“Then Who,” The Kenyon Review, Winter 2025 (forthcoming)

“Swimming Lesson,” The New Quarterly, Issue 172, Bad Behavior, Fall 2024

“The Fish and the Dragons,” The Journey Prize Stories 31: The Best of Canada’s New Writers, 2019

“Tattoo,” The Malahat Review, Issue 203, Summer 2018 (Winner of the The Novella Prize)

“The Fish and the Dragons,” The Fiddlehead, Issue 275, Spring 2018

“To Disappear and Dwell On It,” Ricepaper Magazine, Issue 20.3, Roots, Fall 2015

Samantha Jade Macpherson’s 'The Fish and the Dragons' is an idyllic traversal of emigration, diaspora, and the fraught lineage of a family living under conditions of immense poverty both in China and Canada. Brimming with majesty, this story truly exemplifies a writer coming into her own voice through a precise style that lends itself to branding images onto your psyche, and which braids the ancestral with the contemporary. Never once losing pace, Macpherson’s story proves that culture and traditions exhibit worlds gushing with what you may call magic realism, but is naturalized in such a way that we are made aware that such splendour is in fact real.

—2019 Journey Prize Jury Carleigh Baker, Catherine Hernandez, and Joshua Whitehead
This is an unforgettable and wounding story, told with impressive economy. It feels fresh and contemporary, but still engages with the traditional novella form. One of the judges wrote, "I am in soul awe of this story." "Tattoo" deserves to be celebrated and mourned, as it demonstrates so elegantly how fragile life truly is. Bravo!

— 2018 Novella Prize Judges Jacqueline Baker, Eliza Roberston, and Richard Van Camp