ALT Room Magazine’s 2026 Poetry Contest Shortlist Dirt, by Sandra Kasturi Time To Love, by Meryem Yildiz For Doechii, by Isha Camara My Lesbian Novel Epilogue, by Bridget Huh Still Life of a Dead Badger in the Gallery Lobby, Erin White

ALT Call for Submissions: Room 49.3 No Canada

ALT Statement on Increasing Subscription And Single Issue Prices

ALT Dear Roomies, As Room emerges from a difficult year and turns toward the future, we have refocused on how to keep our operations sustainable, equitable, and responsive to market pressures. Canada Post fees continue to rise, as do paper, printing, and shipping costs, and the living wage in Vancouver has risen to $27.85 an hour, which we are not currently able to achieve for our staff. In 2025, Room had to unexpectedly pause operations for a period, and building a bulwark against such circumstances is one important way to allow us to focus on publishing marginalized and excluded voices through such periods of uncertainty. We want to get ambitious again this year and into the future, to eventually increase the amounts we pay our contributors and staff for their valuable work, to guard against ongoing or oncoming fluctuations, and most of all, to ensure that we’re able to keep doing the important feminist publishing that Room is determined to keep at the forefront of Canadian literature

ALT For that reason, we will be raising the price of purchasing issues of or a subscription to Room Magazine, beginning with Room 49.2 Science. Our new pricing breakdown, all in CAD, is as follows: Single issue purchases will now sell at $19.00 for Canadian readers / $24.00 for USA readers / $29.00 for international readers (up from, respectively, $15/$/20/$25). Print subscriptions for 3-4 issues a year will now sell at $45.00 for Canadian readers / $55.00 for USA readers / $65.00 for international readers (up from $39.00/$49.00/$59.00 respectively). Digital subscriptions will now go to $35.00 (up from $30.00).

ALT As always, we remain grateful for and in service to our wonderful readers, contributors, and to literary, artistic, and social justice communities at large. In a time where various provinces and universities across so-called Canada are cutting funding to the arts or simply censoring artists, it grows ever more necessary to support venues that protect and privilege underheard voices, as we at Room do, with our focus on people of marginalized genders and in particular those who also belong to BIPOC, 2SLGBTQIA , and disabled communities. This price increase helps us to ensure we can shore up the resources to meet oppression and erasure head-on. In the meantime, Room will work to earn it, sharing art and ideas that bring people together and stands apart from algorithms and the world AI speculators are chasing. Thank you, as always, for your support.