lapsus linguae

Wasn’t One Ocean on CellStories

My short story, Wasn’t One Ocean, was featured on CellStories August 4, 2010. CellStories publishes short fiction for mobile devices. A story a day. Free. In the palm of your hand. If you happen to have an iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch, or a Google-Android based phone like Nexus One, MyTouch or Droid, that is. I don’t. But if you do, follow this link on your mobile device to read the story, and to share it with friends on Facebook, Twitter, and Google Reader: Wasn’t One Ocean by J.R. Carpenter is ready for you to read on your mobile device. Or, if you have a phone that can read QR codes, just zap the one below and your phone will take you right to Wasn’t One Ocean.

Wasn't One Ocean

“It took me years to notice that you didn’t love Montréal the way I did. You never made many friends here the way I did. But then, you never lost friends here the way I did either. When you said you wanted to move to Vancouver I thought: Wasn’t one ocean enough for you? At the time, neither one of us knew that no two oceans are alike.”
J. R. Carpenter, Wasn’t One Ocean

If, like me, you have a mobile phone so old it is barely capable of taking a decent photo of your dog, you may read Wasn’t One Ocean online in Carte Blanche, The Literary Review of the Quebec Writers’ Federation, where it was first published in 2005.

Carte Blanche

“Wyoming is Haunted” wins the QWF Carte Blanche Quebec Prize

Last night at the annual Quebec Writers’ Federation Awards Gala at the Lion d’Or in Montreal my recent non-fiction story, Wyoming is Haunted, was awarded the Carte Blanche Quebec Prize. Carte Blanche, the literary review of the Quebec Writers’ Federation, is published online twice a year. The Carte Blanche Quebec prize is awarded once a year in recognition of an outstanding submission by a Quebec writer. The prize is sponsored by The Quebec Writers’ Federation.

Wyoming is Haunted is a nonfiction narrative of some of the adventures fellow fiction-writer Karen Russell and I had while in residence at the Ucross Foundation, an artist in residence program located on a 22,000 acre ranch in the foothills of the Big Horn Mountains. The piece first appeared Carte Blanche 7 earlier this year. Two other of my short stories have also appeared in earlier issues: Aerial Photograph & Wasn’t One Ocean.

Thanks QWF and Carte Blanche, for all you do for English writing in Quebec, even when it’s from Wyoming. Thanks CALQ for helping me get out way out west. Thanks Ucross for accepting me and Karen Russell at the same time. And thanks Wyoming for scaring the heck out of us. As this photo clearly indicates, Wyoming is pretty damn haunted.

“As we walked we invented fictional colour-names for things, with Flannery O’Connor’s rat-coloured car as our model, though, as Karen noted, makeup colour-names would also be a great source of inspiration. The road was a rawhide strap. The fauns were faun coloured! The Angus cows were so black they looked hollow.”

Excerpted from: Wyoming is Haunted, J. R. Carpenter
Winner of the 2008 Carte Blanche Quebec prize

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Wyoming is Still Haunted

Late in 2006 I spent six weeks in residence at the Ucross Foundation in the foothills of the Big Horn Mountains. I was supposed to be working on a collection of short stories set mostly in rural Nova Scotia, but in no time Wyoming’s big sky and high plains were demanding most of my writing attention. It didn’t help that the deeply funny Karen Russell, author of St. Lucy’s Home For Girls Raised by Wolves, was in the studio down the hall from mine. Every few days we’d go for a walk, which sounds harmless enough, but all of our walks turned into epic adventures. Whenever something happened to us out there in the wild Karen would say: Man, I can’t wait to read about this tomorrow on your blog! I’ve never had such a dedicated audience before.

Now, finally, at long last, the Amazing But True Real Life Wild West Adventures of J. R. Carpenter and Karen Russell have been published for all the world to read. Published somewhere other than on my blog, that is. Carte Blanche, the literary review of the Quebec Writers’ Federation, has included a condensed version of our adventures in their latest issue: Wyoming is Haunted.

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Carte Blanche – Issue II

Please visit http://www.carte-blanche.org/issues/02/ to see the new issue of QWF’s online juried literary journal for QWF members.

Non-fiction – Sharon Lax, Gina Roitman, Lewis J. Poteet and Brian Zelnicker
Poetry – Elena Johnson, Elise Moser and Kristina Drake
Fiction – Frederick Kraenzel, J. R. Carpenter and Kate Sheckler

Congratulations to Elise Moser for winning the second issue prize!

Quebec Writers’ Federation
English-Language Arts Network
1200 Atwater Ave., Suite 3
Montreal, QC H3Z 1X4

www.qwf.org

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