Dear Traces community,
Is it too far to say that everyone’s favourite time of the year is right around the corner? Pumpkin patches, hot apple cider, the fall colours changing… this is my favourite time of the year to be in Quebec’s Eastern Townships. There is nothing quite like seeing the trees turn orange in the “mountains” (sorry west-coasters) while driving the windy roads from town to town. Not to mention, making a necessary stop for sparkling apple cider and cheese at the Saint Benedict Abbey in Saint-Benoît-du-Lac. Keep reading for more of Quebec’s autumnal treasures.
Traces News
Traces Advisory Board
We’re excited to announce the members of our Advisory Board! We are grateful to these individuals for supporting our work at Traces. We will be interviewing each member and featuring their work in our forthcoming issues, so stay tuned.
D.S. Martin is a poet, Series Editor for the Poiema Poetry Series, and Poet-in-Residence at McMaster Divinity College in Hamilton, Ontario.
Dorothy Nielsen is a poet, cellist, and retired English professor in London, Ontario.
Burl Horniachek is a Canadian poet and translator. He lives in Selkirk, Manitoba, with his wife and two children.
Kirstin Jeffrey Johnson is a George MacDonald scholar who lives on a farm in the Ottawa Valley, Canada. She writes and lectures on MacDonald, the Inklings, the 19th century, and Faith & the Arts.
Doug Sikkema is an Associate Professor of English and the Core Program at Redeemer, teaching courses primarily in humanities.
Daniel Bezalel Richardsen is a public servant at the Department of Finance Canada and a reservist with the Royal Canadian Navy at HMCS Carleton.
Submissions are CLOSED
Thank you to everyone who sent us their writing! We are now closed for submissions and our editors are putting together our best issue yet. We can’t wait to share it with you. Submissions for our spring issue will open again on January 15th, 2026.
The Order of Love
Our new Traces dispatch, “The Order of Love,” is published monthly. The October instalment is now live! Read the latest below, and leave a comment to let us know what you think.
Contributor Sightings
The Traces community out in the wild…
D.S. Martin: New Book Release
The Role of the Moon by D.S. Martin is newly published by Paraclete Press. The collection has received endorsements from A.F. Moritz, Sydney Lea, and Rowan Williams (former Archbishop of Canterbury). Stay tuned for our review!
Liv Ross: Writer in Residence at VoegelinView
Congratulations to Traces editor, Liv Ross, for starting a new role as the writer in residence at VoegelinView. Read her September poem, To the Valley Beneath Beacon Rock.
A.A. Kostas: New Traces Contributing Editor
has joined Traces as a contributing editor. You can read more of his personal essays, poetry, and reflections on his substack, Waymakers.Do you have a publication, event, or milestone you’d like to share with the Traces community? Submit your news to be featured in a future edition of “Contributor Sightings.”
Ordinary Time
Things we’re reading and listening to in our spare time…
When the weather turns, I always find myself reaching for some familiar P.K. Page poems. My go-to collection is The Essential P.K. Page, selected by Arlene Lampert and Théa Gray, published by The Porcupine’s Quill. If you haven’t heard of PQ Press (now partnered with Gordon Hill), they are a small press in Erin, Ontario producing beautiful little books. Their Essential Poets Series selects some of the best poems from important figures in Canadian poetry, allowing readers to dip in and out of their work. They are also the go-to Canadian publisher for works by P.K. Page, selling bundles of her collected writings.
Second Reading
Returning to old or forgotten loves…
We have a lot of P.K. Page fans here at Traces. In fact, my literary friendship with Poetry Editor,
began around a kitchen table in a small, Montréal apartment, where we got lost for hours discussing the intricacies of a Page poem. Page’s well known poem, “Autumn” is one of dozens of glosas she wrote over her poetic career, where she often pulled from writers including Pablo Neruda, Dionne Brand, Leonard Cohen, and Juan Ramón Jiménez.Autumn by P.K. Page Whoever has no house now will never have one. Whoever is alone will stay alone Will sit, read, write long letters through the evening And wander on the boulevards, up and down... - Autumn Day, Rainer Maria Rilke Its stain is everywhere. The sharpening air of late afternoon is now the colour of tea. Once-glycerined green leaves burned by a summer sun are brittle and ochre. Night enters day like a thief. And children fear that the beautiful daylight has gone. Whoever has no house now will never have one. It is the best and the worst time. Around a fire, everyone laughing, brocaded curtains drawn, nowhere-anywhere-is more safe than here. The whole world is a cup one could hold in one’s hand like a stone warmed by that same summer sun. But the dead or the near dead are now all knucklebone. Whoever is alone will stay alone. Nothing to do. Nothing to really do. Toast and tea are nothing. Kettle boils dry. Shut the night out or let it in, it is a cat on the wrong side of the door whichever side it is on. A black thing with its implacable face. To avoid it you will tell yourself you are something, will sit, read, write long letters through the evening. Even though there is bounty, a full harvest that sharp sweetness in the tea-stained air is reserved for those who have made a straw fine as a hair to suck it through- fine as a golden hair. Wearing a smile or a frown God’s face is always there. It is up to you if you take your wintry restlessness into the town and wander on the boulevards, up and down.
Community Events & Opportunities
Saskatchewan Writers’ Guild: Virtual Writer-In-Residence
The SWG is looking for a Virtual Writer-in-Residence for their Virtual Facilitated Retreat held online from February 5 to 8, 2026. Saskatchewan residency is preferred, but all Canadians may apply. Deadline to apply: October 14th, 2025.
CV2 Magazine: Foster Poetry Prize
The Foster Poetry Prize awards $1000 and publication in CV2 to the author of the winning poem. Deadline for all entries: November 1st, 2025.
Upstart & Crow Poetry Micro-Grants
$500 Micro-Grants (for emerging writers) are back for a winter instalment, plus a chance to have your poetry printed, displayed and distributed through Upstart & Crow. Deadline is November 3, 2025.
Book Launch: The Role of the Moon by D.S. Martin
The St. Thomas Poetry Series is hosting this event at St. Thomas’s Church, 383 Huron Street in Toronto, on Saturday November 22nd, beginning at 2:30. Opening the event will be Ottawa poet
, author of The Living Law from Darkly Bright Press.BC and Yukon Book Prizes
Listen up BC & Yukon-based publishers and authors! The BC and Yukon Book Prizes are open, with eight prize categories and one award given out each year. Deadline is December 1, 2025. Find out more.
Ontario Arts Council: Recommender Grants
The OAC is now open for Recommender Grants for Writers and Theatre Creators. Applications are open now through to January 9th, 2026, with some moving deadlines, depending on recommender preferences.
Off the Beaten Path
The Oka Melon
Have you heard of the mysterious Oka Melon? A cross between a banana melon and the Montreal melon (what even are those?), the Oka melon was developed by Father Athanase in 1912. Father Athanase was a monk at the Trappist Monastery in Oka, Quebec, which had a school of agriculture at the time. Over the years, the melon was almost completely lost, due in part to the closure of the agricultural school. After having disappeared from history, the Oka melon continues to be cultivated and harvested by a group of Cistercian monks in the Laurentian Mountains today.
