Best Canadian Series 2026
Announcing this year's contributors for all three anthologies!
Every spring comes with the job of preparing our annual Best Canadian Series anthologies. The hardest part is done throughout the previous year by our guest editors, who have the momentous task of reading and choosing, out of hundreds, the essays, poems, and stories that will be featured—what they consider to be the best works of English-language Canadian literature. For my part, I’m pleased to have the privilege of informing our selected contributors of their inclusion—it’s one of my favourite things about working on this series, letting them know that their writing has been seen and appreciated in this way.
Today, we’re announcing the seventy-six contributors who have been selected for the 2026 editions, publishing November 18, 2025. These wonderful writers come from all across Canada, from Vancouver to St. John’s; are at various levels of their careers, from established names to rising stars; and have appeared in a wide range of print and online journals, magazines, and newspapers, all credited below.
A wholehearted congratulations to all of them for their work.
Ashley Van Elswyk
Editorial Assistant
Best Canadian Essays 2026
Selected by Brian Bethune
Hollie Adams, “A Partial List of Inconvenient Truths” (Geist 127)
Peter Babiak, “The Grief of Mourning Sentences” (subTerrain 97)
Chris Banks, “Black Hammers Falling” (The New Quarterly 169)
Ronna Bloom, “Catfisher Dharma” (Brick 113)
Andreae Callanan, “All the Ghosts a Voice Can Summon” (Riddle Fence 53)
Kelsey Gilchrist, “Driver’s Test” (The Ampersand Review 6)
Cynthia Gralla, “I’m Childless, Not Kinshipless” (Prairie Fire 45.3)
Basma Kavanagh, “An Elegy with an Ode at Its Centre: Poets, Planarians & the Practice of Attention” (Prairie Fire 45.2)
Mark Kingwell, “Intolerable Beauty” (Border Crossings 165)
Kyo Maclear, “Speaking to Trees” (Brick 114)
Stephen Marche, “For my father-in-law Bob Fulford, life was columns” (Globe and Mail)
Shane Neilson, “Diagnosis Day” (The Fiddlehead 298)
Ian Roy, “Have a Good Life” (The New Quarterly 171)
Darryl Whetter, “Meat Bingo” (Camel 2)
Best Canadian Poetry 2026
Selected by Mary Dalton, with series editor Anita Lahey
John Wall Barger, “Darwin Awards Song” (EVENT 53.2)
Ronna Bloom, “Checkpoint of the Mouth” (Queen’s Quarterly 131.3)
Nicholas Bradley, “To the Border Agent Who Confiscated My Book of Poetry” (Grain 51.4)
Petra Chambers, “My answer to the question ‘how are you?’ at the grocery store” (Contemporary Verse 2 46.3)
Carolina Corcoran, “Surfacing, Copenhagen Harbour” (Prairie Fire 45.1)
Kayla Czaga, “Painkiller” (Room 46.4)
Danielle Devereaux, “Lending Library, Heaven” (Geist 128)
Irina Dumitrescu, “Criseyde” (Times Literary Supplement, October 2024)
Puneet Dutt, “Lucky” (The Fiddlehead 298)
Darrell Epp, “That's Not A Pinata, That’s a Hornet's Nest” (The Nashwaak Review 50/51)
Susan Glickman, “What I Learned from Living Abroad” (The New Quarterly 170)
Ariel Gordon, “A mudlarker’s diary” (subTerrain 98)
Jennifer Gossoo, “Nôhkom” (FreeFall 34.2)
Sue Goyette, “an excerpt from Monoculture: A commentary of monologues” (Riddle Fence 51)
Richard Greene, “On the Use of the Sextant” (The Walrus, June 2024)
Glenn Hayes, “It Is Not Heart to Essay”(The Malahat Review 228)
Henry Heavyshield, “Storytelling for Young Warriors” (EVENT 53.2)
Dave Hickey, “Real Estate Sign” (The Malahat Review 225)
Nancy Huggett, “We're Doubling Down, Says Darren Woods” (Prairie Fire 45.1)
