Earlier this year we batted around the idea that instead of publishing three issues per year, we could publish individual works every single week. In the end, we opted for the status quo, and while status quo never sounds sexy, there are actually huge upsides to the traditions we’ve established. For one, issue deadlines have an amazing power of focusing the mind! As ever, we’ve been amazed at the sense of teamwork and dedication that everyone at the magazine demonstrates without fail, including our contributors, whose submissions have kept us riveted. Even though all of us editors work or study full-time, emails fly around at 6:00 am or at midnight and all weekend long. It’s inspiring to collaborate with professionals who are committed to this labour of love. Read more →
A Note from Guillaume Morissette, Guest Fiction Editor
As “guest editor” of the fiction section of this issue of carte-blanche, I had to read 122 fiction submissions, then select maybe four or five pieces that I liked. One story I read was about a dystopian office space. Another was about a mother who starts making breakfast in the middle of the night as a kind of cry for help. Later, I felt bad a little for having to “reject” a story by a man whose author bio said that he lived in a house with his lovely wife and gorgeous daughters. I thought, “The gorgeous daughters are going to be so disappointed.” Read more →
Dinosaurs
She Stops Watches
Lessons
I look at people. I see them looking back. I had always felt invisible but on the beach that morning I see that I am always seen. I don’t know what to do with it but I know it. I divide things into two categories. Things I like about myself, things that I am glad to have strangers’ eyes fall upon. And things that I hate, things that make me turn up inside out and want to hide. But these two things are all mixed up. The seen and the concealed. The beautiful and the shameful are all part of the one body so for the first time I feel the desire to rib myself up. To tear pieces out, or contort, fold over them. I want to collapse in some parts an expand in others, like and explosion, like gases destroying the air, breaking in and out, finding the weak points of the world, feeding on combustion, bright and violent and unavoidable. Read more →
Glory Days
One night I have what I can only describe as a dream, though it feels like an altered state somewhere between sleeping and waking. I’m in my room with the blue walls and someone is standing at the foot of my bed. I try to sit up, but my body is as heavy as a dead thing. When I finally struggle free and come to consciousness, the room is empty. I get up and check my door. It’s still locked. This becomes the first of many dreams like this. Read more →
Red Dog
I tape posters of Red all over, at the grocery store, where I skillfully avoid eye contact from the rainbow dreaded girl and her brown dog begging outside, at the dog park, where Red had dog friends and I pretend to not speak English or French well, at the pet store, where the owner, who doesn’t speak any English, once gave Red a rawhide bone, repeating “cadeau, cadeau, cadeau” until I just accepted because it was easier than explaining that rawhide would give Red diarrhoea. On every lamppost in Parc LaFontaine and Parc Baldwin is Red’s shit-eating grin. As I flatten tape onto posts, I keep hearing the suggestion of roller blades. I dive into alleyways to hide. I post on Kijiji and call the SPCA daily. There is no response. Google tells me to leave a piece of clothing on the porch, so I do. An old sweater I like to wear. I remember to fill her water bowl. July has been hot and she’s probably thirsty. Read more →