Staff Rumble

Dear readers,

Getting going is the trickiest bit. This is especially true for driving a vehicle with a standard transmission. Particularly on a bright Saturday morning, during your second lesson on the stick-shift, stopped at the intersection of Main and Hastings in Vancouver. A quick refresher: from a full stop, shift into first gear, then slowly release your foot off the clutch as you simultaneously apply your other foot to the gas until you hit the “sweet spot,” which means the car will start moving. Theoretically. Instead, while attempting to turn right onto Main, the vehicle stalls five, six, seven times.

As coffee sloshes around in the cupholder and people at every corner of the intersection stare at the lurching car, you think back to a book launch you recently attended. The co-authors presented some findings about creative writing pedagogy, and touched on pushing back against GenAI by focusing on what creative writing classes can value. Among other things: idiosyncrasy, sensory experience, struggle, inefficiency, risk, slowness. Remembering this, your feet begin to tingle as feeling returns. Something in you opens up. Something . . . human.

You turn the ignition an eighth time. The crosswalk clears. With your feet, you search for the sweet spot and then you feel it—some mechanism in that great big machine catches. The car glides forward. Okay, it doesn’t glide, but it goes. The struggle, the sensory, the slowness—how do they add up to such satisfaction?

That night, you write a poem.

—The Editors

The aforementioned book is A Practical Guide to Teaching Creative Writing: Supporting Inclusive Pedagogy (Bloomsbury) by Bronwen Tate and John Vigna.

We did (a b)it!

Look. Asking for help is a humbling experience. In January, we put out a call to raise $20,000 to allow our non-profit to operate smoothly for the rest of the year, as uncertainty abounds within the arts and beyond. But it is a precarious time for everybody. So it has been invigorating—even hopeful—to receive an influx of support from so many people willing to put their hard-earned bucks toward a print magazine. At Geist, we strive to contribute to a healthy literary landscape in Canada by elevating writers and artists who forefront nuance, by publishing a particularly weird and wonderful mix of fiction, poetry, nonfiction, comix, reviews, photography, collage and little-known facts that you simply cannot find elsewhere. It’s slow, challenging work done with utmost intention. So thank you to all of our readers, subscribers and lit-lovers who gave us a serious boost this year.

From January 29 to March 31, we raised a total of $5,933. Though still short of our goal, this is a huge success—thank you!

The funds raised will go directly toward our printing, operational and circulation expenses. If you would still like to donate, you can do so here. Otherwise, consider becoming a subscriber.

Geist is grateful to Creative BC and the Province of British Columbia, the Museum of Vancouver, Vancouver Art Gallery, and the UBC School of Creative Writing for supporting our fundraiser.

Birthday Photo Album

Geist celebrated our 35th anniversary by gathering at The Pleasant on Main Street on January 30, 2026. Stephen Osborne, Geist's co-founder, shared stories about the early days of the magazine and how they kept the well-being of the planet in mind by printing issues on recyclable newsprint. He even held up an early issue featuring the only “cover girl” Geist has ever had—Mary Schendlinger, co-founder of the magazine. The standing ovation he received was at least three and a half decades in the making.

The photos are up on our website for posterity, for nostalgia, for fun.

Immense gratitude to Matt Sawatzky for capturing the event on camera with such care.

Name that Newsletter (Help, Please)

After weeks of deliberation, internal conversations on the topic of newsletter titles have led to one agreement amongst staff: to make it an external conversation. Readers, Geist enthusiasts, word worriers—weigh in, please, and help us reach a conclusion.

Below is a list of names currently under deliberation, in order of popularity amongst staff (depending on who you ask).

○ [Your Own Brilliant Suggestion Here]

To consider: The Geist newsletter is a monthly curation of miscellany—a rotating collection of newsy updates, author interviews, writing prompts, comix and overheards, micro-horoscopes as divined in-house and more.

Haunted Lit

In book news close to our hearts, Geist’s editor-in-chief Emma Cleary recently published her debut novel, Afterbirth (HarperCollins), described as Rosemary’s Baby meets Conversations with Friends. Told through the dual lenses of horror cinema and art, it’s a story of fractured sisterhood and irrevocable transformation set in a rapidly decaying Vancouver apartment building.

Congratulations, Emma!

Order a copy from your favourite local bookstore (recommended!) or here.

Overheard

Context is everything, but for this assignment, we want none of it. Send us your best one-liners overheard on the street corner, in the coffee shop, at the dog park. If you’re up for it, draw an accompanying image and send it to us—you might just see it in our next issue! (Don’t let the pressure of a “good” drawing hold you back. Stick figures and abstract shapes are good in our books, too!)