Dandelion Magazine was an independent literary magazine published in Calgary, Alberta between 1975 and 2011. In its day, according to The Literary History of Alberta, it was considered Alberta’s leading literary magazine. It started as an annual publication and then became biannual. Over the years, Dandelion featured fiction, poetry, visual art and reviews. Contributors consisted of emerging and established Canadian authors including Joan Clark, Edna Alford, Carol Shields, Robert Hilles, W. P. Kinsella, Robert Kroetsch, Guy Vanderhaeghe, Aritha van Herk, and Karen Connelly, among others. Facing financial and operational difficulties in the late 1990s, the magazine moved to the University of Calgary Department of English where it was rebranded as dANDelion and published by a series of editorial collectives and faculty advisors until 2011. History 1970s Dandelion Magazine was the brainchild of then Calgary-based writers Joan Clark and Edna Alford. In the early 1970s, they were participants in a writers' workshop at the University of Calgary led by poet and faculty member Christopher Wiseman. During coffee breaks, they talked about starting a literary magazine where emerging Alberta writers could publish their work. The first issue was produced in the summer of 1975 at the Dandelion Artists’ Cooperative located at the historic Deane House in Calgary’s Inglewood neighbourhood. Early editions were typewritten, stapled chapbooks with cardstock covers featuring a silkscreened dandelion flower by visual artist Velma Foster. For the first four years, the editors used their own funds to publish the annual magazine. Each edition of the magazine was launched at a public event in various locations around Calgary, including the Deane House. The emergence of Dandelion Magazine was part of a decade literary critic Bruce Meyer called "a period of intense literary activity in Canada." In the 1970s, there were "more active writers than at any other time in Canadian history, and there were more magazines available to publish their work than ever before." In 1978, the magazine listed an editorial advisory board composed of Christopher Wiseman, Robert Kroetsch, Eli Mandel and Velma Foster. In later editions, W. P. Kinsella, Joan Clark, Edna Alford and Dale Fehr were added to the masthead. The City of Calgary closed the Dandelion Artists’ Cooperative in 1978 to turn the Deane House into a restaurant and teahouse. The magazine borrowed space at the Alexandra Centre nearby, eventually establishing a business office there. In 1979, the Dandelion Magazine Society was incorporated in the Province of