FICTION
Erase and Rewind, Book*hug (May 18, 2021)
Silver Medal Winner of the 2022 IPPY Awards – Short Story Fiction category
Finalist for the 2022 ReLit Award for Short Fiction
Shortlisted for the 2022 City of Vancouver Book Award
An assault survivor realizes she can rewind time and relives the experience in order to erase it. A teen athlete wonders why she isn’t more afraid of death when the plane carrying her team catches fire. The daughter of a superhero ruminates on how her father neglected his children to pursue his heroics. Two shut-in depressives form a bond on Twitter while a deadly virus wipes out most of the population of North America.
The stories in Erase and Rewind probe the complexities of living as a woman in a skewed society. Told from the perspective of various female protagonists, they pick at rape culture, sexism in the workplace, uneven romantic and platonic relationships, and the impact of trauma under late-stage capitalism. Quirky, intelligent, and darkly comic, Meghan Bell’s debut collection is a highwire balance of levity and gravity, finding the surreal in everyday life.
Erase and Rewind Reviews
“[T]hought-provoking and, at times, laugh-out-loud funny. Her writing is as exciting as her subject matter. Erase and Rewind is an impressive debut and should not be missed.”—Kelly Baron, Canadian Literature
“[R]ivetting, shake-you-by-the-shoulders short stories … I found this book difficult to put down, almost as if it were rude to leave the cinema before all the shorts ended. In a matter of hours, I discovered 13 works that could easily play on screen.” —Mala Rai, The Miramichi Review
“Erase and Rewind is a bold and nuanced collection of stories, where women lose and find themselves through depression, desire, and friendship, only to become more wholly themselves, on their own terms—a distinctive, feminist book.” —Shazia Hafiz Ramji, The Humber Literary Review
“Tragedy strikes everyone in different ways. Meghan Bell’s short story collection Erase and Rewind specifically explores the tragic experiences of women in our time. Erase and Rewind promises to “probe the complexities of living as a woman in a skewed society,” and it absolutely delivers.” —Theo McQuiggan, White Wall Review
“Each story in the collection is remarkably vivid, to the point of feeling almost tangible … Bell finds balance where it is difficult to do so, making the collection one that becomes difficult to put down, and effortless to complete in one day.”—Zoe McKenna, The Ormsby Review
“Bell’s stories sit right in your core, somewhere high in the abdomen, like you’ve swallowed a too-big lump of something delicious—warm, nutritive, and painful. Erase and Rewind taps into the urgency of the mundane as much as it normalizes the abnormal, and whether you’re reading about an assault survivor, a pregnant teenager, or a superhero’s daughter, this is 2020s catharsis at its finest.”—Nicole Chatelain, The Fiddlehead
Short Stories
“Anhedonia”, Tesseracts Twenty-One (2018)
“Captain Canada”, Prairie Fire (2018)
“Most Likely to Break”, SAD Magazine (2017)
“Pieces”, Carousel (2017)
“The Mandrake”, Grain (2017)
“From A High Place”, The New Quarterly (2017)
“Erase and Rewind”, The Minola Review (2016), The Minola Review Print Anthology (2018)
“Thunderstruck”, The Impressment Gang (2016)
“Faking It”, Joyland (2015)
ESSAYS / CRITICISM
“I Was Born Wealthy, And Know Rich People Don’t Work Harder Than You”, Passage (March 2020)
“Talk is Cheap: On Capitalism, Mental Health and Taxing the Rich”, The Tyee (January 2020)
“Against Private School”, The Tyee (December 2019)
“I’m Part of the 0.1 Percent and I Want a Wealth Tax”, The Walrus (originally published online in October 2019; an abridged version appears in the January/February 2020 print edition; interview on Canadaland)
POETRY
“Conversations with a New Lover, April 2020”, Contemporary Verse 2 (2020)
“Workshopping My Personal Brands Under Late-Stage Capitalism”, The Puritan (2020)
“Where Do People Go, When You Close Your Eyes?”, Rattle (2019)
“Point Roberts, July 4, 2018”, Grain (2019)
“some math”, Contemporary Verse 2 (2019)
