of Winnipeg, was a founding member of the Manitoba Writers' Guild (established in 1981) and helped start the Manitoba Magazine Publishers' Association (established in 1988). His service to Manitoba letters was recognised with the Great-West Life Artists Award in 2004, a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Western Magazine Awards Foundation in 2008 and the Winnipeg Arts Council's Making a Difference Award in 2009. In December 2019 a new editor was appointed: Carolyn Gray, a Winnipeg writer published in drama, fiction and non-fiction, a graduate of the University of Saskatchewan's MFA in Writing, winner of the John Hirsch Award for Most Promising Manitoba Writer, and at the time writer-in-residence at the Winnipeg Public Library.

The magazine has built special projects around the journal over the decades. Its beginnings were embedded in Winnipeg's wider arts scene: early editor Rory Runnells recalled the cramped Arts Administrative Centre on Donald Street, where the young magazine worked alongside composers, publishers, writers and playwrights — a clustering that helped template Artspace, its present home — and an early serious commitment to Manitoba playwrights and to film reviews of Winnipeg Film Group filmmakers. Around the turn of the millennium it produced First Voices, First Words, a 200-page First Peoples issue guest-edited by Thomas King and supported by the City of Winnipeg, the Manitoba Arts Council and the Canada Council for the Arts. Katherine Bitney became the magazine's first writer-in-residence in 2009, part of Boreality, a multi-year collaboration with the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra celebrating Manitoba's boreal forest. In the fall of 2024 it published 50 Over 50, a special issue celebrating women writers over fifty, guest-edited by Bitney herself.

Content and Coverage

A typical Prairie Fire issue combines short fiction — including excerpts from works in progress — poetry in quantity, creative non-fiction, essays and memoir, literary humour and occasionally more experimental work, and the magazine has a long-standing commitment to drama that dates to its earliest years among Winnipeg's playwrights. Its contributors over the years include David Bergen, Di Brandt, George Bowering, Marilyn Dumont, Sue Goyette, Patrick Lane, Sylvia Legris, Daphne Marlatt, P.K. Page, Margaret Sweatman, Joan Thomas, Miriam Toews and Guy Vanderhaeghe. Winnipeg critic David Arnason has called it "one of the best produced magazines in the entire country… really well edited."

Themed issues and special calls shape much of the programme: in September 2026 the magazine issued a call, "Branching Out — All About Trees," inviting work on trees and forests for a future issue. Prairie Fire also runs annual writing contests, whose winning pieces are published in the magazine's summer issue; the McNally Robinson Booksellers contests include a poetry award — judged in 2026 by Patrick Friesen — and a creative non-fiction prize. The website adds book reviews (recent examples include assessments of Patrick Friesen's Sightings and Margaret Sweatman's novel Night Birds in mid-2026), news, issue previews and launch coverage, such as the April 2026 launch of the spring issue, Manitoba Kitchen Party (Volume 47, No. 1), at McNally Robinson.

Audience and Reach

Prairie Fire serves regional, national and international audiences of readers and writers of Canadian literature; its stated objective is to publish, present and review new high-quality literary work by emerging and established writers and to provide an educational platform for dialogue among writers, readers, educators and the broader community. On the writer's side of that audience, the magazine receives hundreds of submissions in each genre every year: it accepts one submission per category (poetry, fiction, creative non-fiction) per writer in each twelve-month period, responds in roughly three to six months, buys First North American Serial Rights and First Digital Publication Rights, and pays contributors $0.10 a word to a maximum of $250 (interviews to $125), according to its published submission guidelines. No audited circulation figure is published for the magazine, and none is claimed here; its standing rests on its longevity, its contributor list and its place in Canadian literary culture.

Digital Presence

The magazine's website, prairiefire.ca, carries the current issue with generous previews of its fiction, poetry and creative non-fiction, an active news section — the "Branching Out" call was posted on 17 September 2026 — book reviews, submission and contest information, and online sales of issues and subscriptions in print and digital formats. The press maintains an active social media presence: for World Poetry Day on 21 March 2026 it released videos of its 2025 contest winners reading their poems, and the launch of Manitoba Kitchen Party was recorded and posted to YouTube by McNally Robinson. Directory listings describe the format as digital and print, consistent with the magazine's own shop.

Ownership and Organisation

Prairie Fire is published by Prairie Fire Press, Inc., a non-profit, charitable publishing organisation established in 1989 and based in Winnipeg. Its office is at 423–100 Arthur Street — the Artspace building — Winnipeg, Manitoba R3B 1H3, in Treaty One Territory, the traditional lands of the Anishinaabe, Ininew and Dakota peoples and the national homeland of the Red River Métis, as the press's own territorial acknowledgement records. The editor is Carolyn Gray, appointed in December 2019; the magazine's founding editor was Andris Taskans. Telephone: (204) 943-9066. Like most Canadian literary magazines, the press has historically been supported by arts funders — the Canada Council for the Arts, the Manitoba Arts Council and the City of Winnipeg are documented as supporters of its First Peoples issue — alongside subscriptions, sales and donations.

Contact and Availability

Prairie Fire Press, Inc., 423–100 Arthur Street, Winnipeg, Manitoba R3B 1H3, Canada; telephone (204) 943-9066. Submissions, contest entries and general enquiries are directed through the magazine's website, prairiefire.ca, which also sells subscriptions and single issues — the Fall 2026 issue is $14.95 — and carries previews, reviews and calls for submissions. The magazine is published quarterly and is available in print and digital formats.