Backyard Ashes is the brain child of Brecken Hancock and Adrienne Gruber, who met in a creative writing class at the UofS. Their “zine philosophy,” as they call it, is “to represent the voices of writers who are both talented and in limbo.” Backyard Ashes, therefore, is a place where young and emerging writers are given the opportunity to establish themselves in the writing community, and for their work to gain some exposure. I found the majority of the writing in Backyard Ashes to be of very high quality and to possess definite creative talent. The majority of the works featured are poems and poetic prose. Although some short fiction pieces caught my eye, especially Joel Katelnikoff’s piece, entitled “The Possession.” Also worth special mention are the works done by Jared Peace and performance artist and writer Melanie Seibert. Overall, I enjoyed reading Backyard Ashes. (Audrey Gagnon)