Kevin Irie, “How To Pack for Internment (150 Pounds)” (The New Quarterly 172)
Emily Kedar, “Yellow Felt Stars” (The Malahat Review 225)
Conor Kerr, “Fancy University Boy” (The Fiddlehead 298)
Evelyn Lau, “Cursing, Flailing” (Geist 126)
Sylvia Legris, “In the Wake of” (Granta 167)
Steve McOrmond, “The Science of Skipping Stones” (EVENT 52.3)
Estlin McPhee, “Gay Messiah” (EVENT 53.1)
M.W. Miller, “Looking for Something Written, the Ideal Reader” (subTerrain 98)
Khashayar “Kess” Mohammadi, “Uber-Eats Ghazal” (EVENT 53.2)
George Moore, “Local Fishermen” (Queen’s Quarterly 131.2)
Paul Moorehead, “Requirement Galore” (Horseshoe II.ii)
A.F. Moritz, “Quibble with Hegel” (The Malahat Review 228)
Megan Morrison, “Some Questions” (Grain 52.1)
Erín Moure, “Flourish (May 2022)” (carte blanche 50)
Cassandra Myers, “Squeal” (The Malahat Review 225)
Shane Neilson, “How to lose the audience” (The Malahat Review 226)
Nofel, “In Arabic” (Geist 127)
David O’Meara, “Recess” (The Walrus, June 2024)
John O’Neill, “The News” (Prairie Fire 45.2)
Michael Ondaatje, “Lock” (The Walrus, March/April 2024)
Craig Francis Power, “Walking My Three-Year-Old to Nanny's Place, Easter Sunday 2017” (The Malahat Review 228)
John Reibetanz, “Clams” (The Fiddlehead 299)
Ozayr Saloojee, “The Little Things” (Janus Unbound 3.2)
Vivek Sharma, “Imaginary Breakfast with Real People” (The Fiddlehead 301)
Sue Sinclair, “Pfeilstorch” (Riddle Fence 53)
Karen Solie, “Prime Location” (The Walrus, July/August 2024)
Misha Solomon, “Yoo-Hoo” (Riddle Fence 53)
Susan White, “Some Late for Them to Be at the Fish” (Riddle Fence 53)
Erin Wilson, “Ode to Joy” (Queen’s Quarterly 131.4)
Jaeyun Yoo, “have you seen my father” (The Fiddlehead 299)
Patricia Young, “The Thing with Wings” (The Dalhousie Review 103.3)
Best Canadian Stories 2026
Selected by Zsuzsi Gartner
Shashi Bhat, “Keeping It Fresh” (Room 47.4)
Julie Bouchard, translated by Arielle Aaronson, “What Burns” (Granta Online, May 2024)
Randy Boyagoda, “Wo” (The Walrus, May 2024)
Grant Buday, “The Light Never Shuts Up” (The Fiddlehead 300)
Petra Chambers, “Containment” (PRISM international 62.3)
Sophie Crocker, “Castor & Pollux” (The Malahat Review 228)
Bill Gaston, “Jack's Christmas Dinner” (The Malahat Review 226)
Evan J, “Camouflage and Fame” (The Ex-Puritan 65)
Aaron Kreuter, “Tasmanian Shores” (Prairie Fire 44.4)
Alex Leslie, “The Formula” (Plenitude, November 2024)
Erin MacNair, “Sand Penis” (subTerrain 96)
D.F. McCourt, “One Way Out” (The Ex-Puritan 64)
Rishi Midha, “We Are Busy Being Alive” (subTerrain 97)
Kaitlin Reuther, “A Language of Shrugs and Sparks” (The Malahat Review 227)
Margaret Sweatman, “Sounding a Name” (Prairie Fire 45.3)
In good publicity news:
Let Me Go Mad in My Own Way by Elaine Feeney was reviewed in the Daily Mail: “Powerful . . . [a] visceral, stimulating tale that is likely one of the most original you'll read.” Elaine was also featured in The Journal and the Irish Independent.
Baldwin, Styron, and Me by Mélikah Abdelmoumen (trans. Catherine Khordoc) was reviewed in the Midwest Book Review: “Original, exceptional, thought-provoking.”
On Oil by Don Gillmor was reviewed in Rabble: “A valuable contribution to our shared public conversation about oil, climate change and the unwholesome interpenetration of the fossil fuel industries and our political masters.”
Vijay Khurana, author of The Passenger Seat, wrote a piece on the book’s true crime inspiration for the Toronto Star.
When was the first edition of Best Canadian Stories published?