About

Her Royal Majesty is a quarterly publication devoted to publishing excellent new artwork. I founded it in Halifax, Nova Scotia, in September 2008 and it has grown from a zine designed to serve the local community into a Canadian literary arts magazine that broadcasts internationally. The mandate of Her Royal Majesty is this: to showcase talented emerging Canadian artists – both visual and literary – to an international audience in a tightly crafted magazine. We publish writing and artwork that is engaging, surprising, eclectic, and challenging.

The magazine derives its name from a mistranslation of acronyms: when I first moved to Halifax, I thought that the signs around the city requesting that citizens keep out of the park after dark, refrain from smoking in public places, resist the temptation to swim in the harbour, et cetera, came straight from the mouth of Her Royal Majesty.  I later learned that it was not the Queen, but rather the Halifax Regional Municipality that was concerned with my garbage disposal and the distribution of parking tickets.

This publication is not-for-profit and is freely available online. Hard-copies of the early issues were distributed throughout Halifax at coffee shops, galleries, bookshops, movie theatres & restaurants. Now that our team is spread out across the world, we have adapted: flyers are printed to promote each new issue, and these are distributed mainly in Halifax, Toronto, Vancouver, New York City, London, and Paris, and serve to direct people to our website, where all issues can be downloaded by clicking the covers on the home page. 

Please consider making a donation to help us cover our costs, and allow us to continue to provide this publication freely.

publication dates, and themes
one : september 15th, 2008 : the harvest
two: november 15th, 2008 : pespective
three: january 15th, 2009 : the body
four: april 15th, 2009 : dailiness
five: june 15th, 2009 : home
six: november 15th, 2009 : the future
seven: january 31st, 2010 : flesh

We are now accepting submissions for the eighth issue, which will be published online in April. It is on the theme of Magic, and the submissions deadline is April 2nd, 2010.

As of the end of February 2010, this website has over 80,000 hits.

Harriet Lye, Founder & Editor