Someone with two decades of experience getting critiques of their writing shouldn’t curl into a ball after an editor’s comments, right?
Then why, after receiving a developmental edit on my first attempt at a novel, did I find myself in such a pit of despair? (Yes, that pit, that ball; I was every cliché imaginable.)
“I’m writing a novel in English that’s inspired by wǔxiá fiction.”
As I finished speaking in Mandarin, forty middle school students stared back at me with stunned eyes. It was as if I had suddenly transformed into a xiákè, a wandering warrior, who had stepped out of the pages of a wǔxiá novel and into their classroom in Chóngqìng, China. In reality, I was only a visiting writer and translator, with no martial arts skills or supernatural powers, recently returned to visit the land of my birth.
Gasps and questions continued, becoming louder and louder.
Mrs. Hé shushed her students and turned to me with awe. “Wǔxiá fiction is so rooted in traditional Chinese literature and culture. How can you write wǔxiá in English?”
carte blanche is pleased to announce our nominations for the Pushcart Prize! Congratulations and best of luck to our six nominees.
We, at carte blanche, are thrilled to announce and welcome our new managing editor: Zoe Shaw! Shaw will be taking on the role of managing editor for our Winter 2020 “Visible/Invisible” (38) issue. Read on to read Shaw’s introductory post. Welcome!
carte blanche is thrilled to announce the 2019 3Macs Prize Shorlist, as selected by juror and 2017 CBC Poetry Prize winner Alessandra Naccarato. The shortlisted writers are Alexei Perry Cox (poetry), Maria Camila Arias (fiction), and Eliza Robertson (fiction)!
Submissions for Issue 38 – Winter 2020 will be open between December 15th, 2019 – January 15th 2020. We will be accepting submissions on the theme Visible / Invisible. Get ready to send us your creative-Non Fiction (by Quebec residents), Fiction, Poetry, Translations, Photography and Comics. Read more →
carte blanche – BEST OF THE NET 2019 NOMINEES
We are pleased to announce our nominations for Best of the Net 2019! Congratulations and best of luck to all our carte blanche nominees.
We, at carte blanche, are delighted to announce that the finalists of this year’s 3Macs Prize will be selected by Alessandra Naccarato! The winner will be announced at the Quebec Writers’s Federation’s Award Gala on November 5, 2019.
The managing editor works closely with the editor-in-chief to help steer the magazine forward. The successful candidate will support and coordinate the editorial team in all aspects of production and promotion of three issues per year. In particular, they will oversee logistical matters relating to the successful and timely publication of every issue. This includes maintaining correspondence with authors, drafting author contracts and ensuring they are signed, managing submissions on Submittable, and uploading and formatting content for each issue. Read more →
I wonder sometimes if navigating the line between fiction and non-fiction and being steadily clear on which side of this line you’re on is a curse only authors of marginalized backgrounds and identities must balance on. The logic holds because, to my knowledge, non-marginalized authors are not asked about the truth in their fiction or the imagination in their memoirs: No one asks French-Canadian Booker winning author Yann Martel about his experiences living on a boat for 227 days with a tiger and a zebra. No one wonders if Elizabeth Gilbert inserted a bit of fiction into her memoir of eating pasta, practicing Shavasana, and drinking wine with a warm-blooded Latin lover.