“What Passes Down”, “Rhinoceros”, “I apologize”, FreeFall (2018)
“Men Explain”, The Puritan (2018) / Author Note
“The Daycare Bride”, The Puritan (2017)
“Sigmund Freud, Action Figure”, The Maynard (2016)
EDITING
Room Magazine (Print)
Issue 42.3 “Sports”, Editor, September 2019
Issue 40.2 “Our Rubble, Our Loss”, Editor, June 2017
Issue 38.2 “How We Relate”, Editor, June 2015
Issue 37.3 “Geek Girls”, Editor, September 2014
Issue 36.3 “Murder, Lust, & Larceny”, Assistant Editor, September 2013
Books
Making Room: Forty Years of Room Magazine (Caitlin Press, 2017)
Lead Editor / Project Manager / Graphic Designer
“In the hashtag and hot-take era, it is a relief to wade through a female world as beautiful and broken and messy as this one.”—Rosemary Westwood, The Literary Review of Canada
Making Room: Forty Years of Room Magazine celebrates the history and evolution of Canadian literature and feminism with some of the most exciting and thought-provoking fiction, poetry, and essays the magazine has published since it was founded in 1975 as Room of One’s Own. This collection includes poems about men not to be fallen in love with, trans womanhood, the morning-after pill, the “mind fuck” of being raped by a romantic partner, and a tribute to the women who were murdered in the Montreal Massacre. In one story, a group of sexual assault survivors meet weekly and come up with a unique way to help police capture their assailant, while in another a dinner party turns to witty talk of racism, sexism, pornography, and time travel. One author recounts how she learned multiple languages in order to connect with her father, another reluctantly walks down the aisle in order to stay in Canada with the man she loves. For forty years, Room has created a space for diverse voices. As Amber Dawn says in her opening essay, “There is Room. We do fit.”
“. . . a true CanLit treasure trove . . . Together, these pieces make for an important piece of our public record, helping to chart the evolution of Room, Western feminism, inclusion, and CanLit.”—Natasha Sanders-Kay, subTerrain
ILLUSTRATOR / WRITER
Bell Curved (web comic), bellcurved.com, 2016
“Unemployment Blues” & “Sulk Fiction”, The Feathertale Review (2012)
Get Consent! (anti-sexual assault drink coasters), UVic Anti-Violence Project
Happiness and the Fish (weekly comic strip), The Martlet (2009)
ILLUSTRATOR / PHOTOGRAPHER
Antibody: The Naked Class Traitor (interdisciplinary photography project, 2020)
Chasing Adland (24-page comic), Centre for Youth & Society (2013)
In and Out (16-page comic), Centre for Youth & Society (2012)
PLAYWRITING
My Aim is True (one-act play, music by Chris Ho)
2012 Vancouver Fringe Festival
2012 Victoria Fringe Festival (directed by Mika Laulainen)
2010 Festival of Innovative New Drama (directed by Brian Wrigley)
The Pink Shoelaces (one-act play for young audiences)
2012 Ottawa Little Theatre’s One-Act Playwriting Festival
2011 Victoria Fringe Festival (directed by Chris Ho)
BFA: The Musical (one-act jukebox musical, co-written with Natalie North and Chris Ho)
2011 Victoria Fringe Festival (directed by Andrew Wade)
FILM (Writer / Director / Editor / Animation)
Bob and Lucille (short film)
Winner – Best Story-Driven Film, University of Victoria Student Film Festival, 2009
Official Selection – 2010 Victoria Film Festival
Susan’s Friend (short film)
Official Selection – 2010 University of Victoria Student Film Festival
FILM (Editor)
Bye Bye Birdie (short film – directed by Arnold Lim and written by Eliza Robertson)
Official Selection – 2012 Victoria Film Festival
Freshman’s Wharf (web series – written by Rachel Warden), episodes 5 and 6
Winner – 2011 Leo Award for Best Web Series
THEATRE / BOOK REVIEWS
Motion Sickness by Ursula Pflug (book review)
The Mystics of Mile End by Sigal Samuel (book review)
Violet Quesnel by Coby Stephenson (book review)
Vancouver Fringe Festival 2017 Reviews (theatre reviews)
Vancouver Fringe Festival 2016 Reviews (theatre reviews)
Love Bomb by Meghan Gardiner (theatre review)
Stationary: A Recession-Era Musical by Christine Quintana (theatre review)
ribcage: this wide passage by Heather Hermant (theatre review)
Meghan Bell 